Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price has taken dozens of private jet flights since May because a commercial flight once caused him to cancel an important meeting, according to a report Friday. However, the flight in question was booked on a day when many flights – commercial and private – were delayed or cancelled due to a storm in the Washington area.
This incident occurred in April, and since May, the secretary has taken at least 24 flights via privately chartered planes, costing taxpayers nearly $300,000 as a result, Politico reported.
HHS defended Price’s use of charter planes due to the unreliability of commercial flights.
“This is Secretary Price, getting outside of D.C., making sure he is connected with the real American people,” Charmaine Yoest, HHS’s spokesperson, told the Washington Post. “Wasting four hours in an airport and having the secretary cancel his event is not a good use of taxpayer money.”
Five Democratic lawmakers sent a letter Wednesday to the HHS inspector general requesting an investigation on Price’s travel. “This use of federal funds for private flights would represent a departure from former HHS Secretaries who made a practice of traveling by commercial flights in non-emergency situations,” they wrote.
A spokesperson for HHS Inspector General Daniel Levinson said on Friday that the inspector general would be looking into the matter.
Additionally, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee ranking member Elijah Cummings, D-Md., wrote a letter to Price requesting information about the jet travel.
“The amount of taxpayer funds you reportedly spent on just one single flight earlier this month is more than some of my constituents make in an entire year,” Cummings wrote to Price.
Cummings is requesting Price hand over a documents related to all non-commercial flights” either taken by Price or other HHS officials and wants the information by Oct. 10.
