CQ TODAY – AGRICULTURE
March 9, 2006 – 7:13 p.m.
Senate Committee Gives Agriculture Agency 90 Days to Show Progress
By Catherine Hunter, CQ Staff
A Senate committee set a 90-day deadline Thursday for the agency that oversees the nation's grain inspection, meatpackers and stockyards to report its progress in correcting lax investigative and oversight behavior, as reported by the Agriculture Department's inspector general.
"This thing has been going on too long, and we're not getting the response we need," said Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, at a hearing with Agriculture officials. "In fact, we're not getting any response at all."
Chambliss gave the head of the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration 90 days to report on the agency's progress in implementing the inspector general's recommendations.
Chambliss said he did not expect the agency to execute all the recommendations within 90 days, but "we're going to stick with them until they do implement all of them."
"It is totally unacceptable for our federal government to behave this way," Chambliss said. "It greatly threatens the confidence livestock market participants extend to the federal government."
A January report by Inspector General Phyllis K. Fong found that the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration essentially blocked investigations of anti-competitive behavior and failed to establish adequate controls for enforcing the Packers and Stockyards Act. The 1921 law is aimed at protecting livestock and poultry producers from fraud, abuse and anti-competitive behavior.
"What we found, at best, could be described as tremendous mismanagement," Fong said.
The inspector general's office has cited similar issues in criticizing the agency several times in the past, starting in February 1997. The Government Accountability Office, the investigative agency of Congress, echoed those concerns in September 2000, concluding that the Agriculture agency's investigative processes were poorly designed for complex anti-competitive issues.
Senators said the agency's leaders failed to improve its practices despite promises to do so after each of the critical reports.
The committee's ranking Democrat, Tom Harkin of Iowa, and some Republican senators called for a special counsel to oversee the agency. "How is it possible that [the inspection agency] was in disarray for so many years and no one above the level of deputy administrator took corrective action?" Harkin asked.
Administrator James E. Link said the agency had already begun implementing some of the inspector general's latest suggestions for improvement.
"My first priority now is to correct the inadequacies that were going on," Link said, acknowledging that there had been a "communication disconnect" in the past and that "the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing."
'Total Incompetence'
At the hearing, Harkin produced a letter he had received in 2003 from Bill Hawks, then-agriculture undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs, that said the inspection agency was "undertaking a top-to-bottom review" of the Packers and Stockyards Act to ensure that it was still maintaining a "healthy, efficient, fair and competitive market."
Both Inspector General Fong and Administrator Link said they were unaware of any such review. Chambliss said they should find out if the review took place and report back within 30 days.
Based on the inspector general's findings, Harkin and Republicans Craig Thomas and Michael Enzi, both of Wyoming, and Charles E. Grassley of Iowa are calling for legislation to allow the Agriculture Department to establish a special counsel whose sole responsibility would be to investigate and prosecute violations on competition matters.
Criticism has primarily been aimed at JoAnn Waterfield, the agency's former deputy administrator who resigned in light of the inspector general's report. But Harkin questioned whether Mary Hobbie, who oversees the trade practices division in the department's general counsel's office, also was to blame. When Hobbie said she was "surprised" that the agency had only sent two anti-competition cases to her office in a seven-year period, Harkin said she should have talked to her supervisors — including Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns.
"I want to know how high up this went," he said. "Even putting the best light on it, it was just total incompetence."
Source: CQ Today
Round-the-clock coverage of news from Capitol Hill.
© 2006 Congressional Quarterly Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Mary has been steadfast against writing regulations that are easy no brainers for GIPSA workers to enforce. This has left a lot of grey area for management like JoAnn Waterfield, McBride and others to play in. Any surprise by Mary Hobbie is that her incompetence hasn't been dealt with before and that she has had a lot of time to exercise it.
March 9, 2006 – 7:13 p.m.
Senate Committee Gives Agriculture Agency 90 Days to Show Progress
By Catherine Hunter, CQ Staff
A Senate committee set a 90-day deadline Thursday for the agency that oversees the nation's grain inspection, meatpackers and stockyards to report its progress in correcting lax investigative and oversight behavior, as reported by the Agriculture Department's inspector general.
"This thing has been going on too long, and we're not getting the response we need," said Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, at a hearing with Agriculture officials. "In fact, we're not getting any response at all."
Chambliss gave the head of the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration 90 days to report on the agency's progress in implementing the inspector general's recommendations.
Chambliss said he did not expect the agency to execute all the recommendations within 90 days, but "we're going to stick with them until they do implement all of them."
"It is totally unacceptable for our federal government to behave this way," Chambliss said. "It greatly threatens the confidence livestock market participants extend to the federal government."
A January report by Inspector General Phyllis K. Fong found that the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration essentially blocked investigations of anti-competitive behavior and failed to establish adequate controls for enforcing the Packers and Stockyards Act. The 1921 law is aimed at protecting livestock and poultry producers from fraud, abuse and anti-competitive behavior.
"What we found, at best, could be described as tremendous mismanagement," Fong said.
The inspector general's office has cited similar issues in criticizing the agency several times in the past, starting in February 1997. The Government Accountability Office, the investigative agency of Congress, echoed those concerns in September 2000, concluding that the Agriculture agency's investigative processes were poorly designed for complex anti-competitive issues.
Senators said the agency's leaders failed to improve its practices despite promises to do so after each of the critical reports.
The committee's ranking Democrat, Tom Harkin of Iowa, and some Republican senators called for a special counsel to oversee the agency. "How is it possible that [the inspection agency] was in disarray for so many years and no one above the level of deputy administrator took corrective action?" Harkin asked.
Administrator James E. Link said the agency had already begun implementing some of the inspector general's latest suggestions for improvement.
"My first priority now is to correct the inadequacies that were going on," Link said, acknowledging that there had been a "communication disconnect" in the past and that "the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing."
'Total Incompetence'
At the hearing, Harkin produced a letter he had received in 2003 from Bill Hawks, then-agriculture undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs, that said the inspection agency was "undertaking a top-to-bottom review" of the Packers and Stockyards Act to ensure that it was still maintaining a "healthy, efficient, fair and competitive market."
Both Inspector General Fong and Administrator Link said they were unaware of any such review. Chambliss said they should find out if the review took place and report back within 30 days.
Based on the inspector general's findings, Harkin and Republicans Craig Thomas and Michael Enzi, both of Wyoming, and Charles E. Grassley of Iowa are calling for legislation to allow the Agriculture Department to establish a special counsel whose sole responsibility would be to investigate and prosecute violations on competition matters.
Criticism has primarily been aimed at JoAnn Waterfield, the agency's former deputy administrator who resigned in light of the inspector general's report. But Harkin questioned whether Mary Hobbie, who oversees the trade practices division in the department's general counsel's office, also was to blame. When Hobbie said she was "surprised" that the agency had only sent two anti-competition cases to her office in a seven-year period, Harkin said she should have talked to her supervisors — including Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns.
"I want to know how high up this went," he said. "Even putting the best light on it, it was just total incompetence."
Source: CQ Today
Round-the-clock coverage of news from Capitol Hill.
© 2006 Congressional Quarterly Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Mary has been steadfast against writing regulations that are easy no brainers for GIPSA workers to enforce. This has left a lot of grey area for management like JoAnn Waterfield, McBride and others to play in. Any surprise by Mary Hobbie is that her incompetence hasn't been dealt with before and that she has had a lot of time to exercise it.
