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The Project On Government Oversight is committed to exposing waste, fraud and corruption in the following areas: defense, energy & environment, contract oversight and open government.
To review archive documents scroll down the color-coded, thematically organized, and chronologically filed links, or select one of the four archive investigation buttons above.
Our country’s national defense should never take a back seat to private special interests. But too often it does, putting our nation’s servicemen and women at risk and the agendas of defense contractors ahead of legitimate national security needs. POGO's “Defense Investigations” expose wasteful military spending, the inappropriate influence that contractors wield over government decision-making, and weapons that do not work.
POGO strongly believes that sunshine is the best disinfectant and that we must empower citizens with the information and tools to hold their government accountable. POGO’s “Open Government Investigations” aim to prevent corruption in the federal government by encouraging insiders and whistleblowers to expose wrongdoing, increasing the ways that citizens can participate in their government, and improving citizen and journalist access to government documents and information.
The U.S. federal government is the largest consumer of goods and services in the world, spending $230 billion annually on goods and services. POGO’s “Contract Oversight Investigations” examine the federal government’s policies and relationships with grant recipients as well as major companies receiving billions of dollars in contracts and subsidies annually.
Every day, lobbyists from powerful mining, oil, and nuclear interests push their agendas before Congress, the Administration, and the courts. The result is that the government often fails to uphold its duty to clean up past mistakes, hold polluters accountable, and protect citizens from exposure to toxic substances. POGO’s “Energy and Environment Investigations” expose how these problems cost taxpayers and how bureaucracies refuse to take responsibility for adequately protecting our nation’s citizens.
POGO strongly believes that sunshine is the best disinfectant and that we must empower citizens with the information and tools to hold their government accountable. POGO's "Open Government Investigations" aim to prevent corruption in the federal government by encouraging insiders and whistleblowers to expose wrongdoing, increasing the ways that citizens can participate in their government, and improving citizen and journalist access to government documents and information. Click on one of the program areas below:  Campaign Finance Disclosure and Reporting Congressional Oversight Executive Privilege False Claims Act Freedom of Information Act - FOIA Government Corruption - Conflict of Interest Government Secrecy Information Access Inspector General Investigations Integrity In Government Protecting Whistleblowers |
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Memo from Public Campaign: Campaign Finance Scandals Major Theme in Tuesday's Elections, U.S. Newswire, June 6, 2006. Rep. Stephen Horn (R-CA) letter to FEC Inspector General, regarding FEC shortcomings in implementing campaign finance disclosure as reported in POGO's report, April 16, 2002. "Report: $12M in campaign discrepancies in '98", Associated Press, May 11, 2001. "Agency Misreports Campaign Financing," Federal Times, May 29, 2001. Transcript of Preparing The FEC For Campaign Finance Reform: The Numbers Just Don't Add Up!, Panel Discussion, May 22, 2001. POGO Alert - Preparing the FEC for Campaign Finance Reform: The Numbers Just Don't Add Up!, at Breakfast Briefing, Rayburn House Office Building Gold Room, May, 2001.
New POGO study finds errors in FEC's databases, PACs & Lobbies, March 28, 2001. For various reasons, $12.1 million worth of PAC contributions made during the 1997-98 election cycle to incumbent lawmakers is lost in the Federal Election Commission's database. 
POGO Investigative Report, At The Federal Election Commission Things Don't Add Up. The Federal Elections Commission's (FEC) campaign contribution databases are severely flawed. Out of more than 500 members of Congress, only six had campaign finance reports that matched the reports filed by the Political Action Committees (PAC) contributing to them. Press Release, March 28, 2001. FEC Rulemaking Rejection Letter, Fall 2000 POGO ALERT Citizen interest in campaign finance reform prompted POGO to seek your support for several FEC reforms. In 1999 POGO petitioned the FEC to begin a federal rule making process to formally consider six recommendations that did not require legislative action from our 1998 report, Re-Establishing Institutional Integrity at the FEC: Ten Common Sense Campaign Finance Disclosure Reforms. On October 13, 1999, the FEC issued a Notice of Availability in the Federal Register seeking public comments on these six reforms. The comment period closed on November 12, 1999. The text only file of the federal register page where the petition is located, is accessible through this link. Click Here This will link you to the pdf file for the federal register page. To view it, you need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader. Click Here
This link will take you to the FECs web site which has our original petition posted. Click Here Sample Letter of Comments to Send to FEC This was a sample letter of comments to send or email to the FEC in support of POGO's proposed rulemaking in 1999. Re-Establishing Institutional Integrity at the FEC: Ten Common Sense Campaign Finance Disclosure Reforms POGO Report, March 5, 1998.
