A Third of EPA Car Travel Is for Lunch at $45 a Trip

About one-third of the trips made by government cars and drivers assigned to Environmental Protection Agency executives were to lunch at an average cost of $45 a trip, according to a report released today by the agency’s inspector general.

The report recommended more use of taxis at a cost of about $5 a trip, but the agency has decided not to do it, according to one official.

EPA’s 13 executive cars were “largely underutilized” at three trips a day, said the report, which was completed in August.

An audit covering April through August, 1984, showed that 1,122 trips out of about 3,400 were to restaurants at lunchtime.

There was no allegation that any of the trips to lunch were improper, but the report did say, “It appears that some agency personnel may not be fully aware that agency vehicles are only to be used for official government business.”

The auditors noted that a 1979 memorandum from the general counsel, recirculated in 1983, said agency cars could “not ordinarily” be used to go to lunch. But the memorandum said the vehicles could be used, with permission from immediate supervisors, if EPA staffers were meeting counterparts from other agencies, Congress or trade associations for business lunches.

EPA’s headquarters are in a residential neighborhood in the southwestern part of the city, with few restaurants nearby, and those tend to be either fast-food outlets or fairly expensive. The building is a rarity for Washington agency headquarters in that it has no cafeteria. The nearest other government agency is about three-quarters of a mile away.

Though the report said the agency was considering contracting with a taxi company, John Chamberlain, director of administration, said EPA had decided not to.

An October memorandum to Inspector General John C. Martin from Comptroller C. Morgan Kinghorn said cabs “would not provide the level of service required,” particularly because it was important that staffers be able to “conduct business en route and in traffic” on the telephone and be reachable.