The Comptroller General of the US, head of the GAO (Government Accountability Office), one David W. Walker, appears to have an authentic sense of civic duty and public service (even if he is a Bush political appointee). He leapt into action almost as soon the the midterm election results became evident. In his first-ever letter to Congress, dated November 17, 2006, he included a 44 page report modestly entitled Suggested Areas for Oversight for the 110th Congress (pdf):
As I publicly announced in early September, I am pleased to offer three sets of recommendations ...for your consideration for the agenda of the 110th Congress.
Cross-posted to ePluribusMedia
One important area is royalties for oil and natural gas extracted from public and Indian lands. Tribes are getting ripped off big time on this one, but so are the rest of us:
About 35 percent of the oil and 26 percent of the natural gas produced in the United States come from federal and Native American lands,"
It would appear that the federal treasury and us American taxpayers have likely been shortchanged the last several years:
The Minerals Management Service, an agency of the Interior Department, collects oil and gas royalties for development on federal and Indian lands. MMS has a trust responsibility to ensure tribes and individual Indians receive the money they are owed. Walker said MMS collected about $8 billion in royalty payments in fiscal year 2005. That's about an 8 percent increase from 2001, the start of the Bush administration, which has encouraged more development. But the amount pales in comparison to the 90 percent increase in oil prices and the 30 percent increase in gas prices during the same time, "raising questions about whether these royalties reflect the full value these companies should pay," he added.
That's a big chunk of that $400 million "retirement bonus" for ol' whats-his-face from ExxonMobil that perhaps rightfully should have contributed to deficit reduction or properly armored humvees in Iraq or something. Maybe he could have gotten by on, say, $50 million or so. (I know I could do...)
I quoted the following from the New York Times in a diary last March 1:
But in a letter last week to House members, a group of state and tribal auditors said that the Interior Department had cut back on audits in favor of a much looser approach known as "compliance review" that could miss many instances of cheating. "Compliance reviews do not involve getting underneath the reported information to look at company's books," wrote Lisa Dockter, chairwoman of the Association of State and Tribal Auditors. As a result, she said, the government would not be able to confirm whether a company's report was accurate.
It would appear the Comptroller General is eager to move forward with the new Congress, even if his letter indicates this series of recommendations has been under development some time. Certainly, the new Congress is bound to be more diligent in its oversight than the 109th. Might actually be impossible for it to be less so. In addition to the royalty issue, Mr. Walker has recommendations on a wide array of oversight targets in three areas including, for Near Term Oversight (15 items total):
- Governmentwide contracting issues
- Get Department of Homeland Security functional
- Information sharing, and other Intelligence Agency Issues
- Border Security & Enforcement of (existing) Immigration Laws
- Non-proliferation of biological, chemical & nuclear weapons
- Computer security & identity theft
- 2010 Census
- Fair value for royalties collected on federal lands
Going through the CG’s litany of areas which have been neglected under the Republican Congress, it becomes painfully clear how woefully inadequate oversight has been. For years. Whatever the permanent majority has been up to, it hasn’t included the basic nuts and bolts of governance. 13 more items are included under Policies and Programs in Need of Fundamental Reform & Re-Engineering (this time, the section titles from the ToC are copied verbatim - with my commentary appended in italics):
- Review US and Coalition Efforts to Stabilize and Rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan I coulda sworn that efforts to rebuild Iraq had long since been abandoned.
- Ensure a Strategic and Integrated Approach to Prepare for, Respond to, Recover and Rebuild from Catastrophic events. In other words, Katrina.
- Ensure the Adequacy of National Energy Supplies and Related Infrastructure
- Assure the Quality and Competitiveness of the U.S. Education System
- Examine the Costs, Benefits, and Risks of Key Environmental Issues (e.g. climate change....)
- Review Federal Efforts to Improve the Image of the United States. Though the "image" problems have at least as much to do with substance as with how they are spun.
Good thing Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi aren’t planning to take January for Congressional hiatus. Because it looks like the Republican Do-Nothing Congress has left an awful lot of unfinished work for the grown-ups in the Democratic Majority to get to work on. The CG’s summary of oversight needs is recommended as a useful reference for anyone who wants to keep tabs on hearings and oversight after the New Year.
Other unfinished business? From the AP:
WASHINGTON -- Republicans vacating the Capitol are dumping a big spring-cleaning job on Democrats moving in. GOP leaders have opted to leave behind almost a half-trillion-dollar clutter of unfinished spending bills.
...
The bulging workload that a Republican-led Congress was supposed to complete this year but is instead punting to 2007 promises to consume time and energy that Democrats had hoped to devote to their own agenda upon taking control of Congress in January for the first time in a dozen years.
C-SPAN's become accustomed to filling the airwaves with think tank panels and so on of late. Perhaps in 2007, they'll be spending considerably more time airing goings-on in the Capitol, and the main place we'll be seeing the think tank types is testifying before Congressional committees.