Chaffetz: MSPB reinstated EPA employee with child porn on government computer

The Environmental Protection Agency says it’s gotten tough on employee misconduct and administrative leave abuse, but the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee says the agency still doesn’t do enough to fire its worst offenders.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the committee, told acting EPA Deputy Administrator Stanley Meiburg that the agency has one of the worst records in government when it comes to dealing with employees convicted of serious crimes.

“The EPA is one of the most toxic places in the federal government to work, and if you don’t get rid of the toxicity of the employees there at the EPA, we’re doing a great disservice to this country,” Chaffetz said Wednesday. “Most of them are good, hard-working, patriotic people. They care, they work hard, but you have some bad apples at the EPA, and they’re not being dealt with.”

In his testimony, Patrick Sullivan, the assistant IG for investigations at EPA, said his biweekly summits with Meiburg on employee misconduct cases, put into effect this February, should be held up as a best practice in government.

Committee members, however, said the EPA’s prior track record with handling employee misconduct did not give them confidence that the agency could fire offending workers in the future.

Chaffetz, for example, blasted the Merit Systems Protection Board for overturning the termination of a field office employee who kept child pornography on his agency computer. Sullivan told the committee that the employee was a registered sex offender.

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