Agency Reorganization Push May Be Coming

The House Government Reform Committee has started hearings that may serve as a prelude to action on proposals to broadly reorganize federal agencies with an eye on eliminating duplicative programs-and the jobs of the employees in them. Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., head of the committee, who has made agency reorganization one of his top priorities, noted that a budget resolution enacted earlier this year requires committees to come up with recommendations to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse in programs under their control, translating into a requirement that the panel find nearly $10 billion in savings over 10 years. Since the committee has oversight over relatively little direct spending, agency restructuring and streamlining is one way of achieving that mandate. The process started with a hearing concentrating on eliminating wasteful spending in several of the few big-ticket items under the committee’s jurisdiction, the federal retirement and health and life insurance programs.