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INSPECTORS GENERAL: INDEPENDENCE AND

INTEGRITY

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,

ORGANIZATION, AND PROCUREMENT

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JUNE 20, 2007

Serial No. 110–48

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.oversight.house.gov

(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California, Chairman

TOM LANTOS, California

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland

PETER WELCH, Vermont

TOM DAVIS, Virginia

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

BILL SALI, Idaho

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

PHIL SCHILIRO, Chief of Staff

PHIL BARNETT, Staff Director

EARLEY GREEN, Chief Clerk

DAVID MARIN, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, ORGANIZATION, AND PROCUREMENT

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York, Chairman

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

PETER WELCH, Vermont

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania,

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL MCCARTHY, Staff Director

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on June 20, 2007 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Hill, Eleanor J., former Inspector General, U.S. Department of Defense;

Kenneth M. Mead, former Inspector General, U.S. Department of

Transportation; Nikki L. Tinsley, former Inspector General, Environmental Protection Agency; Jeffrey C. Steinhoff, Managing Director, Financial Management and Assurance, Government Accountability Office;

and Vanessa Burrows, Legislative Attorney, Congressional Research

Service, accompanied by Fred M. Kaiser, Specialist in American National Government, Congressional Research Service ................................. 48

Burrows, Vanessa, and Fred M. Kaiser ................................................... 97

Hill, Eleanor J. .......................................................................................... 48

Mead, Kenneth M. ..................................................................................... 62

Steinhoff, Jeffrey C. .................................................................................. 76

Tinsley, Nikki L. ........................................................................................ 71

Johnson, Clay, Deputy Director for Management, Office of Management

and Budget, Executive Office of the President, and Chair, President’s

Council on Integrity and Efficiency and Executive Council on Integrity

and Efficiency; Phyllis K. Fong, Inspector General, U.S. Department

of Agriculture, and Chair, Legislation Committee, President’s Council

on Integrity and Efficiency; and Christine C. Boesz, Inspector General,

National Science Foundation, and Vice Chair, Executive Council on

Integrity and Efficiency ................................................................................ 16

Boesz, Christine C. .................................................................................... 30

Fong, Phyllis K. ......................................................................................... 22

Johnson, Clay ............................................................................................ 16

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Boesz, Christine C., Inspector General, National Science Foundation, and

Vice Chair, Executive Council on Integrity and Efficiency, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 32

Burrows, Vanessa, Legislative Attorney, Congressional Research Service,

and Fred M. Kaiser, Specialist in American National Government,

Congressional Research Service, prepared statement of ........................... 99

Davis, Hon. Tom, a Representative in Congress from the State of Virginia, prepared statement of ........................................................................ 121

Fong, Phyllis K., Inspector General, U.S. Department of Agriculture,

and Chair, Legislation Committee, President’s Council on Integrity and

Efficiency, prepared statement of ................................................................ 23

Hill, Eleanor J., former Inspector General, U.S. Department of Defense,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 52

Johnson, Clay, Deputy Director for Management, Office of Management

and Budget, Executive Office of the President, and Chair, President’s

Council on Integrity and Efficiency and Executive Council on Integrity

and Efficiency, prepared statement of ........................................................ 19

Mead, Kenneth M., former Inspector General, U.S. Department of Transportation, prepared statement of ................................................................. 65

Miller, Hon. Brad, a Representative in Congress from the State of North

Carolina, prepared statement of .................................................................. 7

Steinhoff, Jeffrey C., Managing Director, Financial Management and Assurance, Government Accountability Office, prepared statement of ........ 78

Tinsley, Nikki L., former Inspector General, Environmental Protection

Agency, prepared statement of .................................................................... 73

(1)

INSPECTORS GENERAL: INDEPENDENCE AND

INTEGRITY

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20, 2007

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, ORGANIZATION, AND PROCUREMENT, COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:05 p.m., in room

2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Edolphus Towns (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Towns, Maloney, Davis of Virginia,

Duncan, and Bilbray.

Also present: Representatives Cooper and Miller.

Staff present: Michael McCarthy, staff director; Velvet Johnson,

counsel; Cecelia Morton, clerk; Alex Cooper, minority professional

staff member; Larry Brady, minority senior investigator and policy

advisor; and Patrick Lyden, minority parliamentarian and member

services coordinator.

Mr. TOWNS. The subcommittee will come to order.

Today’s hearing is on the important role of the Inspector General

in providing independent oversight within Federal agencies by investigating and reporting waste, fraud, and abuse to both agency

leaders and to the Congress. Inspectors General play a critical role

in maintaining checks and balances in the Federal Government.

When Congress created the Inspector General nearly 30 years ago,

the idea was that having an independent official inside the Federal

agencies would help detect and prevent wasteful spending and mismanagement. This concept has been a tremendous success.

Investigations by IGs have resulted in the recovery of billions of

dollars from companies and individuals who defrauded the Federal

Government. These investigations have led to thousands of criminal prosecutions, debarments, exclusions, and suspensions. In 2006,

alone, audits by IG offices resulted in $9.9 billion in potential savings from audit recommendations and $6.8 billion in investigative

recoveries.

In sum, the IG work to ferret out criminal and abusive action in

Government has gone a long way to create the clean and efficient

Government the taxpaying public expects and deserves.

Of course, even the best system needs some improvement from

time to time, and that is why we are here today. To effectively

carry out their mission, Inspectors General must be independent

and objective, which requires that they be insulated from improper

management and political pressure.

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To preserve the credibility of the office, Inspectors General must

also perform their duties with integrity and apply the same standards of conduct and accountability to themselves as they apply to

the agencies that they audit and investigate.

In recent years there have been several episodes which raised

questions about the independence and accountability of the IGs.

We have compiled a report for the record that documents some of

these episodes, many of which have been in the press recently.

Today, we want to look at some of the common problems that these

cases identify and how we can fix them.

Does lack of input into budget decisions threaten the independence of IGs? Is there a consistent and credible process for investigating allegations of wrongdoing against IGs? What is the proper

relationship between the head of a Federal agency and the Inspector General? These are the types of questions today’s hearing will

address.

I believe there are legislative changes we can make that will improve the institutional standing of the Inspector General and better

guarantee their independence and accountability. My colleague

from Tennessee, Representative Jim Cooper—who came to Congress with me and then left and came back, is back with us again—

has introduced H.R. 928, the Improving Government Accountability

Office Act, to do just that. There is a bill in the Senate that fixes

some of the pay disparities that career employees face if they are

appointed as IGs. My friend from New York City, Mrs. Maloney,

has introduced H.R. 2527, which would streamline IG operations at

the IRS.

I welcome all of these witnesses. We have assembled a group of

current and former IGs and a senior administration leader on IG

issues, and experts from GAO and the Library of Congress. The

goal today is to get your input on these issues and these bills.

I always say that we need good input in order to get great output. The output will be a strong bill that will help IGs maintain

their role as honest brokers and continue the valuable work that

they do for Congress and the taxpayers.

I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Tennessee,

Mr. Cooper, and the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Miller,

participate in today’s hearing. Mr. Cooper, of course, is a member

of the full committee, but not this subcommittee. Mr. Miller is the

Chair of the Science and Technology subcommittee that oversees

NASA, and recently held a hearing on the Inspector General’s office there.

I also ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative

days to submit opening statements for the record. Without objection, so ordered.

I recognize now the ranking member of this subcommittee from

the great State of California, Mr. Bilbray, for his opening statement.

Mr. BILBRAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate the chance to be able to discuss this subject. Let’s

face it, the IG in no little ways are sort of Congress’ eye in the sky.

Our ability to actually perceive what is going on or what is not

going on properly is very important.

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I would just like to say to my colleague from Tennessee, like myself, a newly recycled Member of Congress, the fact is that this

hearing will give us the ability to review opportunities and challenges, see how H.R. 928, as drafted, will help, maybe be able to

find some ways that maybe it can be improved and we can move

forward, but I think the real issue here is, regardless of your party

affiliation, I think we have had concerns about the ability of the

IG to do their work appropriately and effectively.

I know that in the previous administration, during my other life

in Congress, there were major concerns. I am sure that the same

concerns exist today with the new administration. Hopefully with

this hearing we will be able to identify exactly what needs to be

done from a legislative point of view to get back on track with the

intention that Congress move forward with the IG 30 years ago.

I think outcome is what really matters here. In the reality, the

standards that we set for the IG in either H.R. 928 or in the other

legislation we may do this year or next year will not be one that

just affects a Republican administration. It will affect every administration for the next decade or two decades. I think that is the

standard we really need to shoot for. Hopefully, we will be able to

work together, understanding that this legislation and this oversight is a service to the American people, and that matters most.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Mr. TOWNS. Thank you very much.

Any other opening statements?

Mr. COOPER. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TOWNS. Mr. Cooper.

Mr. COOPER. If I could just thank you for your kindness in holding this hearing, not only on these important issues, because IGs,

as the gentlemen from New York and California have just stated,

are one of the most important parts of Government, but also I appreciate your including my bill, H.R. 928. I look forward to the expert testimony from the witnesses.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TOWNS. Thank you.

Yes, Mr. Miller?

Mr. MILLER. I would like a chance to speak just briefly on the

nature of my interest as chairman of the Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee of the Science and Technology Committee.

Mr. TOWNS. The gentleman is recognized.

Mr. MILLER. I agree with Mr. Bilbray that Inspectors General

play an important role for Congress in being our eyes and ears

throughout the executive branch of Government so that we can perform our functions of oversight, we can know what is going on,

whether there is misconduct or whether there is simply a way to

run Government better. Inspectors General are an important part

of that.

The Inspector General Act of 1978 required that Inspectors General be selected without regard to political affiliation and solely on

the basis of integrity and demonstrated ability in accounting, auditing, financial analysis, law, management, management analysis,

public administration, and investigations. They are nominated by

the President, they are confirmed by the Senate.

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The Inspectors General have sweeping powers to look at what is

going on in agencies, and they are to report to us, to Congress, as

well as to the agency head. They can be removed by the President,

but in any removal the reasons for removal have to be reported to

both houses of Congress. And, in practice, over the 30 years that

we have had the Inspectors General Act, many Inspectors General

are career IGs, they have served in several administrations, they

often have served in more than one agency.

We expect them to be impartial, objective, and, above all, independent. Any Inspector General worth his salt must be willing to

make enemies of powerful people to do his job right. As a result,

the efforts, as Mr. Bilbray pointed out, are very dedicated Inspectors General.

We have held the executive branch of Government accountable to

Congress and to the American people. Ideally, any administration

should welcome the role of Inspector General in helping them manage the Federal Government, but we have seen an effort to resist

any accountability, whether by Congress, the courts, or by Inspectors General. Unfortunately, the appointment of Inspectors General

has been both politicized and dumbed down. The Inspectors General often have not met any professional standards and have not

seen themselves as independent watchdogs, but they have seen

themselves as part of the management team of the agency.

Mr. Johnson, one of the witnesses today, will testify that Inspectors General are selected or fired or selected by the agency head.

That is not how an independent Inspector General should operate,

and the result has been Inspectors General just do not—or at least

some—understand their proper role. It has created enormous turmoil in their offices with their professional staff who do know what

the proper role is and are very frustrated to see appointed Inspectors General is more interested in protecting the agencies from embarrassment than they are in calling the agency out and holding

them accountable when need be.

We have specifically investigated the Inspector General of NASA,

Moose Cobb. He was personally selected for the position by NASA’s

former administrator, Sean O’Keefe, who decided he did not like

the previous Inspector General, the one that he inherited when he

became the administrator of NASA. He had his chief of staff interview Mr. Cobb, who at that time was working in the White House

Counsel’s office reporting to Alberto Gonzales. Mr. Cobb had no apparent experience in auditing and financial management and public administration, accounting, investigations in aeronautics, or any

other area that was pertinent to his service as Inspector General

of NASA, nor had he ever managed an office.

Once at NASA, he was everyone’s worst nightmare of a boss. He

was a tyrant to his own staff, and he was a sycophant to Mr.

