Rep. Steny Hoyer (Md.), ranking member of the Financial Services and General Government subcommittee on the House Appropriations Committee, and several other Democrats on the panel want Republicans to call Elon Musk, OMB Director Russ Vought and Amy Gleason, acting administrator for the U.S. DOGE Service, to explain how DOGE operates and how it’s funded.
In a new letter to Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio), the FSGG cardinal, Hoyer and the other Democrats note that their subcommittee has jurisdiction over funding for much of the Executive Office of the President. This includes DOGE, which President Donald Trump created by executive order on his first day back in office.
Hoyer plus Democratic Reps. Mark Pocan (Wis.), Glenn Ivey (Md.), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.) and Sanford Bishop (Ga.) question whether DOGE is an independent agency or an “advisory body” designed to assist the president. This is an important distinction, including whether FOIA and other presidential record-keeping requirements apply to DOGE.
Hoyer and the other Democrats also wonder how OMB has funded DOGE and whether it violated federal laws in doing so. They say an oversight hearing would resolve these questions:
“This Committee holds jurisdiction for the appropriations for the Executive Office of the President, which includes both USDS and the Office of Management and Budget. For these reasons, we urgently request that the Subcommittee convene an oversight hearing with Mr. Musk, whom the President has described as the head of DOGE, Acting USDS Administrator Amy Gleason, and OMB Director Vought to provide transparency and substantive answers for our constituents and to consider whether more systemic reforms are needed to address USDS’s functions.”
