EPA SPENDING IS A BIT RITZY

The Environmental Protection Agency, which ranks about as low in popularity as the IRS in the minds of most Americans, hasn't improved its image one bit by spending $1.4 million in questionable EPA-training expenses between 1993 and 1995.

Congressional investigators found the EPA did such things as hold managers' productivity seminars at various resorts in West Virginia and Maryland, trained EPA lawyers at a beach hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to prepare for administrative hearings, and held an auditors' conference at a Breckenridge, Colo., lodge. It also spent money on speed-reading courses and defensive-driving training.

A congressional committee said the EPA was the worst offender among federal agencies when it came to inappropriate spending during the two-year period. All of the training was for employees who earned more than $50,000 a year.

The EPA is an example of a federal agency run rampant. The House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, which turned up the expenses, should insist that such obvious misappropriations cease, and those responsible for them should be brought to task.