O’Keefe and to the top management at NASA. He was openly contemptuous of career NASA IG employees. He called them bureaons.

That was his shorthand for bureaucratic morons.

Mr. Chairman, I think most Americans, including me, have widely admired, have admired NASA’s employees as the right stuff people. It was NASA’s employees who put Americans on the moon. It

was NASA’s employees who got Apollo 13 crew safely back to

Earth. But Mr. Cobb at NASA preferred the company of the politiVerDate 17-JUN-2003 14:27 May 20, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\41854.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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cal appointees over that of his own staff or other NASA employees.

He frequently had lunch in the NASA cafeteria with Mr. O’Keefe,

with Mr. O’Keefe’s chief of staff, the NASA General Counsel—in

other words, the political appointees. He played golf, he had drinks

with them, he called Mr. O’Keefe his boss and worried that Mr.

O’Keefe could fire him, as Mr. O’Keefe had, in fact, fired his predecessor.

No NASA employee thinking of blowing the whistle on anything

that they saw happening at NASA would feel confident that they

could get to Mr. Cobb, tell him what was going on, and believe that

he would respect their confidentiality and use the information that

employee provided in the proper way.

Mr. Cobb mistrusted and routinely berated his own staff. He discussed audits and investigations with Mr. O’Keefe and the other

management at NASA. He halted or edited audit findings to suit

NASA management. Experienced staff left in droves and productivity cratered.

The President’s Council on Integrity and Management initially

ignored employee complaints, but by 2006 the complaints had

reached a critical mass and they began an investigation that took

several months, and the Council found that Mr. Cobb had abused

his authority, that he had shown a lack of independence from

NASA officials, and said that discipline up to and including removal should be imposed.

But the decision on what to do about Mr. Cobb was turned over

to the new administrator of NASA, creating another appearance of

a lack of independence, and now, even after congressional hearings

when it was very apparent that all of the congressional leadership

with oversight of NASA, committees with oversight of NASA, have

called upon the removal of Mr. Cobb, Mr. Cobb remains in position.

We cannot turn to the NASA Inspector General to be our eyes and

ears in that agency.

Mr. Chairman, the Inspector General Act was intended to make

our Government accountable to the American people. Instead, Mr.

Cobb at NASA, and perhaps others, have used their positions as

Inspectors General to shield the Bush administration from political

embarrassment instead of being an independent watchdog, instead

of holding that agency or other agencies accountable to Congress

and to the American people.

An Inspector General is not going to act as a tough, independent

watchdog if they are hired, fired, and disciplined by the agency

head, and Inspectors General have to be selected for their professional qualifications, not their political loyalty.

In the early years of the Inspector General Act, a committee of

Inspectors General reviewed the prospective Inspectors General for

their qualifications. Mr. Cobb almost certainly would not have survived a review like that. Why should that practice not be instituted

again?

Something here has to give. I have some reservation about Mr.

Cooper’s bill, the legislation, but I certainly applaud him for raising

this issue and beginning what I think needs to be a debate within

Congress.

I look forward to working, Mr. Chairman, with you and with

your subcommittee and staff on legislation.

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Mr. Chairman, I will present later, if the Chair allows, a more

detailed analysis of Mr. Cooper’s proposed legislation.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Brad Miller follows:]

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Mr. TOWNS. Let me just thank all of you for your opening statements. I think that we do have one thing in common: we all feel

that something needs to happen in a positive way in order to move

forward. I think we all agree on that. As exactly what it is, we may

not agree on that, but I think that is the reason why we have these

hearings, that is the reason why we bring the experts in to talk to

us, so that we can come up with a way and method to be able to

try and resolve it.

I want to thank you again for your opening statements.

Let me say this: it is a longstanding policy of this committee that

we swear our witnesses in.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. TOWNS. Let the record reflect that they all answered in the

affirmative.

Let me introduce the panel.

Clay Johnson is the Deputy Director for Management at the Office of Management and Budget. He served as Chair of the President’s Executive Council on Integrity and Efficiency, the coordinating body for Federal Inspectors General.

Phyllis Fong has served as the Inspector General for the Department of Agriculture since December 2002. Prior to that she was the

IG at the Small Business Administration. Her career in Executivelevel positions in the Federal Inspector General community spans

19 years. She looks young, but she has been around. Ms. Fong is

Chair of the Legislation Committee of the PCIE.

Christine Boesz assumed the duty of Inspector General of the

National Science Foundation in January 2000. She represents

agency-appointed IGs as the Vice Chair of the Executive Council

for Integrity and Efficiency.

Your entire statement is in the record, and I ask that each of you

summarize within 5 minutes. The yellow light means your time is

almost up, and the red light means your time is up.

I would like to start with you, Mr. Johnson. Will you proceed?

STATEMENTS OF CLAY JOHNSON, DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR

MANAGEMENT, OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET, EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT, AND CHAIR, PRESIDENT’S COUNCIL ON INTEGRITY AND EFFICIENCY AND EXECUTIVE COUNCIL ON INTEGRITY AND EFFICIENCY; PHYLLIS K. FONG, INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF

AGRICULTURE, AND CHAIR, LEGISLATION COMMITTEE,

PRESIDENT’S COUNCIL ON INTEGRITY AND EFFICIENCY;

AND CHRISTINE C. BOESZ, INSPECTOR GENERAL, NATIONAL

SCIENCE FOUNDATION, AND VICE CHAIR, EXECUTIVE COUNCIL ON INTEGRITY AND EFFICIENCY

STATEMENT OF CLAY JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Bilbray, Mr. Cooper, and Mr. Miller, thank you for having me here.

After those opening comments, I can tell this hearing is going to

be a little bit more interesting than I thought, because, Mr. Miller,

you have not only brought into question my oversight of the Inspector General community, you have brought into question my performance as the head of Presidential personnel for 2 years. I can

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tell you your assertion about how IGs, how any political appointee,

is selected is totally wrong, so I look forward to the conversation

here and whenever else you want to continue it.

The comment was made that IGs are Congress’ eye in the sky.

More importantly, first of all, you have your own eye in the sky,

GAO. More importantly, I believe, than your eye in the sky, the

IGs are the executive branch’s eye in the sky.

Federal agency leadership wants their agencies to work really

well. No head of any agency or department wants their agency to

perform poorly, so IGs are critical in an agency head’s ability for

their agency to perform well. IGs identify things that need to be

fixed. Oversight, transparency identifies things that need to be

fixed. So IGs and agency heads share the same goal: they are to

work together. It is not true, as some Members of Congress have

suggested, that IGs are best when they are junkyard dogs and they

are the avowed enemy of the agency head.

I don’t know of any highly functioning, effective IG in the Federal Government, past or present, who has that modus operandi

that is an effective IG. I have issued in my written remarks the

one-page document that the IG leadership and I developed in 2004,

which is our view of the proper relationship that an agency head

and an IG ought to have. There is no junkyard dog or enemy component in that.

I do not believe the assertion that the IGs have been dumbed

down. I agree totally with Chairman Towns that the volume and

the quality of the work done by IGs today is superb. It is outstanding, by any measure, and it is as high as it has ever been.

I have heard, with all the assertions about how independent or

dependent IGs are, I have never heard any reference to result to

a quantification of their performance that suggests that the quality

or quantity of the IG’s work is any less than it has been or is anything short of what it can be.

I believe that a lot of the assertions that the IG community needs

to be fixed are based on philosophical sentiments as opposed to any

kind of tangible evidence that there is a real problem to be fixed.

I think it is very important to recognize that IGs and agency

heads share the same goal. They want the agencies to work; therefore, they are to work together. They are not to work in opposition

to cause their agencies to work effectively together. But it is also

very important that IGs be very independent. What is supposed to

be independent is their findings. Their findings are supposed to be

based entirely on the facts, not on any kind of political persuasion.

I think it is very important also to recognize that the proper relationship to be achieved by an agency head and an IG is something

that needs to be worked at on a daily basis. It is not something

that is legislated or created by fiat.

I also believe it is important to recognize that IGs do need to be

held accountable for the quantity and quality of their work. As a

result of these feelings, I believe the following: I believe that setting terms for IGs and specific reasons for dismissal are bad ideas.

It is measures such as these that work against an IG being held

accountable for the quality and quantity of their work.

I believe, as a result of what I just stated, I believe it is important that budget requests from an IG not be separate from the

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agency submission. I do believe it needs to be clear in the agency’s

submission what amount is being requested for the IG and how

that compares to past performance, but I do not believe it needs

to be separate, because it works against the agency head and the

IG working together for the success of the agency.

I believe it is very important to fix IG pay. There are parts about

IG pay that do not work. In fact, a lot of them are SES, and SES

can only get raises if they are evaluated, but who can evaluate an

IG is a real problem.

I am not sure that your bill, Mr. Cooper, is the answer. I don’t

know what it is, but I look forward to working with you on that

and other aspects of it.

Finally, I believe it is very important that the Integrity Committee process be reviewed. I think there are some rights that IGs

have that they don’t need and have that they don’t have in that

process, and we need to make sure that is the best investigation

process that it can be, because is it a very important process.

With those remarks, I look forward to your questions after the

other opening remarks.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Johnson follows:]

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Mr. TOWNS. Thank you very much, Mr. Johnson.

Ms. Fong.

STATEMENT OF PHYLLIS K. FONG

Ms. FONG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Bilbray,

Mr. Cooper, and Mr. Miller. I am very, very pleased to be here

today to talk about the issues of accountability, independence, and

the Cooper bill.

As you mentioned in your very kind introduction of me, I have

been privileged to have received an appointment from both President Bush and President Clinton, and truly am what I consider to

be a career IG employee.

In addition to my service as an IG, as you mentioned, I am the

Chair of the PCIE Legislation Committee, and I should just note

that the committee’s job is to serve as the community’s liaison with

Congress on issues dealing with legislation. What we try to do in

the committee is to build consensus, to the extent that we can, on

issues that affect the IG community, as a whole.

Now, that is not always possible because different IGs have different experiences and situations, and so unanimity may not always be possible, but I will say that, with respect to the Cooper

bill, there is widespread support in the community for many, many

of the provisions in the bill, and we are very, very grateful to Mr.

Cooper for working with us over these years to get this legislation

developed.

As you requested, my testimony today will focus on issues of

independence and accountability. We believe several of the bill’s

provisions are very effective at addressing these issues. In particular, the provision in the bill that would codify a council of the IGs,

we believe that would enhance independence and coordination

within the community. It would also codify the workings of the Integrity Committee, which we believe to be a very important byproduct.

In addition, the bill contains provisions regarding terms of office

and removal for cause, which we believe strikes directly to the

heart of independence of IGs, and also would deal with certain pay

issues for the DFE IGs.

So, in closing, on behalf of the Legislation Committee, I would

like to express my very deep appreciation to all of you for your

work on this, and we look forward to answering your questions.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Fong follows:]

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Mr. TOWNS. Thank you very much, Ms. Fong.

Dr. Boesz.

STATEMENT OF CHRISTINE C. BOESZ

Ms. BOESZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member

Bilbray and Mr. Cooper and Mr. Miller. I am delighted to be here

today.

As you mentioned in my introduction, I not only am an IG but

also serve as the Chair of the ECIE, and I wanted to be sure that

you understand that this is a group of 33 agencies with very diverse missions and operations. Some have very high public profiles,

and some are smaller but still very important agencies.

Although I believe my views are shared by many of the ECIE

IGs, today I will speak for myself and will indicate where I think

there is broader support.

My testimony focuses on the provisions of H.R. 928. I offer the

following observations: First, H.R. 928 proposes to establish 7 year

terms for all IGs and the specific causes that would lead for removal of an IG. It is unclear to me whether this proposal would

enhance ID independence or instead produce unintended consequences. Because ECIE IGs are generally career Federal employees who serve in positions with Civil Service status and corresponding protections, one unintended consequence may be that

strong candidates for IG positions would be dissuaded from exchanging a permanent position for a term appointment.

