Complaint to the
Council of the Inspectors General on
Integrity & Efficiency
and
Integrity Committee
June, 2010
Re:
Department of Transportation (DOT) and Office of Inspector General (OIG) deficiencies
in oversight of federal transportation funding.
Background
The Entrance to Aspen Environmental Impact
Statement (EIS), completed in 1997, was created by extracting one small section
of Colorado State Highway 82 from a larger and more complete EIS process (East
of Basalt to Aspen EIS), despite electoral support for the “preferred
alternative” developed in the original document. Subsequent to the completion of this heavily
manipulated second EIS process (responsive solely to elected officials of the
City of Aspen), public support for the newly selected alternative evaporated,
and the state removed the project from priority funding status.
In late 2001, contact was made with
the Colorado Division of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to learn
what options existed to restore the highway improvement project to active
status, on the assumption that this outcome would only be possible with the
adoption of a new preferred alternative and revised Record of Decision (ROD).
Over a nine year period from 2001 to
the present, responses from various federal agencies ranging from the FHWA to
the Department of Transportation and its Office of Inspector General, and
including the Government Accountability Office (GAO), have been evasive and
unresponsive with a consistency that can only result from systemic institutional
failure.
Early in the discussion with the FHWA, this author was
directed to the section of the Final EIS (FEIS) which contained the core
information on which the selection process had been based.[1] Significant falsities of data and assumption
appeared to have been purposely created to support a predetermined political
preference, in direct violation of federal guidelines and regulations.[2]
For example, the highway expansion
alternative which had been politically targeted for elimination suffered from
erroneous and exaggerated projections for growth in “Vehicle Miles Traveled”
(VMT), a problem revealed by a very simple math check. Conversely, the predicted outcome of building
a politically blessed mass transit system (as the substitute for adequate
highway capacity) was that there would be a reduction in traffic growth on a
scale never achieved anywhere else.
The FEIS authors then claimed that
the artificially low VMT estimates for the preferred mass transit alternative
would be adopted as the air quality conformity standard under a completely
separate EPA process. Thus the selection
process wasn’t simply prejudiced to achieve a predetermined outcome; it was
distorted to make it appear that only the chosen alternative could be legally
built under federal air quality requirements.
On November 14, 2002, a conference
call was held between the undersigned and several officials of the FHWA and the
Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT), and at that time these officials
were made aware that the air quality conformity assumptions of the FEIS were
false. This was easily demonstrated by
simply comparing those assumptions with the actual emissions budget established
under the PM10 Redesignation Request and Maintenance
Plan for the Aspen Area (Adopted by the Colorado Air Quality Control
Commission, January 11, 2001).
The
conference call participants from FHWA were:
Ron
Speral - Program Engineer
Edrie
Vinson - Environmental Program Manager
Monica
Pavlik - Environmental Engineer
Eva
LaDow - Operations Engineer
William
Haas - Air Quality Specialist and Metropolitan Planner
Jeff
Houk - Air Quality Specialist
from
CDOT:
Joseph
Elsen - Region 3 Acting Program Engineer
Tamara
Smith - Region 3 Planning and Environmental Program Manager
Conference participants were also
advised of the math error in the VMT estimate for the highway expansion
alternative, and the conversation ended with an agreement for a second
conference call after the information was reviewed. Instead, I was notified by phone by Ron
Speral that no further action would be taken - because CDOT had informed the
FHWA that there was no funding available for the project in the near future.
Thus, CDOT proposed that a project which had
been removed from state funding priority due to a lack of public support should
be prevented from being revised to a publicly acceptable alternative until such
time as funding was restored to the rejected alternative.
I requested and received the name of a
contact person (Lamar Smith, NEPA Team Leader) at the Washington DC office of the FHWA who would, according to the
Colorado Division, have the authority to review and possibly reverse their
decision not to act. Fred Skaer,
Director, Office of Project Development and Environmental Review for the FHWA,
responded to my letter to Smith by first consulting with the Colorado Division,
and then repeating their decision back to me.
