According to a report from the Merit Systems Protection Board, “Pay for performance demands higher level of supervisory skill” than the traditional grade-and-step system used  in government for decades, in part because performance-based systems give more discretiion to supervisors to set pay and bonuses, the report says.

“Supervisors must treat employees fairly in terms of the assignment of work, evaluation of performance, and allocation of rewards — and they must be held accountable for their decisions,” the report says.

The Defense and Homeland Security departments plan to launch performance-based pay systems this year, and intelligence community leaders recently told their employees that they soon will be moving to design a new pay system according to The Washington Post's Stephen Barr who adds: “The Office of Management and Budget has floated a draft bill that would require pay for performance across the government.”

Let us know what you think about pay for performance.  What do you like?  What worries you?

Maybe ‘tis I, but things seem topsy-turvy with charges of possible contracting irregularities, bills passing through Congress that aren’t real bills, grant monies going to favored causes, and supervisors not listening to staff. 

First, in the contractors’ corner, we heard Hurricane Katrina’s answer to the $600 toilet seat.  Some of you oldies-but-goodies, like me, may recall years ago that someone in the Defense Department (was it the Navy?) paid hundreds of dollars for a toilet seat (or was it a hammer?) through a contracting device aimed at helping military operations. 

Now we’re told that contractor work to help clean up Hurricane Katrina had so many different layers and players that the “prime” contractor received $1,023 for ensuring that a 20-foot by 30-foot plastic tarp was secured on a roof, of which only $60 was paid to the third-in-line subcontractor which actually installed it.  The first “sub,” as subcontractors are usually dubbed, received $450 from the prime contractor; the second sub got $210, and the final company doing the work got $60.  Assuming my math is right, that means the gross profits received by the prime and first two subs were $573, $240, and $150, respectively.  I’d imagine that the last contractor made some profit from the $60 payment, too, but it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans compared to all the other folks involved. 

An interesting article discussed a budget bill signed into law by President Bush that included key spending cuts to curb out of control spending.  The problem was that this bill was “certified,” but not actually passed by both houses of the legislature, as our civics classes tell is a prerequisite to becoming law.  A constitutional battle looms, as nothing like this has apparently happened since an 1892 Supreme Court decision (Field v. Clark) regarding Benjamin Harrison’s signing a bill “certified” by House and Senate leaders and not through a vote by both houses of Congress.  According to news accounts, the Supreme Court decision then was silent on whether this bill could legitimately become law.  Rather, the Court decided not to decide and told Congress to work it out.

Grant monies are going to causes favored by the administration, we were told in the press.  Ideological allies of President Bush have seen their cozy coffers grow as more money is filtered to faith-based groups dealing with social issues such as abstinence education and anti-abortion programs.  Imagine that.  Money and politics being inter-connected.  Members in the Executive Branch deny that politics is involved in their balanced and objective administering and evaluation of criteria affecting grant awards.

Finally, an FBI agent testified that he told supervisors dozens of times that Zacarias Moussaoui was a threat and requested a search warrant to examine Moussaoui’s belongings, especially his computer.  The agent’s pleas fell on — and this surely is unusual — deaf ears. 

There you have it:  supervisors not listening to employees, contractors charging seemingly excessive rates, politics affecting government programs, and fancy footwork in the Halls of Congress to achieve desired results. 

Now that I think about it, I supposed things aren’t as topsy-turvy as I first thought.  This week wasn’t all that different from any other, was it?

Fred Apelquist, contributing editor

The U.S. Forest Service is opening its landscapes, roads, marinas and ski resorts to corporate advertising under new rules slated to become permanent this spring, according to comments filed today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).  The rules would also preempt state and local restrictions governing promotion of alcohol, tobacco products and gambling.

“Vistas of our national forests may soon include giant inflatable beer bottles, banners for chewing tobacco and snack food kiosks,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch.  “Under this plan, every tacky commercial promotion will be welcomed, subject only to approval by a Bush administration appointee.”

