Oversight hearings, related legislation at HIGHEST LEVEL since Depression

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http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0409/p01s02-uspo.html

Congress girds up for return to oversight
Probes include alleged contracting abuses in Iraq and the alteration of scientific findings.
By Gail Russell Chaddock | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

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WASHINGTON - Not since the Depression-era Congress of 1932 has Capitol Hill ramped up so quickly for oversight hearings and related legislation – most targeting the Bush administration.

Both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue are hiring more lawyers, and watchdog groups say they are swamped with calls from committee staff asking for advice on pursuing the nearly lost art of congressional investigation.

In its first 100 days, the new Congress launched probes on allegations ranging from contracting abuses in Iraq and the alteration of scientific findings to the misuse of federal resources for partisan purposes. Some hearings, such as those on last year's firing of eight US attorneys, were snatched from the headlines; others are longer-term campaigns to try to uncover any government waste and to expand the public's access to how government conducts its business.

"There's a whole culture of effective oversight, which the Congress carried out in the 1970s up through the early 1990s, that has been very much lost, and there's a lot of effort now going on to rebuild oversight skills," says Charles Tiefer, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and a former deputy House counsel.

On Wednesday, a Senate Judiciary subcommittee is set to convene a hearing on what it calls the "improper use of National Security Letters by the FBI." The full Senate Judiciary Committee, meanwhile, is preparing for an April 17 showdown with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales over alleged misstatements to Congress about why the US attorneys were dismissed.

On the House side, the Oversight and Government Reform Committee (formerly the Government Reform Committee) has held 17 hearings since Jan. 30 on issues ranging from alleged waste, fraud, abuse, and government secrecy. It is also looking into reports of improper political interference into the Justice Department's recent case against the tobacco industry.

Last week, Rep. Henry Waxman (D) of California, who chairs this committee, called on the Republican National Committee to provide by April 18 copies of any e-mails sent or received by presidential adviser Karl Rove or any other White House official concerning the use of federal agencies or resources to help Republican candidates in the 2008 election. Mr. Waxman wants to know, in particular, why a White House aide briefed political appointees at the General Services Administration (GSA) about the GOP's top Democratic targets in state and local elections. He cites reports that after the briefing, GOP political appointees discussed how to use the GSA to help "our candidates" in '08. The GSA is responsible for US government facilities in every congressional district.

In addition to the furious pace of investigatory hearings, the new Congress is also beefing up its oversight capabilities. In January, House Democrats created four new subcommittees whose mandate is oversight. They include the Oversight and Investigations panel within the House Armed Services Committee, which Republicans had abolished, as well as new oversight subcommittees within the Appropriations, Science and Technology, and Small Business committees.

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