Members of Congress in the minority have expressed frustration about late, incomplete or nonexistent replies to oversight letters. Image: Cristi Popescu/Shutterstock.com
A bipartisan bill (HR-504) has been introduced in the House aimed at making agencies more responsive to inquiries from Congress. It would require a response within 45 days to any request made by any seven members of a House committee or any five members of a Senate committee “if the information relates to any matter under the jurisdiction of the committee.”
Republican members of Congress have expressed frustration during the Biden administration—as did Democrats during the Trump administration—about late, incomplete or nonexistent replies to oversight letters sent to agencies. Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-NC, the new chair of the Labor and Workforce Committee, for example recently said that agencies “effectively stonewalled House Republicans because they were in the minority” in the prior Congress.
“While past practice would indicate you will respond to committee chairmen while mostly ignoring letters sent by the minority or individual members, I will monitor whether this will change with a House Republican majority,” she wrote to Education, Labor and HHS.
Meanwhile, the House has passed HR-388, to put in law the GSA’s authority to lease space on behalf of the SEC, revoking that agency’s independent authority after controversies over several leases the SEC issued under that authority; and HR-300, to require agencies to submit information regarding consent decrees and settlement agreements to a publicly accessible database to be maintained by OMB.
Also, a newly introduced Senate bill, S-108, would require agencies to state on the first page of guidance documents that such guidance does not have the force and effect of law and is intended only to provide clarity to the public about existing legal requirements or agency policies. Similar legislation passed the Senate last year.
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