GOP leaders in the House urged President Obama Monday to fill an inspector general seat that has been empty for years.
The temporary watchdog at the Department of the Interior, who has served since February 2009, has become the subject of a congressional investigation that found evidence of cover-ups and conflicts of interest in the inspector general’s office.
“The long-standing vacancy has reduced the Department’s efficiency and deprived taxpayers from fully realizing the benefits of a strong inspector general, which is one of Congress’s best investments of their tax dollars,” wrote a group of Republican lawmakers that included House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Rep. Rob Bishop, chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, and Rep. Ken Calvert, chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, also signed onto the letter requesting the president find a permanent watchdog to fill the position held by Mary Kendall, interim inspector general, for more than six years.
“Because acting inspectors general are inherently less independent than their permanent counterparts, however, stakeholders do not have full confidence that their work is credible,” the lawmakers wrote in their letter Monday. “Additionally, some acting inspectors general are candidates for the permanent job, which creates an incentive to conduct less aggressive oversight of the administration. In any event, taxpayers suffer the consequences.”
The inefficacy of temporary watchdogs has become an increasingly common topic of discussion in light of recent revelations about Hillary Clinton’s conduct at the State Department, which was overseen by an acting inspector general during all four years of her tenure.
Reports have since alleged agency investigators were subjected to “undue influence” by high-level State Department officials, leading some to wonder whether the agency’s interim inspector general was vulnerable to politicization while Clinton was in office.
The Obama administration presently has eight inspector general vacancies across the federal government.
At least one permanent watchdog, the Department of Commerce’s Todd Zinser, has been under congressional investigation for years.
Zinser has been accused of retaliating against whistleblowers in his own office, among other allegations of misconduct. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, has called on President Obama to remove him from his position.
An Oversight Committee aide who declined to be named said the letter to the White House about the Interior inspector general is part of an ongoing look at the effectiveness of inspectors general across the government.
