The Environmental Protection Agency spent nearly $700,000 for parking spots that no one used during the final two years of the Obama administration.
The office of inspector general released an audit Wednesday finding the agency wasted taxpayer dollars on subsidized parking for employees at its Washington, D.C., headquarters.
"Only EPA headquarters (based in Washington, D.C.) and Region 4 (based in Atlanta, Georgia) subsidized employee parking," the inspector general said. "These offices paid over $840,000 to subsidize employee parking from January 1, 2015, through December 31, 2016."
"In this time period, none of the other EPA regional offices provided their employees with subsidized parking, which is not a required employee benefit," the inspector general added.
Not only did the EPA use resources on unnecessary parking benefits that could have gone towards environmental projects, it also paid $293.45 per month for parking spots that were not being used. More than a quarter of the parking spots the EPA paid for its D.C. headquarters were unoccupied.
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Even the most "environmentally conscious" federal agencies can't manage to spend their resources responsibly or efficiently. That's because they have no incentive to cut costs -- if they spend more this year than they spent last year, they can petition for a larger budget. Congress would be much less likely to grant that larger budget, however, if they had to worry about balancing the federal budget without raising taxes. That's exactly what an Article V Convention of States can force them to do.
