Today, House Committee on Oversight and Reform Ranking Member James Comer (R-Ky.) and Subcommittee on the Environment Ranking Member Yvette Herrell (R-N.M.) sent a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra requesting all documents and communications related to the Department’s creation of the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity (OCCHE). The Republican lawmakers remain concerned over the Biden Administration’s ongoing efforts to use American taxpayer money to advance its radical Green New Deal agenda and seek to determine how the Administration intends to use taxpayer funds at the OCCHE.
“We are writing to conduct oversight of the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity (OCCHE) at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS),” wrote the Republican lawmakers. “Created by HHS in August 2021 as part of President Biden’s ‘Climate Crisis’ Executive Order, this office appears to serve no other purpose than to expand the federal bureaucracy and divert federal taxpayer funds away from HHS’s core missions. It is troubling that the Biden Administration continues to use American taxpayer money to advance its radical Green New Deal agenda at a time of historically high inflation and energy prices. We request documents and information to determine how the Biden Administration plans to use taxpayer funds at the OCCHE.”
President Biden’s budget request for FY2023 includes $3 million for OCCHE and the Administration claims that transferring $3 million from taxpayers to OCCHE will decrease the impacts of climate change. According to the Administration, the requested $3 million will fund eight additional full-time positions within OCCHE, positions currently filled by detailees from agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and National Institutes of Health (NIH).
“It appears that the office’s mission is to spend taxpayer dollars on issues that other departments and agencies are tackling,” continued the Republican lawmakers. “Wasteful spending on a radical left-wing agenda is par for the course for this Administration and has led to historic inflation while Americans are experiencing declining real wages. Sadly, this is not the only crisis Americans face. In the midst of an economic crisis, it is unconscionable that the Biden Administration continues to spend millions on a duplicative office while a rising number of teenagers across the United States are dying from fentanyl flowing across this Administration’s open borders. It raises serious questions as to why HHS is now spending millions of taxpayer dollars and expanding the federal bureaucracy when Americans are struggling to pay their energy bills, buy gas and groceries, and pay for transportation to and from work.”
Read the letter here.
Original source can be found here.