Letters to officials above Mr. Skaer were routed back to him, so that
all avenues to pursue the matter within the FHWA in Washington ended at his
office.
The final accommodation from Mr. Skaer was that "...the
FHWA has agreed to consider your concerns in the context of a re-evaluation (23
CFR 771.129(b)) at such time as CDOT is prepared to move forward with the State
Highway 82 Entrance to Aspen Project."
Fred Skaer - July 22, 2005.
The expectation by CDOT and the FHWA that there would
be no occasion for a reevaluation was negated by a 110 year old bridge within
the study area which began to experience irreparable structural problems. Replacement of the bridge necessitated the
resumption of the federal funding process, and a written reevaluation of the
Entrance to Aspen FEIS and Record of Decision was begun in 2006.
The Reevaluation
of the State Highway 82/Entrance to Aspen Final Environmental Impact Statement
and Record of Decision, and Technical Reports Volume, April 2007, Project No. CC-0821-080
was prepared by CDOT. Joseph Elsen, the
acting program engineer who had participated in the 2002 conference call
regarding the erroneous information in the FEIS, was the Program Engineer who
administered the reevaluation.
In direct contravention of U.S. Department of
Transportation (USDOT) reevaluation guidelines[3]
that “The entire project should be revisited to assess any changes that have
occurred and their effect on the adequacy of the final EIS,” and, “It [the
reevaluation] should focus on the changes in the project, its surroundings and
impacts, and any new issues identified since the final EIS was approved,”
(Emphasis added) CDOT and Joseph Elsen
refused to acknowledge or repair the faulty information used during the
selection of the preferred alternative.
They instead created a custom set of guidelines for the reevaluation - so
that the false information which had improperly affected the comparative process
would be excluded from review.
An extensive protest was filed October 6, 2006, with David
A. Nicol, FHWA Colorado Division Administrator, detailing a full range of
failings in the transportation funding process to that date, reminding him of
the prior assurance from Fred Skaer that certain of those issues would be
considered in the “context of a re-evaluation”, and requesting his intervention
in the inadequate reevaluation process.
No response was ever received from Mr. Nicol, and there was no further
means to pursue the matter with CDOT or the Colorado Division of the FHWA.
Response of the Department of
Transportation, Office of Inspector General
The initial reply
from Fred Skaer at the FHWA in DC was so similar to the evasion used by the
Colorado Division that I had opened a second line of communication with the
online GAO FraudNET service on May 16, 2003, and reported to them that there
was “evidence of mismanagement and abuse (and perhaps outright fraud) in a
federally mandated EIS process.”
According to an email response dated July 7, 2003, “the situation you describe
is not within the scope of any ongoing GAO work. Therefore, in accordance with the GAO
FraudNET's policy to forward instances of suspected wrongdoing to executive
branch agencies for appropriate action, we referred your concerns to the
Department of Transportation, Office of the Inspector General (DOT/OIG) for
their review and response to us.” “We
have assigned control number 44342 to this matter and request that you cite
this number in any future contact with our office.”
Absolutely no contact
of any sort was ever made with me by the DOT OIG in response to the GAO referral.
With the
assistance of Congressman Scott McInnis and his successor John T. Salazar, I
was able to obtain an interview with DOT OIG Special Agent Joe O’Haver on
November 3, 2005.
During the
intervening four years since contact was first made with the FHWA in 2001 and
the time of the interview, the scope of the Entrance to Aspen mass transit
proposal had expanded dramatically.
While initially intended as a four mile long Light Rail Transit (LRT)
line, the planning area had been extended by forty miles to accommodate a
system intended to serve the entire length of the Roaring Fork Valley between
Aspen and the town of Glenwood Springs.
In anticipation
of the need for federal funding, a Corridor Investment Study (CIS) (Citizen Comment) had been
completed, and this document was the original source of a proposal to build a
Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system as a first phase prior to the eventual
construction of the light rail project.
