According to the Washington Times and Open the Books, the EPA spent a whopping 92 million dollars on office furniture. That comes out to $6000 per employee. Pretty nice.
“The Environmental Protection Agency over the past decade has spent a whopping $92.4 million to purchase, rent, install and store office furniture ranging from fancy hickory chairs and a hexagonal wooden table, worth thousands of dollars each, to a simple drawer to store pencils that cost $813.57.”
Apparently it isn’t only rivers under EPA management that turn golden, any office space rented out to the EPA is certain to be outfitted with the finest Herman Miller® chairs and exquisite cubicle dividers.
According to the Washington Times, the EPA has also been plagued in the past with employees viewing porn on the job, and defecating in the hallways. So I’m guessing you do need comfortable chairs for that.
Which begs the question: Why did Volkswagen go to all that trouble designing software that could defeat EPA testing? Seems to me that Germans would have access to plenty of things that EPA regulators are interested in, including office chairs.
I don’t expect anything to be done about it, either. The EPA has pretty solid, long term, job security. Because anytime anyone even suggests voting against their annual budget increase, they’ll start complaining about dirty air and water. Any criticism of the EPA is automatically labeled as a vote in favor of dirty air and water. Next to children and puppies, air and water are things every politician must love unconditionally.
Personally, I don’t begrudge the EPA their comfortable furniture. I want them all as comfy as possible, so they stay in their offices amusing themselves. Heck, I’m even willing to spring for some over sized 4K curved screen monitors. Because the more time they spend there, the less time they spend out on the street harassing citizens and hindering the economy.
I think that’s a cause we can all stand behind.