House votes to cut federal meetings spend by a third

The U.S. House of Representatives last week passed a bill that would cut spending on meetings by federal agencies by 30%.

The bill, H.R. 313, known as the Government Spending Accountability Act of 2013, or the GSA Act, limits the aggregate any agency can spend on meetings to 70% of what it spent in 2010.

The bill also caps the amount any federal agency may spend on a single conference at $500,000, and limits the attendance of federal employees at international meetings to 50.

"The point of this bill is not to eliminate federal conferences," said its sponsor, Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas). "If federal employees are on these conferences to work, then their expenses will reflect that. What we don’t want to happen is the government paying for federal employee’s vacations.

"Expenses like mind readers, clowns, line-dancing lessons and a Star Trek video are not a good use of taxpayers’ hard-earned money."

Farenthold said taxpayers paid $340 million for 894 federal government conferences in 2012.

"What we’re trying to do is change the culture of how public money is spent, making sure that people traveling on the taxpayer dime are being frugal, and spending the money more carefully than they would spend their own," Farenthold said.

"This bill is a common-sense approach to curbing unnecessary federal travel spending that will save billions of dollars."

The American Hotel & Lodging Association (AH&LA) responded by cautioning that "measures taken in haste, imposing arbitrary and indiscriminate actions, risk unintended consequences that may result in significant travel inefficiencies and higher costs. We encourage Congress to take into account the benefits of in-person meetings and conferences on which many agencies rely."

The U.S. Travel Association called the bill "unnecessary and counterproductive."

"Federal agencies are already adhering to stringent guidelines put in place last year by Congress and the Administration to prevent unethical spending on government conferences. This is a bill in search of problem that has already been addressed," USTA noted.

"Rhetorically, few could argue with the goal of curbing abuses. Substantively, however, we must take great care not to create more problems than we solve. Striking the right balance is the key."

Marriott International, for example, in its quarterly conference call last week, noted that government groups sales have fallen from 5% of revenues in 2010 to 2% this year.