[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15212-15215]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        TRAVELING BY PRIVATE JET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2017, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gallego) is recognized 
for the remainder of the hour as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. GALLEGO. Mr. Speaker, is Donald Trump running a Cabinet or a 
country club?
  Because every day it is getting harder to tell. Not only is the 
President spending vast sums to ferry himself to and from his various 
golf courses, but now it turns out that top leaders in his 
administration have developed a special fondness for traveling by 
private jet.
  The Treasury Secretary used a taxpayer-funded plane to hop down to 
Fort Knox to see the eclipse, for example, and he has also asked to use 
one for his honeymoon in Europe.
  Trump's EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt, spent another $58,000 on 
private jets. But the worst offender is HHS Secretary Price, who, in 
his brief time in office, has already chalked up an astonishing 400 
grand in flights on private aircraft. He flew down to Tennessee for all 
of 6 hours, much of which was spent having lunch with his son. That is 
nice. He also jetted off to an island off the coast of Georgia for a 
trip that apparently featured far more recreation than government 
business. Clearly, when it comes to travel on the taxpayers' dime, the 
price does not matter to Tom Price. Ethics and personal responsibility 
doesn't matter to Tom Price. Doing what is right doesn't matter to Tom 
Price, and that is why he needs to resign immediately.

                              {time}  1245

  Now, don't take my word for it. Here is what President George W. 
Bush's top ethics official, Richard Painter, said about Price's travel 
habits: ``To use a charter flight on something that combines personal 
and government business, I think, is highly unprofessional and really 
inappropriate.'' Those are strong words.
  But, Mr. Speaker, you know who summed up best how terrible it is for 
someone to use private jets? Tom Price, himself. Let's see what Tom 
Price said. In 2009, he described government officials taking private 
planes as ``just another example of fiscal irresponsibility run amok.'' 
I couldn't agree more, Mr. Speaker.
  Price spent nearly $25,000 to fly from D.C. to Philadelphia and back 
for one single day. He could have spent, at last minute, $725 to get 
there on United Airlines, or $133 to get there on Amtrak.
  Mr. Speaker, I just checked, on my phone, that an Uber to Philly 
right now, back and forth, would have cost Mr. Price about $450 round 
trip. That means that, for the price of his private jet, he could have 
ordered individual cars for himself and his 54 staff members. Every 
American who works and pays taxes should find this totally appalling.
  Amtrak was good enough for the Vice President of the United States, 
Joe

[[Page 15213]]

