Requring Committees To Investigate Reports Of Waste, Fraud, Abuse, Or Mismanangment

Floor Speech

Requring Committees To Investigate Reports Of Waste, Fraud, Abuse, Or Mismanagement

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Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, almost every day the Government Accountability Office and Inspector Generals issue a report identifying waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement. The Federal Government is large, and we can use all the help we can get. Unfortunately, these important reports often go unread. They fall, without testimony, on deaf ears, and Congress does little or nothing about it.

I welcome the fact, Mr. Speaker, today that we are setting a baseline, a starting point for oversight by the authorization committees. I'm pleased to serve on the committee that has broad jurisdiction, and by agreement with the Rules Committee, and with the leadership of Chairman Towns, we have secured the fact that nothing in this rules change would limit the unlimited jurisdiction of the Committee on Oversight and Reform to, in fact, look at these same reports and to hold hearings on any one or any 13,000 of these various remaining claims as the Bush administration leaves.

Mr. Speaker, I want to speak particularly to Mr. Tanner's statement which, I think, was appropriate, and should be dealt with. During the Bush administration, 98,000 such findings came out of the GAO and the IGs. 13,000 were not dealt with during that administration, roughly a 14 percent leftover.

I look forward to the fact that the Government Oversight and Reform Committee will have the help of all the authorization committees to look into those, and I look forward to working on a bipartisan basis, both within the committee of primary oversight and with each the committees of jurisdiction, because I think it's important that as we allow a new administration to set goals, we deal with all of the leftovers, the 13,000 that perhaps would have been taken care of in the ordinary course, but now need to be quickly looked at so the new administration can get on to its agendas. And of course, as time goes on, I suspect that we will be looking at failures that occur on the new President's watch.

I look forward to working with the gentleman from California on a bipartisan basis, to deal with the remaining roughly 14 percent of those that occurred on President Bush's watch.

I look forward to this legislation. I once again commend Chairman Towns for his work to make sure that the committee of primary oversight is not limited by this resolution. We've been assured that it isn't.

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