A.G. Gancarski
In the end, everybody in the U.S. House of Representatives agreed that Rep. John Rutherford‘s first bill needed to become law.
As the 408-0 vote in the House Tuesday reflected.
H.R. 1294, the Reducing Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Acquisition Cost Growth Act, seeks to stop wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars by agencies like the Transportation Security Administration, Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
On Tuesday, Rutherford’s first bill took a major step toward becoming law.
Congressman Rutherford said the bill’s passage is “great news for preventing wasteful spending at the Department of Homeland Security. Department of Homeland Security’s acquisition programs represent hundreds of billions of dollars in spending, but they repeatedly face cost overruns and schedule delays.”
The bill, said Rutherford, will help “provide necessary tools for FEMA, the U.S. Coast Guard, and Customs and Border Protection to do their jobs – keeping Americans safe. It will also ensure Congress can provide greater oversight of major acquisition programs and can implement solutions to quickly address any setbacks.”
According to the Governmental Accounting Office, DHS has been on a “high-risk” list since 2005, because waste and mismanagement are recurrent plagues for its $7 billion portfolio of programs.
