The new chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Edolphus Towns, D-NY, told a panel recently that he’s ready to provide vigorous oversight of the new administration, corporate wrongdoing and other timely issues.
He also called two bills including transparency reforms – the Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2009, HR-35, and the Presidential Library Donation Act of 2009, HR-36 – that he brought and that passed the House recently as a "down payment on the types of open government initiatives supported by the public."
The bills would overhaul the process of accessing presidential records and overturn an executive order limiting access to them.
Towns, who also chairs the government management subcommittee mentioned several policy, organizational and management issues he will be addressing. Those include procurement and contracting reform — they "will be on the front burner," the 2010 Census and accuracy in urban areas, the Asset Relief program, technology issues, healthcare reform, food safety and biomedical research.
Towns cautioned, "Regulation simply for the sake of regulating makes no sense and would put our nation at a competitive disadvantage," and also said much of the committee’s agenda could be guided by newspaper headlines reflecting emerging issues.