[国会纪录：2008年10月2日（参议院）] [第S10468-S10470] SBA检察机构克里先生的报告。总统先生代表参议员雪地和我自己，我今天上升，表达了我们担心小型企业管理局采取措施隐藏公众视图中最大的贷款丑闻中的细节。作为小型企业和创业委员会的参议院委员会主席和排名成员，我们认真对待SBA的监督作用，我们认为透明度对一个充分发挥作用的政府至关重要。2007年7月11日，SBA督察办公室宣布了关于该机构监督商业贷款中心，LLC的报告，否则称为BLX。该报告直到同年10月份，以巨大的编制形式公开。BLX是SBA最大的7（a）贷款人之一，当时是2007年1月的欺诈性贷款的7600万美元。关于欺诈贷款指控的OIG调查有助于导致逮捕BLX执行副总裁和18名其他人，谁不是BLX员工。OIG通过释放关于SBA监督BLX的报告进行调查。尽管有明显的需求，但尚未少，SBA的监督活动透明度，当该报告在该报告于当年10月公布时，它对公众试图确定SBA所做的事情进行严重编制，几乎无用在其手表下发生的百万美元贷款欺诈。为了进一步强调发生的损害，重要的是要注意，自报告发布以来已经过去的时间，BLX  - 现在称Ciena Capital宣布破产。 According to the company, it will continue to manage its assets as a ``debtor in possession'' under the jurisdiction of the bankruptcy court. However, we are still concerned that the former BLX will not fulfill its obligations to the SBA and the American taxpayer, in turn. Even so, as detailed in hearings on SBA lender oversight, our committee remains very concerned by the number and breadth of the redactions of the BLX report. At the lender oversight hearing on November 13, 2007, then SBA Administrator Steven Preston promised to work with the committee to make more of the report publicly available. To date, there has been no agreement on a meaningful release of redacted material. In the context of conducting oversight, it has become apparent to the committee that the OIG did not exercise independent authority on what was redacted and instead let the agency it was investigating dictate that large sections of the report be redacted. This is contrary to the usual process that occurs with SBA OIG reports. Of the 15 reports that the OIG has released this year, there have been none with a volume of redactions even close to those in the BLX report. Of the 30 reports OIG issued in 2007, only 3 reports have a comparable amount of text redacted and those are all reports regarding agency information security. In this statement, I will bring to light the OIG's first three recommendations to the SBA and a summary of the SBA's comments on the recommendations, which were redacted in the publicly released report. There is nothing in this material that should have been withheld. In fact, on August 3, 2008, the New York Times reported in an article that revealed the substance of the three redacted recommendations that ``With the American taxpayer assuming responsibility for all manner of bad loans made by reckless lenders, it's puzzling that a scathing 2007 audit of the Small Business Administration's [[Page S10469]] oversight of one of its top private lenders remains hidden from view.'' Additionally, even if there had been a reason to withhold this information, the public interest would outweigh that. Given the crisis in the credit market, it is more important than ever that the public have confidence that SBA can handle its lender oversight responsibilities. The redacted portion is a recommendation on how to go forward in improving SBA's lender oversight and is illustrative of a process that broke down in this instance and needlessly made information confidential without due consideration. According to both the SBA's Office of General Counsel and the OIG, the SBA followed a preemptive Freedom of Information Act process when preparing for the public release of the BLX report. At its heart, the FOIA is a disclosure statute, with certain outlined exemptions. Indeed, although FOIA responsiveness has been problematic at best under the Bush administration, it has at least recognized FOIA's importance on paper as a tool to increase accountability of Government. As is stated in former Attorney General John Ashcroft's FOIA memo of October 12, 2001, which set the policy standard for FOIA compliance for the Administration: ``It is only through a well-informed citizenry that the leaders of our nation remain accountable to the governed and the American people can be assured that neither fraud nor government waste is concealed.'' Unfortunately, discussions with the OIG and OGC make clear that neither office fully evaluated each redaction with the above-mentioned guidance in mind. The OIG faced a large number of requested redactions from the OGC and, rather than challenge the OGC on them, simply decided to release the report with SBA's huge number of requested redactions intact. The OGC expressed surprise the OIG did not push back more on their requested redactions and seemed to have clearly acted on the instinct to ask for more redactions they expected to have made. The end result was a report that did nothing to increase transparency of Government and was virtually useless to the public. As I mentioned earlier, the treatment of this report is in stark contrast to that of other OIG reports, which tend to have few redactions. Indeed, the followup report on lender oversight that was released by OIG in May 2008 had comparatively few redactions. However, in the BLX report, the redactions were so severe that the OIG felt compelled to write a summary as a cover page because the extensive redactions made the report difficult to understand. Without question, the nature of this report also contributed to the number of redactions, since it concentrated on SBA's oversight of one company. Even so, a more thorough process would have undoubtedly resulted in far fewer redactions being made to the public version of this report. That said, Senator Snowe and I would like to see the OIG write reports in a manner that allows for the maximum availability of information for the public whenever possible. The redacted passages that the committee is making public, in accordance with both Senate and committee rules, are those that the committee believes will be the most useful to the