ECIE IGs are also subject for removal for cause currently. The

10-year removal of any IG are sensitive matters, and any changes

to the law need to be carefully considered to avoid impairing the

current IG roles or making it undesirable for those who should

serve as IGs.

In short, on this matter the devil is in the details.

The proposal to authorize IGs to submit budgets directly to OMB

is needed. It removes the risk of an agency inappropriately influencing an IG and it provides transparency to the budget process.

I and a majority of the ECIE IGs support this.

The proposal for a unified IG council that has its own appropriation is also desirable. We support it because we believe it would

help with our training.

The proposal to require that IGs be classified for pay and other

purposes at the same level as other senior staff reporting directly

to the agency head is critical within the ECIE community. In a recent survey, we found that some ECIE IGs had a lower grade level

than other direct report executives and are sometimes paid less.

Not surprisingly, the ECIE IGs strongly support pay parity and equity for all IGs.

H.R. 928 also would allow for ECIE IGs to apply to the Department of Justice for law enforcement authority, ending the inefficient process of reviewing such authority on a case-by-case basis.

I and the other ECIE IG strongly support this provision.

Finally, I would mention that H.R. 928 would amend the Program Fraud Civil Remedy Act to include the ECIE IGs and agencies, thereby providing an effective tool to address claims with dollar amounts less than $150,000. This amendment has been a high

priority for the ECIE agencies and IGs for many years now.

31

I also want to note that within the ECIE we have three legislative branch IGs. Their circumstances are a little bit different, and

they mentioned to me that they would like to speak directly to you

about their specific issues.

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my testimony. I again thank you

and the members of the subcommittee for conducting this hearing

and giving your time and attention to these very, very important

matters.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Boesz follows:]

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35

36

37

38

39

Mr. TOWNS. Thank you very much.

Let me thank all of you for your testimonies.

Let me begin with you, Ms. Fong. What is it in the Cooper bill

that you dislike?

Ms. FONG. Well, we have looked at the bill. As I mentioned, it

is not always easy to have a unanimous view in the IG community,

and so on a number of provisions there are different views as to

whether the provision is the best that it could be. Certainly, one

of the issues that has come up has been a issue of IG pay. The Cooper bill is very good at addressing the DFE IG situation, does not

address the PAS IG situation, so we would want to work with the

committee on that provision.

There may also be a few technical amendments that we would

want to offer with respect to some of the language. I think Dr.

Boesz has raised a very good issue about the legislative branch

IGs, as well. That needs to be considered.

Mr. TOWNS. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Mr. Johnson, you know, there is criticism out there, the same as

with the education system. They are saying that you have a principal of the school and a lot of bad things are going on in the

school, and the principal will not report it because it makes him

look like he is a bad principal. So when it comes to the IG, you

know, and agency, many people are saying that is what is going

on, that there is this cozy relationship, that the IG does not, you

know, report everything because it also makes the agency, itself,

look bad.

What are your views? Is this accurate?

Mr. JOHNSON. No, sir, I don’t believe that it is accurate at all.

I believe that, in fact, there is more transparency about what

doesn’t work in the Federal Government today than there ever has

been before. First of all, the numbers produced by the IG efforts

are as strong and as positive and as professionally done as has ever

been the case. There is more information now prompted by and developed by this administration, as long as we are talking about this

administration, about what programs work and don’t work in the

Federal Government.

There is more information about what Federal property we need

and don’t need. There is more information about where our payments are proper and improper and what we are doing to fix them.

There is more information about what management practices we

have in what agencies and where we are deficient in our ability to

be good stewards of the taxpayers’ money. So there is more information, there is more public declaration today than ever before, including as a result of the IGs work, on what doesn’t work, what

does work, and what we need to be doing to make everything work

better.

So I believe that there is no indication that there is any kind of

pressure to hide what doesn’t work. I think it is just the opposite.

There has been more effort to declare what doesn’t work so there

can be more pressure, starting with Congress, more pressure exerted by Congress on the executive branch to cause things to work

better.

We have over 1,000 programs in the Federal Government, and

yet there is very little pressure from Congress to cause those proVerDate 17-JUN-2003 14:27 May 20, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00043 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\41854.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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grams to work better. There is a tremendous amount of attention

paid to what the policy ought to be and how much money ought

to be spent, but there is very little attention—and this is not only

my opinion, this is the opinion of David Walker and former Chairman Dick Armey—that the executive branch is significantly more

focused on program performance than the congressional branch,

legislative branch.

And so I think there is more attention than ever before on how

things work and how to make it work better, and so I just don’t

agree with the premise at all that there is an effort to hide things

that don’t work. It is just the opposite.

Mr. TOWNS. All right. Let me just go right down the line. How

do you feel about performance evaluation in terms of tying pay to

performance evaluations? Let me go right down the line, starting

with you, Dr. Boesz, and come right down the line.

Ms. BOESZ. Tying performance of the IG?

Mr. TOWNS. Yes.

Ms. BOESZ. Well, my situation, my performance, I do get a review

based on the performance of the office, and it rolls up. We have a

strategic plan, and it rolls up all the way from the auditors up

through management to me to the National Science Board, who I

work for, and so we are evaluated and expected to meet certain

kinds of criteria. Now, we set them, but we also then meet them.

So we don’t think it is a bad concept.

Mr. TOWNS. Ms. Fong.

Ms. FONG. As a PAS IG we have a slightly different situation.

In principle, I support performance-based pay. I think it is very important to hold people accountable, and certainly within our organization we hold our employees accountable for meeting their goals

and objectives. When it comes to IGs, we get into a little more complex situation, because the question is who would make the decision as to whether an IG is doing a good job, and the issue of independence and potential conflicts of interest.

If the agency head is the one who appraises the IG, there could

be a challenge to whether that appraisal is impartial or justified.

There could be charges that the IG either did or didn’t do work in

order to get a good rating or a bonus or whatever, and so that

raises some very difficult issues for IGs who are Presidential appointees.

At this stage of the game, as a PAS IG I am not rated or appraised. I am accountable for the performance of my office and ultimately accountable to the President.

Mr. TOWNS. All right.

Mr. Johnson.

Mr. JOHNSON. I think there are two parts about performance

evaluation. One, giving whoever is being reviewed feedback about

how they are doing can be helpful to them to learn how to be better. I think it is very difficult to have that feedback come from the

head of the agency, as has been suggested. But I would look forward to working with the IGs to figure out how they can get feedback from peers or some other means to help them continually improve their performance.

I think, therefore, it makes it very hard for an SES to get pay

increases based on performance evaluation, as is the case with

41

SESers, because there is no one to do a performance evaluation

without violating this independence issue, so we have to fix that.

It has been suggested that the raises be the average of the raises

given to everybody. I don’t know what it is, but we need to fix that,

because it is not fair, it is not right, and it is a big part of the

issues raised by Mr. Cooper that I think need to be addressed in

some piece of legislation.

Mr. TOWNS. Right. Thank you very much.

I yield to Mr. Cooper.

Mr. COOPER. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Again, I appreciate your holding this hearing. All we are trying to do is make

Government work, regardless of the administration. There should

be no politics in this bill. We are just trying to get value for taxpayer dollars.

I appreciate the testimony of each of the witnesses. I don’t want

to dwell on the negative and I don’t want to be simplistic and dwell

on the positive, either, but one of the complaints has been that people are uncertain about dealing with a fixed term for the IG. That

would be a new experience for many of the IGs, not all. How would

that mesh with administrations? What term do you pick for a term

of office? Of course, IGs could be reappointed and only removed

under defined circumstances, but I think we all share the same

goals. It is a question of the best way to reach that goal.

An alternative proposal has been to not have a fixed term of office, but to have a 30 day advance notice to Congress in the event

that an IG is dismissed. Of course, that gets tricky meshing with

the congressional calendar. Is that 30 legislative days? Sometimes

we are not here during August or major holidays. Every proposal

has its own flaws, but I am curious. Would that sit better with

OMB or with the two different varieties of IGs than a fixed term

in office?

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes. I, myself, I would recommend that the administration oppose a term. Of course, the President doesn’t want any

restrictions on his ability to appoint. That is just a generic statement. But I think a term and specific reasons limit the ability to

hold an IG accountable.

For instance, Mr. Miller, you were talking about Moose Cobb.

None of the things that you have accused Moose of or Moose has

been accused of are on this list, which is kind of an interesting,

ironic thing. But I think some kind of a notification, I don’t know

whether it is 30 days, because Congress has a way of, if they are

dissatisfied with that, letting that satisfaction be known to the executive branch, but something like that might be appropriate. But

I am definitely opposed to and recommend that we oppose a term

and specific reasons for dismissal.

Mr. COOPER. But then you would be wholeheartedly in support

of the bill, right?

Mr. JOHNSON. I think some legislation is called for to deal with

some of these things, but I think I am opposed to some of them.

Mr. COOPER. Ms. Fong, Dr. Boesz, would you have a reaction to

that?

Ms. FONG. I think we are struggling with the very heart of the

nature of the IG role, which is independence, and how to best ensure that. The sense that I have from my colleagues in the commuVerDate 17-JUN-2003 14:27 May 20, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00045 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\41854.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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nity is that it would be very helpful to have some kind of protection

so that IGs, when they take a position, have the understanding

that they will not be removed tomorrow for a reason that may not

be apparent to them, and so, in trying to develop proposals, we

looked at terms, we looked at removal for cause. I think your idea

about advanced notice to Congress so that there would be an opportunity for oversight is also something that is worth exploring.

The bottom line is that, as IGs, when we operate within our

agencies we need the agency managers to see us and to say, that

is the IG I am dealing with today, that is the IG that I expect to

be dealing with tomorrow, regardless of whether they take on difficult issues. So how do we best protect that?

Mr. COOPER. I agree with you.

Dr. Boesz.

Ms. BOESZ. I would agree very much with that last statement.

The IG needs some constant consistency throughout their tenure,

whatever it may be.

The 30 day advance notice to Congress, in my personal view, is

a much better approach than a term limit; however, we still need

to think through how that affects someone who is a Federal employee with specific rights, rather than a Presidential appointee.

Mr. COOPER. I see my time is expiring. I want everyone to know

I am very sensitive to your concerns, and I hope that we can address them. I am just thankful that finally legislation may be moving, because we have had this bill now for 4 or 5 years. It has been

a long wait, and it is about time that Congress responded to some

of these problems.

I want to pay particular tribute to Cicily Simpson, who is helping

me with the bill now, and also to Ann Kim, her predecessor, because we couldn’t have done this work without them.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. JOHNSON. May I make one comment? I am also not aware

that you all feel that an IG has been removed unnecessarily. Aren’t

we talking about a possible problem, or is your feeling that, in fact,

we have had instances of unwarranted removal?

Mr. COOPER. The effort was for professionalization, and we have

to anticipate all future circumstances. No, I am not blaming anyone. We just want IG’s stature to be enhanced so that they can do

an even better job of protecting taxpayers. That is all we are interested in.

Mr. TOWNS. Congressman Duncan from Tennessee.

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I won’t

have any questions, since I just got here. I will say that I commend

my colleague from Tennessee, Mr. Cooper, for introducing this bill.

In the 106th Congress I introduced a bill to make all of the Inspectors General Presidential appointees. At any rate, we later ended

up passing a bill to make the Inspector General for TVA an independent.

I do have some questions as to how these terms are going to be

defined. The one that leaped out to me was inefficiency. I mean,

we could remove half the people in the Federal Government if we

are going to talk about inefficiency. But at any rate, there are some

of these things that probably need to be defined in a little more deVerDate 17-JUN-2003 14:27 May 20, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00046 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\41854.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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tail, but I think that the goal of the legislation is good and I think

it is something that I would try to support.

Thank you very much.

Mr. TOWNS. Thank you very much. That is another bill. That is

another bill.

Mr. Miller.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Johnson, I want to pause and celebrate a point of agreement.

I said in my opening statement that I applaud Mr. Cooper for raising the issue, but I do agree with you that the list of reasons for

which Inspectors General can be removed is too narrow.