The focus of the plan is to encourage corporate donations to support “special events, such as races, competitions [and] festivals” on national forest lands. The proposal substantially liberalizes “sponsor recognition” rules so that, for the first time, a corporation could –

• Display banners, signs and other advertisements on forest trails, along roadways and inside concessions.  The only limit on ads would be the discretion of a designated “authorized officer;”

• Override state or local restrictions on advertising alcoholic beverages, tobacco products, gambling or other services and devices; and

• Advertise without any limitation inside lodges and marinas, on ski gondolas and within ski areas operated by concessionaires.

Public comment on the plan concludes this Monday, March 27 but the rules have been in temporary effect since November 25, 2005.   The Forest Service action is similar in scope to a pending plan by the National Park Service that encourages park officials to directly solicit contributions and offer “donor recognition” packages, including plaques and limited naming rights, in return.

 The proposed Forest Service rule seems designed to facilitate image enhancement campaigns by corporations, asking them to submit “a plan that describes the program…objective and target audience; and communication or marketing strategy.”  All rules restricting banners, billboards and other “exterior” signs in the forests would be waived for a “special project” deemed to “promote public participation” in national forests.  

“First the Bush administration wants to sell off national forest land, now they propose to rent out whatever is left,” added Ruch, referring to an administration plan to sell 300,000 acres of national forest land to pay for ongoing programs.  “If corporations are truly contributing to our national forests for altruistic reasons then they do not need the public recognition, but trading donations for corporate ad campaigns splashed across our public lands is just a thinly veiled form of payola.”

###

Read the PEER comments:
http://www.peer.org/docs/fs/06_23_3_fs_comments.pdf

View the Forest Service directive on “Advertising and Sponsorship”:
http://frwebgate6.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate.cgi?WAISdocID=96109284814+2+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve

or

http://www.fs.fed.us/im/directives/fsm/2300/id_2340-2005-4.doc

Look at the parallel National Park Service corporate solicitation plan:
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=611

Find out more about the growing commercialization of public lands:
http://www.peer.org/campaigns/parks/index.php

Pollution prosecutions by the Florida Department of Environmental
Protection hit historic lows in 2005, according to an analysis of
agency data released today by Public Employees for Environmental
Responsibility (PEER).  Last year’s slide continues a decline that
started shortly after Governor Jeb Bush took office.  

The state’s figures for 2005 pollution enforcement reveal that –

“Pollution enforcement by the State of Florida has gotten just plain
pitiful,” stated Florida PEER Director Jerry Phillips, a former DEP
enforcement attorney. “Since DEP funds its inspections out of fine
revenue, the situation will only worsen because the state will have
even less money for enforcement next year.”

Although the state opened more cases than last year, fewer were closed
with any meaningful enforcement action.  The most common form of
enforcement, however, was the least serious: a short-form consent order
that carries a small fine, no clean-up requirements and no follow-up by
the state.  In 2005, all all-time high (60%) of all DEP
enforcement actions were short-form consent orders.

“In Florida we now have a pay-to-pollute system in which environmental
violations are just a normal cost of doing business,” Phillips
added.  “It is a lot cheaper to pay the state’s penny ante fines
than it is to clean up the pollution.”
One area of particular concern is the sharp curtailment of actions to
protect the public and workers from exposure to deadly airborne
asbestos fibers.  Last month, Florida PEER called for an
investigation by the Inspector General of the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency into the utter breakdown of asbestos enforcement by
the state.
The PEER analysis breaks down the performance of each of DEP’s five
regional offices (“districts”) by violation type and includes
comparisons of recent performance to historic averages. In 2005, the
DEP Northwest District, located in Pensacola, has the weakest record
while the Southwest District, in Tampa, had the strongest.

###

Read the Report on 2005 Florida DEP Enforcement Efforts
http://www.peer.org/docs/fl/06_22_3_enforcement_report.pdf

Look at the internal survey of Florida’s pollution cops
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=655

Trace the six-year decline in Florida pollution enforcement
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=488

An attempt by U.S. Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) to eliminate the Fish
Passage Center violates constitutional free speech and due process
rights of the Center’s scientists, according to a federal lawsuit filed
today.  This suit seeks an emergency injunction to stop the
scheduled March 17, 2006 closure of the Center, which monitors fish
runs and river operations to protect and enhance salmon, steelhead,
bull trout and other fish moving through the Columbia and lower Snake
rivers.

