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With Inspectors General firings in the news, Congress introduces bill to protect them
Inspectors General are a little known unit within many federal agencies. They were set up in the 1970s to “identify waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government.” Their reports can be found on Oversight.gov as well as the non-governmental website Oversight.garden (there is some duplication between the sites, but the garden also posts some unreleased IG reports). Though IG reports fall within the scope of the FDLP, many of these reports have historically fallen through the cracks — they’re a goldmine of fugitive documents for anyone interested in reporting them to GPO to collect and catalog, but that’s a whole other story.
While these offices normally conduct independent audits and investigations and make recommendations to fix waste, fraud and abuse well below the radar of the public, lately they’ve been in the news as the Trump Administration has fired or sidelined several IGs for highly political reasons — notably including the Intelligence Community IG, the State Department IG, the Acting Transportation Department IG, the Acting Health and Human Services IG, and the Acting Pentagon IG who was chosen to serve as the head of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee created by Congress on March 27, 2020.
The administration’s actions has brought Congress — historically very supportive of IGs — to a boiling point, with a new bill introduced H.R. 6668: Inspectors General Independence Act of 2020 to “amend the Inspector General Act of 1978 to require removal for cause of Inspectors General, and for other purposes.” This is surely an issue which every depository librarian will want to keep an eye on.
To learn more about these little known but important internal watchdogs embedded in many executive agencies, check out this report by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) entitled “THE WATCHDOGS AFTER FORTY YEARS: Recommendations for Our Nation’s Federal Inspectors General” (published July 9, 2018). POGO also more recently produced the really informative youtube video below.
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Trump to replace Health Inspector General
Trump to replace Health Inspector General who criticized coronavirus response, BY GRACE SEGERS, MAY 2, 2020 / 4:47 PM / CBS NEWS
‘President Trump announced his intent to nominate a new inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), weeks after acting inspector general Christi Grimm released a report detailing shortages of testing and personal protective equipment (PPE) in hospitals responding to the coronavirus pandemic… Mr. Trump criticized Grimm in early April, calling the findings in her report “wrong.”‘
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-christi-grimm-trump-to-replace-health-inspector-general-who-criticized-coronavirus-response/
Hospital Experiences Responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Results of a National Pulse Survey March 23-27, 2020 WHAT WE FOUND Hospitals reported that their most significant challenges centered on testing and caring for patients with COVID-19 and keeping staff safe. Hospitals said that severe shortages of testing supplies and extended waits for test results limited hospitals’ ability to monitor the health of patients and staff. They also reported that widespread shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) put staff and patients at risk. In addition, hospitals said that they were not always able to maintain adequate staffing levels or to offer staff adequate support.
https://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-06-20-00300.asp?utm_source=web&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=covid-19-hospital-survey-04-06-2020
Report: https://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-06-20-00300.pdf
The U.S Government Offices has cataloged and made available to the public. https://permanent.fdlp.gov/gpo135372/oei-06-20-00300.pdf
co-published on govdoc-l and freegovinfo.info.
Trump removes inspector general who was to oversee $2 trillion stimulus spending
Trump removes inspector general who was to oversee $2 trillion stimulus spending. April 7, 2020, Washington Post. Ellen Nakashima
“The ouster of Glenn Fine as acting inspector general at the Pentagon follows Trump’s firing of the intelligence community IG. President Trump has removed the chairman of the federal panel Congress created to oversee his administration’s management of the $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package – the latest action by the president to undermine the system of independent oversight of the executive established after Watergate. In just the past four days, Trump has ousted two inspectors general and expressed displeasure with a third, a pattern that critics say is a direct assault on one of the pillars of good governance. Glenn Fine, who had been the acting Pentagon inspector general, was informed Monday that he was being replaced at the Defense Department by Sean W. O’Donnell, currently the inspector general at the Environmental Protection Agency. O’Donnell will simultaneously be inspector general at the EPA and acting IG at the Pentagon until a permanent replacement is confirmed for the Defense Department.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-removes-inspector-general-who-was-to-oversee-2-trillion-stimulus-spending/2020/04/07/2f0c6cb8-78ea-11ea-9bee-c5bf9d2e3288_story.html
co-published on govdoc-l and freegovinfo.info.
Trump takes immediate step to try to curb new inspector general’s autonomy
Trump takes immediate step to try to curb new inspector general’s autonomy, as battle over coronavirus oversight begins. by Jeff Stein, The Washington Post, Updated: March 28, 2020- 12:57 PM
“President Donald Trump on Friday took a step to immediately try to curb oversight provisions in Congress’ $2 trillion coronavirus spending package, seeking to assert presidential authority over a new inspector general’s office.”
Signing Statement by the President, Issued on: March 27, 2020:
“Today, I have signed into law H.R. 748, the “Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act” or the “CARES” Act (the “Act”). The Act makes emergency supplemental appropriations and other changes to law to help the Nation respond to the coronavirus outbreak. I note, however, that the Act includes several provisions that raise constitutional concerns.”
a href=”https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/748/text?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22hr748%22%5D%7D&r=1&s=3″>H.R.748 – CARES Act 116th Congress (2019-2020
Sponsor: Rep. Courtney, Joe [D-CT-2] (Introduced 01/24/2019) Committees: House – Ways and Means
Latest Action: 03/27/2020 Signed by President. (All Actions)
co-published on govdoc-l and freegovinfo.info.
HHS IG report on family separation
Inspector general report on US health officials and child separation, 10:55 AM ET, 07 March 20 By Priscilla Alvarez, CNN.
“Senior Department of Health and Human Services officials failed to act on repeated warnings from staff about family separations at the US-Mexico border, and staff members were advised not to put controversial information in writing, according to a HHS inspector general report released Thursday. ” https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/05/politics/ig-report-child-separation/index.html
The IG report is at https://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-BL-18-00510.pdf
Key Takeaways
+ Poor interagency communication and internal management decisions that + failed to protect children’s interests left HHS unprepared for the + zero-tolerance policy This lack of preparation impeded HHS’s ability
+ to identify, care for, and reunify separated children Care provider facilities faced significant operational challenges at every stage of reunification, causing additional stress to children HHS has taken steps to improve tracking and placement of separated children, but vulnerabilities remain.
A government documents librarian requested that GPO catalog for the Federal Depository Library Program.
co-published on govdoc-l and freegovinfo.info.
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