Like the
Entrance to Aspen EIS process which had preceded it, the CIS professed to be
concerned with current and future highway traffic congestion. However, in contrast to the FEIS, the new
study did not bother to discredit a highway expansion alternative with exaggerated
traffic projections. Instead, the option
to accommodate “automobiles on new lanes” was included on the same scoping list
as “jet packs”, “dog sleds”, and “automobiles on flatbed trucks”. These options were then treated equally by
dismissing them all with no further comment.
By eliminating increased highway capacity as a legitimate alternative,
the study avoided making any meaningful comparative analyses. The CIS was
structured so that it effectively compared three slight variations of the same
bus system to a light rail alternative - which also included elements of that
same bus system.
The CIS
documented existing congestion at 19 locations along the Highway 82 corridor,
and then provided projections of future conditions. After capital expenditures of either $102
million for BRT, or $307 million for LRT, the study predicted better conditions
than would occur with the “No Action” base case at only one location. This apparent exercise in futility for the
“Build” options had no impact on the trajectory of transportation planning in
the area, in part due to the complete absence of any public attention being
directed to these findings by any responsible party, either among private
contractors, media, or government officials.
Projections for
expected ridership for the BRT and/or LRT system were indecipherable in the CIS
itself, and could only be determined after a series of emails were exchanged
with Roger Millar, CIS Project Manager, of the firm Otak, Inc. The projections were designed to substantiate
the need for a huge expansion of mass transit services without providing any
clear points of comparison with existing conditions. Any such comparison reveals the obvious
exaggeration of these projections and the impossibility of achieving them.
I began the
interview with DOT OIG Special Agent O’Haver by pointing out that I was not in
a whistleblower position. Since I had
never worked for the consultants or the local government officials in charge of
transportation planning, there was no instance where I could provide firsthand
accounts of meetings or discussions where data was manipulated to support the
plan. However, as a circumstantial
indicator, there would need to be extraordinary instances of incompetence and
malfeasance if the information provided in the FEIS, and subsequent CIS, came
from innocent error.
Agent O’Haver
had no difficulty recognizing the spurious quality of the core data used to
legitimize the findings of the Entrance to Aspen FEIS and Corridor Investment
Study, and left our meeting with assurances that the information would be
forwarded to the appropriate OIG official in Washington DC.
During the year
in which I waited for a response from the DOT OIG, the CDOT action discussed
above occurred. The Program Engineer
refused to honor the prior commitment of the FHWA to investigate the false data
in the FEIS as part of the reevaluation, and I reported that fact to David
Brooks, a contact I had been provided at the OIG.
The futility of
all communication with the DOT OIG was stunningly illustrated in their “final
response” letter of November 9, 2006, from Charles H. Lee Jr., Assistant
Inspector General for Investigations. In
his “Analysis and Conclusion”, Mr. Lee asserted that “regulatory avenues exist
for you to pursue this issue, including providing comment to CDOT during its
re-evaluation of the 1998 ROD and contacting FHWA at such time as the project
is identified for federal funds,” despite the fact that the OIG had been
informed that this very “avenue” had been blocked four months earlier.
The Lee letter
also states:
"In
determining whether to conduct an investigation, we must examine what specific
evidence exists in support of your claim that the EIS and ROD contain
'falsehoods'. However, your letters to
us provided no evidence of intentional misrepresentation by CDOT or FHWA
officials. Further, on November 3, 2005,
one of our special agents interviewed you.
In this interview, you confirmed you have no evidence that these
officials intentionally falsified the EIS and ROD. Thus, we do not have an investigative
predicate for your assertion of fraud involving this project."
The inference
that the presence of “falsehoods” would necessarily be dependent on “evidence
of intentional misrepresentation” violates basic logic. Regardless, any third party reviewing the Lee
letter would conclude that I had made an accusation of fraud that I could not
support, and that my irresponsible allegations had been summarily
dispatched.
A brief
refresher on the context of my complaint is that I had contacted the GAO FraudNET
online resource, which asks for reports of “fraud, waste, abuse, or
mismanagement of federal funds”; that my original email to FraudNET was titled
“Waste, abuse, and possible fraud in an EIS process”; and that during that
interview with a special agent from the OIG I noted that the best evidence of
fraud was the extraordinary level of incompetence and mismanagement that would
be necessary for there to be any other explanation for the inaccuracies and falsehoods
contained in at least two major transportation planning documents.