Mr. Bilbray said in his opening remarks that the Inspector General was the eye in the sky, was his term, and you apparently disagreed in part with that and said that the GAO was really more

the Congress’ watchdog. Do you agree with this statement about

the role of Inspectors General: ‘‘Inspectors General report both to

the head of their respective agencies and to the Congress. This

dual reporting responsibility is the framework within which Inspectors General perform their functions. Unique in Government, dual

reporting is the legislative safety net that protects the Inspectors

General independence and objectivity.’’

Mr. JOHNSON. I agree with that. What I said, though, was that

it is more than your Congress’ eye in the sky, it is the executive

branch’s eye in the sky. You have your own——

Mr. MILLER. Right.

Mr. JOHNSON [continuing]. And then you also have the IGs. You

have two eyes in the sky. We have one, which is the IGs. And so

it is not just an asset for Congress; it is a huge asset for agency

heads and the executive branch.

Mr. MILLER. Right. This, of course, as I hope you know, comes

from your own agency’s standards.

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes.

Mr. MILLER. You would agree, then, that it is a problem that

Congress does not have confidence in the objectivity and independence of an Inspector General?

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, that would be a problem. Yes.

Mr. MILLER. OK. It would be a problem with his doing his role

as contemplated by the statute and by the standards of conduct.

Mr. JOHNSON. There are also opportunities for differences of

opinion, obviously.

Mr. MILLER. OK. And that independence is not just a matter of

whatever the reality is, but appearance matters, as well. Independence is a critical element of objectivity. Without independence both

in fact and in appearance, objectivity is impaired. Do you agree

that independence is important?

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes. Right.

Mr. MILLER. With respect to Mr. Cobb, again, your own office’s

report said that he routinely had lunch weekly with Mr. O’Keefe,

the chief of staff, the Council. It was usually in the NASA employees’ cafeteria; that Mr. Cobb frequently, or occasionally, at least,

played golf with Mr. O’Keefe, he went up to Mr. O’Keefe’s office for

drinks, he referred to Mr. O’Keefe as his boss. For an employee of

NASA who wanted to blow the whistle or who saw something going

on that he did not like and wanted to find someone to tell about

44

it, would that employee have confidence in Mr. Cobb that Mr. Cobb

will handle the information in the proper way and would protect

the confidentiality of that employee’s reporting it?

Mr. JOHNSON. I don’t know what would affect that employee’s

feelings about Mr. Cobb’s independence. Let me address this a little bit indirectly. I know two very senior IGs, very senior IGs. One

would think nothing of going to the agency head’s Christmas dinner at the agency head’s house. The other one wouldn’t do it with

a gun held to his head. They are both outstanding IGs. They have

very different views about what appearance is proper and what is

improper.

I would suggest to you in a very small way that says there is no

correlation. I defy anybody to demonstrate any correlation between

whether somebody has lunch with the agency head and the quality

of the IG’s work. I have never heard you say and I never heard the

Integrity Committee say that the quantification of the NASA IG’s

work is in question.

Mr. MILLER. Actually, Mr. Johnson, it is. The evidence is that the

number of audits produced by Mr. Cobb’s office has fallen to half

what it was under his predecessors, so yes, the quantity——

Mr. JOHNSON. Is the dollar value of them halved?

Mr. MILLER. Well, I didn’t come prepared to cross-examine you

on the facts.

Mr. JOHNSON. It is a good thing, because I don’t know the facts,

either, but I just heard you specify that number, which we are in

the dollar business, not the number of audit business.

Mr. MILLER. My understanding is it has fallen to half.

Ms. Fong, you are in Inspector General. What is your view of

that kind of level of a visible relationship to employees between the

Inspector General and the top political leadership of the department? Does that create a problem in your mind?

Ms. FONG. It is probably one of the most difficult issues that IGs

face, exactly what is the proper kind of relationship with an agency

head. I think each IG has to work it out for himself or herself.

I can speak to you about my own personal experience. Personally, I am most comfortable when I have an arm’s length relationship with my agency head. It is not to say it is not cordial, that

we don’t have a very good, constructive working relationship and

I can brief him at any time on issues, but for me an arm’s length

relationship ensures that anything that comes up that I need to

look at, I am able to look at without a sense of my independence

being on the table.

Mr. MILLER. OK. And how about the importance of the appearance to others, either employees or to Congress?

Ms. FONG. We certainly are always very aware of appearances.

At any time any of us can have allegations filed about our conduct,

and so I think we are all very sensitive to the fact that we need

to appear impartial and, of course, actually be impartial, as well.

Mr. MILLER. OK.

Mr. JOHNSON. One thing, we are talking about Mr. Cobb, this

and that, the Integrity Committee, which is the official investigating entity that produced the report, which is made up of an FBI

senior person, the head of the Office of Government Ethics, Office

of Special Counsel, Office of Government Ethics, and three IGs

45

found Mr. Cobb was—there was the appearance of lack of independence, appearance, but no suggestion that anything about his

findings were anything but independent, and that there was abuse

of authority.

There were 27-odd other allegations that were made, some of

which you referenced, in terms of his behavior, which he was found

not to be ‘‘guilty’’ of. And I think Administrator Griffin, as he has

indicated, is in the process of addressing that. There has been no

accusation that he’s the problem with dependence, lack of appearance of independence from Mr. Griffin.

So he remains in the office there, because the feeling of the administration, and in consultation with Mr. Griffin, is that he can

do a very good job as the Inspector General at NASA.

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Chairman, I don’t want to abuse your generosity, but I would like to pursue that point for just a minute more,

if I could.

Mr. TOWNS. You can.

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Johnson, the PCIE report said, among other

things, concluded that Mr. Johnson would confer with the top management—I am sorry, Mr. Cobb would confer with the top management at NASA in the design of audits, and then would send to

them draft copies of findings of audit reports before it was issued

for their reaction and audit it, and sat on some findings in response

to their concerns. That strikes me as more than an appearance.

That strikes me as the reality of a lack of independence. Does that

not strike you as something more troubling than unseemly appearance?

Mr. JOHNSON. It doesn’t. I am not an IG. Dr. Boesz and Ms. Fong

are IGs. It is standard practice before a report is issued that they

be sent to agency leadership for official comment, and then it is

issued with agency’s comment. I don’t know if what you are referring to is that process or something other than that process.

Mr. MILLER. Actually, I think I did not speak correctly. It was

before they were even a draft. It was before the audits.

Mr. JOHNSON. Three IGs, the Criminal Investigation at FBI, Government Ethics, Special Counsel looked at that and found that not

to be problematic, so I just—you ought to ask them that question.

Mr. TOWNS. I want to followup, Mr. Johnson.

I understand there is a process in place for investigating complaints against IGs.

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes.

Mr. TOWNS. The Integrity Committee of the PCIE——

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes.

Mr. TOWNS [continuing]. Works with another IG’s office to conduct an investigation. My question is this: what happens after the

Integrity Committee reports back? They send a report to the Chair

of the PCIE, Mr. Johnson, and what happens after it lands on your

desk?

Mr. JOHNSON. I have had some opportunity to understand the

answer to this question in the last couple of months. Here is my

understanding of the answer to that question: they do their report.

It comes to me as the Chair of the PCIE.

Mr. TOWNS. Right.

46

Mr. JOHNSON. Because these are with the PCIE, they are Presidential appointees. If the identified behavior appears to warrant

consideration by the White House for dismissal, I would bring that

up with the White House.

Mr. TOWNS. Do they vote on it? At PCIE do you vote on it?

Mr. JOHNSON. No. PCIE is not involved in this.

Mr. TOWNS. All right.

Mr. JOHNSON. There is an Integrity Committee. We were talking

about the report by the PCIE. There is an Integrity Committee

that is under the umbrella of the PCIE. The people that produce

the report are, the chairman is somebody designated by the Director of FBI, the Office of Special Counsel, the Office of Government

Ethics, and three IGs, so it is a group of six. They produce a report.

Mr. TOWNS. But is there any voting on this, or is it the President’s decision?

Mr. JOHNSON. I don’t know how it works. The six of them

produce this report.

Mr. TOWNS. Yes.

Mr. JOHNSON. With findings. They say, here’s all the allegations,

here’s what we found to be of substance. It comes to me. If there

is suggestion that this ought to go straight to the White House, I

take it straight to the White House. If not, it would go to the head

of the agency for review and consideration. Then the head of the

agency determines whether they have confidence in the IG, whether they want to recommend to the President that the IG be removed, whether there be sanctions, there be some change in the organization, but it goes to the agency head.

That then goes back to the Integrity Committee through me. I

get it from one, I hand it to the other. It goes back to the Integrity

Committee. Then the Integrity Committee gets it, finds out what

the head of the agency wants to do, and if they agree that is it.

If they want to comment on it, think it is too much or too little,

they issue another report that says whatever they want to say, and

then it is sent. So that is the basic process.

Mr. TOWNS. Right. So it is up to you, if you want to move it on,

you move it on; if you don’t——

Mr. JOHNSON. No.

Mr. TOWNS. No?

Mr. JOHNSON. No. It comes to me from the Integrity Committee.

Mr. TOWNS. Yes.

Mr. JOHNSON. If the behavior is found to be egregious enough

that I think possible dismissal, removal by the President ought to

be the only question, then I would take it directly to the White

House. If it is, in my estimation, less than that, then it would go

to the agency head. This is per an Executive order that President

Clinton signed in 1994 or 1997 or something.

Mr. TOWNS. In other words, you have to send it somewhere?

Mr. JOHNSON. I have to send it somewhere, yes. It goes to the

agency head, and because they share the goal of the success of

NASA, in Mr. Cobb’s case, and so they decide whether he believes

NASA can have a well-functioning IG operation, given this information, or not. And they would come back and go in writing and

come back to the Integrity Committee through me with what their

response to the findings of the Integrity Committee are.

47

Mr. TOWNS. All right. Thank you.

Mr. JOHNSON. If it sounds convoluted, it is because it is a little

convoluted.

Mr. TOWNS. Yes, I agree with that, but it seems like to me you

have a lot of power, though. It seems to me you have a lot of power

in the process. Yes.

Mr. JOHNSON. I am more of a messenger. I really don’t have any

power in the Integrity Committee, itself, on purpose. It is set up

that way. It is the Inspector General, the investigative community

investigating its own.

Mr. TOWNS. Yes. But I think the reason I say you have a lot of

power, I heard the words ‘‘pass on to the White House.’’

Mr. JOHNSON. That is if in my estimation the findings are such

that——

Mr. TOWNS. To me that is power.

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, it is.

Mr. TOWNS. I am not going to belabor the point here. But, anyway, you get the point.

Dr. Boesz, does your evaluation affect your pay increase or your

bonus?

Ms. BOESZ. The evaluation? I am an SES person, so yes, I am

eligible for a bonus and for pay for performance under the way the

agency works under the new Civil Service reform. It is set up so

that, yes, if I don’t perform, don’t get an evaluation, I wouldn’t get

a raise.

Mr. TOWNS. Doesn’t that make it hard for you to be independent?

Ms. BOESZ. No, not at all, sir. Not at all, because it is all done

on metrix. It is done on the performance of the office. It is not done

on my personal performance. It doesn’t bother. I don’t feel at all

conflicted there.

I should point out that I work for the National Science Board.

I don’t work for the director of NSF. There is an arm’s length between me and management. The Board has oversight responsibilities, and I think that metric makes a difference. Many of the ECIE

IGs do work for either boards or commissions, and so we do have

arm’s length from management. I think that is the key why it

doesn’t affect the independence ability.

Mr. TOWNS. All right. Thank you very much.

Any other questions from Members?

[No response.]

Mr. TOWNS. Let me thank all three of you for your testimony. I

am sure you will be hearing from us again. Thank you very much.

It was a pleasure.

I would like to welcome our second panel. As with the first panel,

it is our committee policy that we swear our witnesses in.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. TOWNS. Let the record reflect that they all responded in the

affirmative.

