Watchdog: EPA still interfering with investigations

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has improved its relationship with its internal watchdog, but it is still impeding with some investigations, its inspector general said.

EPA Inspector General Arthur Elkins provided the House Oversight Committee Tuesday with an update to his complaint last year that the EPA’s homeland security office is withholding information from the Office of Inspector General (OIG) and interfering with cases that OIG is handling.

{mosads}“Senior OIG and agency officials have now reached a theoretical agreement on a substantial portion of the issues, with two caveats. First, we are only beginning to implement the agreements, and second, we have not resolved the issue of [the office of homeland security] having an assigned criminal investigator,” Elkins told the panel.

But most importantly, “we have agreed that the OIG has access to all EPA activities.”

Elkins also said that the EPA is partly to blame in a recent case in which a top EPA official was accused of multiple violations, but was allowed to retire before Elkins’s staff conducted an in-depth interview with him.

“OIG investigators sought to interview the official a second time, but the official claimed to be retiring immediately and refused,” he said. “In fact, the official still was employed by the EPA.”

Other EPA officials should have been more diligent in acting on the information they had about the employee, who was accused of behaving inappropriately toward 16 women, violating security protocols, inappropriately handling classified information and other violations, Elkins said.

In fact, the employee was promoted during the time the EPA was investigating him.

He retired Jan. 16, Elkins told the panel. Elkins did not reveal the accused employee’s name.

Elkins was joined at the hearing by the inspectors general of the Justice Department and the Peace Corps, who also complained about being stonewalled by agencies.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the Oversight Committee, used the hearing to promote the work of inspectors general and show that they need greater access to agencies.

“Nothing is supposed to be off-limits,” Chaffetz said. “The committee needs to send a strong message that we support these hard-working men and women to access the information they need to fulfill their mission of holding government accountable.”

Chaffetz told The Hill Monday that oversight of the EPA would be a top priority of his as chairman, and he hoped the inspector general hearing would show how serious he is about that.

Chaffetz took particular issue with the EPA’s handling of the employee accused of acting inappropriately toward multiple women.

“We have to be able to figure this out. These people have to be held accountable,” he said.

“To just simply retire and take full benefits, not be held accountable, ignore the investigation here from the inspector general, you just don’t get a get out of jail free card by filing some retirement papers and then not be held accountable.”

EPA spokeswoman Liz Purchia declined to comment on the accused senior official, citing an ongoing investigation. She said the agency referred the case to the inspector general, and the EPA has no authority to stop an employee from resigning due to an investigation.

Purchia said Elkins is “flat out wrong” that the accused employee was promoted while he was under investigation.

But she said the EPA takes seriously its duty to be open and transparent with the inspector general’s office.

EPA head Gina McCarthy sent all employees a letter at the beginning of the year saying that everyone should work cooperatively with the inspector general.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), ranking member on the panel, said his staff is working diligently with the EPA, its inspector general and the FBI to resolve the problems with the homeland security office.

“I believe that we are very, very close to a resolution,” he said. “The leaders of all these offices seem to have an agreement in principle.”

He also said that many of the problems over inspector general access come because of different statutes.

“Congress orders them to protect information from unauthorized disclosure, and we are not always clear about whether that includes IGs too,” he said.