A top lawmaker quizzed Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell on Wednesday about her agency’s steep spending on first-class airline tickets.
The Washington Examiner reported in January that HHS executives spent tens of millions of dollars on first class flights instead of flying coach, according to records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Officials spent $31 million on 7,000 first class and business class flights between 2009 and 2013, including 253 one-way tickets costing more than $15,000.
“Those are very large numbers,” said Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky. “Could you tell us what the travel policies are? That’s a lot of money for flying.”
Burwell said her agency has put in “more stringent reviews and requirements” in the last few years but said she doesn’t know whether those changes have resulted in lowering spending.
“I think it merits looking at — if we are seeing a decline from the more stringent requirements we’ve put in place,” Burwell said.
She was testifying about the President Obama’s 2016 budget proposal before the House Appropriations subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies.
The records obtained by the Examiner show that for the vast majority of the flights — 5,100 — the government executives upgraded because they claimed they had a medical disability that necessitated it.
Then-Secretary Kathleen Sebelius took 14 first- or business-class trips totaling $56,000, including flights to and within India and from Paris to Vietnam. Spending on upgraded trips totaled $14 million spent by the Food and Drug Administration, $11 million by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and $3.5 million by the National Institutes of Health.
