The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a bill last week that would weaken White House control over inspectors general, the cadre of federal watchdogs tasked with auditing agencies and rooting out fraud and abuse.
The bill would put inspectors general on seven-year terms, prevent the president from firing some of them at will and allow them to submit and lobby for larger budgets than agency executives and the White House are willing to give them.
A companion bill in the Senate has yet to be acted on in committee.
But Maria Speiser, a spokeswoman for Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, said her boss is working on getting a committee vote before the November recess.
"We're very encouraged by the vote in the House because it's veto-proof," Speiser said of the 404-11 margin.
The White House has issued a veto threat, arguing that the changes trample on executive authority. The bill would circumvent "the President's long-standing, and constitutionally based, control over executive branch budget requests," according to the administration's policy statement.
As for the proposed rules permitting the president to fire some inspectors general only for gross mismanagement or wrongdoing, White House policy advisers wrote, "independence from supervision by the President raises grave constitutional concerns."
The effort has garnered bipartisan support amid a series of congressional investigations and news reports detailing cozy relationships and potential wrongdoing among inspectors general and agency heads. Some recent controversies include:
Allegations that the State Department's inspector general repeatedly thwarted Justice Department investigations into fraud and abuse among contractors working in Iraq and Afghanistan to prevent embarrassment for the White House. The Justice Department was investigating allegations that employees of private security company Blackwater USA were smuggling arms and that the State Department had mismanaged construction of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
A recommendation from a federal ethics committee that NASA Inspector General Robert "Moose" Cobb be punished or fired for mistreating his staff and repeatedly schmoozing, dining and golfing with senior agency executives.
The failure to investigate Vice President Dick Cheney's alleged role in the largest fish kill in the West. The Interior Department Inspector General cleared former presidential adviser Karl Rove of involvement, but never inquired about Cheney.
