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IS EPA LEADERSHIP OBSTRUCTING ITS OWN 

INSPECTOR GENERAL? 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

MAY 7, 2014 

Serial No. 113–124 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

http://www.house.gov/reform 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California, Chairman 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

DOC HASTINGS, Washington 

CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming 

ROB WOODALL, Georgia 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

KERRY L. BENTIVOLIO, Michigan 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking 

Minority Member 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

MATTHEW A. CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

TONY CARDENAS, California 

STEVEN A. HORSFORD, Nevada 

MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico 

Vacancy 

LAWRENCE J. BRADY, Staff Director 

JOHN D. CUADERES, Deputy Staff Director 

STEPHEN CASTOR, General Counsel 

LINDA A. GOOD, Chief Clerk 

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on May 7, 2014 ................................................................................. 1 

WITNESSES 

Mr. Patrick Sullivan, Assistant Inspector General for Investigations, Office 

of Inspector General, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 6 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 8 

Mr. Allan Williams, Deputy Assistant Inspector General for Investigations, 

Office of Inspector General, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 17 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 19 

Ms. Elisabeth Heller Drake, Special Agent, Office of Investigations, Office 

of Inspector General, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 23 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 26 

The Hon. Bob Perciasepe, Deputy Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 33 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 35 

APPENDIX 

Opening Statement of Rep. Elijah Cummings ...................................................... 78 

Portions of The Inspector General Act of 1978, submitted by Chairman Issa ... 80 

Oct. 28, 2013 letter from Gina McCarthy, EPA Administrator, to the EPA 

IG, submitted by Rep. Chaffetz ........................................................................... 83 

Statement for the record by Rep. McHenry ........................................................... 84 

(1) 

IS EPA LEADERSHIP OBSTRUCTING ITS OWN 

INSPECTOR GENERAL? 

Wednesday, May 7, 2014 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, 

WASHINGTON, D.C. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:33 a.m., in Room 2154, 

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Darrell E. Issa [chairman of 

the committee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Issa, Mica, Turner, Duncan, Jordan, 

Chaffetz, Walberg, Amash, Gosar, Woodall, Meadows, Bentivolio, 

DeSantis, Cummings, Maloney, Norton, Tierney, Connolly, 

Cardenas, Lujan Grisham, and Kelly. 

Staff Present: Molly Boyl, Majority Deputy General Counsel and 

Parliamentarian; Lawrence J. Brady, Majority Staff Director; Joseph A. Brazauskas, Majority Counsel; David Brewer, Majority 

Senior Counsel; Caitlin Carroll, Majority Press Secretary; Sharon 

Casey, Majority Senior Assistant Clerk; Drew Colliatie, Majority 

Professional Staff Member; John Cuaderes, Majority Deputy Staff 

Director; Adam P. Fromm, Majority Director of Member Services 

and Committee Operations; Linda Good, Majority Chief Clerk; 

Tyler Grimm, Majority Senior Professional Staff Member; Ryan M. 

Hambleton, Majority Senior Professional Staff Member; Christopher Hixon, Majority Chief Counsel for Oversight; Michael R. 

Kiko, Majority Legislative Assistant; Mark D. Marin, Majority Deputy Staff Director for Oversight; Matt Mulder, Majority Counsel; 

Jeffrey Post, Majority Senior Professional Staff Member; Andrew 

Rezendes, Majority Counsel; Katy Rother, Majority Counsel; Laura 

L. Rush, Majority Deputy Chief Clerk; Jessica Seale, Majority Digital Director; Andrew Sult, Majority Press; Peter Warren, Majority 

Legislative Policy Director; Rebecca Watkins, Majority Communications Director; Jaron Bourke, Minority Director of Administration; 

Lena Chang, Minority Counsel; Devon Hill, Minority Research Assistant; Julia Krieger, Minority New Media Press Secretary; Elisa 

LaNier, Minority Director of Operations; Mark Stephenson, Minority Director of Legislation; and Katie Teleky, Minority Staff Assistant. 

Chairman ISSA. The committee will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess of the committee 

at any time. 

The Oversight Committee exists to secure two fundamental principles: first, Americans have a right to know that the money Washington takes from them is well spent and, second, Americans deserve an efficient, effective Government that works for them. Our 

2 

duty on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee is to 

protect these rights. Our solemn responsibility is to hold Government accountable to taxpayers, because taxpayers have a right to 

know what they get from their Government. It is our job to work 

tirelessly in partnership with our inspectors general and citizen 

watchdogs to deliver the facts to the American people and bring 

genuine reform to the Federal bureaucracy. This is our mission, 

this is our calling, and this is my passion. 

Today’s hearing is about restoring the American people’s trust in 

an agency that has developed a well-earned reputation for waste 

and mismanagement of taxpayers’ funds. 

The Environmental Protection Agency is one of the most powerful and far-reaching agencies, but it has offered too little accountability for how its employees are using their time, taxpayers’ 

money, and, in fact, often abusing the American people by extending and expanding their jurisdiction. 

We are not here today to talk about the overreach of policies of 

the EPA. Inventing from thin air regulations that don’t exist, 

proactively abusing citizens trying to create wealth in this Country 

through mining, manufacturing, and agriculture. If only we could. 

Today we are here because there is a terrifying truth at the EPA, 

which is responsible for regulations governing such a large percentage of our economy. The fact that it lacks internal controls to prevent even the most basic fraud and abuse. For example, in October 

the committee held a hearing about fraud perpetrated by John 

Beale, a senior level EPA employee who worked directly for the 

now Administrator Gina McCarthy. Beale is claimed to have 

masqueraded as a CIA employee in order to steal time, money, and 

travel, and even a handicapped parking space from the Federal 

Government. The disguise would have been uncovered by anyone 

who was looking for someone abusing the trust of the American 

people. 

Beale’s scam went on far more than 10 years without anyone at 

the EPA catching on. Even the bold-faced lies, the most outrageous 

were not detected. Americans were so shocked that even The Daily 

Show with Jon Stewart referred to Beale’s scam as a web. Stewart’s questioned how Beale could fool so many people at the EPA 

for so long, and I would too except for what we are going to hear 

today, because today we are going to understand that John Beale’s 

behavior did not happen in a vacuum. In fact, it was just the tip 

of EPA’s fraudulent iceberg. 

This morning we will hear more stories from EPA that will appall and bewilder the American people. It is hard to shock the 

American people about waste, fraud, and abuse in Government, but 

I believe we will achieve that today. For example, one senior level 

EPA employee sold jewelry, pocketbooks, and weight loss products 

out of her office. She hired friends and even her own daughter, and 

paid for internships and steered bonuses toward her own daughter, 

also an EPA employee who she thinly veiled was coming from another part not under her control, under the anti-nepotism law, except, as you will hear today, the bonus came from her budget. 

But instead of being reprimanded, she received the highly prestigious Presidential Rank Award and $35,000 in special bonus. A 

senior manager, this woman, this mother of a child who was unVerDate Aug 31 2005 10:07 Sep 09, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\89593.TXT APRIL
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lawfully and unreasonably hired and bonused by her own mother, 

is still at the EPA and is an employee today. 

Another woman began working from home 20 years ago because 

of her multiple sclerosis. But she stopped producing any product 

more than five years ago. She didn’t even access her emails. But 

her supervisors fraudulently kept signing off on her time cards, so 

she kept getting paid. Over the past year, she has been paid roughly $600,000. But that’s not enough for the EPA. She received a performance award during this time. 

The EPA is an organization in which you can get a special award 

for not working at all. 

Our sympathies go out to someone suffering from an awful disease. They should be taken care of, and the Government has programs to do so. But fraudulently claiming the person is at work 

and bonusing them is a crime, a crime that doesn’t get punished 

at all at the EPA, not by criminal prosecution and certainly not by 

termination. 

Then there is a GS–15 EPA employee who kept receiving normal 

paychecks for one to two years after moving into a retirement 

home. We are talking nursing home here, folks, not one of those 

places where you golf every day. From the nursing home, even 

though he did not work during any of that time, he continued to 

receive pay; again, falsified documents. His bosses knew it. When 

the IG began its investigation, his supervisor simply placed him on 

sick leave. One crime followed by another coverup. 

Today we will also hear about Beth Craig. She is a Deputy Assistant Administrator in the Office of Air and Radiation who is still 

working at the EPA even though the IG found she exercised a severe lack of due diligence by signing off, yes, on CIA Agent Mr. 

Beale’s travel. 

Furthermore, John Beale’s abuse of retention bonuses—and I 

want everyone to understand retention bonuses are supposed to be 

uniquely paid for somebody that has to be kept that would otherwise retire—abuse of retention bonuses that he did not deserve 

prompted the EPA IG to launch, as you might imagine, an audit, 

which found John Beale was not the only offender. Over the last 

eight years, EPA paid retention bonuses to 13 additional employees 

which totaled more than $660,000. In 11 of the 13 cases, the EPA 

made unauthorized payments which cost more than $481,000. 

Additionally, in the wake of Mr. Beale’s fraudulent travel, EPA 

IG looked into passport controls at EPA for the use of official passports. And, for the American people, these are second passports; 

they are not the blue ones that Americans can carry, these are ones 

that identify someone as official Government employees on official 

duty and they are a different color, they are red. The review found 

that out of 417 official passports belonging to the EPA, 199 could 

not be located. 

This is truly a broken agency. We know about these issues because of the tenacity and the hard work of our inspector general 

and his staff. 

Today’s hearing is even more important because EPA leadership 

has engaged in an effort to keep the IG from doing its job. The Office of Homeland Security, a small organization, not the big Homeland Security, a small one within EPA, has been obstructing the 

4 

inspector general’s work. In fact, one of our witnesses today was 

verbally assaulted by an employee of the Office of Homeland Security while simply trying to get him to sign a perfunctory form. 

Until the Office of Inspector General is allowed to do their job 

to the extent authorized and mandated under the IG Act, we will 

never know more about John Beale and cases like that. 

I didn’t pull any punches today, but there is a lot more material 

that could have been included. The EPA has a long history that 

now has become intolerable to the American people. As I said in 

the first part of my opening statement, the abuses of the EPA that 

are policy driven are not the subject today, although they are real. 

But the waste, fraud, and abuse, the criminal conduct, and the fact 

that its senior management obviously is part of that activity is now 

intolerable. 

With that, I recognize the ranking member for his opening statement. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

The EPA Office of Inspector General has expressed serious concerns that deserve serious attention by this committee so as we 

might be effective and efficient. The IG asserts that information he 

considers relevant to his mission is being withheld by the EPA. The 

IG also believes that the EPA’s Office of Homeland Security is engaged in investigations that exceeds its authority. Those disputes 

do happen. They even happen here on Capitol Hill. 

These concerns are symptoms of a jurisdictional dispute caused 

by difference in interpretation of two statutes, the Inspector General Act of 1978 and the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal 

Year 1995. 

Under the Inspector General Act, the IG has broad authority to 

investigate cases of employee misconduct. Yet, Federal courts have 

ruled that this authority maybe limited in certain cases involving 

national security. In addition, under the Intelligence Authorization 

Act, and various presidential executive orders and directives, the 

EPA has certain national security responsibilities to refer cases to 

the Federal Bureau of Investigation. 

The dispute lies at the intersection of these two laws. The two 

offices do not agree on what role the IG should play in these cases 

or what obligations the EPA has to keep the IG informed of actions 

relating to referrals made to the FBI. Passions have run high during this dispute, and even resulted in an altercation between special agents of the IG and the staff of the Office of Homeland Security. That is most unfortunate. 

There are several ways to resolve this issue. One way is to wait 

for a Federal court to decide the matter. Another way is for Congress to enact new legislation. Both these options will take a long 

time and cooperation between the EPA, the IG, and the FBI will 

suffer in the meantime and the people will not be properly served. 

A better way is to find a practical solution that will allow all parties to win. I believe this committee can do that by helping them 

craft a plan that will clarify their roles and responsibilities, require 

the most information sharing possible, and ensure better cooperation going forward. 

In preparation for today’s hearing, I asked my staff to work with 

all the parties to help find a solution. My staff spent many hours 

5 

discussing the issues with various stakeholders, trying to find not 

only common ground, but higher ground. Based on my staff’s discussions with the parties, I believe there are significant areas of 

agreement, and I would like to confirm this progress here today, 

again, so that we might be effective and efficient in what we are 

trying to do. 

First, I believe all parties agree that the FBI, as the lead agency 

for national security investigations, should be directly involved in 

the discussion to resolve their concerns. Second, if the FBI is not 

leading an investigation into employee misconduct, it is properly 

the lead role of the IG, and not the EPA’s Office of Homeland Security. Third, the Office of Homeland Security has an intelligence 

support function to perform, including intelligence analysis. And, 

fourth, better information sharing between the EPA and the IG 

will help ensure that the de-confliction occurs, which will protect 

investigations from being compromised or agents from being endangered. 

Those are areas of agreement that I think we have already 

achieved. If you all can confirm those today, I believe we will have 

a strong foundation for positive resolution. I was also pleased to 

hear that yesterday senior leadership of the EPA and the IG, as 

well as the FBI, scheduled a meeting next week to work towards 

a resolution of this dispute. Again, this is an effort to get it done, 

to resolve the issue. I believe that all the parties involved here are 

hardworking Federal employees that simply want to do their job in 

an effective and efficient manner, and we should be about the business of trying to help them do that. 

With that, I yield back. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

At this time I would ask unanimous consent that the portions of 

the Inspector General Act of 1978 which state and list the agencies 

that are allowed to have exemptions, which are the Department of 

Defense, Homeland Security, Justice, Treasury, plus the United 

States Postal Service and Federal Reserve, noting that the creation 

of Homeland Security Act was what created that exemption afterwards. 

Members may have seven days in which to submit opening statements for the record. 

We are now pleased to welcome our panel of witnesses. 

Mr. Patrick Sullivan is the Assistant Inspector General for Investigations for the Office of Inspector General at the EPA. 

Mr. Allan Williams is the Deputy Assistant Inspector General for 

OIG, Office of Inspector General, at the EPA. 

Ms. Elisabeth Heller is the Special Agent at the Office of Investigations at the Office of Inspector General at the EPA. She is here 

today to provide testimony as a private citizen, although I am 

going to codify that by saying her experience well in fact as an 

agent that she then was put through is also part of her testimony. 

The Honorable Robert Perciasepe is the Deputy Administrator at 

the EPA, and we welcome you for being here. 

Pursuant to the rules, all witnesses are to be sworn. Would you 

please rise to take the oath and raise your right hand? 

6 

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are 

about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 

the truth? 

[Witnesses respond in the affirmative.] 

Chairman ISSA. Please be seated. 

Let the record reflect that all witnesses answered in the affirmative. 

Three out of the four of you are, quite frankly, career opening 

statement people, it is part of your job. Ms. Heller, I know that 

yours is a little less scripted and organized. For that reason, I 

would ask that you all remain as close as you can to five minutes. 

Ms. Heller, if you need a little bit more time, you will be granted 

it. 

With that, Mr. Sullivan, you are recognized. 

WITNESS STATEMENTS 

STATEMENT OF PATRICK SULLIVAN 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Good morning, Chairman Issa, Ranking Member 

Cummings, members of the committee. I am Patrick Sullivan, Assistant Inspector General for Investigations at EPA. Thank you for 

inviting me to testify. 

We are here today because the EPA OIG’s Office of Investigations is being impeded from fulfilling its responsibilities by actions 

of the EPA’s internal Office of Homeland Security, also known as 

OHS, a unit within the Office of the Administrator. 

As I testified before you in October on the John Beale case, prior 

to EPA officials contacting the OIG about the situation involving 

Mr. Beale, OHS conducted its own investigation. The OHS actions, 

which included several interviews with Mr. Beale, delayed and 

damaged the OIG’s subsequent investigation. 