And what of the
potential for waste, abuse, and mismanagement of federal funds which would not
be dependent on “evidence that these officials intentionally falsified the EIS
and ROD”? According to Charles H. Lee
Jr., “generally, we are not in the position to review for accuracy the EIS and
ROD of a specific transportation project”.
Aside from an
admission that the DOT OIG is apparently incapable of long division or the
reading skill necessary to compare two moderately technical documents – all
that is required to find inaccuracies of major significance in the FEIS – Lee
appeared to claim that only matters of fraud are within the purview of his
office:
“We accepted
your letter for review because of our office's jurisdiction to investigate
allegations of fraud in federally-funded transportation projects.”
If waste and
abuse and mismanagement are not within the jurisdiction of the OIG, there is a
question as to why the matter would have been referred to that authority by the
GAO, but the one year time frame the OIG took to respond, and additional
material in the Lee letter, does not support the idea of any such limitation.
From a section
of the Lee letter titled “Background”:
“In April 2006,
CDOT initiated a re-evaluation of the 1998 ROD to determine if it was still
valid. You have corresponded with CDOT
about this matter, and CDOT has indicated that this re-evaluation will not
consider options outside of the 1998 ROD unless it determines that the ROD is
no longer valid. CDOT anticipates that
the re-evaluation may be complete as early as this month.”
(1) The second
sentence is a non-sequitur designed to create a false association. No correspondence from me has ever suggested
that CDOT should consider options outside of the 1998 ROD. Neither would it be relevant to the issues
brought to the attention of the OIG if I had.
(2) Sentence three
is an example of the internal incoherence of the Lee letter. Even if the OIG had not already been informed
that public comment had been barred from the reevaluation, there is no way to
reconcile Mr. Lee’s knowledge of the process and its impending completion and
his contradictory assurance that “avenues exist for you to pursue this issue,
including providing comment to CDOT during its re-evaluation”.
“Additionally,
on July 7, 2006, you filed a motion for a ballot initiative with the Pitkin
County District Court to allow the voters to inform their elected officials of
their wishes regarding the highway project.
The court has not yet ruled on this motion.”
(1) Nothing in this
paragraph is relevant to the responsibility of the federal government to insure
the integrity of the procedures and processes necessary to qualify for federal
funding. The EIS process is established
to provide decision makers, including the public, with accurate assessments of the
environmental impacts of different alternatives. There is an additional dimension to the
Entrance to Aspen project regarding the need to obtain voter approval for any
change in use of property originally acquired for open space. There is no reason why this factor should be
of any interest or concern to the OIG, or why mention of it appears in this
letter, except to divert attention away from the responsibilities of the OIG.
“Like the
Friends of Marolt Park, you have expressed a desire for the FHWA to re-evaluate
the Entrance-to-Aspen EIS. You informed
us that your purpose in a re-evaluation is for FHWA to consider options beyond
those identified in the 1998 ROD.
Specifically, you have expressed that your goal is to persuade CDOT to
build HOV lanes into Aspen at least as far as the intersection of Seventh
Street and to eventually open the HOV lanes to general traffic.”
(1) There is no
known relevance for the statement in sentence one, especially in light of the
fact that a reevaluation was already in progress.
(2) Sentence two is
completely false. Neither the OIG nor
anyone else has ever been “informed” that I was asking the FHWA to “consider
options beyond those identified in the 1998 ROD”. My purpose in every contact with federal
officials has been to correct false information which influenced the comparative
evaluation of options which were identified in the 1998 ROD.
(3) The first half
of sentence three is generally correct, but the second half is completely
false. I have no interest in trying to
“eventually open the HOV lanes to general traffic” and have never expressed any
such interest to anyone. As in the
preceding paragraphs (and even if this was an accurate statement of my eventual
goal), any claim regarding my activities or intentions is irrelevant to the core
responsibility of the federal government and the OIG to insure the integrity
and accuracy of the transportation funding process.
