The White House is supposed to release its plan for rescuing the U.S. Postal Service this morning, but–perhaps not so coincidentally–Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., isn’t waiting. Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, today announced a subcommittee mark-up Wednesday afternoon on his bill that would allow the Postal Service to end Saturday delivery, but would also put the mail carrier under the control of a specially appointed commission if it misses any payment to the federal government—such as the legally required $5.5 billion retiree health care prepayment due at the end of this month. That commission could…
Browsing: Darrell Issa
What happens at the U.S. Postal Service doesn’t necessarily stay at the Postal Service. The latest example: A federal workers’ compensation fund could run out of money within three months if the cash-strapped mail carrier skips a $1.2 billion payment due in mid-October, according to the Labor Department. The department runs the fund under the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act. Should the Postal Service miss the October “chargeback” for past claims, officials estimate that the program would have no money to pay any benefits during the last four months of fiscal 2012, running from next June through September, according to a…
Postal unions and Rep. Darrell Issa are mixing it up again. This time it’s over the California Republican’s bid to scrap a long-standing congressional requirement for the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail six days a week. That requirement is the main obstacle to the Postal Service’s ending most Saturday delivery, a step the agency says will save $3 billion per year. In a letter last month, Issa asked Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo., to drop the six-day language from an appropriations bill that her financial services subcommittee was drafting. Emerson didn’t go along, but Issa, who chairs the House…
In a letter released today, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., takes aim at a union’s claim that the U.S. Postal Service gets no taxpayer support. Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, concedes that the Postal Service no longer receives a direct government operating subsidy, but cites a 2007 report that the agency benefits from many “implicit subsidies” and “extra powers” worth several hundred millions of dollars a year. Those include federal, state and local income tax exemptions, Issa wrote, as well as the ability to borrow from the federal treasury at low interest rates. The letter, dated Monday, is addressed…
Even before he was officially in a position to do much about it, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., was adamant that the U.S. Postal Service needed to cut costs faster and deeper. After Issa became chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee this January, the looming question was just how he would push that agenda. The answer: Treat America’s biggest mail carrier like the District of Columbia. Back in the mid-1990s, the Republican-controlled Congress set up a “board of control” that essentially stripped the district of home rule with the goal of putting its problematic finances in order. Now, Issa wants…
Well, this could get interesting. Rep. Darrell Issa, the California Republican who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is contemplating major changes to the Hatch Act, the law that generally bars federal employees from on-the-job partisan politicking. At a hearing this afternoon, Issa didn’t say what kind of alterations he believes are needed, but labeled the status quo “clear as mud.” In a brief interview afterward, he drew distinctions in how the law affects the president and vice president; Cabinet officers and political appointees; and the career federal workforce. All three layers, Issa said, could need “multiple rounds”…
Whether the event is a dinner party or a rock concert, everyone knows that seating arrangements can be a touchy subject. But at a congressional witness table? That, though, was a not insignificant issue at a House oversight subcommittee hearing Friday. The session, dedicated to open government efforts, featured two panels. The first was made up of transparency advocates and federal departmental officials; the second featured just one person, Office of Management and Budget Controller Danny Werfel. The reason–as an agency spokeswoman later confirmed–is that OMB will not allow its staff to testify alongside people from outside the government. While…
Well, chalk one up for congressional bipartisanship: Democrats and Republicans alike agree that lawmakers should have a say in the Obama administration’s government streamlining agenda. “Reorganization of the executive branch is a shared responsibility,” Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., the respective chairs of the main House and Senate government oversight committees, said in a Friday letter to Jeffrey Zients, one of the White House management officials leading the effort. Issa and Lieberman go on to ask for “a tentative timeline for development and implementation of the reorganization proposal, as well as regular updates during the review.”…
Federal employees are all too aware of the importance of pay parity. But Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., has set his sights on ending a different inequality: Potty parity. Towns on March 17 introduced the Restroom Gender Parity in Federal Buildings Act — or as he called it, the Potty Parity Act — which seeks to ensure men and women have equal access to toilets in federal buildings. Towns’ bill, HR 4869, would require any newly constructed, purchased or renovated federal building to have at least a one-to-one ratio of toilets in women’s and men’s restrooms. It would allow buildings to…
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Edolphus Towns said in a letter yesterday that the health care bill now before Congress would require “some administrative and a small number of benefits-related adjustments” to some plans under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. Those changes would be necessary to make sure all FEHBP plans meet the government’s standards of a “qualified health benefits plan,” Towns said in his letter to Ranking Republican Darrell Issa. The health care bill, HR 3200, would require all citizens to have a minimum level of insurance coverage through a qualified health benefits plan or other form of…