I would like to go on record today and state that as the official 

in charge of internal investigations at the EPA, I am very concerned that vital information regarding suspected employee misconduct is being withheld from the OIG. Because OHS continues to 

block my office’s access to information essential to the OIG’s work, 

I cannot assure the committee that we are doing everything possible to root out other John Beales who may be at the EPA or uncover other malfeasance of a similar magnitude. I believe that the 

current situation represents a significant liability for the EPA, the 

Congress, and the American taxpayers. In short, the actions of 

OHS violate the IG Act, the very legislation that Congress passed 

to ensure Federal agencies have oversight. 

The EPA OIG was created pursuant to the IG Act and thereby 

has statutory authority to conduct investigations of employee misconduct, threats against EPA personnel and facilities, and intrusions into EPA computer networks and systems. Pursuant to the 

attorney general’s guidelines for OIGs with statutory law enforcement authority, the EPA and the FBI share concurrent jurisdiction 

for agency-related cases. 

OHS serves as the Agency’s central liaison for homeland security 

matters. The OHS has no law enforcement or investigative authority. The most critical concern for the OIG is the safety and security 

of all EPA employees, facilities, and assets. The OIG’s ability to inVerDate Aug 31 2005 10:07 Sep 09, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\89593.TXT APRIL
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vestigate threats against EPA employees and facilities has been 

impeded due to OHS’s total and systematic refusal to share threat 

information. 

In investigating threats, timely access to all available information is critical. OHS’s stance places my special agents at unnecessary risk. Most important, the withholding of threat information 

from the OIG also places all EPA employees and facilities at risk. 

This practice is not only unacceptable; it is dangerous. 

The current situation with OHS harks back to the days before 

9/11 when U.S. Government entities often did not communicate effectively or at all, contributing to the most horrific terrorist attack 

ever on U.S. soil. No single entity can accomplish its work in a vacuum; we must work together. 

In response to denying the OIG’s repeated request for information and cooperation, OHS has invoked the term ‘‘national security’’ 

as its mantra. This formidable cloak does not justify OHS’s insistence on filtering information germane to the OIG’s jurisdiction, 

whether classified or not. OHS does not have authority to make 

such a call. Agency management, let alone a small shop like OHS 

buried inside the Agency, has no power whatsoever to tell the OIG 

what it needs to know. It is actually the reverse. Under the IG Act, 

the OIG has access to the entirety of information available to the 

Agency, and it is the IG who determines what information it needs 

to know. 

In fact, EPA’s own Office of Environmental Compliance and Assurance issued a legal opinion holding that OHS lacks both statutory law enforcement authority and the authority to assign an EPA 

Criminal Investigations Division special agent to work as a criminal investigator within OHS. This special agent, who carries a gun 

and a badge, routinely conducts national security and misconduct 

investigations for OHS. 

Over the past few months, I discussed this situation with many 

of my fellow assistant inspectors general for investigation in the 

Federal OIG community. I learned that the situation I face at EPA 

is an anomaly. Most of my counterparts advised me that their Offices of Investigation would either directly participate with the FBI 

in any such national security related investigation targeting an employee or they would be fully informed about the investigation for 

coordination and de-confliction purposes. In addition, the use of 

non-disclosure agreements by an internal entity such as OHS to 

prevent employees from speaking to the OIG would not be tolerated. 

In summary, we need Congress’s help in rectifying the situation. 

The OHS’s refusal to share information must be addressed and corrected immediately. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Sullivan follows:] 

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Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

Mr. Williams. 

STATEMENT OF ALLAN WILLIAMS 

Mr. WILLIAMS. Good morning, Chairman Issa, Ranking Member 

Cummings, and members of the committee. I am Allan Williams, 

Deputy Assistant Inspector General for the U.S. Environmental 

Protection Agency. Thank you for inviting me to appear before you 

today to discuss our investigations of employee misconduct involving time and attendance fraud. 

The Office of Inspector General is an independent entity within 

EPA; therefore, the views expressed in my testimony are based on 

the findings of the OIG’s work and are not intended to reflect the 

views of the Agency. 

The OIG’s successful investigation of John Beale was the subject 

of a hearing held by this committee on October 1st, 2013. On December 18th, 2013, Mr. Beale was sentenced to 32 months in prison 

for defrauding EPA of approximately $900,000 in undeserved pay 

and bonuses. Our investigation found, among other things, that 

Mr. Beale received his salary while missing more than two and a 

half years of work with EPA, making this case one of the most notorious time and attendance fraud cases in the Federal Government. 

My role here today is to inform the committee about findings 

from several time and attendance investigations both related and 

unrelated to Beale. 

First, the OIG investigated an allegation of serious employee 

misconduct by an EPA senior executive alleged to have been directly involved in approving fraudulent time and attendance 

records and travel vouchers for Mr. Beale. Our investigation was 

able to substantiate that this senior executive did not exercise due 

diligence with respect to the authorization and approval of Mr. 

Beale’s time and attendance records, travel authorizations, and 

travel vouchers. The investigation also revealed that the senior executive did not exercise due diligence in part because she believed 

Mr. Beale worked for the Central Intelligence Agency. She never 

questioned Mr. Beale; consequently, she authorized and approved 

fraudulent time and attendance records and travel vouchers in excess of $180,000. 

Similarly, the OIG conducted an investigation into serious misconduct by another EPA manager who allowed an employee to stay 

at home and not report for duty for several years. Based on a longstanding arrangement with the employee, which allegedly began as 

an accommodation to work at home due to a medical condition, this 

manager not only entered fraudulent time and attendance records 

for the absent employee, but also approved the same records. It is 

estimated that the manager’s approval of fraudulent time and attendance records cost the Government more than $500,000. What 

is even more egregious is that the EPA manager authored and approved exemplary performance appraisals that resulted in a cash 

award for the absent employee. 

During the same investigation, the OIG found evidence that implicated an EPA executive. This executive, who was the absent employee’s prior supervisor, remained aware the employee had been 

18 

in a telework status for more than 20 years with very little substantive work product to show during this time. The executive took 

no action, even though he knew the EPA was being defrauded. 

Upon receiving a target letter from the U.S. Department of Justice, 

the executive retired and was not prosecuted. Furthermore, the Department of Justice declined to prosecute either the absent employee or the current supervisor. 

In addition to those cases, the OIG has several ongoing investigations involving employees and alleged serious misconduct. One of 

the investigations involves a career employee who has allegedly 

stored pornographic materials on an EPA network server. When an 

OIG special agent arrived at the employee’s workplace to conduct 

an interview, the special agent witnessed the employee actively 

viewing pornography on his Government-issued computer. Subsequently, the employee confessed to spending, on average, between 

two and six hours per day viewing pornography while at work. The 

OIG’s investigation determined that the employee downloaded and 

viewed more than 7,000 pornographic files during duty hours. This 

investigation has been referred to and accepted by the Department 

of Justice for prosecution. 

Finally, the OIG has an ongoing investigation of a GS–15 Step 

10 EPA employee who has a debilitating disease and has not been 

physically able to complete any work for at least a year. However, 

this employee continues to draw a full salary and receive the benefits of an active employee. This employee has resided in an assisted 

living facility for more than a year, and the former supervisor was 

aware of the situation and the employee’s condition. This investigation is ongoing and is yet to be presented to the Justice Department for prosecution. 

These are recent examples of OIG employees misconduct cases at 

the EPA. True deterrence of employee misconduct ultimately rests 

with the Agency’s executives and managers to set a tone that ensures such behavior will not be condoned. By doing so, the Agency’s 

leadership can establish a culture of accountability within the EPA 

and clearly communicate that employee misconduct will not be tolerated. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to discuss some 

of our cases involving employee misconduct at the EPA. The OIG 

appreciates the committee’s continued interest in our work. This 

concludes my testimony and I am pleased to answer any questions 

you may have. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Williams follows:] 

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Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

Ms. Heller. 

STATEMENT OF ELISABETH HELLER DRAKE 

Ms. HELLER DRAKE. Chairman Issa, Ranking Member 

Cummings, and distinguished members of the Oversight Committee, thank you for inviting me to testify before you today. My 

name is Elisabeth Heller Drake and I am a Special gent in the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Inspector General. I am 

testifying about what happened to me as a Federal law enforcement officer last fall and I appear before you voluntarily as an individual, and not on behalf of the Agency nor on behalf of the OIG. 

No one at EPA has pre-approved my statement. 

On Thursday, October 24th, 2013, Federal EPA OIG Special 

Agent Ryan Smith and I had a difficult interview with EPA Office 

of Homeland Security employee John Martin. We extended him the 

courtesy of having his personal attorney present, but he wouldn’t 

answer even basic questions. 

He kept indicating he needed to be home to meet his children, 

so we ended in a timely fashion in spite of his lack of cooperation 

with our official investigation. Minutes after he left, I realized he 

left without the standard warning not to discuss the ongoing investigation with others and without signing the standard non-disclosure form. 

Agent Smith was escorting Martin’s attorney out of the building 

and I was unable to reach her by phone, so I asked Special Agent 

Gary Don Dorman to go with me to the EPA Office of Homeland 

Security to notify Martin of his obligations. 

As we progressed into OHS’s office suite, someone asked if Agent 

Dorman and I needed assistance, at which time I also overheard 

Mr. Martin’s voice talking to someone about specific information 

discussed during our interview of him. Turning in the direction of 

his voice and looking down the hallway, I saw Mr. Martin standing 

in the open doorway of an office, talking to a woman I later learned 

was Nancy Dunham from EPA’s Office of General Counsel. With 

them was someone I later realized was EPA Senior Intelligence Advisor Steven Williams. 

Mr. Martin approached Agent Dorman and me and asked what 

we wanted. I responded that we had a follow-up item to address 

with him that would only take an additional moment of his time. 

Mr. Martin seemed defensive and responded that he didn’t want to 

discuss anything without his attorney present. I explained there 

was no intention to ask him additional questions, but we merely 

needed his attention for a quick aside. Following protocol, I was 

trying not to unnecessarily disclose the ongoing investigation to 

others in the area. 

Martin said anything I had to say to him could be said in front 

of all present. Keeping my composure, I informed him that he 

wasn’t permitted to discuss details of his interview with anyone 

other than his personal attorney. Ms. Dunham and Mr. Williams 

shouted that my instructions weren’t accurate, at which point it became clear Mr. Martin wasn’t going to sign our standard non-disclosure form. 

24 

I responded to Mr. Martin that I heard him talking about our 

interview when Agent Dorman and I entered the office space and 

that he needed to desist from that type of dialogue immediately. I 

repeated that Mr. Martin should only discuss the interview details 

with his personal counsel. As I made those statements, Ms. 

Dunham continued to yell from the hallway that I wasn’t right. 

At this time, Mr. Williams aggressively approached me, yelling, 

‘‘Put it in writing!’’ He stepped between me and Mr. Martin in a 

menacing way, again screaming to ‘‘Put it in writing!’’ and demanding to know where the standard protocol I was addressing was documented. Williams invaded my personal space, pointing and yelling 

to a degree that it became difficult to understand what he was saying. He repeatedly jabbed his finger at me merely inches from my 

chest and, as he got more aggressive, his complexion heated, his 

veins bulged, and he began to swear profusely. 

We are trained to deal with difficult circumstances; however, I 

was surprised at having this situation escalate so quickly in a professional setting over a request that was so standard and minor. 

If an individual had acted this way toward me as a Federal agent 

on the street, I might have arrested him. But it shocked me to be 

approached in this manner by what appeared to be a high-ranking 

EPA official. 

While Mr. Williams is not a large man, his inexplicable anger 

and aggressiveness in this professional office setting managed to 

leave me feeling intimidated. The fact I had a sidearm holstered 

out of sight under my suit jacket didn’t make a difference. I wasn’t 

chasing a criminal on the street, but, rather, in an environment 

where I would never have expected such behavior from a professional staff member. 

Avoiding unnecessary physical contact, I stepped back from Mr. 

Williams. I tried to de-escalate the incident by asking Mr. Williams 

to identify himself. Remaining professional and upon hearing his 

name, I responded, ‘‘Mr. Williams, I am Special Agent Elisabeth 

Drake. It is so nice to meet you,’’ and I put my hand out to shake 

his. He refused to shake my hand and instead responded, ‘‘I don’t 

want to know you.’’ 

In spite of my clear notice that I was a Federal law enforcement 

officer, he again started yelling at me. I thought back to my research and recalled that he wasn’t only a GS–15, but he was also 

a Naval Reserves captain, making his tirade and interference with 

my official duties all the more surprising. 

In another effort to reduce the tension, I told Mr. Williams that 

I wasn’t there to speak with him, at which point he screamed at 

Agent Dorman and me to get out of their office space. He continued 

to yell as we departed. 

Back at the office, we reported the assault to management, leading other agents to return to the Office of Homeland Security to investigate Mr. Martin. Martin had left. Ms. Dunham and Mr. Williams said they were too stressed to be interviewed. 

The case was turned over to the Federal Protective Service to investigate. They interviewed Agent Dorman and me, as well as the 

OHS staff member who had offered us assistance when we first arrived that evening of the 24th. FPS then prepared an affidavit in 

support of Mr. Williams’ arrest for the D.C. offense known as inVerDate Aug 31 2005 10:07 Sep 09, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\89593.TXT APRIL
25 

tent to frighten assault, but the U.S. Attorney’s Office decided to 

refer it back to EPA for handling through administrative action. 

Whether Mr. Williams attacked and intimidated me that evening 

because I am a female and so felt he could get away with it, and 

whether he has acted in a threatening manner towards other females in the workplace are questions for another time and place. 

I, instead, am here to relay what happened that night and EPA’s 

response to it out of concern about OIG not being allowed to do its 

job. 

Was Mr. Williams put on paid administrative leave until a full 

inquiry could be completed? No. Was I allowed to resume the OIG 

investigation involving Office of Homeland Security staff? No. Did 

the administrator remind those involved of their duty to cooperate 

with the OIG? No. Have my attorney and I repeatedly asked, both 

in person and in writing, for the EPA to do such things? Yes. In 

fact, the only prompt concrete action taken by the EPA was to 

issue a stand-down memo days later that halted the OIG investigation until a plan could be developed and put in place to end ongoing conflicts between the EPA’s Offices of Homeland Security and 

of the Inspector General. 

As my attorney and I told the administrator’s staff, we know of 

no exemption in the law that says an agency head can halt an official OIG investigation so long as it is done to encourage investigators and their targets to get along better with each other. It is common in our line of work to remain professional in spite of conflict. 

It is not common for a GS–15 official to interfere, then essentially 

be rewarded with an investigation being halted for what has been 

over six months. 

Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Cummings, we are now 

more than six months out from the events of October 24th, yet I 

believe the investigation underway the day of the assault continues 

to go uninvestigated. If there were wrongdoings going on within 

EPA’s OHS, as an OIG agent, I feel responsible to conclude my investigation and bring those issues forward. However, I find it 

equally as important to determine that if there were no 

wrongdoings within the office identified, to set the record straight 

in that regard as well. 

To be clear, I am not complaining about the actions of the EPA 

inspector general or his staff. They have been very supportive of 

my career, especially so during the difficult months since I was assaulted in the line of duty. I am also not out to harm EPA. On the 

contrary, it is because the Environmental Protection Agency’s work 

is so important that the Agency must be given the best chance possible to succeed. That only can happen if there is a healthy, independent, and unobstructed OIG, an OIG whose agents can insist 

upon cooperation from the Agency’s employees regardless of their 

seniority and regardless of the office that happens to be the one 

subject to our law enforcement authority on a given day. 

Thank you for your time, and I would be happy to answer any 

questions you may have for me. 

[Prepared statement of Ms. Heller Drake follows:] 

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33 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

Mr. Perciasepe, your entire opening statement is in the record. 

Please feel free to include any answers to the testimony you have 

just heard. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE BOB PERCIASEPE 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Given I have slight 

cold, I may have to cough and take a sip every once in a while 

here. 

Chairman ISSA. Coughing is fully authorized. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Fully authorized? Then I appreciate that. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Let me go through my written statement, and 

maybe I will add a few comments, but I am sure we will get into 

it in the questions and answers, as I do want to be able to respond 

and explain what we are doing to deal with some of these issues 

that have come up here. Far be it for us to be in a situation where 

we do not want to have a problem with the IGS’ access to whatever 

they need to have in the Agency. That is our position, that is Gina 

McCarthy’s position, and I want to assure the committee of that. 