If there was no
“investigative predicate” to examine the possibility of fraud, and the OIG is “not
in the position to review for accuracy the EIS and ROD of a specific
transportation project” it would seem that “in determining whether to conduct
an investigation” the conclusion was reached that there would be no
investigation. Certainly in regard to false
information contained in the FEIS and CIS that was the case, but for some indefensible
reason there was a predicate to examine me, my interests, and my intentions.
The arrival of
the Lee letter signaled to me that I had finally exhausted all possibility of
redress within the Department of Transportation, and could return to the GAO
with proof of that outcome. My goal was
to be in a position where they could not simply refer me back to the same
agency.
Charles H. Lee
Jr. was contacted within the week by telephone so that I could request a copy
of the report provided to his office by Special Agent O’Haver in 2005, and obtain
the name of the person at the GAO who had received a copy of his “final
response” letter. I was informed that
Mr. Lee would not speak to me, and that any such request would have to be made
in writing. Based on my perception of an
adversarial atmosphere, I filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for
this information on December 24, 2006.
Twenty seven
months later I was informed by the OIG FOIA officer that the file had been
“inadvertently misplaced and cannot be retrieved”.
I filed a
protest within days, and in April of 2010 the file was finally delivered with 4
of 146 pages “redacted or withheld pursuant to exemptions provided by the
Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(5), (6) and (7)(C)).
Contained in the
file is a five page document titled “Interview of Jeffrey Evans”
(04-IH-112-I000), and dated 11/14/05.
The preparer’s name is redacted, but based on the date it could be
reasonably assumed that this is a report written by Special Agent Joe O’Haver
regarding our meeting of November 3, 2005.
The document has the identical error described above regarding my
interest in eventually removing HOV designation, and may be the source of that
misperception.
The record of
the interview recounts general information I provided regarding past votes and
studies, and that portion is somewhat accurate.
However, it is nearly inconceivable that the key components of this
document were written by the same person with whom I spoke. Joe O’Haver and I spent more than two hours
covering in great detail the specific pages of the FEIS and CIS which contained
false information, assumptions, and conclusions, and discussing how the
problems with that information could be corroborated.
In contrast, the
OIG record of the interview states that, “EVANS contends that information
contained in the EIS was falsified, however, he is unable to state clearly
which information was falsified or for what purpose.” This statement is not credible in the
extreme. The OIG file also contains
copies of letters in which I have supplied this exact information, an example
of which is a six page letter, plus two pages of footnotes and an enclosure of
pages copied from the FEIS, which was sent to Lamar Smith (Link 1) on March 10,
2003. I did not suffer from amnesia
prior to the interview in 2005.
Whoever decided
to claim that I was “unable to state clearly which information was falsified or
for what purpose,” either did not have access to the complete OIG file, or did
not take the time to read it. In any
event, it is a very obvious and clumsy attempt to discredit a private citizen.
After the
interview had been largely concluded, O’Haver and I had a less formal
discussion in which I speculated on reasons why experts in the field would
produce such obviously flawed data. I
expressed my concern that professionals involved in the transportation planning
process, both public employees and private consultants, were essentially left to
themselves without any knowledgeable oversight, and that their personal/career
interests were clearly on the side of convincing the public to embark on ever
more complex and expensive mass transit projects. In April of 2004, I had expressed a similar observation
in a letter to Inspector General Kenneth Mead:
“On numerous occasions during the
Entrance to Aspen process, participants were told that cost is not a factor
which is considered in the evaluation of EIS alternatives. In addition, it became obvious that
transportation planners, vendors, and consultants have a significant advantage
over the general public in their understanding of how the process works, and
ways to determine its outcome. The
combination of these elements provides an obvious opportunity for significant
abuse. The transformation of a $60 million two mile highway project into a 42
mile half billion dollar light rail project, along a corridor populated by only
50 to 60 thousand residents, should be sufficiently dramatic in just dollar
terms to warrant your immediate attention.”
