“What’s the point of an oversight subcommittee if it doesn’t hold oversight hearings?”
WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), ranking member of the Subcommittee on Oversight in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, recently sent a letter to Chairman Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) asking for follow up on his previous request for increased oversight. Barrasso delivered the following statement about his letter to Chairman Whitehouse:
“Since the Subcommittee on Oversight was created in 2009, it has not held a single independent hearing. This is unacceptable. What’s the point of an oversight subcommittee if it doesn’t hold oversight hearings? The American people deserve a long list of answers from the Administration about skewed science, a failed stimulus, fraudulent programs and a variety of other important issues. The Chairman should allow this Subcommittee to do its job and conduct strict oversight into this Administration’s questionable environmental practices.”
Barrasso sent Chairman Whitehouse a minority staff report over three months ago entitled “The Status of Oversight: A Year of Lost Oversight.” The report outlined the lack of oversight on a number of key Administration activities that undermine transparency and sound science.
Excerpts of the letter:
“The Legislative Branch has its own responsibility to provide oversight over the Executive Branch agencies. The Subcommittee on Oversight, of which you are Chairman, must hold hearings into present day matters of concern. The Minority Staff Report that you refer to recommends a number of areas where such hearings should have occurred over the last year, but have not. The issues outlined in the report are oversight issues that are happening in present day, as opposed to issues that occurred in the previous Administration.
“Our mission should be to provide oversight for the current Administration to ensure integrity and transparency over policy decisions being made that affect peoples’ lives today. As issues arose in previous Congresses, previous Chairmen held hearings into those matters. To date, the three joint hearings held by the Subcommittee since its inception at the beginning of 2009 demonstrate that the Subcommittee is not adequately performing its function. Since it was created in 2009, the Subcommittee has not held one independent hearing.
“Below are a number of hearing topics that I am requesting we hold hearings on in the Subcommittee. These hearing topics are relevant to policy discussions that are occurring today. Your consideration of these hearing ideas would be greatly appreciated:
1) Individual oversight hearings into issues 1 through 4 (Pages 6 through 13) in the Minority Staff Report entitled “The Status of Oversight: A Year of Lost Oversight.”
2) Oversight into the billions of taxpayer dollars spent through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
3) General individual oversight hearings into agencies under our jurisdiction referred to on page 5 of the Minority Staff Report entitled “The Status of Oversight: A Year of Lost Oversight.”
4) Oversight hearings into EPA’s EnergyStar program as a result of the March 5th General Accounting Office (GAO) report “Energy Star Program: Covert Testing Shows the Energy Star Program Certification Process Is Vulnerable to Fraud and Abuse (GAO-10-470.)
5) An oversight hearing into this Administration’s use of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to delist species along state lines, as was the case with the Grey Wolf in Idaho and Montana, but not Wyoming.
6) An oversight hearing into the implications of using the Endangered Species Act to regulate climate change.
7) An oversight hearing into the application of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) under this Administration, including adding climate change to the NEPA statute and the subsequent impact on approving domestic energy projects.
8) Oversight hearing into the implications of this Administration using the Clean Water Act as a climate change tool.
9) Oversight hearing on the EPA’s tailoring rule, and its impact on small businesses.”