Raúl Grijalva: “My amendment would fully fund the Department of the Interior's Office of the Inspector General. By my count, there are…”

“My amendment would fully fund the Department of the Interior's Office of the Inspector General. By my count, there are at least 14 Federal investigations that are either underway or completed into the current Secretary alone. That is more investigations than the last four Interior secretaries combined. Still more issues with the Secretary are under preliminary investigation. Even more have not been announced to this date. Interior's Office of the Inspector General is doing most, if not all, of that work. Funding and staffing shortfalls resulting from flat funding or small cuts have caused the Office of Inspector General in recent months to forgo investigations altogether. Investigation requests from Congress and from tips originating within the Department of the Interior have either been rejected or are awaiting resources to be freed up in order to address them. The Office of Inspector General is also referring a growing number of hotline complaints to the Interior Department for investigation, creating a situation in which the department is investigating itself. Half of those referred complaints involve allegations of ethics violations, sexual harassment, prohibited personnel practices, law enforcement misconduct, and reprisal. Untrained supervisors conduct many of these investigations without following standard protocols and without collecting sufficient evidence.…”