public and that were redacted under privileges that, given the passages themselves, are outweighed by the public good that can be gained by their disclosure. The SBA asserted that the first three recommendations and the summary paragraph in its response should be redacted due to the ``deliberative process privilege,'' and for the first recommendation they also included the bank examination FOIA exemption and privilege. The deliberative process privilege is exemption (b)(5) of the FOIA and covers ``inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters which would not be available by law to a party other than an agency in litigation with the agency.'' It traditionally covers the advice, recommendations and subjective evaluation that agency staff make in the performance of their duties. In this case, the public can see from the release of this information how the SBA and its OIG were interacting in the investigation of SBA's failed oversight of BLX, a lender making Government-backed loans. Regarding the ``bank examination'' FOIA exemption (b)(8) and privilege claim, that exemption only pertained to a portion of recommendation No. 1, for which SBA indicated it believed it could approve the release of an unredacted version. SBA claims that the deliberative process privilege exemption applies because the OIG is a part of the agency. However, we believe that applying the exemption to the OIG--which is an independent office created within the SBA by law to conduct and supervise audits, inspections, and investigations relating to SBA programs and supporting operations; and to detect and prevent waste, fraud, and abuse--in the blanket manner SBA has done has the potential to render the OIG useless. If the deliberative process privilege exemption is as broad as SBA asserts, then the recommendations in the reports that preceded this one, as well as the two recommendations in the BLX report it did not redact, should have also been redacted. If that were the case, there would be virtually no use in having an OIG. We are very concerned that the SBA's actions in redacting key information and recommendations in the BLX could undermine the future authority and efficacy of the OIG. The OIG is an independent office created within the SBA by law to conduct and supervise audits, inspections, and investigations relating to SBA programs and supporting operations; to detect and prevent waste, fraud, and abuse; and to promote economy, efficiency, and effectiveness in the administration and management of SBA programs. According to the SBA Web site, the SBA inspector general ``keeps the SBA Administrator and the Congress fully informed of any problems, recommends corrective actions, and monitors progress in the implementation of such actions.'' To resolve this situation, the committee has engaged in staff discussions with OIG and OGC with the intention of coming to an agreement with the OGC on additional portions of the report that could be released. However, OGC has simply not been responsive. Even when made aware of the committee's concern about the adequacy of its response, in subsequent followup by the committee, OGC did not address critical issues and did not agree to make any new releases of information. It also continued asserting Executive Privilege which, as the committee has previously pointed out, must be, and has not been, asserted by the President personally. Therefore, to put an end to this matter, the committee is putting on the record some information that was withheld to serve as an example of a process gone wrong that prevented accountability in Government by keeping from the public information about the oversight capabilities of an agency that, though comparatively small, can have a huge impact on our economy. BLX made over $76 million in fraudulent Government-backed loans despite SBA's oversight of their lending activities. More transparency, not less, is called for to explain to the American people what happened and how it will be prevented in the future. Without objection, I ask to have the redacted portion of the OIG's recommendations printed in the Record. There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: We recommend that the Associate Administrator for Capital Access take further action to mitigate the risk posed by BLX and to promote consistent and uniform enforcement actions by: 1. Setting specific performance goals and target dates for BLX to demonstrate improvement. At a minimum, the goals should require BLX to obtain a risk rating of at least ``3.'' 2. Reducing the guaranty percentages for all new loans originated by BLX, until such time as BLX has demonstrated the required level of performance. 3. Suspending BLX's delegated lending authorities until the goals in recommendation one are met. The SBA's comments on those recommendations were completely redacted. These sentences are from the first paragraph of the section that summarizes the SBA's response. SBA management partially agreed with recommendation 1, neither agreed nor disagreed with recommendation 2, provided a conflicting and unclear response to recommendation 4, and disagreed with recommendations 3 and 5. Management noted that it recently created a new Office of Credit Risk Management (OCRM) out of the [[Page S10470]] former OLO, which is now responsible for lender oversight. ). While the former BLX's bankruptcy makes the contents of the report moot to that particular company, we want to set the record straight on how this matter was handled so that, hopefully, SBA will handle such reports with more openness in the future. Thank you, Mr. President. ____________________