Inspectors General
Floor Speech
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I, Senator CHUCK GRASSLEY, intend to object to the proceeding to H.R. 885, the Improved Financial and Commodity Markets Oversight and Accountability Act, and a similar Senate bill, S. 1354, dated July 29, 2009, for the following reasons.''
I object to provisions regarding inspectors general in H.R. 885, and a similar Senate bill, S. 1354, based on my reading of the language in the Improved Financial and Commodity Markets Oversight and Accountability Act. The act is intended to require Presidential appointments and Senate confirmation for the following five inspectors general: Commodity Futures Trading Commission, CFTC; the National Credit Union Administration, NCUA; the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, PBGC; the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, FRB; and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In essence, the act will change dramatically the historical and longstanding classification of these five organizations from ``designated federal entities'' DFE, under the original Inspector General Act of 1978, to Presidential appointees.
These IGs, who are all nonpartisan civil servants, oppose H.R. 885. I have come to agree with their conclusion that the act will neither improve the independence of the five IGs nor enhance their accountability to the American people. Requiring that these five IGs be made Presidential appointees introduces the potential for partisan politics where none currently exists. This is especially true because we have an administration that is not even a year old and three IGs have already been dismissed. I have not yet seen a consistent policy reason articulated for treating these five IGs differently from other DFE IGs. If Congress wants to increase the independence and accountability of all inspectors general, there are numerous, more effective ways of doing so, and I would be eager to work toward that common goal. However, this legislation has not had a full and, complete hearing in the Senate, targets only five of the DFE inspectors general for reasons that are unclear, and does not appear to achieve its stated purpose.
Source