The complaint by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)
and the Portland law firm McKanna, Bishop, Joffe & Sullivan LLP
(MBJS) before the U.S. District Court in Portland, Oregon contends that
Craig and Bonneville Power Administrator Stephen Wright unlawfully
retaliated against Center experts because their data was relied upon by
a federal district court judge in ordering greater water releases from
dams this past summer to aid salmon migration. Angered by the Center’s
data showing a reduced salmon migration during the previous year, Craig
added language to a committee report recommending that the Fish Passage
Center should no longer receive funding from the Bonneville Power
Administration and the functions should be transferred to a private
entity.  Spurred by Craig, BPA has blocked the renewal of the
Center’s contract for the current year.

 “What Senator Craig did was tantamount to tampering with a
witness who testified against him,” stated PEER General Counsel Richard
Condit, who filed the action with MBJS partner Dana Sullivan. 
“This lawsuit is about whether scientists can be summarily separated
from employment if their findings happen to undermine the agenda of
federal politicians,” added Sullivan.  

For the past 24 years, the Fish Passage Center has served as the
authoritative scorekeeper in counting whether native fish stocks are
able to traverse a series of dams to reach their spawning grounds. Many
of the stakeholders on the rivers systems have expressed concern that
cancellation of the Center’s contract will disrupt data collection and
threaten the quality and consistency of the information on which river
management decisions are based.  

PEER is representing Center Director Michele DeHart and five other
specialists in asserting their constitutional rights to speak and
publish their findings without fear of reprisal.  The suit also
argues that even though the Center and its staff received top
evaluations and their contract was recommended for renewal, BPA
intervened in violation of due process by not affording the affected
scientists a chance to rebut Sen. Craig’s charge that their
mathematical compilations data constituted “advocacy science.”

In a supporting affidavit filed with the suit, Rod Sando, the former
Executive Director of Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority, which
oversees the Fish Passage Center, stated:

“This is the first time a decision has been made to eliminate funding
of a mitigation project that was performing its duties as assigned
simply because the analysis results were inconvenient for some of the
Region’s policy makers… This ‘flat earth’ approach to science does not
bode well for the management of fish resources in the Columbia. 
Many of these fish stocks are in serious trouble and the general
welfare of all citizens will not be served by a community of fisheries
scientists and managers who cannot carry out their responsibilities
without fear of retaliation.”
 
In addition to this action, this past January PEER joined the Northwest
Environmental Defense Center and the Northwest Sportfishing Industry
Association in asking the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to declare
attempts by the BPA to replace the Fish Passage Center in violation of
the provisions of the Northwest Power Act.  That earlier action is
still pending before the appellate court.

###

View the PEER lawsuit complaint
http://www.peer.org/docs/or/06_16_3_complaint.pdf

See the full affidavit of Rod Sando
http://www.peer.org/docs/or/06_16_3_sandoaff.pdf

 Read the affidavit of Fish Passage Center Director Michele DeHart
http://www.peer.org/docs/or/06_16_3_dehart.pdf

Look at the motion to save the Fish Passage Center pending before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals  
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=634

The ability of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to conduct
timely, cutting- edge research is threatened by diversion of money from
a shrinking budget and by failure to defend its science from political
manipulation, according to congressional testimony delivered
today.  After seven straight years of declining research budgets,
President Bush has again proposed further cuts, aggravated by raids on
the remaining research dollars to finance homeland security and public
relations programs.

In addition to money woes, EPA’s research program is plagued by
suppression of findings for non-scientific reasons and lack of
protection for its scientists, according to testimony presented by
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) Executive
Director Jeff Ruch before the House Science Committee’s Subcommittee on
Environment, Technology, and Standards.  The hearing examined the
proposed EPA Science and Technology budget for fiscal year 2007.  

“There appears to be a deliberate policy of marginalizing EPA science
on issue after issue, so that the agency is becoming increasingly
irrelevant to emerging environmental threats,” Ruch testified, pointing
to internal surveys showing a growing pessimism by agency scientists
about the direction of EPA. “EPA’s public health research agenda has
been neutered.”