Biden, but, somehow, it is beneath the Treasury Secretary and HHS 
Secretary to ride the train. Riding the train is apparently even 
beneath the EPA Administrator.
  Here is a good rule of thumb, Mr. Speaker: If you are spending more 
on private jets than most American families make in 1 year, you are 
spending too much on private jets.
  Tom Price has plenty of time to go jetting around the country, but 
not enough time, for example, to ensure that millions of kids won't 
lose their coverage when CHIP expires soon.
  There is apparently plenty of money at HHS for private jets, but very 
little to help people sign up for health insurance. That is completely 
unacceptable.
  Secretary Price says he needs to fly around on his jet to connect 
with ordinary citizens. I am not kidding. His press secretary told 
reporters that these outrageous junkets were about ``getting outside of 
D.C., making sure he is connected with the real American people.''
  Mr. Speaker, here is how you really connect with your fellow 
Americans: don't take a private plane; fly a middle seat in coach.
  Of course, we should have seen this coming. News reports earlier this 
year revealed that, when he was a Member of Congress, Price was guilty 
of introducing legislation to benefit his own personal investments. 
Even more egregious, he traded more than $300,000 in healthcare 
industry stocks based on insider information.
  There is no question Secretary Price needs to resign right now, and, 
if he doesn't, President Trump needs to fire him.
  Donald Trump claims that he loves firing people. He once said: I love 
doing it if someone really, really, really deserves it.
  Mr. Speaker, Secretary Price really, really, really deserves it.
  Then again, we all know Trump won't actually do anything. We are all 
familiar with the Trump way of doing business with its bad deals and 
bankruptcies.
  Here's the Trump way of doing government.
  Number one, hire people proven to be corrupt.
  Number two, create an environment in which corruption and bad 
behavior are encouraged.
  Number three, do absolutely nothing when the corruption and bad 
behavior is exposed.
  This administration talks about putting America first. This 
administration talks about draining the swamp, but its Cabinet 
officials are more interested in traveling first class.
  This administration talks about making America great again, but they 
are really only concerned about never ever having to wait at another 
airport gate again.
  This administration talks about fighting for working families, but 
its top leaders are only concerned about lining their own pockets with 
taxpayers' hard-earned money.
  I am fed up, and so are the American people. Let's bring back 
government to the people, for the people, instead of government for the 
powerful friends of Donald Trump.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend from California (Mr. Ted Lieu).
  Mr. TED LIEU of California. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Congressman 
Gallego for that terrific presentation. We are also joined today by 
Congressman Raskin, who will be part of our dialogue as well.
  Today is Thursday. That means we all need to ask: Why does Jared 
Kushner still have a security clearance? He already submitted two false 
ones. But I digress. We are actually going to talk about three other 
problems in the White House, one of which is Secretary Price.
  To my left is a picture of the private jet that Secretary Price flew 
on at taxpayers' expense. But in addition to Secretary Price, we also 
have Secretary Mnuchin, who flew on a government jet with his wife to 
Kentucky in order to watch the eclipse. Now, I get that was a pretty 
cool thing to do, but you shouldn't be using taxpayer funds to do that.
  And then we have got EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, which, according 
to media reports, spent $58,000 on noncommercial flights to go to 
different places. With $58,000, you can do a lot with that. VoteVets 
put out a release today saying that with $58,000 you could hire a VA 
spinal cord specialist at the Syracuse VA, a nurse for 1 year. Then 
Secretary Price spent over $400,000 of your money, and that is a lot of 
spinal cord specialists.
  So we are talking about raiding the public funds and raiding the 
public trust. That is why I have introduced the SWAMP FLYERS Act, and 
what this act will do is stop this from happening in the future. It 
will prohibit senior Cabinet officials from using noncommercial 
flights, unless they certify, under penalty of perjury, that no 
commercial flights were available.
  So in this case, you had Secretary Price, for example, flying from 
here to Nashville. I guarantee you there were lots of commercial 
flights. There was no reason he had to take a noncommercial flight.
  In addition to what we are seeing with these three Cabinet officials, 
we do have sort of this culture of corruption that really needs to stop 
because this flows from the top. With the President, what we have now 
is the President staying at all these properties, private properties 
that are his or owned by his family, and then he comes with this 
massive entourage of Secret Service and other folks, and they are 
paying money to these properties to stay there, to eat there, and all 
of that money flows back to the Trump organization. So the President is 
enriching himself and his family at taxpayers' expense. It is no wonder 
that we have got these three Cabinet officials doing these insane 
things with taxpayers' funds.
  Now we have got a Republican Congress unwilling to do oversight on 
this. You have got Speaker Ryan recently going on TV saying that he 
thinks that the present administration is doing great. Well, you can't 
have this kind of taxpayer waste when you have got the public trust at 
issue.
  We also have responses from these departments that are deeply 
troubling. So the Treasury Department, in response to what Secretary 
Mnuchin was doing, in addition to his noncommercial travel to Kentucky 
to watch the eclipse, he also asked if the Air Force could fly him and 
his wife on their honeymoon. The answer is no, you can't do that.
  Now the response from the Department was, well, he needed to have 
secure communications. Well, that was the wrong response. I can 
guarantee you there are other ways of getting secure communications 
other than to have the Air Force fly you around on your honeymoon.
  With Secretary Price, again, the Department gave the wrong response. 
They said, well, Secretary Price needs to go around meeting Americans, 
and he shouldn't be waiting 4 hours at the airport. Wrong response. 
Yes, he should be waiting 4 hours at the airport because that is what 
other Americans do. And I can guarantee you no American flies for 
$25,000 to meet other Americans. Again, the wrong response from that 
Department.
  What we need is to have these three Cabinet officials apologize. I 
joined with Ruben Gallego, as well as Jamie Raskin and other Members 
yesterday in a letter to ask for Price to resign, and all of us are 
also coauthors of the SWAMP FLYERS Act.
  What we need now is really for the public to get engaged because what 
we are seeing is fraud, waste, and abuse with multiple members of the 
Trump Cabinet.
  Mr. GALLEGO. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the good gentleman from Maryland 
(Mr. Raskin).
  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his leadership on 
this essential question of public integrity. I also want to salute my 
colleague from California (Mr. Ted Lieu), who has been a leading voice 
in demanding real financial accountability in the administration.
  I want to underscore some of the things that my colleagues have said, 
Mr. Speaker. If there are any Americans out there who love to fly 
wherever they want, whenever they want, at taxpayer expense, then we 
have got the

