Oversight
Enzi Pressing Customs and Border Protection Over Millions Wasted on Hiring Contracts
WASHINGTON D.C. - Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY), Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, is pressing U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Kevin McAleenan for more information about a CBP hiring contract worth millions of dollars that only resulted in two new agency hires. The Homeland Security Department's Office of Inspector General (OIG) recently found that CBP paid a private contractor millions to help hire 7,500 Border Patrol agents and officers, but the contractor only hired tw… Continue Reading
12.12.18
Chairman Enzi: More Action Needed from VA on GI Benefits Problems
WASHINGTON D.C. - Senate Budget Committee Chairman Mike Enzi (R-WY) today said more action is needed from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) on problems that have prevented thousands of veterans from receiving their full GI Bill benefits. Since August 1, hundreds of thousands of veterans have either not received their monthly housing allowance (MHA) for the fall 2018 semester or received an incorrect amount. Chairman Enzi pressed the agency recently on what actions it was taking to addres… Continue Reading
11.29.18
Chairman Enzi Concerned with Excessive Markups on FEMA Hurricane Relief Funds
WASHINGTON D.C. - Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY), Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, sent a letter to Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) Administrator Brock Long expressing his concerns about significantly marked-up prices FEMA contractors charged for repairs to homes damaged by Hurricane Maria. Recent news stories report that more than 60 percent of what a FEMA-supported program spends on repairs to homes damaged by Hurricane Maria is spent on overhead and markups, rather than a… Continue Reading
11.19.18
Enzi Presses Veterans Affairs for Answers on Problems with GI Benefits
WASHINGTON D.C. - After recent reports that the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) information technology (IT) systems have prevented thousands of veterans from receiving their full GI Bill benefits, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Mike Enzi (R-WY) pressed the agency on what actions it was taking to address this significant problem. Since August 1, hundreds of thousands of veterans have either not received their monthly housing allowance for the fall 2018 semester or received an incorrect am… Continue Reading
10.10.18
Enzi Pushes GSA to Better Manage Federal Property
WASHINGTON D.C. - Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY), Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, contacted the Administrator of the General Services Administration (GSA) about how effectively the agency manages the federal government's real property. The agency operates a vast portfolio of federal property including approximately 267,000 buildings, 496,000 structures, and 42 million acres of land, at a cost nearly $26 billion. Federal real property managed by GSA does not include public lands, which are pr… Continue Reading
10.04.18
Senate Budget Committee Republicans Press CBO on New Health Insurance Model
WASHINGTON D.C. - As part of the Senate Budget Committee's ongoing oversight of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Republican members of the Committee sent a letter to the agency encouraging it to release details of its new health insurance simulation model (HISIM) to the public prior to its use next spring. The members also asked CBO to consider re-estimating federal spending and coverage under the Affordable Care Act using the new health care model to determine whether the agency's estima… Continue Reading
07.19.18
Chairmen Enzi and Alexander Request Report on Cost of Student Loan Repayments
WASHINGTON D.C. - Senate Budget Committee Chairman Mike Enzi (R-WY) and Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN) are asking the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to examine the effects of federal student loan policies on borrowing, loan repayment, cancellation, discharge, and forgiveness. The chairmen are seeking information on income-driven-repayment (IDR) plans. IDR plans allow student borrowers to pay a percentage of their discretionary income e… Continue Reading
07.13.18
Senate Budget Members Make Bipartisan Request for GAO Study of DOD Financial IT Systems
WASHINGTON D.C. - Building on previous Senate Budget Committee oversight work on the DOD audit, Chairman Mike Enzi (R-WY), Ranking Member Bernard Sanders (I-VT), Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), and Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) today requested the Government Accountability Office conduct an independent review of the Department of Defense's plans to acquire modern financial information technology systems capable of generating reliable information and supporting credible financial statements. This reque… Continue Reading
06.19.18
Senate Budget Committee Members Press HHS on Billions of Improper Payments in Medicare and Medicaid
WASHINGTON D.C. - Republican members of the Senate Budget Committee sent a letter to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar today on his agency's plan to address the $89 billion of improper payments made within the Medicare and Medicaid programs each year. Budget Chairman Mike Enzi (R-WY) led fellow committee members Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Bob Corker (R-TN), David Perdue (R-GA), John Boozman (R-AR), John Kennedy (R-LA), Cory Gardner (R-CO), Pat Toom… Continue Reading
05.23.18
Chairman Enzi: Increased Fiscal Oversight Needed for Govt. Programs, Agencies and Activities
WASHINGTON D.C. - During a Senate Budget Committee hearing on the Government Accountability Office's annual report focused on additional opportunities to reduce fragmentation, overlap, and duplication in the federal government, Chairman Mike Enzi (R-WY) said diligent oversight of the programs, agencies, and activities currently being funded is key to addressing these issues. "It is no secret that the federal government spends beyond its means. Our national debt has eclipsed $21 trillion, and th… Continue Reading
03.28.18
Chairman Enzi Continues Work to Streamline Early Education Programs
