Democrats call on HHS to investigate Secretary Tom Price's chartered flights

Jessica Estepa | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Report: HHS Secretary Tom Price took private jets for work Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price is flying right into controversy with the use of 5 private jets for work trips just last week. Veuer's Nick Cardona (@nickcardona93) has that story.

Democratic lawmakers are calling on the Department of Health and Human Services to investigate the travels of Secretary Tom Price.

Last week, Price, a fiscal conservative, took five separate chartered flights while on official business, according to Politico. Those flights cost at least $60,000, tens of thousands of dollars more than commercial travel.

Five congressional Democrats — Reps. Frank Pallone of New Jersey and Richard Neal of Massachusetts, and Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon, Patty Murray of Washington and Gary Peters of Michigan — called the Politico report "troubling."

They requested that the HHS inspector general review whether Price's travels had met federal regulations and department policies, which state that travel should be "cost-effective" and "advantageous to the government."

"Given these requirements, it is unclear why Secretary Price would require such costly travel in these instances when more economical options were reportedly available," the lawmakers wrote in a letter to HHS Inspector General Daniel Levinson.

They also asked the inspector general to look investigate how many trips Price has taken on government aircraft and privately chartered flights, and the reasons given for why commercial travel wasn't an option. They also asked whether HHS personnel raised the travel issues internally and how the department conducted oversight for executive travel.

The lawmakers made note of Price's own statement earlier this year about "preventing waste, fraud and abuse across the department." Price's comments came when the president submitted his budget.

"It is unclear how Secretary Price's reported travel practices align with these stated intentions," they wrote.

Additionally, a group of Democratic senators sent a letter to the Office of Management and Budget, asking that the agency look into reports about the travel of Trump administration officials. In addition to Price, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt have come under scrutiny for their travels.

"Taxpayers appear to be footing the bill for extraordinary travel expenses using government resources and providing Cabinet officials with private aircraft at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars where commercial flights are readily available," the senators wrote in a letter to OMB Director Mick Mulvaney. "These incidents give us concern that there is a culture of wasteful spending on travel in the Trump administration."