Russell Releases 4th Installment of “Waste Watch” Book
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 16, 2016
Federally-Funded Solar Beer, Moonshine, and Bags of Air – Its Waste Watch #4
Del City, OK – Today, Congressman Steve Russell (OK-5), a member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, released his fourth edition of Waste Watch. Like the three editions released in 2015, the February 2016 publication singles out examples of government programs that, while possibly well-intentioned, ultimately wasted taxpayer funds.
Some noteworthy cases of federal mismanagement from Waste Watch No. 4 include a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) grant to supply solar energy to brew beer in Michigan, USDA grants worth nearly $5 million to distill moonshine and produce other alcoholic beverages, and of course, nearly a million dollars for an organization that thought selling bags of air and silent CDs in Mongolia would be good diplomacy. The examples highlighted in Waste Watch No. 4 come close to $75 billion in waste, cost overruns, and other misspending.
Speaking about the new publication, Congressman Russell said, “I am very proud of our Waste Watch series. We have been able to contribute to real change on the issues identified in these reports by creating new legislation and changing the dialogue. The 2016 NDAA contained language in line with suggestions from Waste Watch 1 to reduce DOD storage costs by millions of dollars a year, as well as reforms to a billion-dollar VA construction project recommended in Waste Watch 2. Also, I have been happy to see widespread momentum for addressing the nation’s opioid addiction crisis; I flagged the harms caused by this crisis early on in Waste Watch 3. Unfortunately, there seems to be no end to the number of publications we could do to highlight instances of federal misspending. Even so, we must combat waste any way we can, hopefully change the spending habits of our government, and make agencies think twice about how they use the taxpayers’ money.”
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