Press Releases

The Committee’s investigation began in February 2012, after concerns about disparate treatment and inappropriate scrutiny of applicants for tax exempt status by the IRS were brought to the Committee’s attention.

“Transparency and accountability will go a long way to addressing this Administration’s runaway expansion of the regulatory state,” Issa said. “These reforms bring job-killing federal mandates out of the dark by giving the public ample time to see and prepare for their real costs and economic impact. The reforms of Stop Government Abuse Week are a step in the right direction toward creating an open rulemaking process and undoing the economic damage of the federal government’s ...

“Ms. Lerner’s testimony remains critical to the Committee’s investigation,” wrote Chairman Issa. “Documents and testimony obtained by the Committee show that she played a significant role in scrutinizing applications for tax exempt status from conservative organizations. Documents also show that Ms. Lerner participated in “off plan” work to develop rules that would allow the IRS to stifle constitutionally protected political speech by non-profit groups. Ms. Lerner’s testimony ...

WASHINGTON – Today, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, released a joint report on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s highly-invasive surveillance program that monitored employees who contacted Congress and the media with concerns about FDA’s medical device approval process. In April 2010, the FDA initiated a surveillance ...

“As citizen watchdogs, Americans have the right to keep an eye on their government and are entitled to a federal government that is both transparent and accountable,” Chairman Issa said in a statement. “Disclosure should be timely, accurate, and routine. H.R. 1211 enacts commonsense reforms that will reduce the backlog of FOIA requests from federal agencies by strengthening the Office of Government Information Services and creating an online request system. The reforms in the FOIA bill ...

“Too often, our Committee sees and reviews billion dollar write-offs of IT programs, in which you cannot find out who was in charge, you cannot find out why they went on so long, and the hardest thing to find out is why they don’t work at the end of a billion dollars,” Issa said. “Good software saves billions of dollars and countless lives and countless hours if it works. Bad or poorly done software can frustrate the American public and deprive them of very product or service they ...

“The federal government is currently spending in excess of $80 billion dollars for information technology investments, and often we get little back in terms of results. IT acquisition program failure rates and cost overruns are between 72 percent and 80 percent. Some estimate as much as $20 billion is wasted annually in this area. We need to enhance the best value to the taxpayer by adapting the cumbersome federal acquisition process to major trends in the IT industry.

“This bill links the growth of resources for the Inspector General of the Office of Personnel Management to that of the agency he oversees. I applaud Chairman Farenthold’s efforts in stewarding this common sense reform into law.”

“Today, the Committee advanced several bills that will open and improve transparency around the frequently inscrutable regulatory process,” Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said. “The ALERT Act ensures that citizens and business owners no longer have to wonder what costly new rules and regulations agencies are putting on the books next. By making this information regularly reported and accessible to the public, we can increase accountability for the billions of dollars of ...

“The government has a responsibility to provide a safety net for individuals who truly need public assistance,” the letter, signed by Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., Subcommittee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Subcommittee Chairman James Lankford, R-Okla., states. “However, New York’s Medicaid program has fostered a system that over the past two decades has wasted vast sums of our nation’s limited resources.”