That goal is paramount for us. Having an independent and 

healthy IG is what we need to be able to deal with some of the 

issues you have in any large institution to make sure we are dealing with waste, fraud, and abuse, and we see the inspector general 

as a partner in that. In fact, since 2009, employees of the EPA 

have provided their information, their knowledge, and their support to over 2,600 audits, investigations, and actions of the Office 

of the Inspector General. I want you to keep that context in mind. 

Many of these identified in-house actions that have persisted for a 

long time in the Agency and require a systemic improvement in 

management systems in the Agency, and we have stepped up to 

meet those challenges in remedying them. 

Agency employees routinely work cooperatively to provide information to the inspector general to ensure their important work is 

achieved. That has always been not only our policy, but our culture. 

Unfortunately, these questions that are being raised about that 

commitment in light of some of these instances are not the norm. 

The vast majority of the work we do with the IG is done efficiently, 

appropriately, and with good result. And I can assure the committee that EPA remains committed to ensuring that our Office of 

Inspector General is successful in its efforts to root out waste, 

fraud, and abuse in every program across the agency, without exception. 

I was last before this committee, as you have mentioned, in the 

fall, to talk about the criminal fraud of John Beale, and all of us 

at the Agency, and I want everyone to know this, are profoundly 

offended by the actions of Mr. Beale. But I want you also to know 

that the Agency has risen to the occasion to that massive fraud 

with steady action to make improvements. 

In December of 2013, we released a 19-page report on evaluation 

and corrective actions we have already started to take that I testified to when I was before the committee in October. That document 

evaluated each of the aspects of Mr. Beale’s conduct, how Mr. Beale 

34 

evaded the Agency’s existing controls, and the Agency’s planned 

corrective actions. Since that time, we have taken steps to put 

measures in place to help ensure that this type of fraud cannot be 

repeated. 

In April we completed a second review of the issues raised by the 

case entitled ‘‘Report on Internal Control Assessments of EPA’s 

Sensitive Payment Areas.’’ This 50-page report uses the assessment 

processes outlined by the Government Accountability Office’s 

Standards for Internal Control of Federal Government to analyze 

seven key areas: executive payroll approvals, employee departures, 

statutory pay limits, parking and transit subsidy, retention incentives, travel reimbursements above per diem rate, and executive 

travel approval. That report was also provided to the Office of Inspector General on April 17th of this year. 

While undertaking our review, if you recall at my hearing with 

you, I said we are anxious and continue to work directly with the 

IG on their ongoing administrative reviews of issues that came up 

in the Beale matter. We also were not going to wait, because we 

didn’t want anything else to happen, so we started working on it 

as well. So we are working in parallel and in tandem in a very cooperative way, and we have provided the Office of Inspector General with any necessary assistance in their ongoing audits related 

to this matter. Indeed, to ensure swift response to their needs, the 

EPA has requested, and the IG has agreed, to biweekly meetings 

between the IG and all of our senior managers that are related to 

the programs that are involved. These meetings are attended by 

senior officials from every office and they are designed to make 

sure that nothing falls through the cracks as we are working together. 

In over a decade of service at EPA, I am not aware of another 

instance where we have committed this level of senior level involvement in a single audit and set of reviews by the Office of Inspector General. In fact, there will be a series of audits; some have 

started to come out. So we are looking forward to receiving them, 

as I said before, and working with them, but we are also doing our 

own work at the same time so we can stay ahead of the curve and 

bring all of it together to continue to improve our management 

processes. 

Finally, I just want to take this opportunity to recognize that the 

overwhelming majority of hardworking 16,000 EPA employees are 

dedicated, hardworking, professional, and public servants, a point 

of which I know the inspector general agrees. I am very proud of 

them and I am very proud of EPA’s achievements in protecting 

human health and the environment, and they also protect the 

American people. Employees work every day to make those 

achievements possible and we work every day, every day on numerous projects, reviews, and audits with the Office of Inspector General in a cooperative, productive, and appropriate manner. 

I look forward to answering any of the questions you have. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Perciasepe follows:] 

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38 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

It is now my pleasure to recognize a distinguished panel of members of the Army War College, in spite of the various uniforms. But 

you will notice that there are more Army uniforms there. They are 

here to observe the workings of Congress. Let’s try not to disappoint them in any negative way. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman ISSA. For years Congressman Todd Platts represented 

the Carlyle Barracks, so I think they have had a tradition of coming here, and hopefully you will find this esteemed body not to disappoint you, depending upon your expectations. 

I will now recognize myself for a series of questions. 

Mr. Sullivan, let me understand something you said in your 

opening statement. This office, I understand 10 or so men and 

women office, is although statutorily authorized to exist and has 

existed, has no statutory authority to be a law enforcement organization. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. Chairman, I believe that the creation of the 

office was at the discretion of the administrator. I don’t think there 

was any statutory requirement to have an Office of Homeland Security. But the second part of your statement is absolutely correct, 

they have no authority whatsoever to do law enforcement or investigative work. 

Chairman ISSA. So unlike the uniformed service next to us who 

pack heat when they go into combat, these people have guns without any congressional requirement that they exist as a law enforcement entity in any way, shape, or form. How did they get those 

guns? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Well, there is only one employee, to my knowledge, that has a firearm. 

Chairman ISSA. He has a gun and a badge. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes, he does. 

Chairman ISSA. Who the heck came up with the badge? What 

does it look like? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. He has a badge that identifies him as a special 

agent in the EPA Criminal Investigations Division—— 

Chairman ISSA. So they made up their own badge—— 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No, sir. 

Chairman ISSA.—and authorization? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No, sir. He was employed by the EPA Criminal 

Investigations Division and he was transferred to the Office of 

Homeland Security. Now—— 

Chairman ISSA. So he shows a gun and a badge from a different 

part that he is not actually part of. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Chairman ISSA. What is that gentleman’s name? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. His name is John Martin. 

Chairman ISSA. Okay, so John Martin. We have heard about him 

before. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Chairman ISSA. I am sure we will get back to that in a moment. 

Mr. Perciasepe, you were here before and we asked you about retention bonuses, and you failed to note that these other ones had 

existed. I understand they were dropped just before the hearing. I 

39 

am disappointed that you wouldn’t have been more forthcoming. 

But I have other questions today. 

Quite frankly, how much pornography would it take for an EPA 

employee to lose their job? We have just heard from Mr. Williams 

that you know, and have known, that somebody is searching 600 

sites in a four-day period, thousands of them, putting pornography, 

perhaps illegal pornography, but certainly I didn’t know there were 

627 sites that somebody could surf in a four-day period, but apparently there are. You know that and that person is still on the job. 

Why? What does it take for you to take somebody off of a computer 

when you discover they are doing it, and actually when the IGs 

walk in and find it? 

Mr. WILLIAMS. First, let me say—I do want to say something 

about the—— 

Chairman ISSA. Well, answer how much pornography it takes to 

get fired at the agency first. 

Mr. WILLIAMS. We have a service that we employ in our computer system to block pornography. 

Chairman ISSA. It is not working so well, is it? 

Mr. WILLIAMS. Well, the world out there stays ahead of it and 

we are always constantly trying to catch up. So I want the committee to understand that our first line of defense is to block things 

like pornography or gambling sites from coming in to the agency; 

and we do a pretty good job of that, but we have now discovered, 

with the help of the IG, that there is some other site that we hadn’t 

had on that, and we are now in the process of working to block 

that. 

You know, I wish I could offer my thoughts on this, but this is 

going to go either to a court or it is going to have an administrative 

process and employees have—— 

Chairman ISSA. Is this employee still being paid? Is this employee still at work? 

Mr. WILLIAMS. I believe yes. 

Chairman ISSA. Okay, enough said. I am sorry, that is not good 

enough for the American people. 

Mr. WILLIAMS. I can’t answer on what my feelings are and what 

should happen because I am going to corrupt the integrity of the 

administrative processes, and then we will have even more trouble 

down the road. And I know you understand that and I know 

you—— 

Chairman ISSA. Okay, but according to what we have been told, 

for example, this individual spent four consecutive hours on a site 

called Sadism is Beautiful. I am going to tell you something. I am 

not real up on this. I have been out of the business world for a 

number of years, but I have a strong feeling that the House of Representatives figured out how to block sites with titles like that. It 

would shock me that they wouldn’t. But it shocks me that you can 

tell us that you do a pretty good job and something as explicit as 

those key words, or Bears so Horny. I am not going to go into the 

other names, it disgusts me. 

You are running an organization in which nobody can be fired. 

I am just going to go through two quick questions. One, isn’t it a 

crime to falsify records saying someone is working when they are 

not? Yes or no? 

40 

Ms. Heller, isn’t it a crime for someone to say that an employee 

is working when they are not, and get them paid for it, in your experience as an agent? 

Ms. HELLER DRAKE. It would be fact-based, and I wouldn’t—— 

Chairman ISSA. Mr. Williams, is it a crime to let someone get 

paid for not working at the EPA or in the Federal Government? Is 

it a crime to falsify documents saying somebody is in fact working 

when they are not working, and not even able to work? 

Mr. WILLIAMS. It can be prosecuted if DOJ deems it necessary to 

be prosecuted, or it could—— 

Chairman ISSA. I am not asking—if it can be prosecuted, then 

there is 18 U.S.C. There is a title that says it is a crime, right? 

Mr. WILLIAMS. For falsifying documents, it depends on the document that you are falsifying. 

Chairman ISSA. Well, let me explain something. If you commit 

fraud and send money to somebody else in the private sector, you 

get sued, you get fired, and you usually get prosecuted, or at least 

your employer tries to. If you pay your daughter clandestinely a 

bonus with anti-nepotism laws that exist in the Federal Government, you do that in the private sector, you get prosecuted. So I 

am a little disappointed that we have to get into it is all fact-based. 

People defrauded the American people. They defrauded the American people and I am hearing, according to your IG, they are still 

on the job. 

Ms. Heller was attacked, assaulted, and six months later you 

still have a stand-down on the investigation that they were doing 

so that an agency that is not even authorized to be a law enforcement agency can continue doing investigations directly on behalf of 

the administrator. I am shocked. I am appalled. And this is why 

you are here. And, yes, you are going to be coming back to Congress for a long time because it is clear you are not cooperating 

with your own IG, you are blocking the IG’s investigations. Your 

testimony is not credible. And I will give you an opportunity to respond to why you think you are credible when in fact you are not. 

Any time you want to respond. 

The ranking member is recognized. 

Mr. WILLIAMS. I appreciate you letting me respond. Let me just 

say, yes, things are fact-based, but it is a crime to falsify Federal 

documents. I mean, that is an established fact. How that crime is 

prosecuted, what happens, is all fact-based. So I just want to be 

clear I understand that, Mr. Chairman. 

On this incident, let me just say it is disturbing to me and I am 

upset that Agent Heller has the feelings of what happened at that 

evening. You should know, and it is not well publicized, that other 

employees in that office have filed hostile work environment complaints as well. So we haven’t been doing nothing. We worked together with the inspector general, as Agent Heller identified in her 

testimony, with the Federal Protection Services, and when they 

suggested back to the IG that we handle this case administratively, 

both of us agreed, the inspector general and EPA management, 

that we would go to the Council of Inspectors General for Integrity 

and Efficiency, CIGIE it is called, to get a referral so that we could 

have an independent IG come in and look at only the issues surrounding that fact. That investigation is ongoing. The CIGIE seVerDate Aug 31 2005 10:07 Sep 09, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\89593.TXT APRIL
41 

lected, and we all agreed, to let the Department of Defense inspector general work on this case, and that is going on. 

I can’t characterize that as being irresponsible. I can’t characterize that as not doing anything. I characterize that as looking, 

first and foremost, and I want Agent Heller to know this, that Gina 

McCarthy and I, first and foremost, are concerned about the safety 

of our employees. I don’t want to put employees in a situation 

where it is volatile. No matter how many directives I issue, I don’t 

want employees in that position. So we need to let that investigation that is ongoing now complete, and then we will know how to 

move forward; and we will move forward expeditiously. We need to 

fix this situation and we need to have our employees be able to do 

their job, whether it is the IG, whether it is Agent Heller, or anyone else. 

Chairman ISSA. I appreciate that. A woman was assaulted. A 

magistrate issued an arrest warrant. There was a decline to prosecute. He is still on the job, he is still assaulting people, he is creating a hostile environment, and you are working on it, and I appreciate that. 

Ranking member. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. First of all, to Ms. Heller, I think one of the most 

alarming things that I have heard in being in Congress for 17 

years is what you just described. Nobody should have to go through 

that, period, woman or man; and I am so sorry that that happened, 

and we have to do everything that we can to make sure that does 

not happen. That is not a part of your job description, to go 

through that kind of hell, and we are going to try to address that. 

It is very, very important to me and I am sure every member of 

this panel. 

Mr. Sullivan and Ms. Heller, you mentioned that the EPA administrator, Gina McCarthy—and I don’t want to put words in your 

mouth, so correct me if I am wrong—requested that the OIG stand 

down on his investigation of OHS and the OHS special agent. Is 

that accurate, Mr. Sullivan? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes, the investigation we were conducting was 

non-criminal, it was administrative. The investigation and the 

interview of Mr. Martin concerned his authority to act as a criminal investigator in the Office of Homeland Security. We had received a legal opinion from an attorney within the EPA Office of 

Environmental Compliance and Assurance that Mr. Martin was out 

of scope; in other words, he was liable personally for a Bivens action and the Agency was liable under the Federal Tort Claims Act 

because he was operating outside of the scope of his authority. 

That was the allegation and we were looking into Mr. Martin’s authority to do what he was doing and, overall, the OHS’s authority 

to be conducting investigations ostensibly within the purview of the 

OIG; why were they doing that. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Does the administrator to have the authority to 

step down an investigation? Where would that authority come 

from? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Well, the administrator asked my boss, Mr. 

Elkins’s concurrence to stand down temporarily until there was a 

potential resolution of the issue. 

42 

Mr. CUMMINGS. All right. But it would still have been the IG’s. 

The IG said no. They could have gone on with the investigation? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. That is correct. Mr. Elkins decided to temporarily 

suspend it, but he made it clear it was a temporary suspension. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. All right, Mr. Perciasepe and Mr. Sullivan, I do 

believe that both of your offices are honorable and you are right, 

and I said it earlier, that we have great Federal employees, all of 

you, and I thank you. Over the past 10 days my staff has worked 

with each of your offices to find areas of agreement. You know, a 

good friend of mine, a judge friend used to say in disputes, he 

would say when elephants battle and fight, the grass suffers. And 

I believe, you know, there is a way to resolve this, and I am hoping 

that we can get there because I want everybody to be able to do 

their jobs. I don’t want the so-called grass to suffer. And when I 

say the grass here, we are talking about the people of the United 

States getting their taxpayer dollars worth of services out of the 

agencies. 

