Senator John Kerry threw down the gauntlet yesterday over a Small Business Administration Inspector General report (pdf) that got the heavy black marker treatment from the agency. According to a release from Kerry’s office:
The Small Business Administration (SBA) took the highly unusual step of requesting that the Inspector General redact large portions of its report, including the majority of its recommendations, the agency’s responses to those recommendations, and the Inspector General’s comments on the agency’s response.
And, according to Senator Kerry’s letter to the SBA Administrator (pdf), “The OIG has stated that it does not necessarily agree with the extent of the redactions, and I am inclined to agree.”
In fact, the redactions were so extreme that they included the first three of the IG’s recommendations, and both the SBA’s response to the recommendations and the IG’s reply to that response.
An unusual note by the SBA Office of General Counsel prefaces the report and draws attention to
the extensive redactions: "Although the Office of the Inspector General does not necessarily agree with the extent of, as a courtesy, we have agreed to redact this text." [emphasis added]
Just in case you think the IG protests too
much, check out the Results in Brief section, pp. 4-7 of the report. That’s
a huge waste of a lot of perfectly good black ink.
There is often tension between government agencies and their Inspector General watchdogs who can be the bearer of bad news about those agencies. POGO has been researching the effectiveness and independence of the IG’s. We’ve already found other instances where IGs have had their reports unnecessarily redacted by agencies or where the agency has simply refused to post an IG’s reports on the web.
Inspector General legislation THAT passed by a vote of 404-11 in the House, despite a Presidential veto threat, would require that all IG reports be posted on the web within three days. The Senate will likely take up corresponding legislation in the coming days.
Meanwhile, Senator Kerry promises a hearing in the near future.
-- Beverley Lumpkin and Beth Daley
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