On the recordJune 25, 2014
If I could respond very briefly, I think it is important to point out that, yes, there may come a time when in any government office--whether it is an elected government office or appointed office--when someone who is new to the office might be affected by something that did or didn't happen during the predecessor's time in office. But even were that to occur in the case of the Secretary of Labor, this is a position that could easily enable, could easily empower the new Secretary to come in and within a matter of months make sure our contractor gets a report done and make sure that report gets submitted. It is also worth noting that when we entrust a Federal agency with the power to spend $9 billion of the American people's hard-earned taxpayer money, hard-earned resources, we should expect them to stand accountable, and they should certainly have the ability to have a study conducted and have that study released to the American people. If we don't trust them to be able to issue that report and make it public, then we should have some reason to be concerned about giving them $9 billion. But I think this is a reasonable requirement, and therefore I ask my colleagues to support this measure.
