WASHINGTON — Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain has identified $1.1 billion in "questionable" government spending, including nearly $200 million on canceled homeland security and foreign aid programs. He also targets an Army study on bomb-sniffing elephants.
What's more, McCain announced Thursday his waste-focused work will include a "series" of reports to come later this year focused exclusively on wasteful spending within the Defense Department.
The report, titled "America's Most Wanted," is a continuation of work done previously by recently retired Sen. Tom Coburn. The former Oklahoma Republican senator documented alleged unnecessary and unwise government spending in his yearly "Wastebook" report.
"Government spending is spiraling out of control," McCain writes in the report's opening, which is styled as a letter to all US taxpayers.
"The national debt recently exceeded $18 trillion, while our $486 billion deficit is projected to reach $1 trillion over the next decade," McCain writes. "Washington's repeat fiscal offenses are leading us down a dangerous path — sending hard-earned American tax dollars to mismanaged and wasteful programs."
The idea behind the waste report is "highlighting, naming and shaming outrageous pork projects funded with your taxpayer dollars," McCain explains.
The report focuses on a recent study by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that located $294 billion worth of spending on programs that have lost their authorization to receive those monies.
"These findings raise serious questions about Congress's oversight and its ability to identify where limited tax dollars are being spent," states the McCain report.
The study notes the CBO report found the House Foreign Affairs, Senate Foreign Relations and Senate Homeland Security committees are overseeing a collective $181 billion in spending on programs that are no longer authorized to receive federal funding.
On specific programs, the SASC chairman hit the Army for spending $50,000 to study whether African elephants could find explosives.
"In July 2012, the Army Research Development & Engineering Command awarded a $50,000 year-long grant to researchers at the Adventures with Elephants facility in South Africa to investigate whether African elephants' unique and highly acute sense of smell could be used to sniff-out bombs," states the report.
"While finding new ways to enhance our bomb detection methods is important, it is unlikely that African elephants could feasibly be used on the battlefield given their large size and sensitive status as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act," states the report.
"At a time when the defense budget faces serious cuts under the Budget Control Act of 2011, it is critical that Congress ensures our military branches spend their limited funds on worthwhile programs that effectively and efficiently enhance our military readiness," states the McCain study.
Additionally, McCain hits the National Guard for threatening training delays because of a $101 million shortfall while spending $32 million on recruiting-related professional sports sponsorships.
The report notes that last November the Guard announced it was terminating its NASCAR and Indy Racing League sponsorships. But those are not the lone leagues getting Guard dollars, the report says.
"In 2014, the Guard spent an additional $4.2 million on deals with teams in the National Football League (NFL), Major League Baseball, the men's and women's National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League, Major League Soccer, the Tiger Woods Deutsche Bank Professional Golf Association Championship, and the Alaskan Iron Dog snowmobile race," according to the report.
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Guard officials say "states receive significant return-on-investment from these deals, but has provided no evidence to prove it," the McCain report states. "Using taxpayer funds to pay for the less tangible benefits of co-branding with billion-dollar sports leagues raises serious questions, particularly as the Guard reduces its end-strength."
McCain contends those millions "could be put to better use in training, force modernization, or other, more directly beneficial recruiting activities."
The waste report previews the kind of oversight McCain — long feared by the US defense sector — has promised to perform as SASC chairman on the Pentagon.
"This is just the first in a series of reports I will release this year," McCain writes in the report, "which will also spotlight wasteful spending at the Pentagon that I am committed to fighting as Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee."
Email: jbennett@defensenews.com
Twitter: @bennettjohnt
