oversight reporting
John Wonderlich
first session of a Congress, after consultation
with the Speaker, the Majority
Leader, and the Minority Leader,
the Committee on Oversight and Government
Reform shall report to the
House the oversight plans submitted by
committees together with any recommendations
that it, or the House
leadership group described above, may
make to ensure the most effective coordination
of oversight plans and otherwise
to achieve the objectives of this
clause (Rule X)
(d)(1) Not later than February 15 of
the first session of a Congress, each
standing committee shall, in a meeting
that is open to the public and with a
quorum present, adopt its oversight
plan for that Congress. Such plan shall
be submitted simultaneously to the
Committee on Oversight and Government
Reform and to the Committee on
House Administration. In developing
its plan each committee shall, to the
maximum extent feasible— (Rule X)
d)(1) Each committee shall submit
to the House not later than January 2
of each odd-numbered year a report on
the activities of that committee under
this rule and rule X during the Congress
ending at noon on January 3 of
such year.
(2) Such report shall include separate
sections summarizing the legislative
and oversight activities of that committee
during that Congress.
(3) The oversight section of such report
shall include a summary of the
oversight plans submitted by the committee
under clause 2(d) of rule X, a
summary of the actions taken and recommendations
made with respect to
each such plan, a summary of any additional
oversight activities undertaken
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 17
by that committee, and any recommendations
made or actions taken
thereon. That section shall also delineate
any hearings held pursuant(Rule XI)
March 31, 2009
LUNGREN: Mr. Speaker, because of some of the questions brought up by Mr. Issa and others, we and our committee fought and we brought this up on our side of the aisle, it was supported by the chairman, that we would try and increase the transparency of the committees of jurisdiction so that in fact people could make judgments as to whether they were carrying out the oversight function, and we do it in two ways. Let me just underscore that.
One is, there is already an existing requirement that every
committee report on a monthly basis as to what they are doing. If you
look at those reports now, sometimes they are kind of difficult to
decipher. So trying to make it much more clear for both the committee
and the public, we are working on a template so that information can be
presented and easily accessible. We also are working then to put that on the committee Web site so that
people can see and make judgments for themselves. That is one way in
which we are trying to ensure that we in the Congress in our committees
do the oversight, as well as the legislative work, that we are supposed
to do.
The second way we did it was to request--and it is part of this resolution--that the chairpersons and the ranking members of each committee come back to us at the end of the year. And it's not that we are going to question the subject matter that they are dealing with or question how they handle things, but rather we are going to just have some inquiries, looking at those reports, and seeing how what they are doing matched up with their budget request. One of the areas in which we are required to provide oversight of this House is to make sure that oversight is being done.
So I think we have tried to answer the question of whether or not real oversight is going to be done by the way that we made these changes contained in this resolution. I would hope that people understand that I take oversight responsibility very, very seriously; the chairman has indicated that he does as well; and, this committee will do its work to ensure that the American public can make their judgments. It seems to me that is what we are supposed to be doing. If all we are is a rubber-stamp committee, the public can say we are not doing our job.