I've a Question

I was chit chatting at a recent wedding reception.  I didn’t really know who I was talking to and it came out that I was the Chief Operating Officer at EPA.  One of my slightly tipsy new friends asked how many people work at EPA.  I said about 17,000.  “17,000!” he exclaimed, “What the hell are 17,000 people doing every day?”

It’s a fair question and one I hope to eventually answer in this blog I am inaugurating today.  But not quite yet.  There are too many other questions that need to be answered.  For instance:

• why does EPA refer more than seven times more civil enforcement cases to the Department of Justice in the last quarter of the year versus the first quarter of the year;
• why are EPA officials in Kansas City learning Japanese;
• what do (1) the death of Clarence Buckingham, (2) EPA’s Government Performance Results and Accountability reports, and (3) the TV show “Married With Children” have in common;
• why does a senior EPA official assiduously avoid discussing how much time it takes EPA to respond to letters from Congress;
• how did freeing Paris save EPA hundreds of thousands of dollars;
• why did EPA help Texas school districts buy hundreds of new school buses;
• why did it take two years to find a half a ton of mercury;
• how can EPA inspectors visit twice as many facilities in the same amount of time;
• why did Equal Employment Opportunity complaints at EPA drop 25% in one year; and
• why is this man so happy?