THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 30, 1995 TAG: 9512280013
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 35 lines
I cannot understand how Vice President Gore can justify Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary's extensive and expensive spending on her overseas trips and her ``hiring a private firm to rate how news reporters covered her agency.''
Instead of traveling as a public servant, she travels in the style of a multibillion-dollar corporate executive.
For example, her missions to India, Pakistan, China and South Africa cost a total of $2,625,000.
For trips to South Africa, China and Pakistan, her department chartered a jet that included stateroom and a stand-up bar.
Ms. O'Leary creates a new position within her agency and appoints an ``old friend'' with a salary (and expenses) of more than $100,000.
Again Vice President Gore justifies these extravagant expenditures because she ``created thousands of American jobs and billions of dollars in contracts for American companies.''
As energy secretary, isn't this what she is supposed to do? Or are we now paying bonuses for job performance?
Is this how government is being reinvented?
The reins should be tightened on Ms. O'Leary to curb this extravagance, and it looks as if Vice President Gore is not the individual to do it.
LOUIS R. SOSCIA
Virginia Beach, Dec. 19, 1995 by CNB