So, Mr. Sullivan, can you please tell me, first of all, do you think 

the involvement of my staff was helpful to you? Did it help identify 

the issues that needed to be resolved? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes, sir, it was illuminating. But to be candid 

here, we have been trying to resolve this issue internally for many, 

many, many months. We had no progress whatsoever. Your staff, 

over the weekend, as you know, I spoke to your staff many times 

over the weekend and they made a sincere effort and I was very 

happy to hear that on the part of the Agency, or at least what 

was—I didn’t speak directly to anyone from the Agency, but your 

staff did, and I thought it was very encouraging. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Now, Mr. Perciasepe, what do you think about 

what has been accomplished? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. You know, I want to be clear also that I agree 

with the IG. Our Office of Homeland Security has no independent 

authority to do investigations in the classic law enforcement. They 

certainly have the ability, under general purposes, to analyze intelligence and do things of that nature, but they don’t. And, to my 

knowledge, they do not do investigations independently; they are 

assisting the FBI. And here is what I think—and I do that as a 

prelude, Ranking Member Cummings, because the idea that we 

have right now—and I am appreciative of what Patrick said about 

how difficult it has been to try to come to grips with this, but Administrative McCarthy is going to meet with Arthur Elkins and 

with the head of counterintelligence at the FBI on Friday of next 

week and we are going to try to get a framework on how we can 

get the law enforcement activities going on, because it is clear to 

me, and I think this is a really important thing, that when there 

is a national security issue that the FBI has asked EPA to help 

them with, analyzing information, gathering information, perhaps 

even interviewing people, that there is a possibility, maybe not in 

every case, but a possibility—and I want to point out also these are 

very rare that we do—that that person or that activity could also 

be employing misconduct that is completely in the wheelhouse of 

the inspector general. So the question really is how can we get the 

FBI and the Office of Inspector General together so that we can 

stand down on our side as to what it is we need to do to get those 

43 

two legitimate and appropriate things to do, because the people we 

are talking about are—we are not trying to hide behind national 

security, they are working—— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. So you agree that the FBI needs to be involved. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Absolutely, the FBI needs to be involved. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Would you agree, Mr. Sullivan, that the FBI 

needs to be involved? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes, sir. But there are other issues that do not involve the FBI, that involve the Secret Service, the U.S. Marshal 

Service, Capitol Police. So it is really across the broad spectrum of 

Federal law enforcement where OHS is restricting our information, 

not just with the FBI. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I see. Before I forget this, Mr. Perciasepe—— 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. You guys can just call me Bob P. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Okay, Mr. P, let me ask you this. Some kind of 

way, if we got employees who are watching pornography for four 

hours to six hours a day, or whatever was testified to, we have to 

address that. Mr. P, did you hear me? Did you hear what I said? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Yes, I did. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. That needs to be addressed. And I think the 

chairman asked you whether that person is still earning a salary 

and you said yes. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. You all have more information than I do on this 

case. The IG has informed me of this case, but I have no other information on it. I don’t know what sites they were looking at. So 

I have no report, I have no information. I have nothing to act upon 

other than a meeting in my office telling me that they are investigating this person. Now, I am happy to sit down with them and 

look at it further. I am happy to look at what administrative processes we can take, but remember—— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. P, I am just trying to send a message back 

to the Agency. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I hear you. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. We have to deal with that. That makes absolutely no sense. 

And do you both agree that the EPA’s Office of Homeland Security has an intelligence support function to perform, including intelligence analysis? Mr. Sullivan? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes, sir, I do, but in a limited role, without having 

someone with a gun and a badge conducting investigations. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. What about you, Mr. P? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I agree that they have the authority to do the 

analysis and the work. I think the key is what can they do with 

the FBI and how do we work that out. And I don’t disagree with 

Mr. Sullivan that there may be other law enforcement agencies involved with this. But this is the key one. We need to get the FBI 

and the OIG, and then we will be in the support role we need to 

be in. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Do you both agree that if the FBI is not leading 

an investigation into employee misconduct, it is properly the role 

of the IG, and not the role of the EPA Office of Homeland Security, 

to lead that investigation? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I agree 100 percent. 

44 

Mr. CUMMINGS. What about you? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes, sir. But again the devil is in the details. If 

there is misconduct, we should be told on the front end, not the 

back end. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Okay. I have run out of time, but we have to resolve this, gentlemen. We have to find a way to get this done, because, as I said in my opening statement, legislatively I don’t see 

it happening. I would like to think it would happen, but I doubt 

it. So I am hoping that all the agencies—— 

So, Mr. Sullivan, are you saying that more than the FBI has to 

be brought into the discussion to get these issues resolved? Or else 

we will be back here in the next six months going over the same 

thing. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. Cummings, I am saying that OHS has to recognize that they must share information with us if it is from the 

Secret Service or the U.S. Capitol Police or the U.S. Marshal Service. Right now they are sharing nothing with us. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. P? Then I am finished. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. On the threat issue that Patrick brought up, 

Mr. Sullivan brought up earlier, it is my understanding, and, of 

course, Mr. Sullivan, I am happy to dig into it deeper, but when 

that threat issue came up from another intelligence agency that 

was not properly and quickly reported to the inspector general, I 

was under the understanding that our deputy chief of staff and 

your office have worked out procedures last fall to rectify that problem. But if that is not the case, you haven’t told me that yet. I am 

happy to do more. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. You know, it is a damn shame that we had to 

come to a hearing for you all to communicate. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Well, I can stake here under oath I have received 

zero information from the Office of Homeland Security concerning 

any threat at any time, and none of my agents have ever received 

any information from the Office of Homeland Security concerning 

any threat at any time. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. We can do better, Mr. P. We can do better. 

Would you agree? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Yes. But I thought we had procedures in place. 

I will have to go back. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. All right. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ISSA. If I can have the ranking member’s indulgence 

for just a follow-up. I want to understand. This office is an office, 

I understand, that essentially is simply an administrative part of 

the administrator’s headquarters, is that right? Because we keep 

talking about it. I was told this was about 10 people and it exists 

inside Gina McCarthy’s suites, if you will, there. Is that correct? I 

just want to understand. When we talk about it like it is some 

agency somewhere that does certain things, this is 10 people who 

work for the administrator and have this tasking that I guess almost goes to sources and methods kind of thing. Is that right? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Yes. The office was created by Christy Whitman 

after 9/11, when President Bush issued a number of Homeland Security presidential directives, when that whole system was being 

45 

set up. EPA has some roles under those. We are not a major player, and I think everybody will realize that, but we are not an absent player; we are involved with chemical decontamination, we are 

involved with confidential business information that may have 

some security risks and hazardous chemical work, and a number 

of other responsibilities, and critical drinking water infrastructure. 

EPA, for instance, was intimately involved with decontaminating 

the Hart Office Building from anthrax. We were one of the lead 

agencies on that. So we have a—— 

Chairman ISSA. Don’t forget about Longworth. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman ISSA. We won’t. Both sides of the Capitol were contaminated. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I am sorry. I am sorry. All of that. So my only 

contextual comment here for the benefit of the committee is that 

there is a context to the creation of this coordinating office in the 

Office of the Administrator to coordinate these activities across the 

Agency. 

Chairman ISSA. And I didn’t want to take excessive time. I just 

want people to understand Christine Todd Whitman creates essentially 10 assistants to her that operate in her offices, and it has a 

title and it goes on, but it is not a statutory creation of Congress, 

per se, that is mandated; it could go away today, is that correct? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. We would have to have alternative ways to coordinate and make sure our functions and responsibilities are—— 

Chairman ISSA. Right. But you could assign it to the IG, effectively, if you wanted to. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I don’t think we can assign programmatic activities to the IG. I think that wouldn’t work. 

Chairman ISSA. Okay. But there are remedies. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. There are remedies to the issues we are talking 

about, but we couldn’t assign, I think, all the functions of that to 

the IG, and I think they would agree. 

Chairman ISSA. But employee misconduct they certainly could 

do. Okay, thank you. 

Mr. Mica. 

Mr. MICA. Well, I think you have confirmed for the people that 

I represent that there is a three-ring circus going on in EPA and 

it is quite embarrassing. I hope not too many people who are on 

depressant medications are watching the hearing, because this 

could get you awfully depressed. You have people who don’t work 

and get paid for it. You have people who have broken laws and 

stay on the payroll and get paid. 

Who knows, Mr. Sullivan, Mr. Williams, somebody, how much 

does a GS–14 employee make? Isn’t that fairly high? What is the 

range? 

Mr. WILLIAMS. I believe it is around $120,000, $125,000. 

Mr. MICA. $125,000. 

Mr. WILLIAMS. I believe that is the range. 

Mr. MICA. And that is the unnamed GS–14 employee who is sitting there for—it says 2010. When did we discover that he was 

looking at the porno? 

Mr. WILLIAMS. I believe the information came to us within the 

last six months we acquired that information. 

46 

Mr. MICA. So this guy is making $120,000, spending two to six 

hours a day looking at porno. The information I have is he received 

performance awards during the time period? 

Mr. WILLIAMS. He possibly did, yes, sir. 

Mr. MICA. Well, he did or he didn’t. 

Mr. WILLIAMS. I am not sure. 

Mr. MICA. There is a guy back there with a tie on, stripes, and 

he is nodding his head yes. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. Mica, yes, he did receive performance awards. 

Mr. MICA. It is just unbelievable. 

We talked about some of this stuff. I had no idea you had 10 people in an Office of Homeland Security. You have EPA leadership 

obstructing the inspector general and some of their activities. It 

sounds like it is completely out of control. We really need to sit 

down and talk in a bipartisan manner about getting Civil Service 

under control. I chaired it for four years. To date, I can probably 

count all the people on two hands I have seen fired. But something 

needs to be changed when people are breaking the law, when you 

have this GS–14 sitting there, abusing his position, his salary, ripping off the taxpayers. Somebody told me he is still on the payroll. 

Is he on the payroll, Mr. Williams? 

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, he is. 

Mr. MICA. This is so offensive it is unbelievable. But we need 

some way to fire these folks, and your hands are tied right now, 

Mr. Williams. You know, we set up Civil Service to protect them 

against political intervention or improper dealing with Federal employees, try to give them some job security, not make it a political 

circus, but they have made it a merry-go-round for ripping off the 

taxpayers and we can’t get rid of them. Is that right? 

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir. To take administrative action is the responsibility of the Agency solely. The IG can just gather the facts 

and provide that information to the Agency. 

Mr. MICA. And this Office of Homeland Security within the Agency, how many other agencies, does anyone know, have similar 

setup? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Sir, most cabinet level agencies have similar. 

They are not called the same, Office of Homeland Security, but 

there is something similar that does intelligence function. 

Mr. MICA. Well, I can’t say they don’t belong in every one, but 

it seems like, from a standpoint of better operations, some of these 

things could be handled within the existing structure and some can 

be investigated from your standpoint, right, Mr. Sullivan? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MICA. At far less cost, less bureaucracy, and less turmoil. I 

mean, look at the non-disclosure agreements and this whole threering circus we have here described today of agencies trying to function in contravention of themselves. Did you tell us, too, they have 

never found an instance in which there was some security issue? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. What I said, Mr. Mica, was that the Office of 

Homeland Security—I have been the Assistant Inspector General 

for three years. They have never given us one piece of information 

concerning a threat. At no time, ever, did they do that. And Mr. 

Perciasepe is correct, I did meet with his deputy chief of staff and 

47 

was told they were going to try to work out the threat information 

part, but it never happened. 

Mr. MICA. I bet you most of the folks that work, those 10 people, are all in the GS–14 range, making more than $100,000. I would 

probably be right in that assumption. 

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman’s time has expired, but you can 

answer if you know their ratings. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I do not know. I know that there were two 

SESers, there were some GS–15s, some GS–14s, and some lower 

rank people. 

Chairman ISSA. And SESers, Senior Executive Service, make 

over $200,000. 

Mr. MICA. They are way up there. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

The gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Tierney. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I not that our military 

observers left, so apparently they weren’t too impressed with the 

oversight nature that is going on here, but let me try to distill this, 

because I think it is a little bit confusing. 

Mr. Perciasepe, we had, apparently, during President Bush’s 

term, after 9/11, Christy Todd Whitman, the then administrator, 

set up a small division of 10 people within the EPA to sort of get 

analysis and intelligence, and things of that nature, right? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Yes, sir. And also—— 

Mr. TIERNEY. And Administrator McCarthy sort of inherited this. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. That is correct. As did Administrator Jackson. 

Mr. TIERNEY. All the way through. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Right. 

Mr. TIERNEY. And what seems to be a problem here is that within the Section 811 of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal 

Year 1995, there is a question as to when things, disputes that involve whether or not someone is disclosing classified information 

has to be referred to the FBI or other agencies and what is EPA’s 

obligation to include the Office of Inspector General in that process, 

right? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. That is correct. 

Mr. TIERNEY. All right, so that is what the minority staff is trying to work with you and Mr. Sullivan and others to get resolved. 

I, for the life of me, don’t understand the title of this hearing on 

that basis. 

Mr. Williams, your testimony briefed us on four different misconduct cases, right, that involved time and attendance issues. 

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. TIERNEY. The majority of the allegations of fraud that your 

office receives, do they lead to significant amounts of fraud in cases 

like that? 

Mr. WILLIAMS. Time and attendance, sir? 

Mr. TIERNEY. Yes. 

Mr. WILLIAMS. Really, we just don’t know what we don’t know. 

Mr. TIERNEY. So the four is what you are dealing with. 

Mr. WILLIAMS. Well, there are many. We have about 80 employee 

integrity cases right now nationwide. 

Mr. TIERNEY. But in the EPA? 

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, within EPA, yes. 

48 

Mr. TIERNEY. Okay. So that is a common problem and it has internal controls that need to be addressed? 

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Have you made recommendations with regard to 

that? 

Mr. WILLIAMS. Well, as far as the Office of Investigations, sir, we 

just gather the facts and then we do a report and provide that to 

the agency; we don’t make recommendations as far as investigations. 

Mr. TIERNEY. So you don’t give them any idea what internal controls would improve their situation, you leave that up to them? 

Mr. WILLIAMS. Not the Office of Investigations. The Office of 

Audit may. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Okay. 

Mr. Perciasepe, have you done anything, as EPA, with respect to 

the fact-findings that have been shared with you from the Inspector General’s Office on those time and attendance issues? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. We have initiated our own audit as well, or review, and we have provided that information to the inspector general. But on the individual cases that they have concluded, within 

the last month several of them have been concluded, they have provided that information to us and the supervisors that are involved 

are now reviewing it to take the proper administrative actions. I 

want to say that since 2009 we, working with the IG and in part 

on some of their findings, there have been 71 criminal actions that 

have been taken, 111 civil actions that have been taken, and 240 

administrative actions. So the idea that we don’t do anything with 

these things, but we—— 

Mr. TIERNEY. So when they are investigated and when there is 

a finding on that, you take action. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. We need to get the findings of the investigation 

to be able to proceed with the administrative procedures, if it is 

going to be proceeding administratively. 

Mr. TIERNEY. And that is what they are doing, the Office of the 

Inspector General. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. They are doing it. 

Mr. TIERNEY. And they are doing a good job? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Yes. 

Mr. TIERNEY. And they have given you the information. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. When they are done. 

Mr. TIERNEY. And you are taking action on it. Since 2009, you 

have all those numbers that show the data that show that you 

have taken action on it. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Yes. 

Mr. TIERNEY. That is the way it should work, right? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Exactly the way it works. I believe, personally, 

again, as Patrick said, under oath, that we have a very good relationship with the IG on these matters. 

Mr. TIERNEY. When you look at all of those, have you changed 

some of your processes and controls to deal with this issue at large? 

Or are you still dealing with it on a case-by-case situation? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Well, the case-by-case and our own sort of— 

what we did in our support for the work that they are doing is we 

used a survey technique to look across the agency, not based on a 

49 

complaint. We went and did a survey and found similar patterns 

in some areas. 

Mr. TIERNEY. And you addressed those? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Well, where they appropriately needed some action, but what we are doing is this is informing our systemic 

changes, which I reported on a little bit in our hearing in October, 

changing our HR system, changing our computer triggers—— 

Mr. TIERNEY. As you should. Let’s face the damage that the case 

that Mr. Williams talks about to put a black mark on the entire 

Agency, with that kind of conduct goes on and people still have 

their job after looking at sites and things of that nature. I think 

we all understand it does damage to all the people in the agency 

that are working hard and trying to get the job done and doing a 

relatively good job on that basis. 

But I want to clarify for the record, Mr. Williams, outside of 

issues dealing with that 10-person subsection of EPA, what they 

call the Office of Homeland Security, these fraud and time and attendance issues, has there been any EPA obstruction on your going 

after those matters? 

Mr. WILLIAMS. No, sir. 

Mr. TIERNEY. So all those cases that you are dealing with, the 

four you reported or whatever, you are getting cooperation from the 

Environmental Protection Agency. 

Mr. WILLIAMS. Well, we are conducting our investigations and 

then we relay the information to the Agency. 

Mr. TIERNEY. But they are not impeding you in your investigation. 

Mr. WILLIAMS. No, they are not impeding our investigations. 

