[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 106 (Thursday, June 28, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8693-S8694]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mrs. McCASKILL:
  S. 1723. A bill to amend the Inspector General Act of 1978 to enhance 
the independence of the Inspectors General, to create a Council of the 
Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, and for other purposes; 
to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
  Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I rise to talk about something great 
Congress did 30 years ago. They passed the Inspector General Act. That 
act has provided a layer of accountability in our Government that is 
very important. Unfortunately, there are still times that the inspector 
generals in our Government are not given the respect and deference they 
deserve. That is why today I am introducing the Improving Government 
Accountability Act.
  If one thinks about the inspector generals, what they are is a first 
line of defense on behalf of taxpayers and against Government waste and 
inefficiency. They are the first line of defense because they are 
inside Federal agencies. Let's be honest, inspector generals inside 
Federal agencies are facing mountains of waste and inefficiency. If 
they are to do their jobs the way Congress intended, they must be 
independent, and their work must be immediately accessible to the 
public.
  We have had some troubling incidents over the last several years as 
it relates to the independence, the qualifications and, frankly, the 
integrity of our inspector generals. That is why this legislation is 
necessary. That is why this legislation is so important.
  The legislation will do several things. First, all inspector generals 
will be appointed for terms of 7 years. That will make sure they cannot 
arbitrarily be removed from their position by a department head who is 
getting nervous about information they are providing to the public in 
terms of accountability.
  Second, Congress must be notified of the removal of any inspector 
general and, very importantly, the reasons for the removal before they 
can be removed from office.
  Third, all inspector generals will have their own legal counsel to 
avoid using the agency counsel. This is important because if they are 
going to have independence, they must have independent legal advice 
about their ability to do their job.
  Fourth, no inspector general can accept a bonus. The bonuses are 
given by the heads of the agencies. That is an inherent conflict. If 
you know that you please the head of your agency and you get more 
money, what kind of shortcuts are you going to take? What are you going 
to be willing to gloss over in order not to embarrass the head of that 
agency with information you have discovered about waste and 
inefficiency?
  Fifth, in the event of a vacancy, the Council on Integrity and 
Efficiency will recommend to the appointing authority three possible 
replacements. They will not have the ability to dictate the replacement 
for the IG, but it will provide the appointing authority with three 
qualified people to take

[[Page S8694]]

over the important function of inspector general.
  Also key in this legislation is that instead of making their annual 
budget requests to the agencies they oversee, the IG budget requests 
will go straight to the Office of Management and Budget, or OMB, that 
sends the President's budget request to Congress.
  Next, all inspector general Web sites must be directly accessible 
from the home page of the agency. I asked my staff to take a tour 
through Government agency Web sites to see how easy it was to find out 
what the IGs had been up to in those agencies. It was remarkably 
difficult. In many instances we couldn't even find the inspector 
general's information on the home page of that agency. The public ought 
to be able to go on the page of any Federal agency and immediately 
click on the last inspector general report, find out what that 
inspector general found and, frankly, ought to be able to ask the 
question, what has been done about it. There will be a way for the 
public to anonymously send allegations of waste, fraud, and abuse 
directly to the IG offices.
  Our office found that only three of 27 sampled Federal agencies have 
an obvious direct link from their home page to the IG's Web site. 
Clearly, we are not focused on making this information available to the 
public. Frankly, all the auditors in the world, all the inspector 
generals in the world do no good if the public can't learn the 
information. Because if the public doesn't know about it, it isn't 
going to have the cleansing effect it should. Only six of the 27 
sampled IGs have an obvious direct link on their home page to report 
waste, fraud, and abuse. That is very important.
  I give credit to Representative Jim Cooper of Tennessee who has been 
working on this legislation in the House. I am excited to join him in 
this effort. Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman have some of these 
provisions in their Accountability in Government Contracting Act, of 
which I am also proud to be a cosponsor.
  There have been specific examples that have occurred recently. I 
won't go into them other than to say, we had one Commerce IG who 
refused to resign after an investigation showed that he had committed 
malfeasance in office. However, after much pressure from Congress, he 
finally did step down. We have another inspector general who has been 
accused of trying to block the serving of a search warrant at NASA. 
Think about that, trying to block the serving of a search warrant that 
had been issued by a court of law. We have another IG who was not 
reappointed by President Bush and said publicly it was because at the 
Department of Homeland Security, he was seen as a traitor, and he was 
intimidated about not issuing reports that might reflect badly on the 
agency.
  Bottom line, we should protect inspector generals. They are precious. 
They are important to what we do. We can talk all we want about 
oversight, but if we can't get the information from inside these 
agencies, frankly, we are not going to be effective in Congress with 
any kind of oversight. The information the inspector generals provide 
is crucial to Congress and crucial to the public. This legislation 
would make sure that they are qualified, protected, independent, and 
the public knows what they are up to.
  I urge my colleagues to get excited about this legislation and maybe, 
uncharacteristically, move it quickly through the Senate.
                                 ______