Several prominent legislators in the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter to President Barack Obama this week, emphasizing the need for a permanent inspector general at the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI).
The group, which included House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT), Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), and Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Chairman Ken Calvert (R-CA), urged the president to begin the nomination process to fill the position as soon as possible, writing that the six-year period under an acting inspector general has “reduced the Department’s efficiency and deprived taxpayers from fully realizing the benefits of a strong inspector general.”
“The Department’s last permanent inspector general left on February 23, 2009—more than six years ago,” the letter continued. “Since then, the office has been managed by an acting inspector general whose 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.”
The acting inspector general of the DOI is Mary Kendall, a former state and federal prosecutor, who spent more than 10 years as counsel for the Environmental Protection Agency and became deputy inspector general at the DOI in 1999.
“Additionally, some acting inspectors general are candidates for the permanent job, which creates an incentive to conduct less aggressive oversight of the administration,” the lawmakers concluded. “In any event, taxpayers suffer the consequences.”