I will briefly introduce each witness.

Eleanor Hill—welcome to the committee—was with the Department of Defense from 1995 to 1999. She was Staff Director of the

9/11 Commission and the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigation, and is a former Federal prosecutor.

48

Ken Mead was Inspector General of the Department of Transportation from 1997 to 2006. Prior to his service as an IG, he served

for 22 years at the Government Accountability Office.

Nikki Tinsley was Inspector General of the Environmental Protection Agency from 1998 to 2006. Prior to her appointment she

served as an auditor for the EPA, Department of Interior, and Government Accountability Office.

Jeffrey Steinhoff is Managing Director of the Financial Management and Assurance at the Government Accountability Office. He

has 38 years of Federal service, more than half of them spent as

a senior executive at GAO.

Fred Kaiser and Vanessa Burrows are the experts on IG issues

for the Congressional Research Service at Library of Congress. Mr.

Kaiser is a specialist in American national government, and Ms.

Burrows is a legislative attorney.

Your entire statement, for all of you, will be in the record. I ask

each witness to summarize their testimony within the time we

have allotted, which is 5 minutes. The yellow light means your

time is running down and the red light means your time has run

out, so we will start with you, Ms. Hill, and then we will just go

right down the line.

STATEMENTS OF ELEANOR J. HILL, FORMER INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE; KENNETH M. MEAD,

FORMER INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF

TRANSPORTATION; NIKKI L. TINSLEY, FORMER INSPECTOR

GENERAL, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY; JEFFREY C. STEINHOFF, MANAGING DIRECTOR, FINANCIAL

MANAGEMENT AND ASSURANCE, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE; AND VANESSA BURROWS, LEGISLATIVE ATTORNEY, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, ACCOMPANIED BY FRED M. KAISER, SPECIALIST IN AMERICAN NATIONAL GOVERNMENT, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE

STATEMENT OF ELEANOR J. HILL

Ms. HILL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss with you this afternoon the role that IGs play in

what I believe is the promotion of good Government in the Federal

system.

While I am now engaged in the private practice of law, I did, as

the chairman mentioned, have the opportunity to serve as the IG

for the Department of Defense. I also was extremely privileged to

really spend the bulk of my career in public service, which also included serving as vice chair of the PCIE from 1998 through 1999.

I am very happy to join both Ken Mead and Nikki Tinsley here

this afternoon. They were both friends and former colleagues of

mine during our years as IGs.

Your focus on independence and accountability is absolutely on

point, in my view, in terms of maintaining the credibility and the

effectiveness of the IGs as a community in the Federal Government. Although the idea of Inspectors General has been around

really since the 17th century Europe in terms of military Inspectors

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General, the idea of a truly independent IG as we know them today

are a relatively modern phenomenon, and Congress gets credit for

the idea with the IG Act of 1978. That act went far beyond the traditional military Inspector General, and the principal difference, in

my view, is the whole concept of independence.

I mentioned the military IGs, because during my term at Defense

at the Pentagon I had the opportunity to work with many of them.

Also, the DOD is unique. It is so large that it has a number of

other what we call administrative IGs at the various Defense agencies. As the departmental Inspector General, I worked with all of

them on numerous occasions, and my work with them really enforced for me the importance, the absolute critical importance of

independence to the statutory IGs.

I can tell you that on numerous occasions, for example, military

Inspectors General in the Department of Defense would come to

our office and ask us to conduct top-level, particularly sensitive investigations because they, the military IGs who did not have statutory independence and operated within the chain of command, believed that they did not have the independence needed to make

their investigation both actually be objective and appear to be objective within the Department and to Congress and to the American public, for that matter.

I also had numerous conversations with various administrative

IGs within the Department of Defense. This would include Defense

agencies like DIA, NSA, NRO. They served without the benefit of

statutory independence. They serve at the pleasure of the directors

of their agencies. And they also would ask us to take on those

kinds of investigations. They recognized that in investigations of

very senior officials or in audits of programs that are dear to an

agency head, statutory independence was absolutely critical to both

the integrity of the inquiry and to the credibility of the findings in

the Department, on Capitol Hill, and with the American Public.

I must tell you that I could not help but recall those conversations last year when I read reports that oversight of what is now

termed the NSA terrorist surveillance program, which I am sure

you are familiar with, had been handled not by the Department of

Defense IG, who is independent, but rather by the NSA IG, who

has limited resources and no statutory independence. In my view,

that is exactly the kind of program where the oversight should

have been conducted from the very beginning by the independent

statutory IG.

Independence, more than anything else, goes to the very heart of

the IG missions. The statutory requirements—and you are familiar

with them—and the 7-day letter requirement, the ban on Secretarial interference with IG work, etc., all taken together in my view

make the IG the most independent and the most unfiltered voice

in any Federal department under the Secretary.

As an IG, I was very fortunate in that I never felt forced to sacrifice or compromise my independence. The provisions in the statute, however, are not foolproof, as one would expect. There are

other factors that do impact independence. In my case, I would say

there were several where I was very fortunate. I worked with two

Secretaries of Defense, two Secretaries, Bill Cohen and Bill Perry,

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both of whom really understood, appreciated, and accepted the role

that an IG can play in a constructive way in a Federal department.

I also had the benefit of becoming an IG only after I had been

schooled for many years in jobs where independent factor of an investigation was really the norm. That is what I knew as a professional. I had been a Federal prosecutor and I had been a congressional investigator for years in a committee where inquiries by investigators were very bipartisan.

Clearly, IGS must be comfortable with their independence. They

must fully understand its importance. They must be willing to exercise it and they must be prepared to defend it, if necessary.

Independence also, in my view, beyond what is in the statute, depends on Congress. It depends on Congress remaining attentive to

IG findings and remaining engaged in exercising its own oversight.

For the concept to work, Congress has to be an active player. Congress has to insist on thorough and objective oversight from the IG,

separate and apart from the views of any department and any administration. When that happens, the overwhelming incentive for

any IG is to resist attempts at politicization from either side. The

best way to succeed when answering to those two masters is to conduct independent, professional, and fact-driven investigations.

H.R. 928, as you know, has several provisions, all of which would

add to statutory independent protections that already exist. Because I believe so strongly in the need for independence, I do support all of those changes.

I also want to say a few words about accountability. Independence gives IGs power. When they have that power, they have to expect to be held accountable and they have to be held accountable.

While we hope that all IGs take the high road, the system has to

be capable of addressing allegations of misconduct. The public must

be assured that those who enforce high ethical standards on others

are, themselves, held to the same standards. There must be a clear

and convincing answer to the question: who is watching the watchdog?

The IG community—and I remember this from my years with the

PCIE—has wrestled for years with the idea and the question of

how to ensure accountability but not sacrifice independence. The

lack of clear legal authority, insufficient resources, and recordkeeping problems hampered early efforts by the PCIE to address

the issue. Both IGs and OMB worked together to prompt a March

1996 issuance of the Executive order which confirmed the PCIE Integrity Committee’s authority and process, which Mr. Johnson

spoke of earlier.

I can tell you there were still problems, in my memory, with implementation after that Executive order. I remember at least one

occasion where I wanted an investigation where I had allegations

of serious misconduct by senior IG employees. I went to the Integrity Committee, referred it to them. They actually sent it back to

me. I had to go back again and insist on them taking the investigation, which they ultimately did. So there were some bumps along

the way in getting it started.

H.R. 928 certainly would codify the existence and the authority

of the Integrity Committee. I support that, not only because it further clarifies the authority of the committee, but also because it

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sends a clear message to the American public and to the agencies

and departments that the law will ensure that IGs are held accountable.

In closing, I just would note that I have truthfully been very dismayed by the reports in recent years of less congressional oversight, coupled with reports of less independence and less professionalism in the IG community. As an investigator, I know better

than to pre-judge the accuracy of those reports without access to

all the facts, so I do not know to what extent those reports are

true. But I can only tell you that, for the good of the country, in

my view, I hope they are not.

The rigorous but always objective and fair exercise of the congressional oversight power, bolstered by the work of the independent and professional IG community, is in my mind clearly the surest way to promote integrity, credibility, and effectiveness in Government. The American people deserve and quite rightly expect no

less.

Thank you for the opportunity. I look forward to your questions.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Hill follows:]

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Mr. TOWNS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Mead.

STATEMENT OF KENNETH M. MEAD

Mr. MEAD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am really thankful for

the invitation to testify. I appreciate the opportunity to work with

a number of you over the years, Mr. Cooper on various IG issues;

Mr. Duncan, I always consider him a leader in the aviation world;

Mr. Davis I remember well sitting in the Court of Appeals courtroom up in Boston on a big dig hearing he was chairing.

I served under two Presidents, Clinton and Bush, and decided to

step down after almost 9 years. That means I worked for both Secretary Slater and Secretary Mineta. I have absolute respect for

them both. They had tremendous regard for IG independence.

Before becoming IG, I worked in the GAO. I make note of that

not really so much as a biographical point, but as a way of saying

that I think GAO is an extraordinarily good source of candidates

to be IG. I spent 22 years there. It was a great training ground.

I think some of my core values were formed in that institution.

I am also real proud of the DOT IG team for their dedication to

duty and continuing accomplishments.

Just on a personal note, I want to say something about the IG

job. You know, it is a real difficult job and it is sometimes kind of

lonely, but in my estimation it is among the greatest rewards and

honors of public trust that the Government has to offer, just terrific

opportunities to do good for the taxpayers.

As far as the law is concerned, I believe that the bill, H.R. 928,

recognizes this, as well. I don’t think the law is in need of wholesale change. Just a couple context perspective points on that: The

essential design of the IG job is, as a fellow named Paul Light, he

worked for Senator Glenn. Some people think Senator Glenn was

one of the fathers of the IGs. But Paul Light told me, when I was

being vetted for the IG, he says, Don’t forget this: the job of the

IG is to speak truth to power. You won’t find those words in the

IG Act, but that is really, when you add it all up, what we are supposed to be doing. The IGs who use that principle as their compass

will best serve the taxpayer, the Congress, and the taxpayers.

You are going to have to do some painful and unpopular things

as IGs. Sometimes people won’t want to have lunch with you. But

that just comes with the job.

Relationships with the Congress and the Secretary—the act requires, as has already been pointed out, it has a dual reporting obligation. You have to keep the Congress and the Secretary fully and

currently informed. That is not a discretionary duty; it is a mandate. It is a requirement of law. I think that single provision of law

is the most important strength of the IG act. It is a duty for which

we all ought to be held accountable.

But there is the powerful reinforcing corollary to this that applies to both the Congress and the Secretary. For the Congress,

that corollary is the regularity and depth of oversight of agency

programs, the extent to which they pay attention to the IGs work.

For the Secretary, it is the value that the Secretary attaches to

oversight, regularity of access by the IG to the Secretary, and also

that the agency heads—like in our case FAA, Highway, NHTSA,

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and so forth and so on. There are ten of them, I think—they know

that the Congress is watching and that the Secretary is watching,

and that there is a demand for respect of the IG’s findings.

I think that is one of the reasons why the DOT’s IG’s office work

is held in such high regard today. It is not just because that work

is quality; it is because Congress pays attention to it and the Secretary does, too.

A couple of points on relationship with the Secretary. I think it

has to be one built on mutual respect and trust. I think the IG has

to be independent, but you don’t want the IG blind-siding the Secretary. When the Secretary hears about an IG finding on the nightly news or reads about it in the Washington Post for the first time,

in my view the IG has probably dropped the ball. I don’t believe

that should be happening.

Also, the IG can’t just take the independence to an extreme. If

you do, you are going to be marginalized. The IG needs to make

recommendations, and workable recommendations, not just drop it

in the Secretary’s lap, walk away, and come back a couple years

later and say, My god, the problems are still there. They may be

there anyway.

