WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa recently sent a letter to Department of Defense Principle Deputy Inspector General Glenn A. Fine seeking answers on why the department is wasting $10,000 of taxpayer money on individual toilet seat covers and whether he and his investigation team are looking deeper into this and other possible examples of egregious and wasteful spending. More than a month later, Grassley is still waiting for a reply from Fine and the DoD. In a May 29th interview published by Defense One, Dr. Will Roper, the current Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, confirmed that “the price to buy a new” 3D-printed toilet seat cover used in a C-17 cargo plane “is $10,000.” Though the cost to print one toilet seat cover is $300, the total price tag to taxpayers is $10,000 due to process costs.

“If Dr. Roper’s information is accurate, I would be very discouraged, indeed. It would tell me that we have not made much progress in the war on waste. In fact, it would tell me that we may be losing ground,” Grassley wrote in the letter. “Moreover, the DoD should view this revelation with alarm, because it could be used to cut the defense budget – as it was in the 1980’s. It seems to me that there is no way to justify a $10,000.00 price tag for a toilet seat lid. It’s just not credible. It needs scrutiny.”

This disturbing report comes nearly four decades after a similar report came to light during the Reagan administration, in which the Defense Department spent $640 on a C-5 toilet seat. It is also another example in the ever-growing list of flagrant abuses of taxpayer dollars at the Pentagon. Grassley’s extensive oversight work throughout his career has included a dogged pursuit for answers from the Pentagon over decades of wasteful spending and its inability to produce a clean financial audit. Most recently, he has worked to hold the Defense Department accountable for its excessive and largely unaccounted for spending in Afghanistan, including a $43 million gas station.

The text of the letter can be found here: https://www.grassley.senate.gov/sites/default/files/constituents/10,000%20dollar%20toilet%20seat.pdf