Mr. TIERNEY. So the whole dispute here, despite the title of this 

hearing, which I think is totally misleading, deals with the Office 

of Homeland Security, when EPA reports things to that office, 

when the FBI or other agencies get involved. That is pretty much 

the context of the dispute, is that right, Mr. Perciasepe? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I would say that is a major part of it. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Okay. All right. 

I have no further questions. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. I am going to have a 

copy of some of the sites that that gentleman visited given to you 

for your use in camera to make sure you have it. I am not going 

to place it in the record; it would seem to be counterproductive to 

have any advertising come out of this hearing that could lead to 

others, in or out of the Government, going to those sites. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Mr. Chairman, thank you for that. The normal 

course of affairs on these matters is once it is in the IG’s hand, we 

do wait for their investigation to be completed, because they may 

decide, for reasons we have already talked about, to pursue it in 

a criminal matter. So that parses out, and as soon as we get their 

report, and whichever direction they feel it needs to go in, we will 

follow it. 

Chairman ISSA. No, I appreciate that. And they said you are not 

obstructing their investigation, but it is within the administrator 

and your purview and the deputy’s purview to immediately put 

somebody on administrative leave, take them away from computers, take away their passes if the prima facie, if you will, is, 

50 

yeah, they were doing it. And that authority we often—we actually, 

quite frankly, and I know the gentleman from Massachusetts 

would join me, we often criticize long periods of full pay of people 

who have done wrong, but long periods of remaining on the job for 

somebody who clearly has done something wrong is perhaps, between the two, the greater of the two, and I think that is part of 

the reason that in addition to the obstruction that we believe the 

stand-down and some of these other activities that we are concerned about because of a small subagency, that we are also looking at the question of what is the result when something egregious 

has happened, such as the assault on Ms. Heller. The question is 

why is that person not relieved, particularly if they continue to assault or to create a hostile environment. Zero tolerance is what it 

is often called, and a zero tolerance for workplace violence, abuse, 

and creating a hostile environment is pretty much something that 

has become widely accepted not just in Government, but in the private sector. And your authority, and I think the gentleman—— 

Mr. TIERNEY. Would the chairman yield for a second? 

Chairman ISSA. Of course. 

Mr. TIERNEY. I hear what you are saying. I just look at this title, 

Is the EPA Leadership Obstructing Its Own Inspector General, as 

a total separate matter. I think we all agree now that they have 

not been obstructing the Office of—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Will the gentleman yield? Will the gentleman 

yield? 

Mr. TIERNEY. In a second, please. 

—that the matter differs as to how quickly they react on a disciplinary basis. We can all talk about that ought to be faster, it 

ought to be no tolerance on that basis, but it is not an indication 

that they are obstructing the Office of Inspector General’s work on 

that. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Will the gentleman yield? 

Mr. TIERNEY. And I want to know is it a contention of the chairman or the majority that in fact they have been obstructing this 

particular investigation. 

Chairman ISSA. I think I will do the best thing in this case and 

say, Mr. Sullivan, in some cases, do you feel you have been obstructed, denied information, or in some way unable to do your job? 

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, I think that should be Office of Homeland Security—— 

Chairman ISSA. Well, wait a second. Well, but the whole point 

is the Office of Homeland Security, an unauthorized person with a 

gun, the assault that came during that investigation, that is the 

main feature that caused the title. But we are not going to have 

a hearing in which we bring these people in and ignore a pervasive 

failure to discipline and to take immediate action for such 

things—— 

Mr. TIERNEY. Then the title should be Is the EPA Disciplining 

Its People Quickly Enough and In a Proper Way. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Will the chairman yield? 

Chairman ISSA. I can’t get 4,000 letters for a headline; it just 

doesn’t work that way. The fact is that the obstruction of the IG, 

the failure of the IG to do their job and be fully informed is the 

primary reason, and these individuals are both from investigations. 

51 

Yes, this committee is deeply disappointed that when someone has 

done wrong they stay on the job. When someone has falsified documents for 20 years as to somebody working when they are not, they 

are still on the job. Those management considerations are here because the information was provided. 

Mr. TIERNEY. That would be a shared concern, Mr. Chairman, on 

that, but it is not obstructing the Office of Inspector General’s 

job;—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Will the chairman yield? 

Mr. TIERNEY.—it is failing to do the disciplinary process in a way 

that we might all agree ought to be expedited. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Will the chair—— 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

Yes, the chairman would yield. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. On this topic, Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent to enter into the record from Administrator Gina 

McCarthy a letter on her letterhead, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, dated October 28, 2013. It is to the inspector general, Mr. Arthur Elkins. In it, she says, ‘‘Therefore, I request that the OIG temporarily halt its review until the process I 

have described is complete.’’ That is halting and stopping, and I believe obstructing their ability to do their job. 

Mr. TIERNEY. I assume the gentleman has been here for the entire hearing. 

Chairman ISSA. Without objection, the document will be placed 

in the record. 

Mr. TIERNEY. You were here for the hearing, so I assume you 

heard it; you are not being disingenuous. You may be just not reading—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I heard every word—— 

Mr. TIERNEY. She made a request, which is not an obstruction, 

and the Office agreed to that request. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. The administrator of the EPA is saying to temporarily halt its investigation. 

Mr. TIERNEY. And they did. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. True or not? True or not? 

Mr. TIERNEY. And they did. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. And I think that is wrong. That is why we are 

having a hearing. That is why Congress is involved. 

Chairman ISSA. Well, I am certain the gentleman does see obstruction. If he doesn’t, then that is a good reason for the title to 

be the part that we spent a lot of debate on. But I thank the gentleman for not debating that somebody surfing pornography sites, 

people falsifying documents, that these should lead to terminations, 

not to bonuses and promotions. 

Mr. TIERNEY. There would be no disagreement on that. 

Chairman ISSA. And with that it is my pleasure to recognize the 

gentleman from Utah. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Prior to that, Mr. Chairman, I would just ask to 

be able to—— 

Chairman ISSA. Without objection, it will be placed in the record. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Placed in the record. And the second thing I 

would say is I think it is equally as wrong that the inspector general agreed to that. They should never agree to halt an investigaVerDate Aug 31 2005 10:07 Sep 09, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00055 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\89593.TXT APRIL
52 

tion. I don’t care who asks them. I think that is equally as wrong. 

But don’t deny that the administrator asked them in writing to 

halt their investigation. 

Mr. TIERNEY. That’s not obstruction. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Halting an investigation you don’t think is obstruction? You and I totally disagree. 

Chairman ISSA. I am shocked that this could happen in this committee. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman ISSA. Mr. Chaffetz, I look forward to your round of 

questioning. You are recognized. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

Appreciate you all being here. 

Special Agent Heller Drake, I appreciate your service and your 

sharing your personal story. After the incident, my understanding 

is that the Federal Protective Service investigated, is that correct? 

Can you walk us through that real briefly, please? 

Ms. HELLER DRAKE. Yes, sir. The Federal Protection Service investigated the assault and, like I said in my testimony, they interviewed me and they interviewed Agent Dorman, and then another 

individual from the Office of Homeland Security. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. And did they come to any conclusions? 

Ms. HELLER DRAKE. They felt that there was probable cause for 

an arrest warrant, which is—I am going to assume they felt there 

was probable cause; that is why they took the affidavit to the magistrate. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. And then what happened? 

Ms. HELLER DRAKE. The magistrate sent it back to the—my understanding is the magistrate sent it back to the Agency for administrative action. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. What did you think of that, personally? 

Ms. HELLER DRAKE. Well, I was disappointed, certainly, but I do 

understand that the U.S. Attorney’s Office is often busy and they 

have priorities. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Did they give you any excuses as to why they 

chose not to pursue this? 

Ms. HELLER DRAKE. No. I don’t know. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Did they ever talk to you about it? 

Ms. HELLER DRAKE. No. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. So they didn’t talk to you, they didn’t explain, 

they just referred it back. And now where does it stand? 

Ms. HELLER DRAKE. I don’t know where it stands right now. As 

far as I know, there has been no action taken against Mr. Williams. I have just learned there has been basically counter-allegations made, I guess. I am not 100 percent sure. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Mr. Perciasepe, you said that without exception, 

without exception. Do you think this is an exception or not? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I think Administrator McCarthy, in that letter 

that you are pointing out, had first and foremost in her mind the 

safety of the employees. There are complaints of hostile work environment on the employees placed to us by the employees of the Office of Homeland Security. There is clearly the incident and the 

feelings and the stress that Special Agent Heller is expressing 

here, which is real and needs to be dealt with. The—— 

53 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. So the investigation is halted. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. The investigation of what to do with that employee that has an 1811 employee, that investigation has halted. 

What has—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. You said without exception, they are moving forward without exception. That sounds like an exception. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. It was by mutual agreement. It was by mutual 

agreement. If the IG wants to change their mind about that, then 

maybe—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Mr. Sullivan, what do you say about that? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. My boss, the inspector general, Mr. Elkins, did 

agree to temporarily halt the investigation, but I know he did that 

under the caveat that there would be immediate ongoing negotiations and discussions to resolve the situation. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Were there? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. There was an attempt to, but it broke down fairly 

quickly afterwards. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. So are you doing the investigation or not? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No, not right now we are not. However—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Maybe not Mr. Elkins, but I don’t understand 

that. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. However, the allegation about Ms. Heller being 

assaulted and the subsequent counter-allegations made by Mr. Williams against agents in my office, that whole parcel of allegations 

has been referred to the Department of Defense Inspector General, 

and they are conducting an investigation looking into the original 

allegations by Ms. Heller and my agents, and then the counter-allegations being made by Mr. Williams and other members of OHS. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Guys, take some action. Grab this thing and 

make it happen. It shouldn’t take an act of Congress to have to get 

you to all do your jobs. I am sorry, but you have a professional 

agent doing her job, it gets a criminal, then nothing happens. This 

guy looking at porn, how long has that been going on since? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. You all, again, have more information—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Is the answer 2010? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I do not know. I do not know. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. How can I know and you don’t? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Because the inspector general has not told me. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. How many direct reports do you have? How many 

people directly report to you? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Maybe five. I don’t know the answer. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Maybe five. You don’t know? Is it four, five, six? 

What about human resources, who does human resources report to? 

Do they report to you? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. They report to the administrator. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. And you are not in that—— 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. The administrator and I are in the same box, 

so to speak, okay. So direct reports—I thought you were talking 

about my management assistant and people who—obviously, I am 

the deputy—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Does human resources, or whatever the name is 

over there, do they not share this information with you? If you are 

in the same box as Gina McCarthy, are you telling me that she 

didn’t know about it either? 

54 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. The first time I learned about it was a meeting 

with the inspector general. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. You don’t think that is wrong? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. When? 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. This is a big deal. Yeah, when was that? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Within the last several months. And they are 

in—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Is it against the rules? Is it against the department policies to watch porn at your office? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. It is. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Then fire him. Fire him. What is the question? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Need to wait. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. For what? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. For the inspector general’s report. I don’t know 

if they are going to send him a criminal notice. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Is there any doubt in your mind that this guy is 

watching porn on a regular basis in his office? Is there any question? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I have no reason to doubt it because I trust the 

IG. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. So what are you doing about it? I would like an 

answer to that question. What is he doing about it? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I am not personally doing anything about it. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. That is the problem. That is the problem. Ding, 

ding, ding, ding. 

Chairman ISSA. Okay. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Yield back. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

Ms. Kelly, we are going to go to you. I just want one thing for 

the record is, when the IG comes to you with anything, including 

this gentleman surfing these inappropriate sites, you have the ability to follow up, ask for additional questions. So the fact that you 

don’t know more is not because he would withhold it; you have the 

right to ask for it. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I didn’t mean to insinuate that. 

Chairman ISSA. Okay. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I am sorry if I did. 

Chairman ISSA. You have a lot of things going on. You have a 

large organization. I understand that. I just want to make it clear 

that you could know more. We don’t have some information that 

you couldn’t have; it is just a question of asking. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I am pretty certain that that is correct, yes, sir. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank you. 

Ms. Kelly. 

Ms. KELLY. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

I understand that the EPA’s Office of Homeland Security entered 

into a memorandum of understanding with the FBI to spell out 

how the agency and the Bureau would cooperate in instances 

where classified information may have been disclosed to a foreign 

power. That is what we mean by Section 811 referrals and 811 refers to a statute. 

Mr. Perciasepe, is that your view of what the MOU does? 

55 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. The MOU is, basically sets out the parameters 

of cooperation with the FBI on national security matters, including 

assistance we would provide to the FBI. 

Ms. KELLY. Mr. Sullivan, one of your concerns about the MOU 

is that it touches upon the Office of Inspector General’s Oversight 

and Investigation responsibilities regarding employee misconduct, 

is that right? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes, Ms. Kelly. The problem, the basic problem 

with the MOU is that the responsibilities and the authority of the 

IG is silence, not mentioned. Our contention is in order to have a 

national security investigation targeting an EPA employee, he or 

she must be engaged in some kind of serious misconduct. And our 

position is and always has been, as soon as OHS or any other EPA 

employee knows about an allegation of serious misconduct, they 

must immediately repot it to the IG. 

After that notification is made to us, we will work very closely 

with OHS and the FBI and any other entity. The problem is right 

now, OHS is using that as an excuse to not tell us about misconduct. 

Ms. KELLY. I know Ranking Member Cummings has been working intensively with both the IG and the EPA, and there’s a lot of 

common ground. You both agree that the roles need to be clarified, 

and you agree in large part on those roles, and you agree that information should be shared. You also agreed that the FBI needs to 

be part of the discussion. 

Do you both agree that the high level meeting taking place next 

week with top leadership at the office of Inspector General, the 

EPA and the FBI, is the right venue for working out these issues? 

Both of you can answer. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I think we need to break the logjam. If indeed 

there is a logjam that has occurred since October, we need to break 

the logjam. So bringing the Director of National Intelligence from 

the FBI, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency 

and the IG together, I am not going to guess that they are going 

to come up with every answer in that meeting. But if they can 

frame out how we want to move forward on these issues we are 

talking about, I think it will be short order after that that everyone 

else can work out the details. 

So I think, Administrator McCarthy, bringing the FBI and the 

OIG leadership together is an important step and obviously whatever level we had been working it, it needed to be bumped up. 

Ms. KELLY. Mr. Sullivan? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. I concur with what Mr. Perciasepe said. 

However, the 811 part of that memorandum with the FBI is a 

small subset. OHS uses that memorandum to expand it way beyond 811 referrals. The other issue is, we can’t be put in a position 

where someone else is negotiating away the OIG’s authorities. Nor 

could we legally negotiate away our own authorities. We have to 

be involved in misconduct investigations, period. 

Ms. KELLY. All right. Mr. Perciasepe, shouldn’t the OIG perspective and concerns be addressed at this meeting? Would you agree 

with that? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear. 

56 

Ms. KELLY. Shouldn’t the OIG’s perspective and concerns be addressed at this meeting? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. The IG is the lead, the lead and the responsible 

authority for employee misconduct at EPA. I am going to guess 

that there will be some sequencing on how things are done once we 

have a better framework. But they are the ones that are responsible for misconduct. The confusion that comes in is that misconduct happening in the commission of a national security breach 

of some kind. And I want to make it clear, the Office of Homeland 

Security does not have the authority to issue any do not disclose 

orders. Those come from the FBI. 

But the key here is how to sequence the proper investigations 

when there may be both an employee misconduct investigation and 

a national security investigation that is obviously being enabled by 

the misconduct itself. So those things need to be coordinated. I am 

not an expert in law enforcement deconflicting. But this happens 

every day in one way or another. And I have high confidence, Mr. 

Chairman, that we will be able to do this if we can get the right 

people together. 

Ms. KELLY. I hope you are correct. 

I will yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. [Presiding] Thank you. I now recognize the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Walberg, for five minutes. 

Mr. WALBERG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Might I suggest, Mr. 

Chairman, that maybe a headline for this hearing ought to be 

something like The Atmosphere and Environment of the EPA is 

Polluted. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. WALBERG. Mr. Sullivan, following that train of thought, it 

appears that there are other examples of EPA obstruction of your 

office. Beth Craig lied to the OIG. Is that true or not? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes, that’s correct. 

