Audit: Taxpayer dollars paid for eco group’s $25G Christmas party, and more
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Millions of tax dollars wasted in climate change study
$25,000 for a Christmas party.
$11,000 for premium coffee services.
Millions more for questionable construction costs.
All this was billed to taxpayers by an obscure federally funded science group, according to a scathing new inspector general report.
The audit, conducted by the National Science Foundation inspector general and the Defense Contract Audit Agency, detailed spending by the Colorado-based National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON). The nonprofit, designed to operate a network of ecological observatories across the continent, is solely funded by the National Science Foundation.
The report found that spending at the group has gotten out of control.
"Given the present lack of controls, there is virtually no accountability over the contingency funds ... NSF does not have sufficient safeguards over the significant and unsupported contingency costs included in NEON's award budget," the report said.
The report, and the spending, was the subject of a House science committee hearing Wednesday morning.
Among the spending was a slew of items billed to the National Science Foundation between mid-September 2012 and mid-April 2013, under a so-called "management fee." They included the lavish Christmas party, the coffee services, $3,000 for alcohol-fueled Board of Directors dinners, $3,000 for T-shirts and more. It also included $112,000 for lobbying, according to the report. According to a whistle-blower document, the Christmas and holiday party costs included more than $12,000 for expenses at a Westin.
"Why did NSF allow this to happen?" Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said Wednesday at the hearing. "The NSF needs to be held accountable for how they spend taxpayers' hard-earned dollars."
Though it wasn't in the IG report, Smith also alleged trips to a "high-end resort in France."
Asked for comment, an NSF spokeswoman said the agency has initiated a review of "management fee policies and controls."
"Consistent with government-wide regulations that govern audit resolution, NSF has policies and procedures for resolving and following up on and recommendations contained in audit reports issued by the Office of the Inspector General," the spokeswoman said, adding the agency will post its final decision online.
NEON Board Chairman James Collins also defended the organization. "NEON, Inc. has always spent all funding in strict compliance with our understanding both of the guidelines provided to the organization and the law," he said in a statement.
The audit stemmed from concerns dating back to 2012 over a NEON construction budget, where more than $150 million in costs were questioned.
This is not the first time the NSF has come under scrutiny for its spending.
In 2011, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., released a report on wasteful spending at the NSF, identifying more than $1.2 billion in losses from waste, fraud, duplication and mismanagement.
This included an $80,000 study on why the same teams always dominate March Madness; $1 million for an analysis of how quickly parents respond to trendy baby names; $2 million to figure out that people who often post pictures on the Internet from the same location at the same time are usually friends; and $581,000 on whether online dating site users are racist.
Fox News' Doug McKelway and FoxNews.com's Judson Berger contributed to this report.
yes and they want us to give them 5000.00 now , wow ask some of the poorest people in the state to help them out .
ReplyDeletefunny never saw this on any news show ,sounds like a brietbart creation ......... norman is it that you do not believe in environmental protection of any kind ?????. it appears that the n.s.f. is going to walk away from the greenbank facility .......currently they are spending with other countries to build a new project in chile at 15,000 feet above sea level .......there will be hundreds of small dishes that will be focused by a computer in the same direction ,offering a bigger field of view ........sadly these dishes are being manufactured in the netherlands with united states money ..........that`s what you republicans like ,off shoring has been the cause for the last 40 years ..........are you really going to spend all your efforts denying climate change ,no matter how much happens ........ this is the same fake science that was used to refute any mention in the 1960`s that cigarets kill !!! long after you are gone your grand children ``s grand`children might have to try and survive in world that we screwed up in our times ........or is that it is just that president obama is at fault
ReplyDeletefresh air if you have not seen it it must not have happened right , sorry but I saw it also .
DeleteNow as for dishes being made overseas and it being republicans fault you should look who's been in the white house for the last 6 years.
Global warning is real its also natural at one time the artic had tropical plants in it and the deep south was also a ice box its called natural climate change and we as humans can do nothing to change that.
