The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is suddenly on the side of budget restraint and savings and wants you to know that they are looking out for your dollar:

The Environmental Protection Agency is shuttering three staff-only entrances at its Washington headquarters starting this weekend as part of a “budget-driven decision to reduce expenses” for building security, according to an e-mail sent to agency staffers in recent days.

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Security for the building costs $7.8 million annually; closing the three staff entrances will save the agency $300,000, according to EPA spokeswoman Alisha Johnson.

Security for the EPA’s headquarters runds close to $8 million annually, but after a six month employee traffic-flow study (which I can only assume cost about $300k to produce) they’ve managed to cut some corners and save the tax payers a couple of bucks.

While I appreciate the effort, I can recommend a few other doors they might want to consider instead.

They could start by ending their proposed Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) rule which will have a substantial cost to the economy, job creation, as well as the ability for power companies to produce you know…power.

The stated purpose of the rule is to reduce pollution but could force the shut down of enough coal-fired power plants to equal about 30-70 gigawatts of electricity nationwide.  For perspective, 1 gigawatt of energy powers about 750,000 homes.

After that, they could mosey on over to the Cross State Air Pollution Rule (CASPR) which, along with MACT, will cost the economy over 1.44 million jobs over the next seven years in addition to raising everyone’s cost of living by boosting their power bills.

The cost to the economy between these two rules alone would be billions of dollars that make the $300k in security savings seem absolutely backwards in terms of agency prioritization.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson loves to tout the agency’s ability to “get their money’s worth” out of their programs and regulations:

“For every $1 we have spent, we have gotten $40 of benefits in return. So you can say what you want about EPA’s business sense. We know how to get a return on our investment.”

Excellent work Lisa!  You’ve proved again what a fantastic business investment the EPA is for the American people.  And given that you guys are so great internally with your money, I suppose we can look past the coal plants that are having to shut down and shutter jobs in order to keep up with your green agenda:

Kentucky power companies Louisville Gas and Electric (LG&E) and Kentucky Utilities (KU) said new, stricter, federal environmental regulations will force them to retire three older, coal-fired power plants.

So while it’s great that they have found some doors that, when closed, will save the taxpayer $300 thousand, I’d sleep a whole lot better if I knew they weren’t simultaneously asking for an additional $21 billion to hire over 230 thousand new employees for the sole purpose of having enough bureaucrats to handle the mess they are making of the energy sector.

Thank you for closing those 3 doors Environmental Protection Agency.  Now do America a favor and close the rest of them.

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