Mr. WALBERG. She is a deputy administrator at OIR in EPA. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. She was. She has been reassigned to another position now. 

Mr. WALBERG. Another position. Region 9 Administrator Jared 

Blumenfeld lied about personal email use, is that correct? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Sir, I have no knowledge of that. I do not know 

if he lied. Mr. Blumenfeld was never interviewed by my office or 

my agents concerning an email. That might have been our auditors, but I have absolutely no knowledge of that. 

Mr. WALBERG. It was the Office of Audit, I am just told. 

Nancy Dunham refused to be interviewed. Is that correct? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. That is correct. Again, that was a request by Office of Audit, and they did personally discuss that with me. 

Mr. WALBERG. I think we need to point those few examples out, 

that we continue to have to deal with. And one thing about history, 

if we don’t learn from it, we are bound to repeat it. 

So I want to go back to the secret agent man from the CIA, EPA. 

Whatever he determined himself to be. And Mr. Perciasepe, how 

did the EPA Office of Homeland Security become involved in the 

John Beale matter? Again, we are going back in history, lengthy 

history, to see if we have learned for the present or if there are 

some similar things that are taking place right now. 

57 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I can tell you that nobody’s been claiming they 

are working at the CIA at EPA right now. That part of the history 

I hope we will never have to live again. 

Mr. WALBERG. But they are working at other places, and without 

working. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I would like to say here hindsight is always 20– 

20. But I like your approach better, that what are we learning how 

are we getting over it. 

Mr. WALBERG. Right. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. When the John Beale matter, again, as you 

pointed out, it was going on for a good decade before that with 

many other people involved. But when that first started to come 

up, like, this can’t be right kind of come up, the first instinct people 

had was to find out if this person really did work for the FBI. I 

mean, I am sorry, the CIA. 

So I think there is where we got tangled up. I am using hindsight and what lessons have been learned. 

Mr. WALBERG. This was the EPA Office of Homeland Security. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Well, it was originally the Office of, the Personnel Office, the HR Office, is there any record of this. They asked 

the senior intelligence officer, the agency involved with, the unit in 

the agency that communicates with the intelligence community, 

whether they had any information. And that went on for a couple 

of months. 

Mr. WALBERG. And how many interviews did OHS conduct of 

John Beale? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I do not know the answer to that. So then once 

they figured out there is no record anywhere of this, that is when 

it was turned over by the General Counsel and Homeland Security 

to the IG. That is my recollection. 

Now, if I had to live that through again, same lesson learned, I 

would have given it to the IG right away. 

Mr. WALBERG. Right away. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. But I didn’t know we were looking into this. 

Mr. WALBERG. What you are saying is that the EPA Office of 

Homeland Security interviewed John Beale before the OIG? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I don’t know what they did. All I know is that 

they tried to find out if he worked for the CIA. Again, I testified 

in October that I can see the logic that this would be a human resources thing, is there any record of this. They went to the liaison 

with the intelligence community saying, do you have any record 

that this went on. 

Mr. WALBERG. Mr. Sullivan, did you have first crack at interviewing Mr. Beale, or did EPA Office of Homeland Security have 

first crack at it? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. The Office of Homeland Security interviewed Mr. 

Beale at least three times before we even knew about the case. 

Mr. WALBERG. How did that impact your investigation? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Well, it severely impacted us, because Mr. Beale 

then was alerted that his fraud had been discovered before the 

proper authorities, being the IG Office of Investigations, had been 

alerted. And he was able to backtrack, potentially destroy records, 

potentially build an alibi. 

58 

And then when we first approached him, he was expecting an 

interview and he referred us to his attorney. 

Mr. WALBERG. So it harmed your inspection process, the process 

you are defined to do, capable of doing, authorized to do. It hindered. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. It hindered. Yes. It clearly harmed our investigation. It delayed it and harmed it. 

Now, had OHS simply done as Mr. Perciasepe suggested, a 

records check with the CIA, we would have been perfectly fine with 

that. That’s part of their analytical job. Their job is not to interview 

employees. That is our job. 

Mr. WALBERG. That is your job. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. That is my job. 

Mr. WALBERG. Mr. Chairman, if I could ask one more question, 

in deference to all the time I have had to sit here and wait for others that went way overboard. 

Let me ask this question, Mr. Sullivan. Is the handling of the 

employees in question today that we are talking about that Ms. 

Heller had to suffer through and all the rest, is it significantly different process that is going on now compared to Mr. Beale’s? Relative to your responsibility, your authority. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. Walberg, I could tell you as of right now, I 

have zero visibility on what OHS is doing. I have no idea what they 

are doing, I have no idea what cases they are working on. I have 

no idea what employees they are interviewing. 

Mr. WALBERG. That is the problem. The atmosphere and environment around the EPA is polluted. And it is affecting your impact. 

I yield back. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. I now recognize the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Meadows, for five minutes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Perciasepe, let me cone to you. We have heard about pornographic sites being looked at, we have heard about people being 

paid without showing up for work, we have heard about CIA 

agents, we continue to hear stories. Would you not say that the 

EPA has a management problem, a systemic failure in management? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. EPA has 16,000 employees. 

Mr. MEADOWS. That is not the question. I understand that. Do 

you have a management problem, a systemic problem within management to allow these kinds of things to go on? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. No. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay. I am troubled by that, because as we continue to hear these things unfold and unfurl, let me turn your attention to Region 4, of which covers my district of North Carolina. 

In 1990, the EPA came in and conducted a test on one of my constituents’ piece of property without her permission and took samples and found that there was toxic, hazardous substance on her 

property. Do you think that it would have been proper to go onto 

her piece of property without her permission? Yes or no. Is it proper to go onto somebody’s property without their permission? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I don’t know. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay. Let me go on further. Do you think it was 

proper, when they found that, that they did not tell her for over 

59 

nine years that there was toxic stuff on her property? Yes or no? 

Would you want to be informed if you had toxic stuff that was 

found on your property? Would you want to be informed by the 

EPA that it was there? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Yes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay. So do you not think that that would be a 

good thing to do? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I really have no idea what the circumstances 

you are talking about. I want to be responsive here. I don’t know 

whether it was under some court order, I have no idea. I am happy 

to drill deeper. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay, well let me tell you, you have been drilling 

deep, because the IG has been involved, and this is a contaminated 

site, a Superfund site, of which it has been there for 25 years. And 

yet we have not even started to clean it up. Do you think that that 

is a problem? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. That is a budget problem. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Oh, that is a budget problem. So we have a tremendous budget, and so we have known toxic water with contamination in water, we have a budget problem, but we are spending 

billions of dollars on other things, but we can’t clean up a site in 

Asheville, North Carolina. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. EPA’s Superfund budget has been cut through 

the years. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So let me go on a little bit further. Here is a report that you should have had. This was a call center who received 

a call from a constituent in my district in September of 2009, in 

April, it was a hot line. And they said that there was contamination. Do you know when that phone call was returned? Never. Do 

you know when the voice mail was checked? September of that 

year. Five months. 

Now, this is a hot line. Do you not see that as a problem. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Yes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay, you see that as a problem. So let me in the 

time remaining go on a little bit closer because this is Region 4, 

this is water quality. We have a Superfund site that is not being 

cleaned up. And yet what we decided to do, and I say we, because 

it is the government, I certainly wouldn’t have decided to do this, 

it appears that we gave a $63,000 bonus to the Water Quality guy 

in 2013 for a job well done. Are you aware of that? Sixty-two thousand nine hundred and eighty-five dollars, to be exact. This is on 

top of his $179,000 salary. Do you think that this is part of a job 

well done? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Well, I don’t think Superfund is part of the 

Water Division’s work. 

Mr. MEADOWS. But he is managing, it is Water Quality. I have 

been involved with it, I know it extremely well. Do you think he 

deserved a $63,000 bonus? What do I tell the single moms back in 

Asheville, North Carolina, when a Federal Government employee is 

getting a $63,000 bonus? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I have no idea whether that person had any involvement with this project at all. So you are asking me a question 

I can’t answer. 

60 

Mr. MEADOWS. So you justify a $63,000 bonus on any, so he is making $240,000, you think that is a—— 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I don’t even know what the bonus was for, sir. 

So it is very difficult for me to be able to be responsive to you here. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay. When do we start to change the management process within the EPA to allow the American taxpayers to 

trust that somebody is going to get fired when these things go on? 

How many people have been fired so far based on the actions that 

we have heard about today? How many have been terminated? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Can I answer? 

Mr. MEADOWS. Sure. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Employees have rights. And we take, all of the 

things that have been talked about today are in an administrative 

or IG investigation process. Taking final actions on employees’ termination, suspension, or docking of pay or whatever is available to 

be done can’t be done without those processes. And more importantly, and I want to be clear about this, me saying what I think 

should happen here today while those are still going on will prejudice those reviews. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. So I am not going to do it. 

Mr. MEADOWS. That is an explanation. That is not an answer. 

How many have been terminated? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. None. 

Mr. MEADOWS. That is what I was afraid of. I will yield back. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Mr. Perciasepe, is it, could you provide to the 

committee how many people have been fired in the last, say, five 

years? Is that fair? I am not asking for names. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I will provide, up to firing, I will provide all of 

our disciplinary actions in the last five years. I will do that. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. And you will provide that to this committee? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Yes, I will. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Very good, thank you. 

I will now recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. 

Cardenas, for five minutes. 

Mr. CARDENAS. Thank you very, very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Sullivan, you say that it is important for EPA’s Office of 

Homeland Security to share with the IG any information it may 

come across concerning potential criminal misconduct of an EPA 

employee. This information is not only necessary because you believe that the OIG has jurisdiction to investigate these cases but 

also because, as a practical matter, your office needs the information for deconfliction purposes. Is that correct? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CARDENAS. Can you explain to us what you mean by 

deconfliction and why it is so important? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes, sir. There is a basic tenet in law enforcement 

that you don’t want to step on another agency’s case. But most importantly, you don’t want to put your agents or the agents or the 

officers of another agency at risk. It is critically important in drug 

investigations or counterfeiting investigations where we have an 

undercover officer. But it is also equally important in instances 

where you have a target where two agencies may be targeting the 

same individual for alleged criminal activity. 

61 

It just does not bode well when the agencies aren’t talking with 

each other. Nothing good happens from that and a lot of bad things 

can happen. 

Mr. CARDENAS. Thank you for your answer. 

Mr. Perciasepe, I find Mr. Sullivan’s argument for information 

sharing relevant. Do you agree that the IG should be informed 

whenever there is a national security investigation involving an 

EPA employee? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I think we did talk about this a little bit earlier. 

We are having a meeting on Friday of next week with the head of 

counterintelligence of the FBI and the Inspector General and the 

Administrator is bringing them together to see if we can come up 

with how we deal with that. Because you have zeroed in on, I think 

there are many issues being discussed here, but we zeroed in on 

one key one that I feel is workable and we can figure out what the 

proper sequences are. And that is when the misconduct is occurring 

in the conduct of a national security issue, and how that goes 

about. 

I believe as I think you are alluding to that law enforcement 

agencies do this kind of deconflicting all the time. And we just need 

to get the proper protocols and standard operating procedures in 

place to make sure that they happen appropriately. 

Mr. CARDENAS. Is one of the things that is on the minds or concern of respective departments when it comes to investigations, is 

one of the concerns that if you don’t follow appropriate protocols 

that actually there could be a lawsuit on behalf of an employee, 

and unfortunately their chances of winning might be increased because you weren’t being careful enough? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I would argue there are probably many complications. Those could be some of them that have to be carefully 

weighed when there is overlapping jurisdiction that needs to be 

worked out. 

Mr. CARDENAS. One other thing is if one of you could clarify for 

us when a person is a government employee, do they inherently 

give up their rights that we have as American citizens? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. Everyone has their constitutional rights if you 

are accused of a crime. However, as a government employee, if any 

inspector general wants to question you, in your role as a government employee, there is a warning that we issue called a Kalkines 

warning, which in effect tells the person being interviewed that you 

cannot be prosecuted for the statement you are going to give us. 

Nothing you say can be used against you unless you lie to us. You 

are compelled to speak to us, and if you don’t speak to us you will 

be subject to disciplinary action up to and including removal. 

And that is across the board in the entire Federal Government, 

whenever the IG approaches someone, as long as you are not under 

criminal investigation or criminal exposure. 

Mr. CARDENAS. So in other words, there is the allowance within 

the relationship between Federal employees and management and/ 

or investigative authorities at the Federal level to get down to the 

bottom of improving what is going on within agencies, and they do 

have access to those employees. Yet at the same time, it sounds 

like those employees can’t be treated with impunity on how those 

investigations or how that questioning takes place. 

62 

Mr.SULLIVAN. Yes, but the issue of the Kalkines warning is within the purview of the Inspector General’s office. It would not be appropriate for other entities within an agency to issue that warning. 

That is reserved for IG business to collect the facts to ensure that 

we have relevant information and people are truthful to us. 

Mr. CARDENAS. So basically, unfortunately, for some people who 

think that it is simplistic, it isn’t simplistic, it is a bit complicated. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. It certainly is complicated, sir. Yes. But they are 

workable problems, but it is complicated. 

Mr. CARDENAS. Okay, thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. 

We will now recognize the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. 

Bentivolio, for five minutes. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Yesterday I attended a field hearing in my district in Michigan 

that dealt with how Federal regulations are impeding the growth 

of small businesses and manufacturers. One common theme 

throughout the hearing related to regulations being imposed by the 

EPA which do not solve any relevant problems and will cause these 

businesses billions of dollars to comply. 

I am not discounting the EPA. Throughout history when serious 

problems have arisen, we have put in place appropriate and effective regulations that protect Americans. The impact of regulations 

can be good. However, I am back here today attending another 

hearing regarding the EPA, only to discover the EPA is involving 

themselves in areas that they should not be involved in. Things are 

occurring at the EPA which cause me great concern about the leadership and how work is being conducted or maybe not conducted. 

Maybe the EPA has too much time on their hands or too many 

employees working for the agency because instead of concentrating 

on determining what regulations are needed and would be effective 

to safeguard Americans and not cost businesses billions of dollars, 

thus regulating America out of business, the agency is involved in 

questionable activities. In an article published September in 2013 

prior to the government shutdown, the EPA announced that only 

1,069 of its employees out of the 16,205 employed were essential. 

So basically, EPA acknowledges that over 90 percent of its employees were not essential. I think maybe this confirms my point 

that the EPA might have too many employees and too much time 

on their hands, and that this has created an environment that encourages misconduct. 

With that being said, I have a few questions. Mr. Perciasepe, 

that being said, you have 15,000 employees that you basically said 

were non-essential. Have you completed an audit to determine how 

many employees are essential to protect our environment? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. First of all, let me say the determination of an 

exempt and non-exempt employee during a cessation of appropriations is a very different thing than whether they are needed to implement the laws that Congress has enacted. It is whether or not 

they are needed to stay behind and run the risk of not being paid, 

depending on the outcome of Congress’ resolution of the budget, because of a danger to the public’s assets or an immediate damage 

that might occur. 

63 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. Mr. Perciasepe, you have John Beale, an 

unnamed GS–14 EPA employee viewing pornography at work for 

two to six hours a day, you have people working—holy cow—that 

are getting paid, not at work, don’t even have a building pass, don’t 

even really have a computer hooked up to the EPA. You have 

Renee Page, who has received a prestigious Presidential rank 

award in 2012, a cash award of $35,000, who hired 17 family members and friends for paid intern positions, sold jewelry and weight 

loss products during her leisure time during work hours, her 

daughter was an employee at the EPA, received a cash bonus from 

Ms. Page’s budget account, inappropriately influenced a contract. 

We will hear more about that, I am sure, later. 

Beth Craig, which is, oh, Mr. Beale’s travel expenses I think she 

approved. Another GS–15 employee getting paid while in a retirement home. Retention bonus abuses, one thing after another. But 

you know, the other thing that I heard in my district from many 

people saying that the EPA is looking for a new mission. Because 

what I am hearing complaints from, I am from Michigan and you 

can travel seven miles in any direction and hit a body of water. 

