Executive
Waste of the Day: Throwback Thursday: Quasi-Federal Agency Spends On Study To Give Itself A Raise
In 1982 the Synthetic Fuels Corporation won the Golden Fleece Award for spending $>44K on a study to give its personnel raises.
In 1982, the Synthetic Fuels Corporation, a quasi-government entity, spent more than $44,000 — over $140,000 in 2023 dollars — to study its salary structure and recommend raising pay as high as $190,000.
For this wasteful spending, Sen. William Proxmire, a Democrat from Wisconsin, gave the corporation a Golden Fleece Award. He gave awards to wasteful and nonsensical spending, eventually handing out 168 Golden Fleece Awards between 1975 and 1988.
The Synthetic Fuels Corporation was a U.S. government-funded corporation established in 1980 by the Energy Security Act and disbanded six years later.
It was created to finance the development of commercial synthetic fuel manufacturing plants, such as coal gasification, to produce alternatives to imported fossil fuels.
The seven-member board of directors received billions in initial funding for joint ventures with primarily oil and gas companies to build plants and help finance coal mines or transportation facilities.
Congress authorized over 12 years funding of $88 billion, plus another $35 million in annual administrative expenses, with up to 300 full-time employees.
The $44,000 study, delivered in December 1981 recommended pay increases up to 173 percent — from a pay of $69,630 to $190,358 for the chairman, and other raises up to 137 percent for other senior positions.
“The president must approve any salaries over $69,630, the pay of a cabinet officer,” Proxmire said at the time. “The corporation’s board of directors has already decided to recommend that two positions be paid more than this.”
The senator recommended that the corporation be abolished, and four years later it was. But not before it spent $10 million to lease 67,321 square feet of office space on Washington D.C.’s K Street/
The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.
This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.
Adam Andrzejewski (say: Angie-eff-ski) was the CEO/founder of OpenTheBooks.com. Before dedicating his life to public service, Adam co-founded HomePages Directories, a $20 million publishing company (1997-2007). His works have been featured on the BBC, Good Morning America, ABC World News Tonight, C-SPAN, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, FOX News, CNN, National Public Radio (NPR), Forbes, Newsweek, and many other national media.
Today, OpenTheBooks.com is the largest private repository of U.S. public-sector spending. Mission: post "every dime, online, in real time." In 2022, OpenTheBooks.com captured nearly all public expenditures in the country, including nearly all disclosed federal government spending; 50 of 50 state checkbooks; and 25 million public employee salary and pension records from 50,000 public bodies across America.
The group's aggressive transparency and forensic auditing of government spending has led to the assembly of grand juries, indictments, and successful prosecutions; congressional briefings, hearings, and subpoenas; Government Accountability Office (GAO) audits; Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports; federal legislation; and much more.
Our Honorary Chairman - In Memoriam is U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, MD.
Andrzejewski's federal oversight work was included in the President's Budget To Congress FY2021. The budget cited his organization by name, bullet-pointed their findings, and footnoted/hyperlinked to their report.
Posted on YouTube, Andrzejewski's presentation, The Depth of the Swamp, at the Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar 2020 in Naples, Florida received 3.8 million views.
Andrzejewski has spoken at the Columbia School of Journalism, Harvard Law School and the law schools at Georgetown and George Washington regarding big data journalism. As a senior policy contributor at Forbes, Adam had nearly 20 million pageviews on 206 published investigations. In 2022, investigative fact-finding on Dr. Fauci's finances led to his cancellation at Forbes.
In 2022, Andrzejewski did 473 live television and radio interviews across broadcast, major cable platforms, and radio shows. Andrzejewski is the author of The Waste of the Day column at Real Clear Policy. The column is syndicated by Sinclair Broadcast Group, owners of nearly 200 ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX affiliates across USA.
Andrzejewski passed away in his sleep at his home in in Hinsdale, Illinois, on August 18, 2024. He is survived by his wife Kerry and three daughters. He also served as a lector at St. Isaac Jogues Catholic Church and finished the Chicago Marathon eight times (PR 3:58.49 in 2022).
Waste of the Day articles published after August 18, 2024 are considered posthumous publications.
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