Volume 149, No. 147 covering the 1st Session of the 108th Congress (2003 - 2004) was published by the Congressional Record.
The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“WASTE, FRAUD AND ABUSE IS RAMPANT” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H9712-H9713 on Oct. 20, 2003.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
WASTE, FRAUD AND ABUSE IS RAMPANT
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Neugebauer) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today because of the serious concerns I have about wasteful spending practices by the United States Government. Waste, fraud and abuse is rampant.
Financial management, for instance, at the Department of State is a problem. Although it accounts for billion of dollars annually in appropriations and possesses over $20 billion in assets, it usually cannot determine how much its programs cost or how much money it has. An audit revealed that the State Department owes $3.5 million on past orders that have never been delivered, a revelation which the Department's accounting books failed to reflect. One contract billed the Department for $92,000 in insurance premiums for a policy that never existed.
The financial management service at the Department of Treasury could not produce details on many outstanding checks, and in one case, caused a $3.1 billion overstatement of its cash position. The Inspector General reviewed 24 individual cases of government purchase on credit cards at the same department. The investigation revealed that purchases were unsupported and unjustified, and while none of those were large, had large price tags, they concluded that the system is more than moderately subject to fraud, waste and abuse.
Last November, the GAO investigators created a fictitious graduate-
level school they called Y Hica Institute for the Visual Arts, purportedly located in London, and received student loans on behalf of fictitious students, including one name which was the same as the chair of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Senate Government Affairs Committee.
Employment Training Administration's accounting system for grants is consistently poor. For example, transfers of Workforce Investment Act funds are not even noted on the agency's books.
The Department of Labor Inspector General estimates that the IRS overcharged the Unemployment Trust Fund by $174 million in fiscal years 1999 through 2002.
$238 million in funds were found that the States no longer needed on projects that should have been redirected to other projects. Of this amount, $54 million was idle for 16 years on a freeway project in Connecticut that had never even started.
The Environmental Protection Agency awarded $700,000 on a contract without knowledge of the work the recipient was going to perform. The work plan did not have clear objectives, milestones, deliveries or outcomes.
The Inspector General of the EPA audited a sample of 116 assistant agreements awarded by the Office of Air Radiation and the Office of Water. In 79 percent of these projects, using over $100,000, project officers could not document the costs or document cost reviews of the proposed budgets. In 42 percent of these projects, the EPA did not even determine the environmental outcomes. For example, EPA awarded a recipient $200,000 to regulate costs charged by power companies. The work plan contained no environmental outcomes and stated that specific projects would be identified at a later date.
These are just a few examples of the waste, fraud and abuse, a problem which is decades old. Republicans, led by the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle), the Committee on the Budget chairman, and President Bush and those of us here tonight are working hard to eliminate the culture of waste that exists today, and I believe we have a chance. I urge my colleagues to join this effort because waste, fraud and abuse within the Federal Government not only steals from the taxpayers, but the beneficiaries so desperately in need of quality services.
This is not a debate about which programs should be funded. This is about bringing accountability to the money that is spent. As Members of Congress, we have a responsibility to do make sure that the American families do not get ripped off.
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