Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said the office is opening a probe into Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt's spending since he took over the helm of the agency.
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The Government Accountability Office released a report Monday that found EPA violated the general appropriations act and a law called the Anti-Deficiency Act by spending $43,000 on phone booth without notifying Congress first. Federal spending laws say that agencies have to notify Congress if they plan to spend more than $5,000 on redecorating the office for a new agency head. The Anti-Deficiency Act prohibits agencies from spending money outside what has been appropriated by Congress.
"We take the anti-deficiency statute very, very seriously and if they've been broken we'll follow the rules we will enforce the law and we'll do so in a transparent fashion," Mulvaney told a congressional committee on Tuesday, adding "I'm not interested in covering for anybody else."
There were questions about spending on decorations at the Department of Housing and Urban Development after a whistleblower said she was pressured to approve spending above that $5,000 limit before Secretary Ben Carson took office. After that report, the agency confirmed that it ordered a $31,000 dining set for Carson's office suite and the House and Senate Appropriations Committees said they had not been notified about that purchase. The department later said that Carson asked for the order to be canceled.
Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., asked Mulvaney about OMB's involvement in responding to complaints about spending at EPA and at the Department of Housing and Urban Development related to the purchase of a $31,000 dining set for Secretary Ben Carson's office suite. Mulvaney said the office has received the GAO report on Pruitt's "phone booth" released Monday but that they have not acted on the HUD complaint because the money was not spent after Carson canceled the purchase.
"We're going to be completely above board on this one, I'm not any happier about it than you are," Mulvaney told Quigley in the hearing.
- YORUMLAR