Term of office—I think it has already mentioned, 928 establishes

the renewable 7 year office for removal only for a specific cause. In

my own case, I don’t think the term of office or removal for cause

would have enhanced my independence or affected us as IG. It

would have detracted from it, either. But from what I have seen—

and I used to have Phyllis Fong’s position as legislative committee

chair—in talking with colleagues, I think the idea of giving advance notice to the Congress in writing and a statement of reasons

is a good idea. Mr. Duncan mentioned, though, I would be careful

about enumerating all these things. You get into inefficiency, and

inefficiency is not an intuitively self-defining term. So, on balance,

I think that might be the best approach.

I think also, for the IGs that are not appointed by the President,

that would be a good approach, too.

Budget? Submission of budget, I think Mr. Cooper’s bill has it

about right. The IG’s original budget request ought to be submitted

along with the President’s final recommended budget. For example,

when the budget outlays for advocacy or highways increase sharply, you should expect, the Secretary should expect, the taxpayer

probably should expect that the IG is going to be expanding audit

coverage. If the IG can’t expand audit coverage because the President, for that matter, isn’t going to recommend enough resources,

there ought to be some memorialization of that and the Congress

ought to be aware that is going to be one consequence.

IG candidate pool and IG pay? I think it has been made pretty

clear today that this is a problem. I don’t believe that the IG Act’s

statement of qualifications needs agency change. I think the acid

test is in the nomination and conformation process and learning a

person’s core values.

But on the issue of pay, you have a problem. I am concerned

about the adequacy of IG pay, particularly if you want the IG to

stay on board for more than the average tenure of the Senior executive branch official. If Mr. Cooper’s bill becomes law, you have a

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minimum of 7 years. That is a lot longer than the average executive branch senior legislation person.

I am not going to belabor the very significant pay disparities, but

I can tell you that I am the victim of it. At the 6 or 7 year point,

a new law took effect. I was career SES, and all of the sudden my

pay was essentially frozen. My entire senior staff was getting paid

substantially more than me and, while I don’t think bonuses are

appropriate for IGs, I do think you have to do something about

this.

The problem exists also with the people that weren’t career SES.

You expect IGs to come in and spend 7 years on the job, executive

level four with no possibility of promotion. That is just one step

from the bottom. This goes from, I think, executive level one

through five.

Codification of the IG Council, I think H.R. 928 has it about right

here, too. I would encourage you, though, before just reenacting the

Integrity Committee provisions and carrying them forward, I think

you would do everybody a service if you reviewed the due process

procedures established by the IC, the consistency of their application, and why it takes so long to conduct some of these investigations. That is important to do not only because of accountability,

but in fairness to the Inspectors General who end up getting investigated. And I think it would bring greater transparency to the IC

process.

A going forward step there might be for you to off-the-record invite some of these prior IGs in. I don’t know if they would be open

to that, but that concludes my statement.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Mead follows:]

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Mr. TOWNS. Thank you very much. Let me just say to the witnesses there is a red light there. I just don’t want you completely

ignore that light, OK? Thank you.

Ms. Tinsley.

STATEMENT OF NIKKI L. TINSLEY

Ms. TINSLEY. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the

subcommittee. I appreciate your giving me the opportunity to be

here today to discuss independence, accountability, and other

issues affecting the Inspector General community. I believe that Inspectors General play a vital role in improving Government operations, and that, working together with the Councils on Integrity

and Efficiency, they are uniquely positioned to contribute to Government reform.

Knowing that I was going to be on a panel with Mr. Mead and

Ms. Hill, I knew they would do a good job of addressing the provisions of the legislation. I am going to limit my oral statement to

an issue that I am passionate about. I am going to belabor the salary issue, even though Ken did not.

This is about pay disparities and the negative financial impact

that accepting a position as Inspector General has on career Federal employees.

The first step in ensuring that Inspectors General would be at

high quality takes place in the selection process. Congress intended

that Inspectors General be nonpartisan, independent, objective,

and of the highest integrity. Career civil servants provide an excellent pool of candidates for Inspector General due to their experience in Government and the nonpartisan nature of their positions.

Unfortunately, because of pay disparities, many qualified career

employees are no longer willing to accept appointments as Inspector General. This is because virtually all Inspectors General appointed by the President, subject to Senate confirmation, receive

significantly less pay than their subordinates, the senior managers

who report directly to them, and significantly less pay then their

peers, other career civil servants who accept appointments.

Past career civil servants appointed as Inspectors General were

members of the Senior Executive Service and were often affiliated

with the agencies where they were appointed IG. They brought an

invaluable and welcomed level of knowledge and experience to the

IG position. They were routinely rated and recognized as outstanding SES performers and received the maximum pay for SES members at the time of their Presidential appointments.

The Civil Service Reform Act of 1975 codified in Title 5 of the

U.S. Code allows members of the SES who are appointed by the

President to a position which is not in the SES to elect to retain

their SES pay and benefits as if they had remained in the SES position from which they were appointed. The legislative history for

this provision reveals that it was intended to make it possible for

career employees to serve in top-level policy jobs outside the competitive service without losing their status as career employees.

OPM says that this provision is used to encourage career executives to serve at the highest levels of the Government and to broaden the pool the President can use to choose top managers. Title 5

allowed SES members to accept appointments as Inspectors GenVerDate 17-JUN-2003 14:27 May 20, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00075 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\41854.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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eral to retain their SES pay until the 2004 Defense Authorization

Act ended pay equity for SES Inspectors General. The 2004 act

made the SES members’ annual pay increases dependent on performance evaluations. Because of the unique position Inspectors

General occupy within the Federal Government, there is no superior within the agency or department that can evaluate their performance without creating the appearance of a conflict of interest,

and bringing the Inspector General’s objectivity into question.

In addition, beginning in 1994, the administration asked Presidentially appointed Inspectors General drawn from the ranks of the

Senior Executive Service to waive their rights to compete for annual bonuses. These awards commonly range from 5 to 20 percent

of the employee’s annual salary.

In addition, SES Inspector Generals are not considered for Presidential rank awards ranging from 20 to 35 percent of salary,

awards that their colleagues are eligible to receive and their peers

in the paths frequently do receive.

Since implementation of the 2004 act, Inspectors General who retained their SES continued to be paid at their 2003 salary level,

around $142,500. Other members of the Senior Executive Service

in other paths who retained their SES status can receive salaries

up to $168,000. The financial impact of the restriction on pay plus

the elimination of award eligibility can amount to $80,000 annually. It lowers not only the Inspector General’s standing when compared to other executives, but also his or her retirement annuity.

The 2004 act plus the elimination of awards creates a disincentive for current SES members to accept a position as Inspector

General. It inadvertently created the precise situation the Civil

Service Reform Act sought to avoid with its explicit allowance for

Presidential appointees to retain their SES status to ensure that

the President had the broadest possible pool of candidates to select

from when filling these important positions.

My testimony has some options. There are a lot of people who

have ideas on options to address the salary and bonus issue. I will

say that I think that the one way to solve the salary problem is

to pay career SES members who accept positions as Inspector General at the ceiling rate of the SES pay scale. I think they deserve

that because of their unique positions working for the administration and the Congress and spanning administrations.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Tinsley follows:]

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Mr. TOWNS. Thank you for your testimony.

Mr. Steinhoff.

STATEMENT OF JEFFREY C. STEINHOFF

Mr. STEINHOFF. Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, I

am most pleased to be here today to discuss H.R. 928 and applaud

the efforts of Representative Cooper and this subcommittee to work

to enhance IG independence and effectiveness.

Before providing my perspectives on the bill, I would like to

briefly highlight the concept of auditor independence which is at

the heart of the IG Act and to the range of issues the bill addresses.

Independence is the cornerstone of professional auditing. Government auditing standards state, ‘‘In all manners relating to the

audit work, the audit organization and the individual auditor,

whether Government or public, must be free from personal, external, and organizational impairments to independence, and must

avoid the appearance of such impairments to independence. Audit

organizations must maintain independence so that their opinions,

findings, conclusions, judgments, and recommendations will be impartial and viewed as impartial by objective third parties with

knowledge of relevant information.’’

In a nutshell, this is what auditing is all about, and the principal

reason Congress can place value and reliance on the work of GAO

and IGs as an independent set of eyes and ears. Without independence, there is very little left and you really have no more than a

consultant, or someone’s view.

With this concept in mind, I would now like to discuss some of

the specific provisions of the bill.

In May of last year, at the request of Congress, the Comptroller

General convened a panel of recognized leaders, people from Federal audit investigative community, the Congress, and others highly knowledgeable in IG matters. We issued a report in September.

I have provided that for the record for you all. We had a very wide

range and a very experienced group to address the issues that are

basically the issues in Representative Cooper’s bill.

I would just like to provide a couple of perspectives of several of

these areas.

First, while some did favor a term of office and removal for

cause, the majority did not. However, across the board people, for

the most part, favored advanced notification to Congress. So my

answer to the question, Representative Cooper, you asked Clay

Johnson earlier is yes. I think that is a plausible solution.

I will add that an IG to be effective must adroitly straddle two

worlds. Mr. Mead I think hit it very, very well. They have to work

in a very constructive, positive way within the agency they are

serving, and they must further have strong relationships to the

Congress. Whereas terms of office and removal conditions may or

may not be important to independence, what I think at the end of

the day is perhaps the most important is the selection and confirmation process and then the regular oversight by Congress, is

Congress bringing the IG up, is Congress asking the IG for something. I know that the IGs that are most successful are the ones

that do have those relationships.

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Second, the provisions in the bill that deal with the budgets. The

views of the panel were very, very mixed. I would say that most

believe that the separate budgets for Presidential IGs, that process

works and that process should be extended to the DFEs, the nonPresidential IGs.

I would add a broader perspective here. I think it is very important, because I don’t think there is an IG or GAO that would say

that we didn’t need more money; that as Congress looks at the appropriation request for an IG, that they consider the return on investment. That would be a very important factor in determining

whether these are being sufficiently staffed or not. The chairman talked about, I think it was $9.9 billion in his

opening. I think GAO’s savings last year were over $50 billion. But

I am not sure the budgets of either party are looked at fully in

terms of what is the return on investment, so that is something

you might want to look at.

Third, the GAO has long held and called for a combined IG

Council in statute, together with a separate appropriation account

to fund the council. We are supportive of that. Our panel had

mixed views as to whether this should be established in statute,

but they did favor dedicated funding for the existing councils.

With respect to whether the IG Integrity Committee should be

in law, our panel was not asked to address that perspective, but

I will enthusiastically endorse that. This is a very important mechanism. It has been a mechanism there for many years. While certainly someone might want to fine-tune parts of it, as Mr. Mead

mentioned, it is something that is very, very key, and having it in

law would provide, I think, some permanence here.

With respect to pay, we will endorse what others have said. Our

panel strongly believed that is something that must be addressed

sooner than later. I will say there are options to what is in the current bill, which we think might be kind of difficult, and options can

be authorities through OPM for some of the garden variety things

that IGs wish to do, and then, I think as was proposed, a real look

at whether you tie IG pay into SES pay.

Finally, our panelists overwhelmingly supported the provisions

relating to investigative and law enforcement authorities.

In closing, since the passage of the landmark act almost three

decades ago, the IGs have continued to play an essential role in improving Government accountability by providing objective and independent audits, investigations, covering the full range of programs

and operations. Independence in both fact and appearance has been

a critical element to this success, and it is essential to the continuing success of the IG concept.

We support overall what Representative Cooper is trying to do

here and look forward to working with this subcommittee, as well

as Representative Cooper, as these matters are looked at further.

Thanks again for inviting me.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Steinhoff follows:]

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Mr. TOWNS. Thank you very much, Mr. Steinhoff.

Ms. Burrows.

STATEMENT OF VANESSA BURROWS AND FRED M. KAISER

Mr. KAISER. Mr. Chairman, may I interrupt for just a second to

thank, first of all, the subcommittee and you for inviting us to testify on behalf of this legislation. I am Fred Kaiser. Ms. Burrows

and I are sharing responsibility for our prepared statement, as well

as our oral statement. I must say I have been asked to go first, if

you don’t mind.

Mr. TOWNS. We will accept that.

