Senators from both sides of the aisle demanded that President Obama fill the 10 vacant inspector general positions at agencies across the government that are presently held by acting officials whose tentative status cast doubt about their ability to provide independent oversight.
Members of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs told Obama that having so many acting inspectors general can “create the potential for conflicts of interest” and “cause instability” for oversight efforts in a letter to Obama.
“The absence of permanent, Senate-confirmed or agency-appointed inspectors general in these positions significantly diminishes the ability of OIGs to perform thorough and independent oversight,” said committee chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis.
Johnson pointed to the Department of Interior, which has operated without a permanent inspector general for 2,216 days. The scandal-plagued Department of Veterans Affairs has had a temporary watchdog for more than a year.
Nominations for only two of the 10 vacant inspector general positions are currently pending in the Senate.
Only Obama can appoint inspectors general to the empty chairs at the VA, Interior Department, U.S. Agency for International Development, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, General Services Administration, Export-Import Bank and the CIA.
The Federal Trade Commission, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and the Denali Commission have vacancies that must be filled with an agency appointment.
Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Tom Carper, D-Del., were among the senators who signed the letter offering their help in identifying “qualified and capable candidates” for the agency watchdogs.
The push for appointing inspectors general came as scrutiny mounts over the long absence of a permanent watchdog at the State Department in the wake of revelations about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email account and a server located in her New York residence.
Months after Clinton left office in 2013, Obama named Steve Linick as State’s inspector general.
But the five-year vacancy that preceded Linick’s nomination was the longest stretch of time the agency had been overseen by a temporary watchdog.
