(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) The Biden-led Environmental Protection Agency failed to accurately disclose its taxpayer-funded grants in fiscal year 2022, raising concern about transparency on its spending, a scathing report found.
First reported by the Daily Caller on Thursday, the EPA’s Office of the Inspector General exposed the Biden agency’s failure to report its fiscal year spending to USAspending.gov, the federal government’s spending database.
Good God
Biden’s EPA Failed To Properly Report Almost Every Dollar It Gave Out In 2022, Audit Finds https://t.co/GeN8JgesY2 via @dailycaller
— Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) January 11, 2024
Directly targeting the EPA’s Office of the Chief Financial Officer, the report decried: “The lack of complete and accurate reporting also led to taxpayers being initially misinformed about the EPA’s spending, and policy-makers who relied on the data may not have been able to effectively track federal spending.”
The report revealed that the EPA did not follow proper management procedures to facilitate the disclosure of its spending to USAspending.gov. Making matters worse, the report revealed that the EPA did not have procedures to detect errors and confirm the completeness of its reporting to public database.
A report summary added, “Because of our audit, the EPA corrected its fiscal year 2022 reporting in USAspending.gov in May 2023 and made the necessary configuration changes in June 2023 to improve the accuracy and completeness of its future reporting.”
Responding to the disturbing revelations, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., emphasized the pressing need for increased transparency within the EPA.
“It’s outrageous and unacceptable that the EPA cannot keep track of its spending or inform Congress—and the American people—of how it is using taxpayer dollars,” Rodgers said in a Thursday press statement.
She added, “[The report] also raises questions about whether the agency is incapable of managing its record-high budget or if the agency is attempting to hide the amount of taxpayer dollars it is spending to advance the administration’s radical rush-to-green agenda.”
It’s outrageous and unacceptable that the @EPA cannot keep track of its spending or inform Congress—and the American people—of how it is using taxpayer dollars.@HouseCommerce will continue to demand transparency from the EPA. https://t.co/PnhqCk1zpy
— CathyMcMorrisRodgers (@cathymcmorris) January 11, 2024
A description of the scathing report highlighted USAspending.gov as the primary source of EPA information, focusing primarily on federal awards.
“USAspending.gov is the federal government’s official public source of spending information. The Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 requires federal agencies to report complete and accurate spending data to USAspending.gov to facilitate transparency into how they spend taxpayer dollars,” the report disclosed.
“Spending encompasses both obligations, which are promises made by the government to spend money, and outlays, which are money actually paid. Both summary-level spending data and more detailed award-level data must be reported,” it continued.