Mr. KAISER. OK. Fine.

The Inspector General Act, as has been noted here, celebrates its

30th anniversary next year, and indeed last year was the 30th anniversary of the first of the contemporary statutory IGs that were

created. Several of us at CRS had an opportunity to work on that

legislation, both with L.H. Fountain, one of your predecessors, as

well as members of the House Government Operations Committee,

as it was known at the time.

That legislation and succeeding legislation has had bipartisan

and bicameral support here on the Hill, and in combatting waste,

fraud, and abuse IGs have been granted a substantial amount of

independence, authority, and resources, and in combination these

assets are probably greater than held by any similar internal auditing and investigating office at any level of government, here or

abroad, now or in the past.

Nonetheless, H.R. 928 attempts to address recent and in some

cases longstanding congressional concerns regarding the Offices of

Inspector General. Given the time we have available, however, we

will only look at a few of them.

One we have heard so much about is the fixed term of office, 7

years with the possibility of reappointment. The grant of a fixed

term of office does not run contrary to precedent and has been

viewed as providing the incumbent with a chance to gain expertise

as well as independence. However, only one Inspector General has

a fixed term of office, and that is a 7-year term which can be renewed in the U.S. Postal Service. The Peace Corps IG also has a

limited term, but that is only indirect because all Peace Corps personnel are limited to 5 years with a possibility of an extension as

far as 81⁄2 years. Nonetheless, only the IG in the Postal Service has

that specific provision.

Questions might arise, however, whether 7 years is sufficient,

since it does not extend across a two-term Presidency. In addition,

allowing for reappointment, which would extend, of course, an incumbent’s tenure, might impinge on the IG’s independence. He or

she would be reappointed by an official who or whose political allies might be subject to an IG investigation at the time.

Also, a term limit, even if renewable, might still offer a lame

duck Inspector General if it becomes evident that he or she will not

be reappointed. Some have, therefore, suggested as an alternative

that there be a single longer term, 10 or 15 years, without the possibility of reappointment, as currently applied to the Comptroller

General.

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Second, the IG budgets and appropriations, again, we have heard

comments about that. H.R. 928 would require reporting of the IG’s

initial estimates directly to the agency head, Office of Management

and Budget, and, of course, appropriate committees of Congress.

This would ensure that all three units were aware of the initial estimate, and thus enable each to calculate any decrease or adjustment made afterwards by agency officials or by OMB.

In addition to finding any such alterations, the change in budget

reporting could also contribute to congressional oversight of the IG

offices and their projected spending, but also as well as to OMB

and agency leadership. So it enhances congressional oversight in a

very meaningful way, it would appear.

My colleague, Ms. Burrows, who is an attorney at CRS, would

like to comment, if she may, on the removal for cause provision.

Ms. BURROWS. H.R. 928 proposes a change in the removal provision for IGs by requiring that removal by the President or the

agency head must be for cause on specified grounds such as neglect

of duty, inefficiency, or malfeasance of office. Currently, IGs have

limited protection with respect to removal from office. IGs can be

removed from office for any reason by the President or the agency

head.

The Supreme Court has held that Congress has the authority to

limit removal of individuals by the President, and that Congress

can determine for which reasons the individuals should be removed. In Humphrey’s Executor v. The United States, the court determined that appointed officers other than officers performing

purely executive functions could not be removed during their terms

of office except for the causes listed in the statute.

According to the court, congressional restraints on the President’s power of removal fall within the principle of separation of

powers. In Morrison v. Olson, the Supreme Court expanded Congress’ authority as established in Humphrey’s Executor. The court

held that now Congress has the authority to provide for-cause removal protection to any advice and consent officer.

In sum, the addition of the restriction of removal only for cause

would protect IGs from being removed by the President or an agency head based on policy reasons, alone. H.R. 928 specifies particular grounds for removal, and thus makes clear that those reasons

are the only ones the President or the agency head can remove an

IG.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Burrows and Mr. Kaiser follows:]

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Mr. TOWNS. Thank you very much.

Let me thank all of you for your testimony, and let me begin by

first—you know, Ms. Hill, you indicated that you commented about

more oversight from Congress. Could you expound on that?

Ms. HILL. Well, my comments partly reflect my time as IG. They

also reflect the years I spent doing congressional oversight and investigations, which is, if you count 9/11, almost 16 or 17 years.

I just firmly believe that congressional oversight is part and parcel of the equation that drives IG independence. Because the beauty of the statute, of the IG Act, is that the IGs, if they have an engaged Congress and they have, on the other hand, an engaged department, which they usually do, since they are in the department

and they are talking about department operations, if both of them

are looking closely at what the IG does, and normally most of the

time Congress and the Department may take a slightly different

view of what is going on, that tension between the views of Congress and the agency almost forces those IGs to stick to the facts,

to be objective, and to do, in my view, professional oversight.

They cannot go too far over the line each way because either the

department is going to be on them and call them, if they are skewing it to the Congress’ side. If they skew it to the department side,

Congress will be after them. But to make that work Congress has

to be paying attention, they have to look carefully at what the IGs

are doing.

I recall years ago, when I worked on the Senate Governmental

Affairs Committee and the Subcommittee on Investigations, and

that full committee was one of the committees that was heavily engaged in the drafting and the passage of the original IG Act, Senator Glenn and others on that committee. They were very familiar

with the IGs, and they had a process in place that they were constantly, every time an IG semi-annual report came out, some staff

person on that committee was responsible for reviewing each and

every—they had different agencies’ reports. They looked at those

reports. They looked at what was in there.

Nowadays there is even more to look at because the IGs, they

used to just list summaries of cases; now they actually identify

most of them, what the biggest problems at these agencies and departments are.

If Congress uses that as a tool for their own oversight, they can

engage the IGs and they can be interested and attentive to what

is going on, and it will force the IGs to do, in my view, more professional work, more thorough work, and remain objective, because

Congress is going to look at it slightly different than the Department does. The Department obviously is trying to, in their natural

course of things, is going to try and protect the department’s interest. Congress tends to have a bigger and broader view of oversight

for the Federal Government as a whole. I think you need both of

those viewpoints, and the IGs to be independent need to have Congress engaged enough to insist that they are allowed to do the job

they are supposed to be doing.

Mr. TOWNS. Thank you very much.

Starting with you, Mr. Steinhoff, and going this way, do you support a term of office, set date and time?

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Mr. KAISER. I think there are pros and cons to it. The panel that

we had generally did not support it. I agree with Mr. Mead that

it would not hurt, but there are certainly other ways for an IG to

be fully independent, and there are, I think, some operational

issues with terms of office for that many people and the process

that would, in fact, go through.

One of the issues that the panel that GAO raised was that the

provisions of the bill didn’t really deal with whether the IG was incumbent or not. Did they have the basic competence to do the job?

Were they doing a bad job? They felt there were other mechanisms

to deal with the removal issues.

I think the provision to provide for advanced notice, let’s say 30

days in advance, whatever the timeframe you wanted to select,

would, in fact, provide that protection.

Mr. TOWNS. Ms. Tinsley.

Ms. TINSLEY. Well, I was part of the GAO panel, actually, and

pretty much agree with what Jeff said. I don’t like the idea of term

limits, although I could argue term limits. You can argue. It is easy

to argue both sides of that. It is hard to decide what the right answer is. Obviously, you shouldn’t ask an IG to leave for the wrong

reason; at the same time, if the administration asks you to leave,

I think it might be difficult for an IG to be effective, because it is

all about convincing the agency to make improvements to its programs and operations, and if that agency does not have faith in you

it is going to be hard to be effective. So I think 30 day notice might

be a better approach.

Mr. TOWNS. But we are talking about independence. How do we

get there? I mean, if he knows or she knows that the agency could

just sort of move them on, or they have no really—you know, I am

looking at the whole thing in terms of the fact that you can’t be

too comfortable if you know that they can just move you out. So

a certain amount of time would sort of give you a certain amount

of protection and independence, wouldn’t it?

Ms. TINSLEY. You know, like Ken, I served for two administrations, and there have been a number of Administrators at the Environmental Protection Agency, particularly during this administration. I believe that our office issued some very hard-hitting reports

while I was the Inspector General, and I did not—and even though

I said things to the Administrator that were not popular, I did not

ever have a problem with being concerned that I was going to be

asked to leave because I was writing hard-hitting reports. So I

think it is, in part, an issue with perhaps the integrity of the agency head, in addition to the IG, and I think that if you pick someone

for the job who isn’t well vetted and who turns out to not be an

IG, there needs to be a way to ask that person to leave.

Mr. TOWNS. Yes.

Mr. Mead.

Mr. MEAD. If you fix the pay, you might be able to go, I think,

the 7-year or 9 year term. I don’t think it would hurt. If you are

not going to fix the pay, I don’t know the type of people that can

stay in those jobs for seven or 9 years at the current pay. Anyway,

I won’t go further on that.

I think the most important thing is, though, as Ms. Tinsley and

others have said, the IG needs some protection that if you are comVerDate 17-JUN-2003 14:27 May 20, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00117 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\41854.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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ing out with a very unpopular, painful finding and recommendation, you don’t want to be in peril of losing your position over that.

Another thing on the term limits, sir, is when you come up toward the end, if it is renewable term, I don’t want to see situations

where the IG has to feel he is on good behavior for 3 years, so I

am not really a big fan or renewable terms.

On the other hand, I am not a fan of the Comptroller General’s

term. It seems like a very long time to me. Mr. Walker, Mr. Ballard

sure wouldn’t go that far, but 15 years is a big chunk of time for

one particular job.

Mr. STEINHOFF. For the record, I am supportive of that. [Laughter.]

Mr. TOWNS. Ms. Hill.

Ms. HILL. Yes, I do support the term limits. The classic example—and it is a little closer to the 7-years. The Comptroller is 15—

is the Director of the FBI. That seems to have worked reasonably

well over the years. You don’t hear a lot of complaints, maybe some

but not too many, about the politicization of the FBI any more.

My problem with the 30 day notice idea is that if you tell Congress, what is Congress going to do about this in 30 days. It is not

always easy for Congress to react. That is also an issue with the

provisions on the cause. I think I support that. I think it is a good

idea to have cause for removal, but you have to anticipate down the

line what happens once that happens.

Say the President decides he is going to remove somebody for

what he thinks meets one of those terms. He notifies Congress.

Congress may disagree that it is the same. They may not view the

definition in the same way. Then what do you do? Does Congress

have the right to cut that off somehow? If so, how? Does the individual have the right to bring a cause of action in a court to stop

the termination?

So I think, as far as the act goes, as far as the bill goes, it is

a good idea, but as a practical matter, if that ever happens you are

going to have issues raised about now what. What do we do? And

the same thing I think would happen with this 30 day to the Hill,

because what would Congress do to prevent that. If they wanted

to stop it, then what?

That is why I would support the term limit.

Mr. TOWNS. Right. Thank you very much.

I yield to the ranking member, Mr. Bilbray.

Mr. BILBRAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, last year marked my 30th year in government, in

management of government. Going through the steps, being a

mayor at 27 and administering a county of over 3 million 6 years

later, there has been a lot of oversight and a lot of this kind of auditing going on, and so some of these things are sort of interesting.

Mr. Kaiser, you were talking about a how many year term? One

year term, no renewal?

Mr. KAISER. Seven year term as it was provided here, with reappointment possible. The Comptroller General has the 15 year

term that is non-renewable. FBI Director is 10 years, non-renewable.

Mr. BILBRAY. You know, as somebody who spends a lot of time

in Mexico, I see what term limits have done there. My question is:

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doesn’t that make the lame duck syndrome, immediately makes it

a 7-year lame duck rather than maybe a shorter period?

Mr. KAISER. It would in the sense that, especially as you get closer to the end of that term, once a person enters the office at 7 or

10 or 15 years they have longevity ahead of them; however, when

you get close to the end, that person’s influence probably wanes at

that point, yes.