The version of these concerns which appears
in the interview report is that, “EVANS believes that the entire process is
part of a much larger conspiracy he sees as prevalent in every major
construction program nationwide.” Nearly
another half page is devoted to similar characterizations of what “EVANS
believes” regarding this “conspiracy”.
The interview report acknowledges that I had
provided “correspondence and other documents” and a compact disk containing a
copy of the CIS. Despite the
overwhelming proportion of material physically provided and verbally conveyed,
and in stark contrast to the preoccupation with my purported conspiracy
theories, the report does not contain a single mention or example of any of the
factual information pertaining to the FEIS or CIS that I provided to the DOT
OIG. As previously noted, the preparer’s
name is redacted, but the version of the interview conducted by Special Agent
Joe O’Haver which the OIG has on file is a document “digitally signed” by
Joseph M. Zschiesche.
Current status of Roaring
Fork Transportation Authority (RFTA) federal funding
The failure of the OIG
in 2006 to exercise their power to order corrective action by the FHWA has had
significant further consequnce. The BRT
project has proceeded on the expectation of further federal funding, but both
that and positive public perception are owed to the absence of any
authoritative notice that much of the information that supports the project is
wrong.
Funding requests have
shifted to the Federal Transit Authority (FTA).
This agency has agreed to designate the BRT plan as a “Very Small Start”,
and a grant request is currently in process under the standards for that
program.
The decreased
scrutiny afforded a Very Small Start has allowed the Corridor Investment Study
of 2003 to be provided as the Alternatives Analysis for the BRT project. It has escaped the notice of federal
officials that the CIS did not analize any alternatives.
The definition of
“very small” for the purposes of the FTA grant process is governed by the July 2007 Updated Interim Guidance on Small
Starts. The project must have a
total capital cost less than $50 million, and applicants are specifically
barred from breaking projects into phases for the purpose of staying under that
cap.
In 2003, BRT capital
costs were estimated at $102 million by 2008.
More recent estimates have placed the total cost in a range of $180 to
$190 million. RFTA split their BRT proposal
into phases, so that Phase One will require about $50 million in capital costs,
in direct contravention of program criteria.
Another standard of smallness is that “The
additional operating and maintenance costs of the project are less than 5% of
the agency’s operating budget.” The operating
and maintenance costs for BRT Phase One are projected to increase the
agency’s annual operating budget by about 50%.
These violations of the most basic criteria of the
grant program were protested to the FTA during the public comment period (Link 2), and a
specific explanation for the acceptance of the project as a Very Small Start
was separately requested from the FTA official in charge. The non-responsive reply from FTA Region VIII
Regional Administrator Terry J. Rosapep:
“The FTA appreciates your comments, and further
encourages you to continue to voice your concerns locally as the RFTA BRT
project continues through the public participation process. At this time, the FTA reaffirms the
determination to approve and to proceed with the RFTA BRT based on the criteria
established in the July 2007 Updated
Interim Guidance on Small Starts.”
Citing the same regulations which are being violated
as the authority for a decision may be a new standard in bureaucratic
arrogance, but in the context of the history of this project it is not
surprising.
Except as discussed below, this latest example of abuse
and mismanagement on the part of the FTA has not been brought directly to the
attention of the DOT OIG, due to the expectation that no action would be taken.
Current status of efforts to engage adequate
oversight
Although it had been my preference to resume the
conversation with the GAO after obtaining the OIG file containing whatever
material had been produced subsequent to my interview with Joe O’Haver, the
extreme delay led to a decision in August of 2009 to simultaneously contact Katherine
A. Siggerud and FraudNET. Siggerud
referred me to Valerie T. Blyther as the person who handles “inquiries about
GAO's responses to FraudNET allegations.”
