The White House named a new inspector general for the Department of Interior late Thursday, one day after a Senate Committee excoriated the Obama administration for leaving top government internal watchdog positions unfilled for years.
In a brief announcement, the White House Thursday night said President Obama intends to nominate Mary Kendall as the inspector general for the Department of Interior.
The Interior Department’s watchdog post has gone vacant nearly the entire Obama presidency — a total of 2,291 days, according to the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group that tracks the openings and has reported extensively on the myriad corruption problems involved with failing to fill these roles.
Kendall, a former state and federal prosecutor, has serve as Interior’s acting inspector general for nearly the entire Obama presidency. She previously spent more than 10 years as counsel for the Environmental Protection Agency and became deputy inspector at Interior in 1999.
Several GOP House members sent a letter to Obama Wednesday emphasizing the need for a permanent inspector general at Interior, including House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop and Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz.
But Kendall’s nomination is unlikely to quell their concern.
In their letter to Obama, the group said Kendall’s tenure has been the subject of “recent, significant congressional oversight and controversy …”
“Because acting inspectors general are inherently less independent than their permanent counterparts, however, stakeholders do not have full confidence that their work is credible.”
On Wednesday the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee also weighed in with a hearing titled: “Watchdogs needed: Top Government Investigator Positions Left Unfilled for Years.”
Danielle Brian, POGO’s executive director, testified that right now there are seven inspector general vacancies awaiting Senate confirmation. The shortest vacancy is at the CIA, which has gone 123 days without a permanent IG or nominee and the longest vacancy is at the Interior Department.
She also blasted the president for failing to appoint a permanent IG at the Veterans Affairs Department, which has gone 519 days without one despite the reports in the Washington Examiner and other publications that the acting inspector general, Richard Griffin, has repeatedly come under scrutiny.
In one instance, amid the scandal over veteran deaths and VA falsified wait lists, Griffin added language to a draft inspector general report that undermined a whistleblower’s claims, according to an email released by the House Veterans Affairs’ Committee.
Allowing acting inspector generals to serve in permanent IG roles is one of the most “pervasive threats to IG independence and effectiveness,” Brian testified.
“POGO believes it is no coincidence that so many longtime acting IGs have found their independence called into question on front pages of newspapers across the country — especially when those acting officials make it known they are auditioning for the role of permanent IG,” she said.
