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Panel approves bill allowing GAO to sue agencies

By Dan Friedman The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Wednesday passed a bill that would boost the Government Accountability Office's power to examine the executive branch through steps that include a legislative remedy to a court ruling that said the congressional auditing agency lacks the legal authority to sue for information about Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force.Introduced by Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and co-sponsored by all of the House's Democratic committee chairmen, the measure repudiates a 2003 district court finding in Walker v. Cheney by giving GAO the right to pursue civil action against federal agencies to obtain information.In 2001, then-Comptroller General David Walker sought to obtain records on who Cheney's task force met with in formulating the Bush administration's energy policy -- an effort backed by Waxman and Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich.

Full post as published by The Trade Secrets Vault on July 16, 2008 (boomark / email).