Mr. BILBRAY. And the eyes may wander, shopping for the next

step. And I only have to say, Mr. Chairman, I want to clarify that

my comments are not in any way in opposition or reflecting support

or opposition of H.R. 928. I think that it is a good framework to

start discussing changes.

Ms. Hill, you used a reference to the FBI Director. Now let’s be

very frank. It is a lot different. The FBI Director, wouldn’t you

agree, is an apex, is really a culmination of a career, law enforcement career, to be something that you would shoot for and know

that this was the golden ring that you were grabbing for, and thus

knowing that when you took this job that would probably be the

end of most of your aggressive professional life?

Ms. HILL. Well, that is true, but I still think it helps the independence a little bit. I mean, you know, in the IGs, you know, there

is a great variety in the type of people who become IGs. There is

the statutory requirements, and there are certain career professionals, there are people with auditing experience, investigation experience, etc., so you have a wider range of types.

I am not a big, big fan of term limits, but I think in the idea of

the IG’s situation you do need as much protection and independence as you can get, as long as you maintain your accountability,

because that is such a unique job. It really is a unique job in the

Federal Government.

Mr. BILBRAY. My concern, though, is when you hit this what

some of us may not say is top management and put term limits

there, you get two types of candidates: one, those who basically are

looking for a way to basically close out their career, and the other

is a hotshot young candidate——

Ms. HILL. Right.

Mr. BILBRAY [continuing]. Who may be looking at this to create

a name and jump to another post. But that jump may be reflecting

a certain industry over here or a certain agency over there, and

may effect the proficiency. So I think there is a flip side here,

wouldn’t you agree, that you need to look at this seriously. This

may have unintended——

Ms. HILL. I agree you should definitely look at it seriously. I

mean, one option would be consider maybe a slightly lesser term

and stagger it. I mean, the issue now is the terms. To the effect

there are imaginary terms, it goes with the administration, and

maybe stagger it so that you get some—you know, keep some independence there.

Mr. BILBRAY. I think, obviously, with the legislation posed it is

going to end up having some staggering.

Ms. HILL. Right.

Mr. BILBRAY. I think in reality, from experience, we know that

even political appointments are staggered because administrations

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ments are not really addressed until almost the second part of the

term.

Ms. HILL. Right. And the IGs, that has been a problem with IG

appointments, because, at least years ago, I think they were not always the first ones to get appointed, and there were some IG positions, including the one at Defense, that were vacant for a long period of time or had acting people in them, which is not a good

thing, either, because my view of that is that decreases the amount

of practical independence they have. It is not an appointed——

Mr. BILBRAY. Thank you, Ms. Hill. I think the point is that if we

stagger it, we stagger it in between, in reality it probably will not

only help to keep the continuity, but I think also will help the administration sort of concentrate on those appointments that they

might be able to get appointed in time and on schedule.

Ms. Tinsley, first of all let me warn you I was raised by an accountant and I married an accountant. That is probably why I am

so disorganized. No, actually, I married her because I was so disorganized.

You were an accountant when you were selected for your position

to IG. Do you see that as being a critical talent when reviewing the

EPA, or do you see it as a beneficial one? How would you judge

that in there? And do you think that credential is very important

at agencies like EPA, or would other credentials do you think

would be more effective?

Ms. TINSLEY. I think that the talent that a person should have

would analytical ability. You don’t have to be a CPA to have analytical ability. In fact, many would say that most of them don’t. But

I also think that you need to have management and leadership

skills. I think that is key, regardless of your background, although

the career fields that the IG Act specifies equate to the kind of

work Offices of Inspector General do, and it makes sense to me to

bring someone into that position that understands the kind of work

they are going to be doing, because they are leading an organization that is going to be making important recommendations.

Mr. BILBRAY. Thank you.

Let me for the record point out that both my mother and my wife

agree that I will never balance the budget because I can’t even balance my own checkbook. [Laughter.]

I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TOWNS. Thank you very much.

I yield to Mr. Cooper.

Mr. COOPER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I think, as my colleagues can see, we have tried to come to a reasonable compromise between differing points of view, but it is hard

to please everyone. In fact, sometimes it is impossible. But I think,

as my colleagues will realize, when a Presidentially appointed IG

can be removed for any reason, an agency appointed IG can be removed for any reason, that really gives you slender comfort. Here

on this panel we have some of the more successful IGs. You have

had good relationships with multiple administrations.

Our job is to legislate for all circumstances, and that is why I

think many of us on this side of the table, being elected to terms,

we are accustomed to terms, and that gives us some comfort. Many

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IGs have never known that comfort, and there are pros and cons

on anything.

But I share Ms. Hill’s concern. What will Congress do with the

information of 30 day advance notice? It seems like, at a bare minimum, we have to put some sort of for-cause in there to protect IGs’

independence.

We always want accountability, but we are trying to find that

right balance. Perhaps someone will deliver the magic formula that

will make everyone happy, but my goal is to move reasonable legislation, because, as I noted earlier, it has been 4 or 5 years. That

is 4 or 5 years that IGs have lacked the pay equity and the independence and the protections that I think we can all agree on, so

let’s not let the best be the enemy of the good here.

I know our colleagues on the other side of the aisle will have useful suggestions to make. The key is to protect the IGs out there

who are catching the bad guys, who are saving the taxpayer dollars.

It is really a marvelous, good news story. There are so few good

news stories about Government sometimes, but I think it is very

important that we focus on the productive work that IGs are doing

and thank goodness that they are, and hopefully we can attract

even, you know, more qualified IGs and protect them so that they

can do that good work.

That is my goal, and I appreciate hearing so much expert testimony on this, including the constitutional provisions that we need

to be aware of so that we make sure that we stay within our constitutional bounds, because no one can predict which party will

control which branch. We need this law to work for all circumstances.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing.

Mr. TOWNS. Thank you very much. And I thank you for the work

that you are doing on it. I think it is so important that you talk

to as many people as you possibly can before moving forward what

you are doing.

Mr. Miller.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Hill said that Congress should be more involved in the oversight of Inspectors General, not just using the Inspectors General

work as a tool for oversight of the entire Federal Government, but

actually involved in the oversight of Inspectors General.

Ms. HILL. What I mean is that they should be attentive to what

IGs are doing. They should not hesitate if there are issues in those

departments that they think the IG should be looking at, to request

the IGs to look at them and to look at what they are finding, so

that, you know, that the IGs, when they are doing an inquiry, they

know that not only is the head of the department going to be paying attention to it, but the Congress is going to be paying attention

to it, and therefore they are going to do their best to make that an

objective, fact-based inquiry.

Mr. MILLER. Well, in the spirit of Congress providing oversight

of the Inspectors General, when I asked a question to Mr. Johnson

earlier he said that it was not true that Mr. O’Keefe had picked

Mr. Cobb to be the Inspector General of NASA, but that came from

the interviews conducted by the Integrity Committee, itself, and

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specifically from the interview of Courtney Alexander Stadd, S-TA-D-D, who was the chief of staff to Sean O’Keefe at NASA and the

White House liaison there.

According to a memorandum of the interview of PCIE staff,

which I guess was a HUD Inspector General that conducted the report, staff said that O’Keefe had wanted to replace Roberta Gross,

the previous IG, from the outset, and staff advised that O’Keefe

interacted with Cobb when Cobb was working at the White House

and O’Keefe was at Office of Management and Budget. That was

how they got to know each other, as Cobb handled the ethics evaluation for political appointees when he was at the White House.

O’Keefe asked Stadd to contact Cobb and inquire if he was interested in the IG’s position at NASA. This was when the position was

not yet vacant, was still filled by Roberta Gross.

Stadd contacted Cobb. Cobb seemed interested. Stadd indicated

‘‘he thought it was unusual that O’Keefe had a say in who the next

IG would be.’’ Stadd did not know the procedure for Cobb to apply

for a position not yet vacant.

Does that also strike you as an unusual way to pick an IG?

Ms. HILL. Well, again, I don’t know the facts of that case, so I

can’t really comment on an individual case.

Mr. MILLER. For an agency head to pick the replacement—first

of all, decide that the IG needs to be replaced, and then pick the

replacement, Mr. Mead, how does that affect the independence of

the IG?

Mr. MEAD. Well, I imagine there was multiple input. I am not

familiar with the facts of this case, so I am not going to opine on

that, but it strikes me that the selection process for IGs, that it is

in your interest, I think it is in the interest of the executive branch

for the President to have a pool of candidates. I pointed out I think

GAO is a good source of candidates. I don’t think it is unusual at

all for an agency head to be asked their thoughts about whether

they have a particular candidate in mind.

I am really only aware of my own case and how I got to be IG.

I didn’t know the Secretary. I think my name was dropped in a hat

by somebody from GAO that knew somebody in White House personnel. Beyond that, though, I really can’t get into it.

Mr. MILLER. Ms. Tinsley, do you have anything to say on this

point? You don’t have to if you don’t want to.

[No response.]

Mr. MILLER. Also from the PCIE report—and I talked about this

earlier—the report of investigation found that Cobb frequently

joined O’Keefe in lunches intended for senior staff at NASA headquarters, played golf on at least two occasions with Administrator

O’Keefe, joined O’Keefe on the NASA aircraft for official travel on

several occasions. Our committee has gotten tips from NASA employees that they believe that Mr. O’Keefe flew in the NASA plane

when regulations of how the plane could be used would have required that he fly commercially.

Those tips apparently didn’t go to the Inspector General of

NASA, they came to us, the Oversight Committee, perhaps because

Mr. Cobb was on the plane with him. He referred to Mr. O’Keefe

as his boss, sought guidance from the Administrator on the audit

design for at least two audits, sought O’Keefe’s review of draft OIG

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opinion regarding the independence of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. That was the shuttle that was destroyed on reentry. He advised O’Keefe about search warrants to be issued and

the significant criminal investigation before those warrants were

executed.

The PCIE report concluded that none of these instances standing

alone is sufficient to create an appearance problem, but it is the

responsibility of the IG to consider how the combined effect of this

interaction with the agency head might cloud or be perceived to

cloud his independence.

Then the report goes on to talk about two specific instances

where Mr. Cobb had prevented NASA from reporting apparent

criminal conduct to law enforcement agencies and found that those

two agencies created further the appearance of a lack of independence.

What is your own view as from the experience of the Inspector

General of the propriety of this combined, this cumulative effect of

an appearance, Ms. Hill?

Ms. HILL. Again, I am a stickler for detail and fact, and I am

very reluctant to comment on facts where I haven’t read all the reports and know all of the——

Mr. MILLER. What is your opinion?

Ms. HILL. But I will tell you that, you know, IGs live in glass

houses. I have always thought that. And you have to be very careful about appearance, so I would just say that, you know, I can

only—as Ken said, I can only speak for my own personal experience, and I always tried to be very careful and keep not just the

legal line but the appearance issue in mind, because people do look

at you and you have to, you know, do what you think is best and

effective in the agency, but also keep in mind that you are supposed to be independent.

That probably is not really answering your question, but, again,

you know, I feel very uncomfortable commenting on facts that I do

not really—I haven’t seen the reports. I haven’t read the material.

I don’t know what happened, what didn’t happen in that case.

Mr. TOWNS. Thank you very much, Mr. Miller.

I would like to put the opening statement from Congressman

Davis into the record. Without objection, so moved.

Let me thank all of you for your testimony. I think that you have

been extremely helpful. As you can see, this is an issue that we

really, really want your input on, because we think that something

needs to be done, and, of course, Congressman Cooper is moving in

the right direction. I think that his openness to soliciting to get additional information, input coming from both the Members and

from you and others as witnesses, I think indicates how serious he

is about doing something about the problem.

Of course, I agree with you. I think the appearance is something

that we have to address. I mean, we just cannot ignore that. Of

course, the salary, I think that is an issue and I think these are

all the kind of things that we hope to be able to address before the

end.

Thank you very much for your testimony, again. We look forward

to working with you.

Thank you.

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[Whereupon, at 4:18 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

[The prepared statement of Hon. Tom Davis and additional information submitted for the hearing record follow:]

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