It’s that time of year when the Appropriations Committees hold hearings on the President’s budget request for the upcoming year so that they can then start drafting their annual spending bills. But the President hasn’t submitted a budget request yet (we hear it may come by the end of the month). So the appropriators have to have hearings other topics – often “evergreen” topics. Like waste, fraud, and abuse in government spending programs – and the Inspectors General who exist to root out “WFA.”

The Inspector General Act of 1978 was part of the post-Watergate set of laws designed to empower Congress and restrain the executive branch. Each department was required to have an Inspector General appointed by the President who does not answer to anyone in the Department and whose term has no set expiration date. (USDOT had an IG who served a little over 13 years.) The IG was to monitor for waste, fraud, and abuse, and is required by law to keep Congress “fully and currently informed” of instances of waste, fraud, and abuse in their departments. In effect, the IG is Congress’s “inside man/woman” in each department, and the Appropriations Committees have first dibs on their services.

As part of its across-the-board pushback against all forms of Congressional oversight over the executive branch, President Trump on January 24, 2025 fired 17 IG’s across the government, including those at the Transportation Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. To date, the President has not nominated replacements for most of these.

Accordingly, a hearing yesterday at the House Subcommittee on Transportation-HUD Appropriations featured testimony from the acting IGs in both departments.

At the hearing, Deputy Transportation IG Mitch Behm and his HUD colleague received bipartisan support for their mission, and this is not surprising when you read this stat at the top of Behm’s written testimony: “Our independent and objective work leads to recoveries of significant amounts of improper payments, cost savings opportunities, and program improvements. For example, in fiscal year 2025, our efforts achieved an impressive return-on-investment of $25 for every dollar appropriated to us.”

Subcommittee chairman Steve Womack (R-AR) started off by getting both acting IG’s on the record on the most important question: is the current Administration allowing them to do their jobs by giving them access to information and allowing them to be fully transparent with Congress and the public? Both men answered positively.

Grouping the remainder of the questions by topic:

Aviation

Womack noted that Congress gave the Federal Aviation Administration an unprecedented $17.5 billion for capital programs last year (never more than $4.2 billion per year before that), and asked if the FAA was better prepared to deal with air traffic control modernization than it was during the “NextGen” attempt. Behm said that his office had made more than 200 recommendations for improvements during NextGen, and that they would be auditing the “prime integrator” contractor model being used by the FAA now.

Behm also said that the risks are the same as in the past: the agency signs a big contract with a provider for some kind of large system, and that contract keeps getting extended on what has become a sole-source basis, and eventually they get so far along with that company that they can’t step back and look at the big picture. He expressed hope that the prime integrator could keep an eye on the big picture.

Mike Quigley (D-IL) asked about the ongoing audit of airspace around Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and was told that the audit would be completed this fall.

Stephanie Bice (R-OK) asked about the latest ongoing audit of the contract tower program and was told it would be completed, hopefully, sometime this summer.

Dale Strong (R-AL) asked about drones, and Behm said that even though there are more approvals now for beyond-line-of-sight UAS operations, it is still difficult for participants to meet the metrics of that program, and that sometimes the FAA does not use the data it has already collected when issuing rulemakings.

Trucking

Commercial drivers license (CDL) issues were referred to several times. Behm tried to emphasize that the OIG jurisdiction here was over the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and its enforcement of the CDL rules, not the programs of the states themselves, and not Homeland Security’s immigration angle on the issue. He said they make joint arrests with DHS and FMCSA, like this one in January.

In response to Rep. Mark Strong (R-AL), Behm said that the IG has just opened an audit into FMCSA oversight of CDL skills tests.

Behm also said that the issue of truck parking facilities, and federal aid to build more of it, were “on our radar” to evaluate.

Discretionary grants

Despite the best efforts of several Democrats, Behm did not get into the specifics of the Trump Administration’s attempts to cancel or freeze grants for major projects like the Hudson River Tunnel, the Second Avenue Subway extension, or the proposed naming of the tunnel for the President. Behm said that there was no current IG work in that area but he would be happy to sit with the subcommittee staff to determine if work could be done.

Juan Ciscomani (D-AZ) voiced his state DOT’s complaints about inadequate and uninformative NOFOs (Notices of Funding Opportunity) for competitive grant programs. Behm said that it is GAO (the Government Accountability Office) and not the IG who normally takes the lead on this issue of shared jurisdiction. But Behm said that he had personally raised the issue with Secretary Duffy’s chief of staff and found that DOT is preparing to launch new evaluation criteria that will provide more clarity for applicants.

DOT staffing losses

Subcommittee ranking minority member Jim Clyburn (D-SC) asked about the effects that losing more than 4,000 employees has had on the Department. Behm said that for each individual audit his office carries out, workforce issues are always a component. But he said that the OIG plans to take a more “holistic look” at department-wide departures and said that he does know that the Federal Highway Administration and the Federal Transit Administration were much more affected by staffing losses than most other modes.