Miller Works to Improve the Inspector Generals Act
(Washington, DC) Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 928, the Enhancing the Effectiveness and Independence of Inspectors General Act. Recent flawed Inspector Generals (IG) appointments have succeeded in undermining the public’s and the Congress’s confidence in many of the IGs. H.R. 928 is designed to improve the quality and working independence of IGs.
Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight Chairman Brad Miller (D-NC) offered two amendments to this bill, both of which were accepted on voice vote.
“These amendments grew out of the work my Subcommittee has done investigating misconduct by the NASA Inspector General, Robert ‘Moose’ Cobb,” said Miller. “The first amendment expands the reasons for which an IG can be removed, to include abuse of authority and gross mismanagement. The second amendment establishes a panel to screen IG nominees and provide the Senate with a review of their qualifications. If this second provision had been in law seven years ago, Mr. Cobb never would have become NASA’s IG since he had no meaningful management, accounting or investigative experience—core requirements for any IG under the law.”
“It is important that people understand how the oversight work of Congress can feed directly into improving the law so that we don’t have to keep repeating the same mistakes over and over,” Miller added. “Mr. Cobb may not leave of his own free will in this Congress, and the President does not seem to care that Cobb has lost the confidence of the House and Senate, but we can at least improve the process by which IGs are chosen in the future and expand the grounds for their removal.”
Full Committee Chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN), along with Chairman Miller, have been reviewing both the work of Moose Cobb and the investigation into Cobb by the President’s Council on Integrity and Efficiency. Chairman Gordon was an original co-sponsor of the base bill passed by the House today and Chairman Miller had been working with the Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee to perfect that bill.
Miller added, “I want to congratulate Chairman Edolphus Towns (Subcommittee on Government Management, Organization and Procurement of Government Reform) for this bill and Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN) for introducing the original text. They have done a terrific service in moving this bill forward.”
The next step in the process will be to work with the Senate on their version of this legislation. Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) has introduced S. 1723, a bill similar to that introduced by Rep. Cooper
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