Pelosi Pushes Ethics, Intelligence Oversight

Monday, December 18, 2006

By Edward Epstein, San Francisco Chronicle

December 15, 2006

Washington -- House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi pushed ahead Thursday with two of the Democrats' 2006 campaign pledges, creating a special panel to oversee the intelligence community's secret multibillion-dollar budget and starting to study the controversial idea of turning over the House's ethics process to outsiders.

The impetus for the new House intelligence budget oversight panel came from the Sept. 11 commission's July 2004 report that called for Congress to shake up the way it deals with the continuing global terrorist threat.

Pelosi's plan will create a Select Intelligence Oversight Panel within the House Appropriations Committee. Members will be drawn from the Appropriations and Intelligence committees and will have jurisdiction over the top-secret intelligence budget, which outside estimates put at more than $30 billion a year.

The new panel, which breaks up some traditional House fiefdoms, still doesn't go as far as some of the options proposed by the bipartisan commission. It suggested a joint House-Senate intelligence committee and another panel for homeland security as possibilities.

Instead, Pelosi -- a former House Intelligence Committee member -- went with a less ambitious option, one that won't require getting the Senate to go along.

The idea is to improve communications among the committees as they oversee the intelligence budget, which is spread among about 17 agencies, most of which are in the Defense Department.

"Its purpose is to protect the American people with the best possible intelligence, recognizing the role that Congress plays in all of this,'' Pelosi said at a press conference in the Capitol. "I know it will make the American people safer.''

The new panel is part of a bigger legislative promise to adopt recommendations of the 9/11 commission that so far haven't made it into law. In the opening days of the new Congress, this proposal will include a plan to inspect 100 percent of the millions of cargo containers that enter U.S. ports annually and improve security for air cargo.

Former Indiana Democratic Rep. Tim Roemer, a 9/11 commission member, praised Pelosi's step.

"I give the speaker-elect points on creativity and strong leadership,'' Roemer said.

Roemer and the other commissioners said in their report that the intelligence committees, which are responsible for monitoring the country's spy operations, were undermined because lawmakers lacked power over the spy agency's budgets.

Roemer said he hopes Pelosi's step will prompt the Senate to consider a similar change, and perhaps to move toward a joint House-Senate committee. "The Senate needs to follow the House and clean up its backyard,'' said Roemer, who is now president of the Center for National Policy in Washington.

But he reiterated that the commission always expected Congress to be slow in changing its ways. "Of all our recommendations, strengthening congressional oversight may be among the most difficult and important,'' the commission said in its report.

Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, who will be minority leader in the new House, said he hadn't decided yet whether to support Pelosi's plan, which will be voted on as part of the House rules package when Congress convenes Jan. 4

"I told the speaker-elect I would be pleased to take a look at her proposal and confer with my colleagues about it. That process is already under way,'' he said.

But for Pelosi, who says she wants to foster an era of bipartisan consultation and respect in the House, the very fact that she talked with Boehner about her idea before making it public may be enough to prove a point. Besides, with a 233-202 majority, the Democrats are sure to adopt Pelosi's plan.

The Pelosi ethics proposal, which she said she reached in conjunction with Boehner, will create a bipartisan task force that will report back to House leaders about creating an independent body to oversee House ethics rules. It's unclear yet if such a body -- should it be established -- would have investigative or subpoena powers and whether it could penalize House members itself or recommend action to the full House.

Congressional watchdog groups have long called for an outside overseer of Congress' ethical rules, because of what is widely seen as the lax and politically charged system that ground to a halt in recent years. But Congress is wary of ceding control to outsiders, and a proposal for a similar independent watchdog for the Senate was easily defeated earlier this year.

Critics of the current system pointed to last week's House Ethics Committee report on the conduct of former Rep. Mark Foley toward teenage congressional pages. While the committee documented longtime concerns about Foley's behavior and criticized top Republicans, including Speaker Dennis Hastert and Boehner for failing to act swiftly enough in response to those concerns, it didn't recommend disciplining anyone.

The Florida Republican resigned his seat Sept. 29, went into alcohol rehabilitation, and now is under criminal investigation.

"There is no question that the ethics process in the last couple of years has lost the confidence of the American people," said Pelosi, whose party made the scandals surrounding GOP House members a key campaign issue.

A package of ethics and lobbying changes will be among the first items the House votes on after Pelosi is elected speaker on Jan 4.

The package includes banning just about all gifts from lobbyists, requiring former members of the House and senior staffers to wait longer after leaving office to take lobbying jobs, requiring lobbyists to disclose more of their contacts with lawmakers and requiring lawmakers to disclose when they are negotiating for outside jobs while still in office.

Pelosi has also pledged to restore regular order in the House, meaning that all bills would only come to the floor after "a full hearing and open subcommittees and committee markups,'' or votes.

But on Thursday she defended her decision to have the House vote quickly in January on her "six for '06'' package of major legislation without committee hearings or votes. Items include raising the minimum wage, ending tax breaks for oil and gas industries, boosting embryonic stem cell research, cutting interest rates on student loans, and allowing Medicare to negotiate discounts on drug purchases.

She said all these items had been debated in the recently completed session of Congress and that many of them had already passed in the GOP-run House.

"These are not new to the Congress. We will bring them to the floor,'' she said.

Boehner jumped on Pelosi's position as hypocritical. His spokesman Kevin Smith said she had "backtracked on her promise of 'open, full and fair debate' '' on legislation.

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