{"id":1478254,"date":"2022-05-17T13:44:59","date_gmt":"2022-05-17T17:44:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1478254"},"modified":"2022-05-17T13:45:15","modified_gmt":"2022-05-17T17:45:15","slug":"exclusive-gop-raises-alarm-on-biden-admin-wasting-billions-of-taxpayer-dollars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/exclusive-gop-raises-alarm-on-biden-admin-wasting-billions-of-taxpayer-dollars\/","title":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: GOP Raises Alarm On Biden Admin Wasting Billions Of Taxpayer Dollars"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fexclusive-gop-raises-alarm-on-biden-admin-wasting-billions-of-taxpayer-dollars%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1478254&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>A group of House Republicans demanded Tuesday that the Biden administration provide assurance it isn\u2019t wasting billions of dollars worth of taxpayer funds.<\/p>\n<p>The Republicans, led by House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Bruce Westerman, highlighted a series of funding discrepancies in the Biden administration\u2019s FY23 budget in a letter sent to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/document\/574539526\/Rep-Westerman-Letter-to-Secs-Haaland-and-Vilsack-May-17-2022%C2%A0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">obtained<\/a> by The Daily Caller News Foundation on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>In the letter, Westerman and the other Republicans noted that the administration\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.gov\/sites\/doi.gov\/files\/fy2023-bib-entire-book-508.pdf\">budget<\/a> suggested that funds appropriated under Great American Outdoors Act\u2019s (GAOA) Legacy Restoration Fund (LRF) were being given to \u201coverhead costs\u201d instead of specific projects as the bill intended when it was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nps.gov\/subjects\/legal\/great-american-outdoors-act.htm\">passed<\/a> in 2020. The program awards several Interior Department (DOI) and Agriculture Department (USDA) subagencies a total of $1.9 billion per year between 2021-2025 for park restoration projects.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe can\u2019t just allocate taxpayer funding toward projects and then say our work is done. Legislation like GAOA is essential to restoring and upkeeping our national parks, but it\u2019s going to take continued oversight to ensure agencies are using this funding for its intended purpose,\u201d Westerman told TheDCNF in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDespite the intention of GAOA to address real deferred maintenance needs, portions of funds are dedicated to administrative costs and contingency funds,\u201d the Republicans wrote to Haaland and Vilsack. \u201cAlarmingly, more than 30 percent of FY 2023 [National Park Service (NPS)] Legacy Restoration Funds are dedicated to overhead costs, rather than obligated to specific projects.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They added that between 13-17% of the LRF funds allocated to the Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service were also earmarked for overhead costs. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2022\/04\/03\/joe-biden-oil-gas-leasing-program-conservation\/\">(RELATED: Biden\u2019s War On Oil, Gas Drilling Likely To Hurt Environmental Conservation Programs)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_7431173\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\">\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-7431173\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">President Joe Biden greets Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack at an event on May 9. (Drew Angerer\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The GAOA was particularly designed to address the massive $12 billion maintenance backlog within the NPS, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.doi.gov\/gaoa\/about\">allocating<\/a> 70% of total LRF funds to the DOI agency, according to the Republicans. Most national park infrastructure was more than 60 years old and 21,000 miles of park trails were in need of repair when Congress passed the legislation.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, the DOI\u2019s inspector general <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oversight.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/oig-reports\/DOI\/FinalInspectionGAOATaskForcePublic.pdf#page=4\">issued<\/a> a report in March that similarly found the department had failed to develop a strategy to maximize the impact of the LRF portion of the GAOA.<\/p>\n<p>The lawmakers also expressed concern Tuesday that the DOI was using the program to fund urban park projects in major cities rather than maintenance projects in national parks. Three of the four most expensive projects accounted for a fifth of total FY23 LRF funds given to the NPS and were located in Washington, D.C. or San Francisco, they said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe heavy concentration of funding to select urban projects alone raises questions about whether DOI is utilizing taxpayer funds to effectively address the greatest number of deferred maintenance projects across the country, or whether the agency is simply funneling money to multi-million-dollar projects in wealthy urban areas,\u201d the Republicans wrote.<\/p>\n<p>The lawmakers asked the departments to share a series of documents laying out how they have distributed LRF funds by May 31.<\/p>\n<p>The DOI and USDA didn\u2019t immediately respond to requests for comment from TheDCNF.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"View Rep. Westerman Letter to Secs. Haaland and Vilsack_May 17, 2022 on Scribd\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/document\/574539526\/Rep-Westerman-Letter-to-Secs-Haaland-and-Vilsack-May-17-2022#from_embed\">Rep. Westerman Letter to Se\u2026<\/a> by <a title=\"View Daily Caller News Foundation&#039;s profile on Scribd\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/user\/292804634\/Daily-Caller-News-Foundation#from_embed\">Daily Caller News Foundation<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact <a href=\"mailto:licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org\">licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A group of House Republicans demanded Tuesday that the Biden administration provide assurance it isn\u2019t wasting billions of dollars worth of taxpayer funds.The Republicans, led by House Natural Resources Committee<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":1483436,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1478254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1478254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1483436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1478254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1478254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1478254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}