Improved Financial And Commodity Markets Oversight And Accountability Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. CHAFFETZ. Madam Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

As we all noted this year, oversight and accountability are vitally important, and the Inspectors General are on the frontline of this effort. This bill will enhance the independence and effectiveness of the IGs at several critical institutions.

Currently the IGs at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the National Credit Union Administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System are appointed and can be removed by the head of the institution. This structure could limit the IG's independence. This bill will make these IGs Presidentially appointed and Senate-confirmed, reducing the risk of undue influence by the heads of these institutions. Although additional Senate-confirmed positions are unnecessary in most cases, it is important that we preserve and enhance their independence within these organizations. I want to thank our colleagues for working with us to improve this bill and making several important changes.

We now ensure that the positions covered by this bill will not suffer a reduction in pay and the individuals will remain on par with similarly situated senior individuals at the institution. More importantly, we also provide IGs with subpoena authority, an important tool for oversight and accountability, as we all know from our work on the Oversight Committee. Finally, the bill requires the regulatory agencies to take some action on the deficiencies identified by the IGs. These agencies cannot simply ignore the findings.

Madam Speaker, given the enormous role these institutions play in our Nation's financial sector, it is important that the IGs have the tools and independence to ensure that these institutions operate above reproach.

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Mr. CHAFFETZ. Madam Speaker, I want to also echo my compliments to Chairman Towns for his bringing this forward; Ranking Member Issa who has a keen interest in this area for his work; and the Chair of the subcommittee, Mr. Lynch, who is truly a gentleman and a great person to work with.

I also want to put comments in for the good men and women throughout our Federal Government that are working in all of these types of functions. I was excited to participate on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee because of the tremendous workload that they have. There's a great expectation from the American people that we deal with their money fairly and honesty, that we make sure that every dollar is accounted for; and we've seen too many mishaps where dollars have been overspent or overused. Certainly as we look at what is going to be, surely, the single-largest tax increase in the history of the United States with the so-called cap-and-trade, as the Democrats move this bill forward, if it were to pass, literally hundreds of billions of dollars taken out of the pockets of Americans all across the country that will be spent on who knows what, we have got to make sure that every single one of those dollars is accounted for.

Even though I voted ``no,'' this body passed a $1 trillion stimulus package, again, pulling $1 trillion dollars out of our economy, pulling $1 trillion out of Americans' pockets, handing it out to somebody else, bailouts and the rest of it. We need to make sure that the independent auditing, the people who are involved in oversight and government reform at every agency across the Nation throughout our government are doing their job, paying attention and making sure that every dollar is accounted for.

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