Political Quotes

“Mr. President, today, the Senate passed the Inspector General Empowerment Act. This is a crucial piece of legislation to enable inspectors general to function independently and to weed out waste, fraud, and abuse within the government. I thank Senator McCain for working with me constructively to resolve the concerns he raised last week and for honoring the agreement we made in December 2015. Following Senator McCain's objection to my attempt to pass the IG bill by a live UC last Thursday, our staffs met and reached a compromise. We agreed to remove some provisions of the bill related to IG leave policy and IG reporting requirements. Although we disagreed on those provisions, I am glad that we agreed to preserve the most important parts of the bill. Namely, we preserved the provisions of the bill that provide inspectors general with timely access to all records of the agency that they are charged with overseeing. In addition, the bill contains numerous other provisions that strengthen IG independence and equip IGs with the necessary tools to weed out waste, fraud, and abuse within the Federal Government. The bill requires the Government Accountability Office to conduct a study on prolonged IG vacancies and to provide recommendations for reducing these vacancies.…”