The government’s top watchdog ruled that President Biden has not broken the law by slow-walking construction of the border wall, but did say he has left hundreds of millions of dollars still unspent.
The Government Accountability Office said that while Mr. Biden has said he doesn’t want to build more wall, his actions have belied that and he is moving ahead with construction of some wall-based projects, even if it is too slow for Republicans’ tastes.
Some congressional Republicans have said Mr. Biden‘s slow-walking violates the Impoundment Control Act, which orders the president to spend money the way Congress designed in its appropriations bill.
GAO is the official arbiter of violations of the act, and it ruled that Mr. Biden has not crossed any lines yet.
“DHS has continued to incur obligations against amounts appropriated specifically for border barriers for fiscal years 2018 through 2021 at a rate consistent with the ICA,” wrote Edda Emmanuelli Perez, GAO‘s general counsel.
The new ruling is an update of one GAO issued in the summer of 2021. At that time the watchdog said Mr. Biden wasn’t violating the law but could end up on the wrong side if he didn’t make moves toward spending the money.
GAO said the only out would be if Congress canceled the law and clawed back the money.
The wall was the most prominent of President Trump’s 2016 campaign promises and became a larger symbol of border control. Congress gave Mr. Trump billions of dollars for construction but not as much as he wanted, and he used emergency powers to siphon money from Pentagon accounts to expand the wall-building.
He completed more than 450 miles of fencing, though he lagged much further behind in the rest of the wall system — roads, lighting and sensors — that he had planned. He left office with money to finish out those miles and erect more than 250 more miles.
Mr. Biden canceled the emergency powers and returned unspent Pentagon money. He tried to get Congress to cancel the rest of the unspent wall money that lawmakers had allocated but those entreaties were rebuffed.
The House Budget Committee said the new GAO report is far from a clean bill for Mr. Biden.
“While the GAO report may show that the Biden Administration has not explicitly broken the law, it does show that DHS and the White House are circumventing the law to shirk executive responsibility and accountability,” the committee said on Tuesday.
GAO said Congress allocated $1.375 billion for fiscal year 2018, and all but $340,000 has been spent. It allocated another $1.375 billion for 2019 and still has $146.4 million of that left, but GAO said that’s because a contact came in less than the department had anticipated so it wasn’t for lack of trying.
“Therefore, we find these circumstances reflect a programmatic delay, and that DHS did not intend to withhold those amounts from obligation,” Ms. Perez wrote.
Another $1.375 billion was obligated for 2020 and GAO said Homeland Security has obligated all but $12 million, or less than 1%. GAO said that was “reasonable” and wasn’t a violation of spending laws.
A final $1.375 billion was allocated for 2021 and Mr. Biden has obligated $644.2 million and actually spent $334.8 million. But GAO said the law gives the administration until Sept. 30, 2025, to commit the funds and Homeland Security told the auditors it does plan to do so.