WASHINGTON D.C. - Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY), Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, is continuing his work to streamline federal early learning and child care programs. He recently wrote to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar requesting his help to consolidate fragmented and overlapping early education programs. In 2012 and 2014, the Government Accountability Office issued reports citing 45 separate federal early learning and child care programs and recommending that the secretaries … Continue Reading
03.15.18
Chairman Enzi Presses Federal IG Offices on Housing Duplication and Overlap
WASHINGTON D.C. - Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY), Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, has asked the inspectors general of the Departments of Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture, Veterans Affairs, and Treasury to identify duplication in federal housing assistance programs. Enzi's letter requests an evaluation of the current investments made in housing programs, as well as recommended areas in which the agencies can work together more efficiently to be better stewards of taxpayer funds. In… Continue Reading
03.13.18
Chairman Enzi Pushes DEA for Information After Audit Shows Contract Mismanagement
WASHINGTON D.C. - Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY), Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, is pressing the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for additional information after an internal audit revealed repeated mismanagement that may have wasted taxpayer funds and compromised criminal investigations. Enzi's letter is pushing the DEA to provide answers to how this happened, and how to prevent this mismanagement from occurring again. He said it is essential to make federal agencies more … Continue Reading
02.21.18
Enzi Seeks Timeline for Ongoing Pentagon Audit After Report Shows $1 Billion of Inaccuracies
WASHINGTON D.C. - Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY), Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, is pressing the Department of Defense Secretary James Mattis for specifics on the department's ongoing consolidated audit process. Enzi expressed concern after the Pentagon's Inspector General found numerous problems in the Defense Logistic Agency's financial statements, including almost $1 billion of inaccuracies. In a letter to Secretary Mattis, Enzi wrote, "DOD will spend more than $900 million on audit-rela… Continue Reading
02.15.18
Chairman Enzi Seeks More Info on FEMA Disaster Relief Contracts
WASHINGTON D.C. - Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY), Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, is seeking more information from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) about disaster relief contracts awarded to companies that cannot perform the work required. Chairman Enzi wrote to FEMA Administrator William B. Long requesting additional information about two specific contract awards to Tribute Contracting LLC and Bronze Star LLC, which were the subject of recent news coverage. Tribute was awarde… Continue Reading
11.30.16
GAO: Student Loan Cost Projections Doubled; Flawed Estimates Lack Transparency
WASHINGTON D.C. - The Government Accountability Office (GAO) today released the results of an extensive investigation requested by Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY), Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, on the cost projections of the Income Driven Repayment (IDR) plans administered by the Department of Education. GAO's report shows that the current cost projections for IDR plans are tens of billions higher than original estimates. GAO also found that the Department of Education used flawed data to e… Continue Reading
10.05.16
New GAO Report Shows Feds Spend $1.5 Billion Annually on PR Activities
WASHINGTON D.C. - The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), the non-partisan government watchdog agency, today released a report, requested by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Mike Enzi (R-WY), showing that the federal government spends $1.5 billion annually on public relations activities. The report details how federal agencies spend about $1 billion annually on public relations/advertising contracts and the approximately 5,000 federal public relations employees collectively receive nea… Continue Reading
03.09.16
Consumer Bureau Response to Broken Retirement Tool “Inadequate and Unresponsive”
WASHINGTON D.C. - Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY), Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, and Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, called a response from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) "inadequate and unresponsive" after the agency acknowledged problems with its online Social Security retirement calculator, but failed to fully address the problems or adequately fix them. The Chairmen note the agency's retirement cal… Continue Reading
02.16.16
Enzi Asks GAO to Investigate Spending by Feds on Public Relations Activities
WASHINGTON D.C. - GAO will initiate a study to identify and quantify the total amount of federal resources dedicated to agency public relations activities, in response to a formal request from Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY), Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. Enzi cited the increasing pressures on limited federal resources combined with the need for fiscal oversight on spending by the federal government on public relations activities. Enzi issued this GAO request four months after sending a simi… Continue Reading
01.04.16
New CFPB Retirement Calculator Produces Flawed Results
WASHINGTON D.C. - Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY), Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, and Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, today blasted the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) for carelessly spending government resources on a duplicative and wasteful retirement calculator that produces flawed results for Americans looking for clear and accurate information before making important financial decisions. "While the plann… Continue Reading