House Proceeding 01-14-09 on Jan 14th, 2009 :: 0:00:00 to 0:20:00
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question will be taken later. >> the house is not in order. the speaker pro tempore: the

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house will be in order. members, please take your conversations off the floor. members, please clear the

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aisles. will members take their conversations off the floor. for what purpose does the gentleman from california rise? for what purpose does the gentleman from rise? >> mr. speaker, i move that the

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house suspend the rules and agree to house resolution 40 as amended. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the resolution. the clerk: house resolution 40, amending the rules of the house of representatives to require each standing committee to hold periodic hearings onhe topic of waste, fraud, abuse in government programs which that

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committee may authorize and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from california, mr. cardoza, and the gentleman from california plrks dreier will each control 20 minutes. the chair rognizes the gentleman from california.

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Dennis A. Cardoza: the gentleman will suspend. will members please take their conversations off the floor. the gentleman from california. mr. cardoza: thank you, mr. speaker. i ask unanimous consent that all members have five legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include

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Speech By: Dennis A. Cardoza

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Dennis A. Cardoza: extraneous remarks on house resolution 40. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. cardoza: i yield myself such time as i may consume. make no mistake about it, these are tough times for our country. the united states is facing an economic disaster unlike -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman will suspend. the gentleman from california

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Dennis A. Cardoza: deserves to be heard. will members please take their conversations off the floor. the gentleman from california. mr. cardoza: thank you, mr. speaker. make no mistake about it, these are tough times for our country. the united states is facing an economic disaster unlike anything we have seen since the

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Dennis A. Cardoza: great depression. and in the coming weeks, there will surely be differences and opinion as to how to best address the ailments of our nation, but one thing is certain, now more than ever, it is time to ensure that government spends the taxpayers' money wisely. for the first six years of the

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Dennis A. Cardoza: bush administration there was virtually oversight -- mr. dreier: mr. speaker, the house is not in order. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is correct, will members to my right please take their conversations off the floor. members, please clear the

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Dennis A. Cardoza: aisles. the gentleman from california. mr. cardoza: i thank my colleague from california, mr. dreier, regain order. in the coming weeks there will be differences of opinion as to how to best address the ailments of our nation, but one thing is absolutely for certain, now more than ever, it is time to ensure

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Dennis A. Cardoza: that the government spends the taxpayers' money wisely. for the first six years of the bush administration, there was virtually no oversight in the republican-led congress and this led to billions of dollars of taxpayer dollars that were squandered by the administration, particularly regarding iraq reconstruction and the response to katrina.

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Dennis A. Cardoza: beginning in january of 2007, the democratic congress turned a new page and took numerous steps to begin changing the way we do business by restoring accountability and orsight. house resolution 40 introduced by my very good friend and colleague, fellow blue dog colleague, mr. tanner and myself, simply adds another

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Dennis A. Cardoza: layer to the rigorous oversight measures that we have already established. this resolution amends house rules to require each standing committee to hold at least three hearings per year on waste, fraud and abuse under each respective committee's jurisdiction. it requires a hearing in the event that an agency's auditor

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Dennis A. Cardoza: issues a disclaimer that the agency's financial statements are not in order. it also requires a hearing if an agency under that respective committee's jurisdiction has a program deemed by the g.a.o. to be at high risk for waste, fraud and abuse. mr. speaker, the house is not in order. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is correct.

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Dennis A. Cardoza: will members please take their conversations off the floor. the gentleman from california. mr. cardoza: at the request of my friends on the other side of the aisle, there are two other stipulations. first, that the resolution shall be considered in light of existing house rules governing

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Dennis A. Cardoza: the conduct of committee hearings, including hearings held in executive session and the treatment of exetive session materials and second, to require that contest' activity reports identify the hearings held under the resolution.

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Dennis A. Cardoza: it is now time to audit america's books. this resolution will add another level of accountability by shing light on the most egregious cases of government waste. i would add, mr. speaker, that i'm very encouraged by president-elect obama's statements regarding his intent to pour through the budget line

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Dennis A. Cardoza: by line to eliminate wasteful spending. while i take the president-elect at his word, this resolution demonstrates this democratic congress will not turn a blind eye to government waste simply because there is now a democratic administration. free pass are over and we must build upon increased oversight

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Dennis A. Cardoza: and accountability efforts. we have an opportunity to re-invent government and adhere to the fiscal accountability measures that the blue dogs have advocated. this will require tough decisions cutting out waste, fraud and abuse must be among our top priorities in this congress.

