Government Spending Accountability Act of 2013

Floor Speech

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Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Last year, the public became aware of the now-infamous GSA Las Vegas conference that cost taxpayers some $820,000.

In the wake of that public outcry, the Office of Management and Budget issued a May 2012 memo outlining new policies and procedures for Federal travel and conferences. In the memo, OMB told agency heads to reduce travel spending for fiscal year 2013 to 70 percent of the fiscal 2010 levels. Senior-level review was instituted for all events, with senior-level approval and public reporting for events costing some $100,000 or more, and a general prohibition on events costing half a million or more, unless the agency signed a waiver.

The Oversight Committee learned that in fiscal year 2012 alone, nearly 900 Federal conferences costing in excess of $100,000 were held. The total cost of these events exceeded $340 million.

H.R. 313 codifies OMB's travel and conference guidelines with some important changes. While exempting military travel, the bill eliminates loopholes in the OMB guidance in order to ensure that agencies actually achieve a 70 percent reduction in nonmilitary-related travel.

The bill also mandates transparency by requiring agencies to post online, on a quarterly basis, detailed, itemized reports of all conference spending. And it requires that materials presented at the conference by a Federal employee be made available online.

Last year, the House approved unanimously substantially similar legislation that was also reported from the Oversight Committee. I would like to thank Mr. Farenthold for his leadership on this bill, and Mr. Pocan for working with us at the committee markup to help make important improvements to this bill.

I urge all Members to support this good government and commonsense legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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