Among the examples PEER raised before the Subcommittee are that EPA —

•    Has kept its risk assessment for dioxin, a deadly
yet widespread agent, in draft form for more than 12 years.  The
final assessment has still not been released;

•    Diluted its recommended perchlorate safety
standards so that states have been forced to step in and set their own
standards.  Perchlorate is a defense munitions compound that has
been found in drinking water supplies in more than 20 states and is
considered by many the leading Clean Water Act threat of the 21st
century; and

•    Is giving corporate contributors direct influence
over which research projects are undertaken by entering into a record
number of joint ventures.

EPA currently spends $557 million directly on environmental and health
research and another $173 million on environmental technologies. While
the Bush administration is proposing a slight increase in the overall
combined budget for science and technology —

•    The scientific research budget represents a 16%
decline over the past three years when adjusted for inflation. 
Some areas, such as ecological research, would drop by more than
one-fourth;

•    New security programs for water supplies are being
funded wholly out of research funds, as are questionable new public
relations and information technology programs; and

•    EPA contends it cannot afford its $2.5 million network of libraries, which it seeks to slash by 80%.

“The one group not being asked to testify about agency science is the
EPA scientists themselves,” Ruch added.  “Unfortunately, EPA has
forbidden its own specialists from speaking without political
clearance.”

###

Read the PEER testimony
http://www.peer.org/docs/epa/06_16_3_testimony.pdf

View the testimony from the Chair of the EPA Science Advisory Board
http://www.peer.org/docs/epa/06_16_3_epa_testimony.pdf

Look at the growing corporate role in EPA research
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=596

See the diversion of EPA research money for a multi-year public relations campaign
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=555

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is closing its Midwest
Regional Library serving universities, the public and its own staff in
a six-state area, according to an internal email released today by
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). 
The agency is acting without waiting for Congress to approve the
proposed budget cuts that are the basis for dismantling EPA’s entire
library network.

In a March 13, 2006 memo to employees, EPA Midwestern Regional
Administrator Thomas Skinner wrote that “the library will close in the
near future” so as “to allow time for an orderly relocation of our
library collection.”  The affected library located in the Chicago
regional headquarters serves the six-state region of Illinois, Indiana,
Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin.

The memo cites a 90% loss of funding for the regional library in
President Bush’s proposed 2007 budget as the reason for closing the
library, even though the proposal has yet to be voted on by Congress
and the new federal fiscal year does not begin until October 1,
2006.  The Midwest Regional Library is one of 27 libraries across
the country whose budget the administration has proposed to reduce by
80%.

“By putting its research collections into indefinite storage, EPA might
as well start burning books because these works are not likely to see
the light of day again,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch,
noting that the agency has allocated no money for moving collections to
other libraries or digitizing the holdings so that they would be
available online. “The loss of access to this research will remove
potentially key information from the hands of researchers, inspectors
and decision-makers.”  

The plan to slash library funding is among the $300 million in EPA
budget cuts proposed by the Bush administration.  As originally
proposed, the plan would also have de-funded the electronic catalog
maintained by the EPA Headquarters library.  When it was pointed
out that eliminating the electronic catalog would make it impossible to
find any holding within the network, EPA announced last week that it
would restore the $500,000 reduction to its headquarters for the
catalog.  Unfortunately, EPA indicated that it would compensate
for this action by spreading even deeper cuts cut among the other
libraries.

In his email, Regional Administrator Skinner pledged that limited
electronic access to research will remain available to EPA’s own staff
but it is unclear what happens to the tens of thousands of research
reports that are now only available as hard copies. At the same time,
employees in other EPA regions are reporting parallel scrambles to
cutback library services in anticipation of adoption of the agency’s FY
2007 budget.    

“EPA might want to wait for Congress to act before its shutters its
libraries,” Ruch added, noting that EPA spends more than a half-billion
dollars a year on research and the total library network budget is only
$2.5 million.  “EPA’s national research plan is supposed to build
on what we already know; but effectively deploying our existing
knowledge base will be increasingly difficult if decades of research
are locked away in storage.”

###

Read the email announcing the library closure
http://www.peer.org/docs/epa/06_13_03_EPA_Library_email.pdf

Learn more about the Bush plan to close the EPA library network
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=643

So maybe the President gets through his term without exercising even one veto?