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Dennis A. Cardoza: all this requires is some bureaucratic soul-searching.

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David Dreier: i ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join the blue dogs in this request. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman serves the balance of his time. the gentleman from california. mr. dreier: mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i might consume and i rise in strong support of this resolution and more important in the bipartisan

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Speech By: David Dreier

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David Dreier: spirit in which it has been shaped, the basic idea behind this resolution is to ensure that contest are fulfilling their oversight duties and fully addressing the need to elimite waste, fraud and abuse from our federal budget. while we always have a duty to spend taxpayer dollars wisely,

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David Dreier: as we all know, this obligation has never ever been more critical than it is today because of our economic environment. we cannot afford to waste a penny of the taxpayers's hard earned dollars. but the implementations must be implemented wisely or the effort

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David Dreier: will be wasted. have this resolution go through regular order, we were very pleased to find the process to be both consulttive and colra bore rative. our modifications were incorporated in the final product. our main concern was one of

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David Dreier: transparency, requiring contest to hold hearings is important, but without transparency, there can be no accountability. we simply ask that hearings on the reports of inspectors general or the comptroller general be included in each survey of activities.

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David Dreier: these surveys are a matter of public record. the taxpayers will be able to directly follow the oversight activities of committees. they will have the opportunity to judge for themselves the level of scrutiny that is given to serious allegations of wasted taxpayers' dollars. our request for greater transparency is reflected in the

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David Dreier: resolution that is before us today. we ask for further clarification for the protections put in place to safeguard classified material. again, the majority was receptive to our request and provided the necessary clarifications. we have one final area of concern, which i would pose as a question to the majority manager.

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David Dreier: as we work to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse it is essential that we do not turn the microscope inward and examine our own operations right here in this institution. the legislative branch must also be fully accountable tthe taxpayer. i would hope that legislative branch inspectors general, such

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Dennis A. Cardoza: as those in the offices of the architect of the capitol, library of congress and smithsonian be subjected to the same scrutiny as other inspectors generals are imposed in other sections of government. i ask the gentleman for a clarification. do these legislative inspectors germs fall under the general

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Speech By: Dennis A. Cardoza

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Dennis A. Cardoza: definition pursuant to the subparagraph n2? and i would yield to the gentleman for his response. mr. cardoza: i thank the gentleman for his yielding and

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David Dreier: thoughtful suggestions. the committee is covered under this resolution and the other measures as you have indicated had already been incorporated as well. mr. dreier: mr. speaker, i thank my friend for his response. and i also would like to thank the majority staff, particularly

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Speech By: David Dreier

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David Dreier: majority counsel for their approach to this resolution. i believe that ts measure puts forth a workable and effective means of improving committee oversight. and i believe that the quality of the end product is a direct result of the bipartisan collaboration that took place throughout the process.

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John S. Tanner: it's my sincere hope, mr. speaker, that future efforts of the rules committee can be similarly driven by consultation and collaboration. and with that, i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from california. mr. cardoza: i yield five minutes to the the gentleman from tennessee, mr. tanner, the author of the asure. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from tennessee is

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Speech By: John S. Tanner

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John S. Tanner: recognized for five minutes. tan tan mr. dreier, i appreciate your comments. what we are attempting to do is to re-establish congressional oversight. congresses authorizes and properties money, but we don't actually spend it.

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John S. Tanner: so when we are asking the administration, whoever it may be, democrat, republican or whoever to come up and explain some of the things that we have seen in the paper by this instrument we are talking about here, i think all of us benefit. what basically h.r. 40 does is

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John S. Tanner: it puts in place a system attic mechanism for rular oversight not only just waste, fraud and abuse, but as mr. car dozea said in his opening remarks, whenever there is a disclaimer, that will trigger a hearing to hopefully ask them while they had to file

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John S. Tanner: the disclaimer, what is the information they didn't receive, why they didn't receive it, who is withholding it, so we can actually fix something around here for a change. and sort of what may have already happen, the third provision looks ahea every year as you know, the

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John S. Tanner: g.a.o. identifies h this these programs and programs that don't work as they were intended when they were passed by congress. and so when that happens, there is a hearing to identify those high risk programs into the future so we can either fix them or abolish them.

