The 9 Most Wasteful Things Gulf Bureaucrats Bought with BP Cleanup Funds

Public Relations "Duties"

Just a few weeks after the BP spill ended, a Florida county commissioner's girlfriend opened up a public relations firm and almost immediately got a fat government contract: $14,000 from

2011 Chevy Tahoe 1500 LT

Biloxi, Mississippi, Mayor A.J. Holloway bought this $35,000 SUV with BP funds, scrapping his other city-owned car, a relatively new 2006 GMC Yukon. A city spokesperson said Holloway has taken the Tahoe

Fourteen Cars and Trucks, Two Boats, Two Dump Trucks, and a Backhoe Loader

Mayor Holloway isn't the only one who upgraded his ride courtsey of BP. Several other Biloxi officials dipped into the city's $1.4 million cut

iPad

Charlotte Randolph, president of Louisiana's Lafourche Parish, used BP money to buy a new Apple iPad, which she says she needed to communicate with her staff. "My work is very important," she told the AP.

Dell Laptop

Randolph's coworker Brennan Matherne, a spokesman for Lafourche Parish, sent BP the bill for his new Dell laptop and accessories, which cost more than $3,165. Matherne told the AP that all of his work on the spi

Tourism Ads

Florida's Miami-Dade and Broward counties, which are on the east side of the state, saw no oil from the BP spill. But that didn't stop the state tourism agency from sending them both big chunks of BP money.<

Unused Vacuum Truck

The Gulfport, Mississippi, sewer department bought itself a new vacuum truck using $300,000 of BP's money. According to the AP, it vacuumed not a single drop of oil.