[[Page 15214]]

perfect job for you in President Trump's Cabinet. Now, of course, only 
billionaires and millionaires need apply for these jobs, but if you 
have a taste for fancy chartered air travel, paid for by hardworking 
Americans across the country, this is undoubtedly the job for you.
  My friends, while millions of desperate Americans are suffering in 
the sweltering posthurricane conditions of Puerto Rico, the Virgin 
Islands, Florida, Texas, and Louisiana, we have got Cabinet Secretaries 
who should be doing everything in their power to save our people but 
are, instead, looking out for something far more important, apparently, 
than other Americans' mere survival. They are focused on their own 
first class, private charter, airplane flights to cushy destinations, 
paid for by hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money. We kid 
you not.
  This comes out this week. It comes out that Health and Human Services 
Secretary Tom Price is less interested in health and human services 
than he is in wealth and valet services. Despite the fact that he 
blasted the use of government-paid jet travel on CNBC just a few short 
years ago, he seems to have come down with a severe and chronic case of 
swamp fever, billing you and me and millions of other Americans for 26 
customized, deluxe, premier, first class, private charter, plane 
flights at taxpayer expense, at an extraordinary estimated cost of more 
than $400,000. That is just one Cabinet Secretary.
  Now, I can't blame him for one of the trips that he took in August to 
the beautiful and secluded St. Simons Island in southern Georgia, and 
another trip that enabled him to get to his condo in Nashville and to 
have lunch with his son. You can hardly blame him for wanting to get 
out of town and to see the family. After all, it was hot here in 
Washington, D.C., as climate change sets in across America and the 
world. But as we say on Capitol Hill: ``It's not the heat, it's the 
stupidity.''
  And look at what our Secretary of Health and Human Services did, and 
here I will read from Politico, September 26, an article entitled 
``Price's private-jet travels included visits with colleagues, lunch 
with son.''
  ``The HHS Secretary sometimes combined official travel and meetings 
with friends and family. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price 
took a government-funded private jet in August to get to St. Simons 
Island, an exclusive Georgia resort where he and his wife own land, a 
day and a half before he addressed a group of local doctors at a 
medical conference that he and his wife have long attended.
  ``The St. Simons Island trip was one of two taxpayer-funded flights 
on private jets in which Price traveled to places where he owns 
property, and paired official visits with meetings with longtime 
colleagues and family members. On June 6, HHS chartered a jet to fly 
Price to Nashville, Tennessee, where he owns a condominium and where 
his son resides. Price toured a medicine dispensary and spoke to a 
local health summit organized by a longtime friend. He also had lunch 
with his son. . . .
  ``An HHS official said both the Georgia and Tennessee trips were for 
official government business and were paid for by the Department.''
  It is no problem getting out of town and going to see your family 
but, really, do the taxpayers have to pay for it?
  If the taxpayers have to pay for trips like this, couldn't Secretary 
Price at least fly on first class commercial airplanes, rather than 
jacking up the taxpayers for tens of thousands of dollars to book a 
private airplane to do it?
  Politico asked the same question. Here they said:
  ``Like some of the other 26 flights that Price took on corporate jets 
since May identified by a Politico review, the trip to Tennessee 
appears to have occurred despite the existence of multiple commercial 
flight options. The trip to Georgia, while less direct, also could have 
been accomplished with a routine connecting flight through Atlanta's 
busy international airport.
  ``On August 4, Price flew a Dassault Falcon 2000 twin jet from 
Raleigh, North Carolina, where he had given a speech to a flu vaccine 
manufacturer, to Brunswick Golden Isles Airport, which is about a half-
hour drive from St. Simons Island. It was the same plane that had 
shuttled him between five States in four days, one that HHS had 
chartered through Classic Air Charter for more than $86,000, according 
to Federal contracts.
  ``The plane arrived in Brunswick at 4:02 p.m. the afternoon before 
the start of the two-day Medical Association of Georgia retreat and 
roughly 40 hours before Price addressed the group, according to airport 
records. . . .''

