On Wednesday, March 29, the Energy and Commerce Committee subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held a hearing, titled “Follow the Money: Oversight of President Biden’s Massive Spending Spree,” with Inspector General officials and a representative from the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The hearing focused on oversight of funds implemented through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) and Science Act of 2002, and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Hearing witnesses were Peggy Gustafson, Inspector General, Department of Commerce; Sean O’Donnell, Inspector General, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); Teri Donaldson, Inspector General, Department of Energy (DOE); and Mark Gaffigan, Managing Director, Natural Resources and Environment, GAO.

According to testimony from the GAO, the three acts combined provided over $1.7 trillion in tax incentives and spending, $300 billion of which went to Commerce, DOE, and EPA. The IIJA had a $1.2 trillion top line, with approximately $580 billion in new spending. The CHIPS and Science Act contained $280 billion in spending, $50 billion of which was from the CHIPS provisions ($39 billion in direct funding and $11 billion for research and development). And the FY2022 budget reconciliation bill, commonly known as the IRA, included more than $450 billion in spending.

Hearing witnesses and committee members alike expressed concerns over administrating these massive new funds. In reference to the IRA, EPA IG O’Donnell said that “the pace of IRA spending, conducted by new programs and received by new recipients, significantly increases fraud and vulnerabilities” and that “these issues make clear that there is a significant need for strong, independent oversight.” O’Donnell said these concerns are further exacerbated by the lack of oversight funding provided in these bills and, more general, a history of underfunding the Office of Inspector General (OIG). In short, the EPA OIG “simply lack[s] the capacity to conduct proper oversight of this $41.5 billion of EPA spending.”

Energy IG Donaldson seconded these concerns. Both the sudden increase in spending appropriated through recent legislation -for example, the IIJA and IRA combined created 71 new DOI programs- and lack of oversight funding for the DOE and DOE OIG creates risks for fraud, waste, and abuse. And Donaldson believes that this funding shortfall is not adequately addressed in the President’s FY2024 budget request; the budget requests $165.2 million for the DOE OIG, which is $16.8 million under her desired base budget for normal years and $300 million under the budget she wants this year to account for the massive spending influx.

Although the GAO received $25 million under IIJA and $5 million under IRA, Gaffigan also requested additional funds for GAO to hire new auditors with the goal of reaching 3,500 full time employees this year.

In contrast, Commerce IG Gustafson was more optimistic in her opening statement, stating that said their office was “confident in their ability to succeed in these critical oversight missions.” While Gustafson did not explicitly state that current funding for the Commerce OIG was sufficient, she highlighted the $25 million provided to the Commerce OIG in CHIPS for oversight.

TCS has always said that oversight of federal spending is paramount. Regardless of where you are on the political spectrum, no one wants to see their tax dollars wasted and every American should support robust oversight of federal programs. As Donaldson testified, “oversight dollars usually make money, don’t lose money.” From our decades of experience as a budgetary watchdog, we agree. And the larger the pot of cash, the more we need transparency and accountability about how your tax dollars are being spent.

An important part of transparency is providing clear and publicly accessible data on federal spending decisions. Gaffigan highlighted this in his testimony, citing needed improvements to USASpending.gov, a federal spending tracking tool available to the public. TCS was integral in the creation of USASpending.gov and has worked to improve it over the years. For example, in 2021 Congress passed the Budget Justification Sheet Transparency Act which made budget justification sheets from all agencies available at usaspending.gov. As we said at its passage: “Information is power. Putting all federal agency budget justification materials in one spot, and making it searchable, is a big step forward in granting all citizens access to information on how the government is spending our money.”

This is not the first hearing on oversight and implementation of these major pieces of legislation, and we suspect it will not be the last. TCS looks forward to continuing efforts to improve oversight on this and future spending.