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CSS Opposes Vought’s Return to OMB

For Immediate Release: Jan. 14, 2025
Contact: David Rosen, drosen@citizen.org

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Members of the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee should reject the nomination of Russell Vought to direct the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards (CSS) said in a letter sent today.

“Vought was a key architect of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a dangerous policy blueprint that calls for concentrating extraordinary power in the Office of the President, thereby defeating our Constitution’s system of separation of powers and checks and balances,” the letter reads. “Of particular alarm, he was the lead author of the chapter regarding OMB and regulatory policy, where the dangerous vision of unprecedented presidential power is articulated. If implemented, his radical and extreme ideological opposition to regulations that protect consumers, workers, the environment, and public health and safety will hurt Americans and their families and lead to more deregulatory disasters.”

Vought has proposed to:

  • Slash funding for critical government agencies and services;
  • Interfere with independent agencies;
  • Exclude the benefits of regulation from regulatory cost-benefit analysis; and 
  • Undermine, discredit, and terminate career civil service employees simply for doing their jobs. 

In addition, inspector general investigations from Vought’s previous tenure at the agency found numerous instances where OMB abused its power to override expert decisions for political reasons. Vought’s OMB:

  • Weakened a toxic “forever chemicals” rule from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) after the agency had already completed work but before it was published in the Federal Register;
  • Prevented EPA career staffers from making public their technical and policy concerns with weakening of fuel efficiency standards, ensuring those concerns could not influence the standards;
  • Halted the release of COVID guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and made changes contradicting the agency’s expert advice; and
  • Blocked disaster funds appropriated by Congress to help Puerto Rico recover from Hurricane Maria, despite strong objections from officials at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Confirming Vought would condone these abuses of authority, clearing the way for more and worse in the future, CSS said.

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