                              {time}  1300

  ``At about the same time, there were connecting commercial flights 
from Raleigh to Brunswick via Atlanta that would have gotten Price to 
St. Simons Island that evening.''
  My friends, you can go back and you can look. In all of these cases, 
for example, Secretary Price chartered a plane for $25,000 of 
government money from Dulles Airport to Philadelphia, a distance of a 
mere 135 miles. That charter flight left 5 minutes after a regular 
flight flew, commercial flight flew, from Dulles for a few hundred 
dollars. So he paid $25,000 and left several minutes later than he 
would have left had he just taken the commercial flight.
  He also could have taken, of course, the Amtrak, which is what most 
people do when they are going to Philadelphia from the Washington area, 
for a mere $72. Even the first class Acela would have been around $200. 
He could have taken the British Airways--they go there--whose slogan 
is: ``To Fly. To Serve.'' I guess that is not quite right. Or he could 
have taken Southwest Airlines. Their slogan is: ``Low fares. Nothing to 
hide.'' I see that wouldn't have fit. Maybe JetBlue, ``You Above All.'' 
That could have worked.
  But no, instead, he had to book the private jet and fly for $25,000 
from here to Philadelphia.
  Mr. Speaker, this is an old Washington story. The people who say they 
are coming to drain the swamp have become the swamp. And this is not 
something that affects just one Cabinet Secretary. Several Cabinet 
Secretaries are doing this, as my colleagues have pointed out.
  With Secretary Price, who seems to be the captain of the swamp 
flyers; Secretary Pruitt, who is a frequent swamp flyer himself; and 
Secretary Mnuchin, another swamp flyer, we have a serious staph 
infection spreading throughout the Trump administration.
  And why not, the President seems to have evolved a whole new model of 
government in the 21st century. Government is a money-making operation 
for specific families and specific tiny groups in the society. And that 
is the message that pervades the Trump administration today.
  Mr. Speaker, we need to pass the SWAMP FLYERS Act, which is very 
simple. It says that those of us who have the honor and the privilege 
of coming to serve the American people here in Washington, D.C., should 
use regular commercial air flights unless it is a matter of national 
security, or unless there is not a commercial flight that will get them 
to where they need to go.
  But the idea that you have Cabinet Secretaries who have already taken 
dozens of flights, paid for with hundreds of thousands, or millions of 
dollars, of taxpayer money when a commercial flight would have done is 
an absolute scandal. Now, it hasn't gotten much attention yet because 
on the scale of the scandals we have seen in this administration, I 
agree, it is a relatively small one. But it is a dramatic and vivid 
illustration of what is going on here.
  The people who said they were going to drain the swamp became the 
swamp. And now, the swamp pervades everything. Every Cabinet member, 
all of the Secretaries, the entire government is engulfed in this kind 
of corruption.
  It begins right at the top, where President Trump has continued to 
collect hundreds of thousands, or millions, of dollars in foreign 
payments at the Trump Hotels, at the Trump office tower, and the Trump 
golf courses around the world from foreign governments, and has not 
once come to the U.S. Congress to ask for our permission

[[Page 15215]]

