Energy Department Struggling to Monitor Billions in Spending After Budget Doubles

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is congressionally mandated to spend $32 million each day for the next 1,261 days to “exhaust” nearly $500 billion before a Sept. 30, 2026, deadline authorized under four Biden administration economic stimulus bills adopted since 2021.
Two bills don’t include funding for compliance assurance, while the other two earmark marginal allocations for fraud detection within “administrative cost” allowances.
As a result, DOE’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) is “too under-resourced for oversight” in monitoring spending approved under the same four measures that usher in an “unprecedented expansion in the department’s funding and mission,” DOE Inspector General Teri Donaldson told a congressional panel during an April 18 hearing….}