Jason Chaffetz: “This amendment requires OIRA to maintain records on each significant regulatory action reviewed such that it is easily…”

“This amendment requires OIRA to maintain records on each significant regulatory action reviewed such that it is easily accessible and transferrable when responding to congressional requests. Unfortunately, in the last Congress, Mr. Chairman, the committee asked for the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, OIRA--asked Administrator Shelanski for records relating to the review of the Waters of the United States, often known as WOTUS, and that rulemaking process. The administrator repeatedly failed to take the requests seriously, which led me, as the chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, to issue a subpoena in July of 2015. Even upon issuance of a subpoena, OIRA resisted responding to the request, blowing past deadlines and being totally nonresponsive. We held multiple hearings. We conducted transcribed interviews. We had lengthy staff-to-staff conversations, but still OIRA did not seem to take the request seriously. I don't know how much money they wasted in time and effort to slow this process down and resist our being able to get the information that they said they had in order to make this decision. It was not until the committee, myself, as the chairman, getting on the phone with the head of OMB, when I told him that I had every intention to hold Mr. Shelanski in contempt and issue a contempt report, that we actually received a full set of documents. This was well past a year since the initial request.…”