Congressional Watchdogs in Washington
During the week following Memorial Day, I had the opportunity to travel around the Third District and talk with many Nebraskans about what is happening in Washington. Most commonly, I heard concerns about the growth of government and questions about what is being done to rein in the executive branch. Oversight is a key responsibility of Congress, and we are working tirelessly to push back on executive overreach.
One of our main oversight goals on the House Ways and Means Committee is to put Congress in the driver’s seat on U.S. trade initiatives. In early May, the Committee passed the Trade Priorities and Accountability Act, legislation also known as Trade Promotion Authority or TPA. This bill would give Congress the ability to direct and oversee the administration’s trade negotiations. The Senate passed the Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities and Accountability Act just before Memorial Day, and the legislation will soon come to the House floor for a vote.
Right now, President Obama has the constitutional authority to negotiate a trade agreement with any country he wishes and with no congressional oversight or transparency. TPA reins in the President’s authority, requiring the administration’s negotiating process to be directed by Congress. Under this legislation, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative must promptly provide the classified texts of all trade negotiations to any Members of Congress who request them. To provide even more transparency, the law would require the text of any completed trade agreement to be made public online for at least 60 days before the President signs it.
If a trade agreement is deemed by Congress to meet all the required objectives under TPA, it would be given an up-or-down vote. If not, TPA has a built-in off switch to stop the agreement from moving forward. We need to pass TPA to ensure Congress can oversee every aspect of U.S. trade negotiations and enforce the objectives important to all Americans, from agriculture producers to manufacturers to consumers.
The administration’s actions through the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) also continue to require congressional oversight. Just this week, we learned the IRS released nearly 100,000 people’s personal information through a breach of its own website. This is the latest cause for major concern from an agency which targeted Americans for their political beliefs and later claimed former top official Lois Lerner’s emails could not be recovered.
The congressional investigation into the IRS is continuing. Thousands of Lois Lerner’s emails have recently been found and are being examined by Congress with the hope of finding further insight into the agency’s practices. The Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over the tax code, continues to hold hearings on actions taken by IRS officials. This week, I joined 23 of my Committee colleagues in sending a letter to the Department of Justice requesting an update on the criminal referral of Lois Lerner. Though the agency is likely hoping its delays and diversions will cause Congress to veer off course, we will not stop investigating the IRS until we find real answers.
Though I always look forward to busy weeks spent in Nebraska’s Third District, it is time to get back to Washington and continue to fight against executive overreach. We have a lot to do, and I remain committed to fulfilling the legislative branch’s responsibility to provide vigilant oversight of the President and the administration.