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Enhanced Oversight of State and Local Economic Recovery Act

Floor Speech

Date: May 19, 2009
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Government Budget and Spending


ENHANCED OVERSIGHT OF STATE AND LOCAL ECONOMIC RECOVERY ACT -- (House of Representatives - May 19, 2009)

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Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I join with the chairman in urging all Members to vote for this important correction piece of legislation. I say ``correction'' because, in fact, we in Congress make mistakes. It wasn't out of malice that we spent $800 billion without asking the question of where would the money for oversight come from. These kinds of things happen in every organization where you're in such a rush to do one thing that it's not until later on in the light of the next day, or in the case of Chairman Towns and myself, it's when we held a field hearing in his district in Brooklyn and people said, Thank you very much for the money, but here is A, B, C, D--what's really happening? I commend Chairman Towns for quickly reacting to this and to some other issues that were found to be less than optimal in the stimulus package.

In the case of this legislation, H.R. 2182, we seek to empower with existing funds State and local governments to not have to reach into other money in order to do oversight. This is not to say that we wouldn't prefer that the oversight be done at all times even without Federal money, but at a time in which the stimulus needs to be spent quickly and accurately, this legislation recognizes that money in short supply in States and in cities is likely not to go into the oversight necessary.

Particularly with the chairman's initiative to ensure that transparency be greater than in any previous Congress, I recognize--and he has recognized--that if we want greater transparency, we are going to have to ensure that we not only supply the funds to do the oversight but that we supply the new technology and means to do the oversight. This legislation is deliberately intended to allow for cities and States to make investments in hardware or software that allows for them to better dig down into their procurement process, their spending, to work smarter, not just harder.

Having no other speakers at this time, I yield back the balance of my time.

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