Sen. Tom Coburn is calling on the US Department of Education to cancel a planned three-day conference on federal student aid scheduled for December in Las Vegas.
Coburn says in a letter to Education Secretary Arne Duncan that all the department's planned conferences for the remainder of the year should be reviewed to determine if they should be held in light of budget cuts known as sequestration. Coburn's letter also calls for information that includes the costs of all conferences sponsored by the department through the end of the year and costs associated with a back to school bus tour planned for this year and similar bus tours held in the past three years.
