[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 178 (Friday, December 9, 2016)] [Senate] [Pages S7130-S7131] INSPECTOR GENERAL EMPOWERMENT ACT OF 2016 The bill (H.R. 6450) to amend the Inspector General Act of 1978 to strengthen the independence of the Inspectors General, and for other purposes, was ordered to a third reading and was read the third time. Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, today, the Senate passed the Inspector General Empowerment Act. This is a crucial piece of legislation to enable inspectors general to function independently and to weed out waste, fraud, and abuse within the government. I thank Senator McCain for working with me constructively to resolve the concerns he raised last week and for honoring the agreement we made in December 2015. Following Senator McCain's objection to my attempt to pass the IG bill by a live UC last Thursday, our staffs met and reached a compromise. We agreed to remove some provisions of the bill related to IG leave policy and IG reporting requirements. Although we disagreed on those provisions, I am glad that we agreed to preserve the most important parts of the bill. Namely, we preserved the provisions of the bill that provide inspectors general with timely access to all records of the agency that they are charged with overseeing. In addition, the bill contains numerous other provisions that strengthen IG independence and equip IGs with the necessary tools to weed out waste, fraud, and abuse within the Federal Government. The bill requires the Government Accountability Office to conduct a study on prolonged IG vacancies and to provide recommendations for reducing these vacancies. It exempts IGs from getting computer matching agreements and from complying with the Paperwork Reduction Act, in order to ensure that IGs can obtain information and perform investigations without first obtaining agency approval. It improves the process by which IGs police the conduct of other IGs, to require that investigations are conducted in a more timely fashion. It promotes greater transparency by requiring IGs to report to Congress semiannually on impediments to their work, such as agency interference, reports that are not made otherwise available to the public, and whistleblower retaliation. Finally, it requires IGs to send IG recommendations to the heads of agencies and to Congress and to publicly post reports, unless otherwise prohibited by law. [[Page S7131]] It is a waste of time and money to have agencies at war with their inspectors general over access to information. The inspectors general need to spend their time identifying and helping agencies eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse--not fighting for access to the information needed to do their job. The bureaucrats need to learn Congress intended for the law to mean exactly what it says. Unless a provision of law specifically mentions the inspector general and prevents access to certain kinds of documents, then those records should be provided. ``All records'' means ``all records.'' I thank my cosponsors who worked diligently with me over the past year-and-a-half to help this bill pass in the Senate. Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I have long fought to promote transparency and accountability in our Federal Government. From standing up to defend and strengthen the Freedom of Information Act, FOIA, to protecting government whistleblowers, promoting transparency and accountability are among my top priorities. This Congress, Senator Grassley and I joined together to introduce the FBI Whistleblower Protection Act. And today we have again worked together to advance legislation to support inspectors general and ensure accountability. I support the revised IG Empowerment Act and hope it can be signed into law before the end of the year. Inspectors general play a critical role in promoting government transparency and accountability. They help ensure that Federal agencies and their employees operate efficiently, effectively, and within the scope of the law. The goal of the IG Empowerment Act is to strengthen the Office of Inspectors General and increase their independence, and it is a goal I support. One very important provision would help clarify that IGs should have access to all documents they need to conduct their investigations, audits, and reviews. This is something I agree with. Senator Grassley and I held a bipartisan hearing on this issue and agreed to work together to find a solution to this problem. While we need to make sure that the IGs have the tools they need to do their job, the Fourth Amendment demands that we not grant administrative subpoena power lightly. Such power should be granted sparingly and be narrowly tailored to protect individuals' civil liberties. The bill we advance today strikes the right balance to support IGs without giving them a blank check to subpoena any individual outside of the government and compel them to testify in person. We have made good progress in advancing protransparency legislation this year. My bipartisan FOIA Improvement Act with Senator Cornyn was signed into law in July. And just this week, we learned that a dangerous FOIA-related provision in the defense bill was stripped from the conference report. This kind of progress can only be made through bipartisan work and good faith negotiating. I am glad we will make similar progress with the IG Empowerment Act that I hope all Senators will support today. ____________________