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John S. Tanner: you know, without getting into it, there were some 13,000 inspector general recommendations that went unattended in recent years. that is not only our fault, but it is, in my view, a dereliction

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John S. Tanner: of the duty of the congress as a separate and independent branch. so what we are attempting to do again is to put in place a structural oversight mechanism where the house will look at not

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David Dreier: only what we are going to do, but what we've already done. again, i appreciate your comments and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california reserves the balance of his

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Speech By: David Dreier

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Darrell E. Issa: time. the gentleman from california. mr. dreier: i yield three minutes to a hard-working new ranking member of the committee on oversight and government reform, my friend from san diego, mr. issa. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for three minutes. .

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Speech By: Darrell E. Issa

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Darrell E. Issa: mr. issa: almost every day, the government accountability office and inspector generals issue a report identifying waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement. the federal government is large and we can use all the help we can get. unfortunately, these important reports often go unread. they fall without testimony on

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Darrell E. Issa: deaf ears and congress does little or nothing about it. i welcome the fact, mr. speaker, today that we are setting a baseline, a starting point for oversight by the authorization committees. i'm pleased to serve on the committee that has broad jurisdiction and by agreement with the rules committee andhe leadership of chairman touns, we

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Darrell E. Issa: have secured the fact that nothing in this rules change would limit the unlimited jurisdiction to the committee on oversight and reform to look at the same reports and hold hearings on any one or any 13,000 of these various remaing claims as the bush administration leaves.

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Darrell E. Issa: mr. speaker, i want to speak, particularly to mr. tanner's statement, which i think was appropriate and should be dealt with. during the bush administration, 98,000 such findings came out of the g.a.o. and i.g.'s. 1300 were not dealt with in that administration, roughly a 14% leftover. i look forward to the fact that

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Darrell E. Issa: the government oversight and reform committee will have the help of all the authorization committees to look into those and i look forward to working on a bipartisan basis both within the committee on primary oversight and with each committee of jurisdiction because i think it's important that as we allow a new administration to set goals, we

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Darrell E. Issa: deal with all the leftovers, the 13,000 that perhaps would have been taken care of in the ordinary course but now need to be quickly looked at so the new administration can get on to its agendas and as time goes on, i suspect we'll be looking at failures that occur on the new president's watch.

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i look forward to working with the gentleman from california on a bipartisan basis to deal with the remaing roughly 14% of those what occurred on president bush's watch. i once again commend senator touns for his work to make sure the committee is not limited by this resolution, we have been assured it isn't.

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Dennis A. Cardoza: i thank the gentleman from california and yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california. mr. cardoza: may inquire how much time is remaining on both sides? the speaker pro tempore: mr. cardoza has 13 minutes remaining, mr. dreier has 14 minutes remaining. mr. cardoza: thank you, mr. speaker.

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Speech By: Dennis A. Cardoza

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Dennis A. Cardoza: i'd like to yield such time as he may consume to mr. tanner to insert an item into the record. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. tanner: i would like to insert a letter on government oversight on this project into the record. the spker pro tempore: without

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Ron Kind: objection. mr. cardoza: now i'd like to eld two minutes to the gentleman from wisconsin. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. >> i rise as one of the new democratic leaders in support of this resolution. i commend my colleagues for

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Speech By: Ron Kind

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Ron Kind: bringing this before us and for the leadership they have shown on all matters pertaing to fiscal responsibility in this place. this is the proverbial disinfective we are in need of. by systematically require the jurisdictions to hold hearings to identify and root out waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement in the federal agencies and

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Ron Kind: federal programsit's an important step for us to get the fiscal house in order. this is a bipartisan problem and is going to require a bipartisan solution for it. i'm encouraged that our friends across the aisle see the need and necessity to move forward in this systematic fashion to deal with it. this, coupled with

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Ron Kind: president-elect obama's decision to create and appoint a chief performance officer in the white house, i feel, is a good one-two punch to strike at the redundancy and abuse that takes place in federal programs. we should also be clear that this is a first step of many steps we will have to take to

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Ron Kind: get our fiscal house in order. unfortunately, the economy is tanking and in the short-term we'll be dealing with a stimulus package that will be deficit financed. there's great consensus we have to do it. but in the long-term, the outlook is bleak. over the next 75 years, the