By Tom Ozimek
Apparently making good on President Joe Biden’s pledge not to build “another foot” of former President Donald Trump’s signature border wall, the Biden administration has been quietly auctioning off wall materials, reports indicate.
Determined to plug the gaps in America’s porous southern border and stem the flow of illegal immigration into the country, President Trump erected over 450 miles of new wall during his term in the White House. Faced with funding hurdles, President Trump even notably diverted some Pentagon funds to build the wall.
President Biden, by contrast, has taken a dim view of his predecessor’s vision for a grand barrier, pledging while still a presidential candidate that “there will not be another foot of wall constructed in my administration.”
On the same day that he took office, President Biden issued a proclamation that rescinded the national emergency declaration President Trump relied on to divert some $10 billion from Pentagon coffers for border wall construction.
“It shall be the policy of my Administration that no more American taxpayer dollars be diverted to construct a border wall,” President Biden’s declaration states.
And now, further proof that President Biden meant what he said about nixing wall construction comes in the form of reports that the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), the combat logistics support branch of the Department of Defense (DOD), is disposing of border wall elements.
A DLA spokesperson confirmed to Power Corridor that a number of items up for auction on GovPlanet, an online auction marketplace, are “excess border wall materials that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers turned over to the DLA for disposition” and that these items are now “for sale.”
The auction site makes no mention of the origin of the materials, listing them generically as “steel tubing and sticks for industrial construction,” with some identified as “square structural tubes.”
Pentagon spokeswoman Raini Brunson told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) “is disposing of the excess border wall materials in accordance with the Federal Acquisition Regulation.”
Since April, the online auctioneer has sold over 80 lots of steel “square structural tubes,” which were meant for use as vertical elements in the border wall’s panels, with 13 more lots going under the hammer on Aug. 23 and Aug. 30, according to GovPlanet.
Neither the DLA nor the DOD responded to a query from The Epoch Times.
‘Finish the Wall’
Republicans, who have been deeply critical of President Biden on border security, introduced legislation in May that would force the Pentagon to allow millions of dollars worth of unused border wall components to be used to extend the wall along the southern border.
Called the “Finish It Act,” the legislation would require the federal government to either deploy the materials or transfer them to states, which would then use them to construct the wall.
The legislative proposal (pdf) came after an investigation by the Armed Services Committee found that the Pentagon was spending $47 million per year to store the wall panels and other elements.
“President Biden could not have created a worse border crisis if he tried, but he continues to stand in the way of a solution,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), the bill’s sponsor, said in a statement in May.
“As Senate Republicans revealed earlier this year, his Administration is forcing the Department of Defense to spend millions of dollars a year to let border panels go unused when they could be used to secure our border,” he continued.
“It is time for the President to put these materials to use and finish the wall,” Mr. Wicker added.
And now, amid reports that the Biden administration is busy selling off border wall components rather than allowing them to be used to build more wall, Mr. Wicker called the development “outrageous, behind-the-scenes maneuvering.”
“This sale is a wasteful and ludicrous decision by the Biden administration that only serves as further proof they have no shame,” Mr. Wicker told The New York Post.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), co-sponsor of the Finish It Act and a frequent critic of President Biden’s border policies, was searing in his criticism of what he said amounted to a fire sale.
“Leaving the border open to terrorists while selling border security materials at a loss is Bidenomics in a nutshell,” Mr. Cotton told The Post.
It’s unclear how much money from the sale of the materials has flown into the Pentagon’s budget.
Lt. Col. Devin T. Robinson told The Post that USACE has disposed of roughly $154 million worth of border wall materials out of a total stockpile worth around $260 million.
