EPA FAILED TO DISCLOSE $7 BILLION IN SPENDING: The Inspector General (IG) at EPA reports that agency failed to disclose via USASpending.gov more than $7 billion in its expenditures for 2022. USASpending.gov is the landmark government website that makes public most federal expenditures, and all agencies, including EPA, are required to disclose their spending accurately and in a timely fashion.

Having had a part when I was at the Heritage Foundation in the campaign beginning in 2001 to create a website where, in the words of Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), “anybody with a computer and an internet connection” could examine where their tax dollars were going, I have to say the only thing that surprises me here is that similar reports haven’t previously been filed about other federal agencies.

It was Coburn and then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) who sponsored the legislation — the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (FFATA) — that required creation of USASpending.gov. Perhaps the next President will retain somebody like Sheila Weinberg and Truth in Accounting to conduct a massive forensic audit of USASpending.gov to determine how many other federal departments have failed to report their spending fully and accurately.