Thousands of lakes and rivers and streams. And we have a lot of 

those lakes that have a small, seasonal marina. They rent rowboats 

for fishermen to fish during the day for about $15, $20 per day. 

And the EPA is visiting them and causing havoc. Some of these 

people have told me they are going to have to shut down to meet 

those requirements. 

So once again, have you completed an audit to determine how 

many employees are essential to protect our environment? Because 

it appears, sir, that they have more time on their hands and they 

are looking for a mission. 

Now, I want to be clear, I grew up in a time when we have Love 

Canal and rivers that caught on fire. EPA was a great champion. 

But you have 16,000 employees, it appears, looking for a new mission. 

Sir, have you conducted an audit and if not, will you some time 

in the future? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I really don’t know what that audit would be. 

But we haven’t done an audit. I am just going to answer you 

straight up. We don’t have an audit on trying to determine whether 

each employee is essential or not essential. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. I strongly suggest you do so. 

Mr. Perciasepe, you said to my colleague, Mr. Meadows, that 

your employees have rights. I want to tell you, Mr. Perciasepe, I 

want you to know, my constituents have rights, too. And they take 

precedence over the rights of your employees. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ISSA. [Presiding] Thank you. The gentleman’s time has 

expired. 

Mr. Perciasepe, is there something you wanted to say in response? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I appreciate that, Mr. Chairman. On the, getting back to the substance of the small marina operators, I am 

happy to look into that if you want me to. 

64 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. Thank you very much. I look forward to your 

visit, we will give you a tour of the many Michigan lakes and 

streams. 

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman’s time is expired. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. As long as I can do some muskie fishing, I will 

be happy. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. Very good. 

Chairman ISSA. You didn’t come to Cleveland for walleyed pike. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman ISSA. And with all due respect, what came out of those 

boats that burned on the Cuyahoga has been greatly over-exaggerated. And you Michigan folks going after us Clevelanders, I have 

a problem with that, a little bit. But we will get into that at another time. 

With that, we go to Mr. Woodall. 

Mr. WOODALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Perciasepe, I appreciate your training us up on name pronunciation. I am a big believer in training folks up. I have only 

been here three years and I can still be trained up. And I think 

that is true government-wide. My recollection of Mr. Beale’s case 

is that he was discovered because of a change in EPA leadership 

that folks who had not become accustomed to his ways began to 

ask questions and that change led to better outcomes for us as a 

Nation. 

I appreciate the work of the folks at OIG. It is a hard job. And 

whether you are a Republican administration or a Democrat Administration, you have an IG there and the IG’s job is to train you 

up. And we don’t have an IG on individual members’ offices here. 

If we did and they came by my office, I would like to think I am 

100 percent the best fellow on Capitol Hill, but I am convinced that 

if I brought in some folks, they could train me up. 

But it is hard to accept constructive criticism, because you do 

want to do the best you can with what you have to work with. Tell 

me about the culture at EPA. Do you view the three folk sitting 

to your right as part of a team whose responsibility is to make you 

better every day and a responsibility that you value? Or is it a different relationship with the folks who sit to your right? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. As you just pointed out, there is always going 

to be some differences of opinions. We have been talking today 

about a significant one that I think can be worked out. 

But on a general matter, I pointed out earlier that since 2009, 

since I came back in December of 2009, there has been about, a little over 2,600 different audits, reports, analyses done by the IG 

that we have cooperated on. We do 50 significant, I recall, audits 

a year, roughly. I think that is about right, Patrick and the rest 

of the gang here. And the vast majority of those are done in a way 

that we are learning every step of the way. We are learning and 

responding. In the questions we are leaning and putting together 

the action plan. 

Not only that, we have a pretty open management structure at 

EPA. For instance, I chair a group called the Executive Management Council, which is made up of all the career deputies, including the career deputy of the Office of Inspector General. They are 

full participants in that discussion. We have an annual process 

65 

under the Federal Managers Financial Integrity Act, FMFIA, 

where the IG comes in and makes presentations to the entire senior leadership of the agency on where they see our weaknesses. It 

is kind of to have a culture that is open. 

Mr. WOODALL. I appreciate that. And that is exactly the question 

I was asking, I appreciate your answering it in that way. But I 

have to ask the folks from the Inspector General’s office, was this 

a tale of a lot of collaboration and a lot of working together, but 

the reports I have in my folder this morning are things that I 

would hope would have never been written, because we would have 

never had those problems, because we would have had a structure 

in place that those didn’t occur to begin with. 

Is the structure that Mr. Perciasepe describes, Mr. Sullivan, of 

cooperation and collaboration, is he describing his own view, or is 

he describing the EPA culture? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. We have an excellent working relationship with 

the rest of the agency. However, it is extremely dysfunctional at 

the Office of Homeland Security. That is why we have to resolve 

that. 

Mr. WOODALL. Tell me about that, Mr. Perciasepe. Because you 

spoke with great fondness about the collaboration that goes on 

there. Here we have a single office within a giant agency, a single 

office that we can agree has impeded the spirit of collaboration and 

cooperation that you provided. The tale that Ms. Heller had to tell 

about her encounter, we would have had that person fired this 

afternoon. 

Now, we don’t have the same workplace protections in Congress 

that you have at the EPA. But that would not be tolerated. Why 

does it require a Congressional hearing to solve this issue when 

you have that collaborative relationship? And we are talking about 

one subdivision of dysfunction in an otherwise functioning agency. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. It needs to be, it needs to be reconciled and 

worked through. And we have made attempts to do it. And we have 

now elevated it inside the agency. And Administrator McCarthy 

and Randall Coleman, who is the head of, works at the FBI as the 

head of counterintelligence for the United States and the Inspector 

General are going to get together next week and they are going to 

try to put the framework together to deal with what kind of standard operation procedures or protocols we are going to need to have 

to deconflict this issue. And the tensions, and the confrontations 

that may occur are all derivative of these mission problems, I believe. We are going to have to deal with individuals’ behavior as 

we get information on that. 

Mr. WOODALL. You would agree with me then that again, within 

this very collaborative process that you have described, cooperative 

process, there is no set of circumstances where this really persists. 

Not should persist, but will persist. We will in fact solve this because we can. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. That is the intent, is to do that. Just listening 

to today, when I get back to the office I am going to direct the Office of Homeland Security to seek permission to share the information that Mr. Sullivan is talking about with them. 

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. WOODALL. I would be happy to yield to the Chairman. 

66 

Chairman ISSA. Well, as long as you are going to do that, Mr. 

Perciasepe—— 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. This is permission from the FBI. 

Chairman ISSA. Well, as long as you are going to do that, I would 

certainly hope that you would hear out what Mr. Sullivan said and 

we knew from the previous investigation, that the interference by 

an entity that had no business being in the middle of Mr. Beale’s 

corrupt activity, a man who was the direct report to the Administrator, worked for her for years. That interference, you know and 

I know and the American people know, reeked of her personal staff, 

these 10 people that worked for her in an entity she created, or 

sorry, she continued but redirected, that interference in the investigation of Mr. Beale is exactly the kind of interference that makes 

it look like the IG is okay as long as they are doing stuff that she 

doesn’t care about or that you don’t care about. 

But quite frankly, I heard it here today and I saw it in the investigation. Mr. Beale should have been discovered a long time ago. 

The Administrator herself deserves a lot of culpability, not just for 

the years that she didn’t see it, but after she knew it and it could 

have been stopped sooner and it wasn’t. 

I hope you are taking that back, because I know Mr. Sullivan 

and Mr. Williams, and I hope the Inspector General himself, are 

concerned that that is part of the obstruction that has to end. And 

I am sorry, but you can’t have a management discussion about it. 

It never should have happened. It should have been zero tolerance. 

That type of interference with the IG is not deconflicting. Do you 

understand that here today? If you have any disagreement, please 

say it now in front of us and the IG. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I can’t remember everything you said, Mr. 

Chairman, but—— 

Chairman ISSA. Your squad, this 10-man unit, interfered in the 

Beale investigation with the IG. That is already in our taillights. 

But it is exactly the kind of thing that has to be deconflicted. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Yes. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. Mr. Sullivan? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes, sir, I would just like to underscore, though, 

that the issue with the FBI is one part of the issue. The other issue 

is the Office of Homeland Security receiving allegations of misconduct and then independently vetting those allegations, conducting an investigation, with or without the FBI, without telling 

us. Our position is and always has been, as soon as OHS or another employee receives an allegation, they must immediately inform the IG. 

Chairman ISSA. Exactly. It is outside their purview the moment 

they hear about it. It is no different, Mr. Perciasepe, than if you 

heard about it, your job is to call the IG. Your job is not to send 

it to some entity created for a completely different purpose. That 

is what the ranking member I know has been trying to work on 

with his staff on a unilateral basis, and I respect that if he can get 

it done, that is great. This hearing is about the fact that it hasn’t 

gotten done. 

Thank you, and I thank the gentleman for yielding. This is the 

second round now, so I will go to Mr. Chaffetz, and then the gentleman from California. Mr. Chaffetz? 

67 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I thank the chairman. 

Mr. Perciasepe, Renee Page, are you familiar with Renee Page? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Yes, I am. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. She is the, as I understand it, the Director of the 

Office of Administration at the EPA, correct? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I don’t know her exact title. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. But she is still employed at the EPA? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. She is employed, but she has been removed 

from that responsibility during the conduct of the review of the report. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Do you know what she is doing right now? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I do not. She is not managing that program. We 

are in the process of reviewing the report we got from the IG a couple of weeks ago. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I don’t know if it is Mr. Williams or Mr. Sullivan, 

can one of you please explain what it is you found about her? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. Chaffetz, there was an issue, we have to be 

very careful here because of the Privacy Act. Ms. Page was not 

charged with a crime. And she has certain rights as an employee. 

So we did not publicly release her name. So we are very uncomfortable discussing her by name. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. This is a person who earned a cash award of 

some $35,000. Now, that alone to me, I am sorry, but as a Federal 

employee, unless you are personally helping to take out, as some 

people did, Osama bin Ladin and others, a $35,000 cash award 

seems, it seems obscene, in my opinion. Given that this is still 

under review, I will, I am just deeply concerned about what is happening here. 

My understanding is that, you did the investigation, it was then 

referred to, who did you refer it to? 

Mr. WILLIAMS. It was referred to EPA management. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. How long ago was that? 

Mr. WILLIAMS. About two months ago, I believe. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. What is a reasonable amount of time, what is a 

reasonable amount of time so you can come to the conclusion? Two 

months? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Again, I am in a similar situation here of what 

I can say and can’t say. There are things going on—— 

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentleman suspend, please? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I really can’t, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ISSA. If the gentleman will suspend, stop the clock. I 

have been advised by counsel and have previously been advised by 

counsel that you are not in a forum in which that statute applies. 

Now, we will not ask you, yes, the privacy of this woman by name 

is not a question that you can say I can’t answer in this forum. You 

are being asked before a hearing about an individual by name. 

Now, criminal referrals and the details that are beyond the scope 

of what the gentleman’s questions are, I would ask him not to ask 

and you not to answer, because I think that could impede the 

criminal investigation. But the facts such as her activities, her 

sales, the bonus and so on, all of that is within the scope of this 

committee and is not covered by a law that was written not to 

apply to us and not to apply to her investigation. I want to make 

68 

that clear in this forum. Because we go through this in depositions 

and transcribed interviews. 

Additionally, the fact that DOJ has declined to prosecute is not 

something that is going to be withheld. The American people have 

a right to know that allegations were made, they were sent to the 

department of Justice, that is where we have our source of these 

allegations. They declined to prosecute it, it is now back for an administrative decision. She may not have committed any crimes, but 

the elements that were sent there which were fact-based and the 

decline and now that it is before administrative, all of those elements of her activities are fair and reasonable for the gentleman 

to ask and to expect a full and complete answer. 

So the gentleman will continue. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Let me just simply say, the allegations are very 

serious. And we have outlined a host of them. And Mr. Perciasepe, 

you make a point, it is a good point, it is a large agency with 

16,000 employees. But what you have heard here over the course 

of the last several hours are very senior people. We are not talking 

about some newbie who is in the bowels of the administration 

somewhere. We are talking about senior management level people. 

Mr. Beale had a very senior level. This person I just referenced had 

a very senior position in the administration. 

And that is the concern. And there is this overarching feeling 

and concern that justice doesn’t ever play out. We heard that in the 

case of the person sitting right next to you, Special Agent Howard 

Drake. Where and when do people actually get fired? When is there 

accountability? 

I think that has a much more detrimental effect on the rest of 

the 16,000 employees who are good, hard-working, patriotic people, 

they work hard, they are doing good for their country. But when 

they don’t see justice served, they are left to think that there is no 

justice. And that is fundamentally wrong, and that is the overarching point. 

I am not trying to pick on any one person. But when somebody 

is giving bonuses to their own daughter out of their account, that 

is a problem. And I don’t know why it takes months to figure it 

out. We have an employee who is looking at over 600 porn sites in 

a four-day period and it is there in black and white, fire them. That 

is the message I guess we are trying to convey back. And I look 

forward to working with you. I appreciate your sitting here. You 

are braver than most to come in and chat with Congress. Coming 

before Congress is not necessarily a fun thing. 

But that is our concern, is holding people accountable. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. First of all, on the last comment, I want you all 

to understand, I view this as my sacred responsibility, to work with 

you. So you can ask me whatever you want. What I don’t want to 

do is not so much a legal thing, as the Chairman alluded to, I don’t 

want to say something, as one of the leaders of the agency, that 

could bias and give an out or something else for somebody who is 

going to undergo an administrative process. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I understand. And I think the point has been 

made, and I know you have heard it. The IG has a critical function. 

There are no ifs, ands or buts, excuses to not give the IG. They 

69 

should have the first crack at that. They are the ones who are 

trained professionals in doing that. 

And my only message again to Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Williams, 

don’t let them push you around. Don’t go entering into some voluntary ‘‘we are going to stand down.’’ You never stand down. That 

is what I need to hear from the IG. I yield back. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman from 

California seeks recognition. The gentleman is recognized. 

Mr. CARDENAS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Concern for national security played a significant role on how the 

John Beale case was handled. Last October, we explored how fears 

about blowing Mr. Beale’s cover with the CIA allowed him to penetrate a fraud against the agency and the government. 

It may be hard to understand now, but at the time, EPA officials 

believed Mr. Beale did not suspect him of lying to them, therefore 

they were trying to protect his cover story, not prove that it was 

a fraud. Mr. Perciasepe, given what people thought at the time, 

what was the logic in tapping the OHS and deciding not to inform 

the IG immediately about Mr. Beale? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. So, I think you had some of the context there. 

This obviously had been going on for 10 years through multiple administrations, many different assistant administrators, different 

parties. This has just been going on. In many respects, it is a classic confidence game, where you gain everybody’s confidence and 

then you abuse that confidence. It is probably more complicated 

than that, but I am just being simple here. 

So when this really started to come to a head and we were saying, how could this be, people were raising the questions as has 

been pointed out here several times, that the sense was, and again, 

I already testified here that in hindsight I would have asked people 

to do something differently. But in this instance, whenever I was 

asked about it, and I think other people, it was like, there must 

be some human resources record-keeping here that would say 

whether he is or isn’t doing these things. 

And when most folk didn’t have any records, the General Counsel’s office asked the office that is the liaison with the intelligence 

community, the Office of Homeland Security, what they knew 

about it. And here is where we get into the situation I think that 

Mr. Sullivan brought up. If they had just tried to check their 

records to see what was going on, I don’t think the IG would have 

had an issue with that. What they had an issue with, they went 

and interviewed the guy. 

Now, as it turns out, and I want to be really clear about that, 

because the fears of what could happen when you do that and you 

tip people off are real, and I think they are more expert in those 

potential problems than I am. But in this case, I am personally 

pleased in terms of the message sending and everything else that 

this employee is now spending almost three years in jail and has 

paid back not only $900,000 that we discovered he defrauded, but 

$500,000 more in calculating what he might have financially benefitted from having that other money. 