The simple claim on the part of the DOT OIG
that a problem referred to it by the GAO could not be evaluated because “generally,
we are not in the position to review for accuracy the EIS and ROD of a specific
transportation project” would seem to indicate a much larger institutional
problem. However, any thought that this
larger problem is exactly the sort of issue the GAO was created to deal with
was squelched by Ms. Blyther, whose email informed me that:
“GAO is
responsible for assisting the Congress in carrying out its oversight responsibilities
pertaining to government programs, activities and functions. Generally, this involves examining the
programs and operations of federal departments and agencies, rather than
reviewing singular allegations of wrongdoing or poor performance in connection
with specific matters,” (Emphasis added) and “We cannot be of any further
assistance to you.”
However,
symptoms of widespread wrongdoing or poor performance in a program or agency are
often first revealed in a specific instance.
If neither the OIG nor the GAO investigates specific projects or “matters”,
the likelihood that deficiencies in a department or program will be uncovered
is greatly diminished. Add layers of
institutional complacency and a natural human tendency to avoid responsibility
and it is difficult to imagine under what circumstances either a specific problem
or an agency-wide flaw is ever confronted and resolved.
Based on my
experience, I prepared a report in 2009 intended for local officials and State
of Colorado legislators to alert them to the need to protect their constituents
from the complete collapse of federal oversight of transportation funding: Failure
of NEPA Process Oversight - Colorado State Highway 82 - East of Basalt to Aspen
EIS - A Case Study. As part of my
August 2009 resumption of contact with FraudNET I included a link to an online
copy of this report. (Link 3) According to
Valerie Blyther:
“On September
15, 2009 we received your recent allegation alleging lack of federal oversight
within the State Transportation Projects at the Department of Transportation in
Colorado. This matter was reviewed and
it was determined that a new file should be opened since your allegations were
different from the allegation you filed May 16, 2003.”
This new matter
was assigned the control number 54486, and “referred to the Office of the
Inspector, Department of Transportation (DOT/OIG)”. In addition to my being taken for another ride
on the OIG merry-go-round, Blyther suggested that “If you don't agree with the
findings of the IG investigation, it is suggested that you contact the
Integrity Committee who investigates IG offices.”
Requested
Action
The involvement
of the Integrity Committee in this matter might well be warranted in regard to
the actions (or inactions) of certain staff at the OIG pursuant to the issues referred
to them under GAO control number 44342.
As a private citizen for whom considerable amounts of time and effort
have thus far been wasted, there would be some small satisfaction in a
recommendation of disciplinary action from the Integrity Committee. However, this would not resolve any of the
actual and immediate problems, and it is not clear whether the Integrity
Committee has the tools necessary to initiate a remedial course on the part of
the FHWA or FTA.
It does appear
that the full Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity & Efficiency
has the requisite charge to affect a new outcome by other agencies pursuant to
the Inspector General Reform Act of 2008, Public Law 110-409, Oct. 14, 2008,
and that their active monitoring of, and involvement in, this new and ongoing
inquiry (GAO 54486) at the DOT OIG would be both appropriate and productive.
Owing to the
intended audience - state and local officials - for the Failure of NEPA Process Oversight report, it contains a considerable quantity of material which would not be
of interest or relevance to the DOT OIG.
Though it contains the most significant information discussed here, the
prospect seems remote that anyone at the OIG will independently discern those
major portions of the report which should be of direct and immediate concern to
federal regulators.
The DOT OIG may
need your assistance to focus their attention.
Specific to the
problems in the Roaring Fork Valley:
(1) The FTA should
be required by the OIG to either produce a credible explanation for the
exemption of the BRT project from the Very Small Starts program criteria - or
remove it from consideration.
(2) The FHWA should
notify CDOT that the reevaluation completed in 2007 does not satisfy minimum
standards of review, and that it or any subsequent process must address any
faulty data which has the potential to prejudice the comparative analysis of
alternatives identified in the FEIS and ROD.
(3) The CIS should
be barred from any use whatsoever in federal funding processes.
As simple and
obvious as these steps are, the fact that a need exists to cause the FHWA and
FTA to take them indicates much deeper problems in both agencies. If the DOT OIG needs the direction of the Council
of the Inspectors General to finally exercise its authority to require such
actions, in this or any other case, we have a crisis in the effective prevention
of waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in federal transportation funding.