NW Valley Times

WASHINGTON, D.C.—On May 19, U.S. Congresswoman Debbie Lesko (AZ-08) reintroduced the Stop the Outlay of Payments Act to stop payments to organizations when they violate the terms of their agreement with the federal government. This legislation was first introduced after reports that EcoHealth Alliance failed to report the results of experiments at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in a timely manner. Despite this failure, EcoHealth Alliance continued to receive other federally funded grants.

“EcoHealth Alliance received federal grant funding after it violated the terms of another grant by failing to properly report the experiments conducted at the WIV which may have led to the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Congresswoman Lesko. “We must prevent a similar situation from ever happening again. I’m pleased to reintroduce this important legislation to protect taxpayer dollars by stopping all grant funding if an organization violates any terms of any federal grant.”

Current law requires grant recipients to report the amount of taxpayer dollars awarded to subgrantees. This legislation cuts off all funding to any organization that refuses to provide information about a subgrantee project as required by federal law. Grant recipients have 120 days to come into compliance after being suspended and can continue to receive support from other grants if an agreement has been made to resolve the previous suspension of the grant.

Lesko was joined by Representatives Stephanie Bice (R-OK-05), Andy Biggs (R-AZ-05), Paul Gosar (R-AZ-09), Ralph Norman (R-SC-05), and Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA-14) in introducing this legislation.

Original source can be found here.