So he has paid back already to the Federal Treasury $1.4 million 

and he is spending three years in jail. I wish things had gone 

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70 

tion we are in. That is the best rationale I could give you, which 

is probably not the best one in hindsight, but that is how I think 

it got into the Office of Homeland Security. 

Mr. CARDENAS. So Mr. Perciasepe, once OHS discovered that Mr. 

Beale was not affiliated with the CIA, how long did it take for EPA 

to refer the matter to IG? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. My memory is not precise on this, but I think 

they looked at it for maybe three months and then they turned it 

over to the Office of Inspector General. 

Mr. CARDENAS. Mr. Sullivan, could you confirm with us, how 

long was your investigation once the IG was involved? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. We were informed on February 11th, 2013, and 

we immediately put a number of agents on the case. And within 

three months, three and a half months, we had a plea agreement 

with Mr. Beale and his attorney and the U.S. Attorneys office. So 

within three and a half months, we had kind of brought it to at 

least the initial conclusion. And then it went through the process 

of him, the formal plea and then the formal sentencing. 

Mr. CARDENAS. Okay. So Mr. Sullivan, in your testimony you 

stated you cannot assure us that the IG is doing everything possible to root out other John Beales who may be at the EPA. Are 

you suggesting that there could be people masquerading as CIA 

employees currently working at the EPA? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No, sir, I have no visibility on that, and I don’t 

expect that would be true. But I do have a very real, abiding concern that the Office of Homeland Security is interviewing employees, collecting information on employees engaged in misconduct 

and not telling us. And that is a major issue for me and my staff, 

and a major issue for the Inspector General. 

Mr. CARDENAS. Mr. Perciasepe, are there any valid reasons why 

the EPA would not cooperate timely in a fully and timely manner 

with the IG under their investigations? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I think we got into this, is this an exception, before. But I think our standard operating procedure is that we always do that, we always cooperate with the IG fully. In this case, 

and again I think another year in the future, maybe we will have 

a joint different view of it, but in this case, we have temporarily, 

by mutual agreement, have delayed completing the investigation of 

the issues in the Office of Homeland Security. 

Mr. CARDENAS. I yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. I recognize myself now. 

Three months that they knew this guy was a fraud and they 

didn’t turn it over to the IG. Would you agree, Mr. Perciasepe, that 

that is three months longer than it should ever happen? Three 

months to the minute that they knew this was a mater of a fraudulent employee and not a national security individual? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I don’t know when during that time period they 

made that revelation to themselves. But I have already testified 

that I think in hindsight, I would have recommended, to the extent 

that I would have had a role in that, to do something different. 

Chairman ISSA. And of course, hindsight is always good, in hindsight we know that basically the Administrator, cabinet-level position, makes one phone call in a secured environment and finds out 

71 

whether somebody is in fact a clandestine agent that for some reason the entity who has a responsibility to tell them that that is 

their agent, because the agency head is to be informed, in fact 

would be told, no, that isn’t, and we can verify that. 

Reading the law, you now know as the deputy that if you have 

any embedded individuals in that category, you have to be informed. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. As I understand it, although I have to admit, 

and maybe this is my problem, I did not know that. That law had 

changed since I came back to the Federal Government. But as I understand it, and I will look behind me and in front of me here, that 

if that ever was the case, that the Cabinet-level person and their 

general counsel are to be informed. 

Chairman ISSA. Now, I understand that Mr. Sullivan and Mr. 

Williams, you can’t say whether there is or isn’t another Beale embedded. But there are people who are being paid and they are not 

working. You have recently discovered, you said like 71 cases. You 

know that, in fact, bosses are falsifying documents so that people 

get paid who are not working. Is that right? You have enough of 

these examples that you clearly know, if there is this many, there 

is more, right? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Well, you don’t know what you don’t know, Mr. 

Chairman. But we do have a number of cases in which employees 

have not shown up for work but have been paid, yes. 

Chairman ISSA. So when you keep seeing that eventually what 

you see is that at least two things exist. One is, it has happened 

enough times that it probably will happen again, if it is not happening today. And secondly, because the Justice Department has 

declined to prosecute again and again, including the example of a 

20-year, five years completely unable even to log in, no prosecution. 

You know that to be true. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes, sir, unfortunately for us as investigators, we 

collect the facts presented to the U.S. Attorney’s office and they 

make a decision based on our resources. But it is quite common to 

get a declination, that is correct, sir. 

Chairman ISSA. And Mr. Perciasepe, when you have somebody 

who bonuses with taxpayer dollars their own daughter, in a way 

that was designed clearly to circumvent anyone knowing that, because whether she hired the employee herself or simply made sure 

that the money out of her budget got there to make a bonus available, and there is a decline to prosecute, do you believe it is your 

obligation to go back to Justice to ask them to reconsider, and did 

you do that? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I have no authority to go back to Justice and 

ask them to do something. 

Chairman ISSA. You mean you can’t say, as the number two at 

the EPA, to the number two at the Attorney General’s office, are 

you guys sure you don’t have a case? Is this a matter of, you don’t 

have a case or that you are just too busy to deal with these white 

collar crimes? Do you have the authority to ask that question? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I misunderstood your question. I don’t know 

what the exact thing that the IG does when they send it to the U.S. 

Attorneys. I think it is like a warrant. 

Chairman ISSA. I assume it is a criminal referral. 

72 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. My answer was only, I don’t have the authority 

to do a criminal referral. 

Chairman ISSA. They have done a criminal referral, it has come 

back as a decline to prosecute. You have a management problem, 

which is, you have multiple people, and Ms. Heller, I am going to 

hear from you in a moment, including people with anger management problems. Because they are not prosecuting, it comes back to 

you. That means you have a management problem. 

The political appointees over at Department of Justice are supposed to be sympathetic to your management problem if crimes 

were committed and it is affecting your ability to do your job. Because it takes you a long time, if at all, to get rid of somebody who 

is a criminal but technically not being prosecuted. Isn’t that the 

case? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I don’t know what instances we have where 

somebody is a criminal and—I don’t know. 

Chairman ISSA. Bonusing your own daughter? Crime. Signing 

false—you know it signing five years of somebody who isn’t working, you know they are not working, the fact is, they are unable 

to work, they should be put on disability. Claiming for a year that 

somebody, multiple years, that somebody in a nursing home is, in 

fact, telecommuting, I have deep concerns about telecommuting because it definitely opens up the ability for somebody sick, lame, 

lazy or dead to get paid if we have no checks and balances on people who sign off saying this person is doing work. 

So I will leave that for a moment, I will go on to the main event. 

Well, let me rephrase that. 

Ms. Heller, I said I would give you time and I want to make sure 

that I give you time. You are a victim of somebody with anger management problems. That entire case is sitting there waiting for another investigation, another IG to look into it. And that individual 

is still doing their job and you are unable to get back to the job, 

you and the other people from the Inspector General, that you were 

doing when you were assaulted, isn’t that correct? 

Ms. HELLER DRAKE. That is correct, sir. 

Chairman ISSA. Now, you said this in your opening statement, 

you are a woman with a gun. You are somebody who is law enforcement trained. And this was incredibly frightening to you. This 

was something that really put you in a feeling of, this man could 

go off in the worst possible way, and it shocked you, is that correct? 

Ms. HELLER DRAKE. That is correct, sir. 

Chairman ISSA. And you are not easy to shock, are you? 

Mr. HELLER DRAKE. Not at all. 

Chairman ISSA. Now, the thousands of women at EPA who don’t 

enjoy your level of training and preparation, including how to normally diffuse, who don’t carry a firearm, somebody like this in the 

workplace, including his direct reports, they are still being potentially assaulted every day in the workplace, aren’t they? 

Ms. HELLER DRAKE. Yes, sir. 

Chairman ISSA. How do you feel about that? 

Ms. HELLER DRAKE. It is extremely disconcerting. 

Chairman ISSA. I never want to feel like there is nothing I can 

do. So I am going to tell you that this is going to be an ongoing, 

73 

daily part of communication with the EPA. Additionally, my office 

will be sending out, I will ask the ranking member to join me, to 

every Cabinet position an inquiry based on what we heard today, 

asking how many other administrative delays in which somebody 

who has been accused, apparently very validly, of inappropriate behavior, not once but multiple times, is still on the job. 

I know that the ranking member, if he were sitting here still, 

would agree that zero tolerance is what the President has promised 

us. It is what the Administrator, I am sure, would promise us. And 

I am going to do everything I can to keep the Administration focused on cleaning house, at least of people still being managers and 

in the workplace after the kind of thing you experienced. 

Ms. HELLER DRAKE. Thank you. 

Chairman ISSA. I am going to close, I will give all of you a last 

word. 

Deputy Administrator Perciasepe, I have a problem that needs to 

be resolved and closed. Your agency has, in fact, failed to comply 

with subpoenas. You know it, it has been a long time. This is your 

second trip back, failure to comply. 

Additionally, your process for collecting information is unacceptable. And I am just going to go through it briefly. 

Mr. Sullivan, if you are looking for emails, my understanding, 

Mr. Williams, you access EPA computers and you draw the emails 

you need based on key word search, is that correct? 

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir, it is. 

Chairman ISSA. Would you ever ask the gentleman, I use that 

word loosely, that assaulted Ms. Heller, would you ever ask him 

and others to look and see if they have emails responsive to some 

inquiry into them that you are doing? 

Mr. WILLIAMS. No, sir, we would not. 

Chairman ISSA. And Administrator, why is it that when we send 

you a subpoena, your procedure is self-search? You essentially call 

up the people who we’re looking into and you ask EPA employees 

to self-search their emails. And by the way, your self-searching, if 

they believe that they have documents that are potentially responsive, rather than having your general counsel or your IGs or anybody else who is by definition not under investigation, do the 

search and deliver us the documents? Do you understand how that 

procedure is inherently open and fraught with obstruction, that an 

individual who gets to search their own emails gets to keep you 

from being culpable in obstructing, but, in fact, may very well be 

taking the documents out that we most want to have and deserve 

to have. Do you understand that? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I can see that possibility. 

Chairman ISSA. Do you understand that if you do not fully comply with a subpoena of this committee or any committee of the Congress that you can and will be held in contempt? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I can’t imagine a situation where we will not 

comply. 

Chairman ISSA. You have not complied. Do you know when October was? Okay. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I am hoping just last year, right? 

Chairman ISSA. Yes, just last year, although Lois Lerner’s emails 

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pired. I want full cooperation and discovery and delivery of all relevant documents, and I will be asking that you certify in a letter, 

signed letter, that you believe you have fully complied and that you 

do so within one month total. It is my intention to bring to this 

committee a contempt if that is not done. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Okay. 

Chairman ISSA. It is necessary, because running the clock of, we 

will get you something sometime, is going on. In the case of Lois 

Lerner’s emails from Treasury, either myself or a special prosecutor needs to have all those emails. That is another Cabinet position. But understand here today that the Speaker’s willingness to 

work with and allow delay has expired, and that is why we have 

requests for a special prosecutor in the IRS case, and in Benghazi 

on the House Floor today, we will be taking the next step with a 

select committee. 

This branch of government’s time and willingness to cooperate 

with delay and denial has expired. It is clear that the President 

you work for and the Administration you work for has a delay and 

deny capability and plan and has since the beginning. It is now 

very clear from other documents. So it is time for you to realize 

that your time is limited. I do not expect you to run the clock until 

the end of the month, or for a month. Because in a month from 

now, I will have scheduled a contempt. So we expect immediate cooperation. If you have any technical problems, please work with us. 

But notwithstanding a technical limitation, we will expect full compliance. 

And I said I would give you all a final word. I will start with you, 

Administrator. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. First of all, thank you. And I understand what 

you just said. My understanding is that there are dialogues going 

on with the staff, but I will obviously go back and push ahead. 

Let me say in somewhat conclusion to the overall discussion that 

we have had here today, people ask me about concerns with management at EPA. I am the Deputy Administrator. I am always concerned about management at EPA. And my partner in helping me 

deal with management at EPA is the IG. And in fact, since the 

Beale occurrence happened, we have been able to dissect many different weaknesses that have sat in the agency for years and we are 

in the process of correcting them. Some of the things on time and 

attendance that you just talked about, we are putting in systems 

that will not enable that to go on the way it has been. To provide 

tools for the managers so that they get these exception reports and 

then they have to elevate them. 

So while we have had the policies, and I think we talked about 

this last time, I think you have very good personal knowledge on 

how systems can help managers manage better, we are trying to 

run into that as fast as we can. And we are trying to do it in a 

way, in partnership with the IG as we get their reviews of the different administrative procedures. 

So I think upgrading management at EPA is definitely something I am working personally on for the Administrator. We have 

done things already. There is more that we have to do. And I also 

want to make sure I commit to the committee here that the Administrator’s meeting next week is designed to break the logjam so we 

75 

can move forward on some of the issues that you have heard about 

today. 

And as soon as we can get done with the work with the Department of Defense, we will move expeditiously on whatever that discovers in terms of Special Agent Heller. 

Chairman ISSA. I appreciate that. I want to make sure the record 

is clear that some of your employees, in working with the staff, 

have asserted that there may be an executive privilege claim in the 

case of documents with the White House. We have recently seen 

White House documents as to the false and misleading statements 

after Benghazi about the video that wasn’t a factor at all, but was 

being led. 

It is the intent of the Speaker, clearly, that documents that are 

appropriate, even if they go to the White House, are discoverable, 

such as those. In this case, these are documents that you will have 

to assert and provide a privilege law if one exists. Otherwise, we 

expect full discovery. And we cannot accept, ‘‘We may on some have 

executive privilege.’’ Document by document, the President must 

assert executive privilege. He is not reluctant to do it, but we expect him to do it or we expect discovery. 

So I want to make it clear, working with staff is a discussion. 

Producing document by document claiming executive privilege is in 

fact something that the President has to decide with the Administrator. 

Ms. Heller, any closing remarks? 

Ms. HELLER DRAKE. Sir, I don’t have any closing remarks, except 

to say thank you so much for inviting me today and allowing me 

to share my experience. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you for coming here. It is always courageous to come as an individual and as a victim of workplace violence or harassment. And I appreciate it, and thank you for your 

service. 

Mr. Williams? 

Mr. WILLIAMS. Mr. Chairman, I just want to thank you for the 

opportunity to discuss our employee integrity cases, and we appreciate this opportunity. Thank you. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

Mr. Sullivan? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to underscore my 

previous testimony that in general, our relationship with Administrator McCarthy and Deputy Administrator Perciasepe is outstanding. However, in this one area, involving the Office of Homeland Security it is completely dysfunctional. I want to underscore 

that we will, in fact, look forward to the meetings in the future. 

Bottom line is this, though, sir, we cannot negotiate away our authority into the IG Act, and we absolutely will insist that we be notified immediately of any allegation of misconduct. 

Chairman ISSA. I appreciate that, and I will close by saying, the 

ranking member has been working on an ex parte basis to try to 

resolve it, and obviously it didn’t work before this. My intention is, 

of course to be inclusive of the ranking member, but I will be talking to SIGI, which has a coordination obligation. Because it is my 

opinion that very clearly, and you are right, Mr. Sullivan, an IG 

cannot negotiate away or defer on that which is the independent 

76 

responsibility. And an administrator asking for a stand-down has 

at least the whiff, the air of a failure to respect the independence 

of the IG. 

A day or a week is not uncommon. People can certainly go work 

on other things. But this has gone on long enough that it now represents a real question about the integrity of that investigation 

that has been on hiatus. So I will be talking to SIGI later today. 

I will talk to the ranking member. But this is an ongoing interest 

of this committee that every day that goes by we will be asking key 

staff to ask you, has it been resolved. And I expect that at least 

there will be a, this is what we did today or this is what we will 

do tomorrow. 

So I want to thank you. This is not an easy hearing. Some even 

questioned the title. But I think the title reflected at least a portion 

of what is, in fact, an agency that we want to stay active and engaged with on a number of issues in order to do our job of oversight 

and make sure that the systems you want to put into place are put 

into place in a timely fashion. 

I want to thank all the witnesses, and we stand adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:18 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

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