Back in September, EPA employee John C. Beale was charged with defrauding the government of $900,000 in unearned pay and benefits because of lengthy absences he explained by telling his bosses, including now-EPA director Gina McCarthy, that he was doing top-secret CIA work. That occurred over 12 years. Beale’s shenanigans led to a more detailed investigation of the EPA, and what Inspector General Arthur Elkins Jr. found was bureaucrats circling the wagons. “Over the past 12 months,” he wrote, “there have been several EPA officials who have taken action to prevent [the Office of Investigations] from conducting investigations or have attempted to obstruct investigations through intimidation,” including distributing non-disclosure agreements to employees to keep them from talking. Yet another reason bureaucracy, and this one in particular, can’t be trusted to regulate big things.