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COVID Watchdogs Struggle to Get Up and Running

Masood Farivar

   More than a month after Congress approved a historic $2.2 trillion
   coronavirus recovery package, a patchwork of overlapping oversight
   bodies created to keep tabs on the funds have yet to get up and running
   even as hundreds of billions of dollars in emergency funds have been
   doled out.

   In response to the coronavirus outbreak, Congress has approved four
   emergency relief plans, including the gargantuan CARES Act on March 27
   and a nearly $500 billion supplementary package approved just last
   week.

   The size and complexity of the funding led Congress to establish three
   oversight entities under the CARES Act: a special inspector general for
   pandemic recovery, a separate panel of inspectors general and a
   five-member Congressional Oversight Commission.

   Four weeks out, none of the oversight entities is fully functional,
   leaving hundreds of billions of dollars to flow out of government
   coffers with little oversight.

   What is more, with members of Congress out of town, the legislative
   branch has been unable to wield one of its most potent oversight tools:
   summoning officials to answer questions in open hearings.

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