and consent as is required by Article I, section 9, clause 8 of the 
Constitution, which forbids the collection of presents, emoluments, 
offices, and titles from foreign governments by anybody who serves 
under the United States, who holds an office under the United States.
  This President is not only collecting rampant, extreme amounts of 
money through his businesses from foreign governments, he is not even 
asking us for our permission or our consent. We have got to pass the 
SWAMP FLYERS Act.
  I commend Mr. Lieu for writing this immediately when the news broke 
about this rampant abuse of current regulations. We need to take a 
stand as a Congress on a bipartisan level. Unanimously, we can pass 
this to say that government officials should not be flying at taxpayer 
expense for dubious reasons. We should be using coach like everybody 
else, flying commercial like everybody else.
  If you have got to fly first class, fine, fly first class, but fly 
commercial unless it is a matter of national security, or unless there 
is not a commercial flight that will get you there. Is that something 
that we can agree on, on a bipartisan basis?
  I just want to say, earlier today we saw a magnificent example of 
real public service and public dedication by our distinguished 
colleague, Mr. Scalise, who has returned, thankfully, to this body. He 
demonstrates and embodies what is best in terms of public service. 
Unfortunately, we have also seen in Washington this week the 
personification of what is the worst in public service. We have got to 
stop taking the American taxpayers for a ride.
  Let's pass the SWAMP FLYERS Act immediately.
  Mr. GALLEGO. Mr. Speaker, how much time is remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman has 32 minutes remaining.
  Mr. GALLEGO. Representative Lieu, how often do you fly back, and 
where do you fly back to?
  Mr. TED LIEU of California. I fly about three times a month, and I 
generally fly from Dulles back to LAX in my district, and I fly 
commercial.
  Mr. GALLEGO. How long is your flight?
  Mr. TED LIEU of California. It is about 5 hours to 5\1/2\ hours, 
depending on the wind.
  Mr. GALLEGO. You and I have been Members of Congress since 2015. At 
any point in any of your flights to and from your work--I am sorry--
from here to your home, have you ever used a charter plane?
  Mr. TED LIEU of California. No.
  Mr. GALLEGO. Would you even be able to, by law, use a charter plane 
according to the funds we are allowed to expense?
  Mr. TED LIEU of California. No. If I did that, I would be the subject 
of an immediate congressional ethics investigation.
  Mr. GALLEGO. So what makes Mr. Price think that he is somehow above 
the law, that he is allowed to do this, considering that he knew, as a 
Member of Congress, that was not allowed and that somehow he can just 
take advantage of the situation now that he has suddenly moved up after 
only just a few months of being in Congress, to be the Secretary of 
Health and Human Services?
  Mr. TED LIEU of California. That is a great point because what 
Secretary Price, and Mnuchin, and EPA Administrator Pruitt did was not 
only disrespectful to taxpayers, there were violations of the Federal 
regulations. So I am just going to read to you what the Federal 
regulation says. It says, ``Your agency must select the method most 
advantageous to the government,'' when considering travel.
  Advantageous to the government, not to Secretary Price, or Mnuchin, 
or EPA Administrator Pruitt. They violated that Federal regulation 
straight up. That is why Tom Price is under Federal investigation. That 
is why the IG is investigating Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, and now we 
call on an investigation of EPA Administrator Pruitt as well for 
violating the Federal regulations.
  Mr. GALLEGO. While you were talking about that actual regulation, and 
to see how well and easy it is not to violate the regulation, I 
literally just typed into Google, ``flights to Philadelphia.'' And 
there is a flight leaving in 46 minutes. And the cheapest I found right 
now--well, no, I found one for $441. I found another one for $447. If 
you want to connect to Philadelphia--which I don't know why you would--
but if you want to do that, JetBlue will take you there for $264.
  So in Secretary Price's effort to live an extravagant lifestyle and 
basically void himself of all commonsense, he also violated ethics 
violations. And this is something that we consistently see within this 
Trump administration.
  On the other flip of that, we consistently see a Republican-led 
Congress that is not doing their duty by the Constitution of oversight 
on the executive. Not one, not one movement has been done by any 
Republican, especially Republican leadership, to push back on this 
egregious waste of taxpayer money.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to Representative Lieu.
  Mr. TED LIEU of California. Let me again conclude by thanking 
Congressman Gallego and Congressman Raskin for highlighting this issue 
with me today. This really is an issue about the public trust. Taxpayer 
funds should not be used for luxury private jet travel. It is a very 
simple issue.
  Please join us in supporting the SWAMP FLYERS Act. Please join 
Congressman Gallego and us in calling for the resignation of Secretary 
Price.
  As Abraham Lincoln said: ``Public sentiment is everything. With 
public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.''
  Help us change public sentiment and help us tell the Trump 
administration: Please stop using taxpayer funds for luxury jet travel.
  Mr. GALLEGO. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gallagher). The Chair would remind 
Members to direct all remarks to the Chair and to formally yield and 
reclaim time when under recognition.

                          ____________________