Also air what president signed into law the nafta agreement that has cost our nation so much which republican was that .
i am not saying that the republicans off shored the new scopes ,all i said was that republicans get their rocks off on sending jobs and corporate profits overseas ......oh it isn`t that i missed this latest fake outrage about $11,000 for coffee it is just that i do not watch fox news so i didn`t get to see this fake moral out rage which is put out to disqualify any attempt to save the enviroment.......bubba clinton signed nafta trying to reach a kum bi ah moment and then kent star spent 40 millions to get willie,over monica`s dress ........so corporate america (last time i checked they are republicans ) closed and off shored 50,000 u.s. factories in 10 years time ........ the wage cost structure is more like 12 % difference ,the corporate profits didn`t stay here it also was put in off shore banks so as to save on taxes ....... so 8 years of get willie and so far 6 years of nullify everything everything the first black president has done ,so now your g.o.p. is in, wonder what you can come up with ....... i hope it will be better than norman `s cut and paste boogie man stories about hillary....... the problem with being against everything is sooner or later you have to be for something,other than taking women`s and voters rights away .........
DeleteI have followed this story for awhile .
ReplyDeleteWhat is interesting is we all know goverment has enormous waste and those funded by goverment also have enormous waste.
Private enterprise aka for profit has far less.
Locally they have acted as if they were better than all of us some locals who worked there fell into this group but those who came from other areas were the big offenders.
Now that the feds have cut off funding you can see the butt lickers commuting out in droves trying to safe thier jobs
Right now they want the locals to give money just as the shoe wants them to do.
Maybe if the locals had been treated better there would be more support.
The. Road. Runner....
Sounds like fresh air is full of air . Note air if cooperate taxes were lower companies would stay and invest here but when you move your company and stand to increase dividends to your stock holders by as much as 20 % or more for simply moving its a big incentive to do so.
ReplyDeleteHey the demos are still blaming bush and yes he was a fault for some issue maybe after being in office for 6 years its time to actually blame Obama .
Call me crazy .
so now that normans party is in, the way should be open ,wide open to put everything right and get this country moving .just remember they didn`t win because everyone got out and voted .......in fact people are so turned off that they did not come out and vote ( only 30% voted ) ,but never the less they will have to do more than a tax cut for the koch brothers ,and obstruct everything ......... our corporate taxes are high but all these big companies are paying zero ...... general electric,verizon .a.t.&t.exxon/mobile ,sprint ,etc. beat the tax codes every year ............lets face it greenbank is on the block because byrd died ,shelly moore couldn`t give a healthy bowel movement for that facility or anything else in west virginia ......... although she is madly in love with the new 42 inch atlantic coast pipeline,and will do everything in her power to see that it gets built ........if needed right over the top of the people who do not want to see it built ...........
DeleteI wonder why they did not mention all of these expenses when asking
ReplyDeletethe CC for a 5000.00 donation .
My gosh we can not let them run out of premium coffee or money to pay lobbyists or thier party fund.
Again air who is the president who signed the nafa. Agrement with Mexico which made shipping our jobs there and selling good back to us from the companies who left here to move there .
ReplyDeleteIt had to be a republic president didn't it.
And if you will look close there are far more demos at the wheel of major companies than you think gather some facts up first.
Obama has a plan to stop the jobs leaving by raising taxes on companies which is why they leave in the first place.
But we're not talking politics here were talking about a group who have blown over a billion in wasted tax money asking a bunch of poor people for a donation wait that is the demo way so I guess it is about politics . Who is the president in charge while all of this refunding and waste went on probably a republican right o no it is a democrat who intrested the national debt by almost double in 6Years that's more than all the president together
I saw some documents online and from what I gather operating costs for the one here are around 76,000,000.00 a year of course that seemed high to me but if it is true that 5000.00 dollars they want the CC to donate wont do much except pay for a party or the coffee or a upgrade on one of the homes they own for the staff they house.
ReplyDeleteIts about like asking every person to donate one dollar who is of age in the county .
The operate 66 sites one less is not going to matter much and with a estimated 1.2 billion of the budget considered waste by certain people in the house and senate I think some trimming needs to be done.
Yes its to bad it may happen here no doubt it will have a effect on the local economy .
But we as a people have to understand the deficit has doubled in the last 6 years before that it almost doubled in 8 years
Under bush it went from abound 4.5 trillion to about 9 and under Obama it went from about 9 to 18 trillion.
This is a trend that must stop and the only way to do so is to make cut backs in programs where ever possible yet retain services such as our armed forces .
This means every community will loose something , Uncle Sam is not a baby bottle with a endless supply .
The Road Runner....
Air did you see the demo congress woman telling a reporter that the US should apologize
ReplyDeleteto the terrorists for how we have treated them after another demo congress women threw the via under
the bus .
Wonderful group of people they would make great allies for terror groups .