New Legislation Seeks to Reform Inspectors General

Senator McCaskill (D-MO) introduced legislation in the Senate yesterday calling for greater independence for Inspector Generals in federal agencies. Representative Jim Cooper (D-TN) has introduced similar legislation in the House earlier in February this year.

The increased attention from Congress on the role of the inspector general is a reaction from a series of recent scandals and controversies that have surrounded the office. Inspectors General at the Department of Commerce, the General Services Administration, and most recently, NASA (for our executive director Danielle Brian’s testimony before a House Committee regarding the NASA IG, click here), have been under attack by Department heads or criticized that they did not maintain adequate independence from the agency that they are supposed to be overseeing. In fact, the House has held a general hearing on the independence of inspector generals and what can be improved to increase the effectiveness of the government’s first line of defense against waste, fraud, and corruption.

These recent problems have shown that something must be done to improve the effectiveness of the IG office, and POGO applauds Congressional attention to this very little-known but very important office in the federal government. A few sections of Senator McCaskill’s legislation that are particularly important:

1) The legislation will allow Inspectors Generals to use independent legal counsel instead of relying on the legal counsel provided by the agency. In order to achieve independence from the agency, IGs must have independent legal advice about how to do their job.

2) No IG can accept bonuses, since they are awarded by the heads of the agencies. Accepting these bonuses creates an inherent conflict-of-interest, since there will be a monetary incentive for IGs to compromise the performance of their job in order to curry favor with the head of the agency.

3) Finally, in the event of a vacancy, the Council on Integrity and Efficiency is authorized to recommend three qualified candidates; however, the Council is not given appointment authority.

Hopefully Congress can come up with effective amendments to the Inspector General Act of 1978 to ensure that the office of the Inspector General is up to the task of overseeing federal agencies in the 21st century.

- Michael Zhou

Comments

[Lewis Erskine]

The IG's do a really nice job of nailing the little people to the wall when their management wants their careers done in. With a few exceptions, they aren't so great at pointing out problems that the agency heads are responsible for or choose to ignore. IG are simply the eyes and ears of the people at the top. We need an IG for the entire government with its own investigators and prosecutors, who can take action without needing an OK from political appointees and politicians.

[Ken Huffman]

A lack of independence is a problem in the IG community only from the very parochial view of Inspectors General. The real problems undermining the efficacy of the present IG concept go far beyond what the congress appears to be focusing on. It would be well advised to resolve major issues associated with the integrity and competence of IG's ahead of independence concerns.