POGO Alert - Reports of the Death of Campaign Finance Reform Are Greatly Exaggerated... Re-Establishing Institutional Integrity at the FEC. March 4, 1998.
POGO's Ten Common Sense Campaign Finance Disclosure Reforms, March 1998.
Testimony of Danielle Brian before the House Subcommittee on Management, Information and Techology
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Fledgling, Non-Integrated Department Needs a Lot of Looking After, Says POGO Director, CQ Homeland Security, by Rob Margetta, March 31, 2008.
Project on Government Oversight Executive Director Danielle Brian offhandedly refers to the 86 congressional committees and subcommittees with jurisdiction over the Homeland Security Department as a "crazy number" -- but says crazy isn't necessarily bad.
The existing system might be good for DHS, a patchwork of 22 component agencies that only recently turned five, says Brian, who has been studying the way Congress watches over executive branch departments and agencies since the 1980s. …
Q. This idea of 86 oversight committees and subcommittees -- can that ever make for good oversight, or are you always going to run into trouble?
A. I would not assume that that's definitely bad, number one. You've got 22 agencies, so you don't have 86 committees that are all looking at the Coast Guard. You don't have 86 committees that are all looking at [Immigration and Customs Enforcement]. They have discreet functions. So, I think [DHS is] putting it in the worst possible light, but I also think it requires some serious review. How many committees have oversight of ICE?
Then, also, they're calling it all oversight. The Appropriations Committee and the authorizing committee -- are those really oversight committees? Every agency has multiple layers of committees looking at them, and that's a good thing.
Q. Is that multi-layered oversight especially good for a department that is in its fledgling years and one that is, by most accounts, running into the problems one would expect?
A. I would think it is exactly the time when you would want more oversight, to make sure that bad habits aren't formed or that likely mistakes don't become so entrenched that they become harder to reverse. I think that's healthy.
You'll also find that different committees have different personalities, and so even though they're called an oversight committee or have that in their jurisdiction, it doesn't mean they're being very rigorous. You want some other committee, which has a chairman and a ranking member that really enjoy the role of oversight, to have access to do the hard inquiries that other committees with jurisdiction aren't doing.
I'm generally going to fall on the side of more oversight by the Congress is good, but I certainly see that there can be too much of a good thing. But just the number 86 to me isn't evidence that there's a problem.
Q. Is there a flaw in the system of congressional oversight itself where there's no one overseeing how oversight itself is performed?
A. Actually, I think the bigger flaw is the committee structures.
Q. How so?
A. What we've seen over time is that the way the committees have grown has been rather organic, and it hasn't reflected agencies, so there isn't a natural parallel. There are whole issues that fall between the cracks of committees, and then they get ignored, even though they're enormously important. You'll find in covering some foreign relation issues, for example, you're going to have the same number of committees that have some level of jurisdiction.
A great example is the Armed Services Committee, which everyone thinks just has oversight over the [Department of Defense]. But they also have a significant part of [the Department of Energy]. Those issues often get short shrift, though, because the members of the committee, their primary focus is DoD.
In the perfect world, if you could start all over again, someone would have a big white board and would write down all of the agencies and try to have a cleaner line of oversight, both so that you didn't have too much duplication, but also so that you have coverage. But I think if you're going to make a mistake, I'd want to err on the side of too much, and overlapping jurisdictions and duplication.
Q. Some Democrats, notably the chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, say they need to consolidate oversight, but not yet -- that there are too many areas where strict oversight is necessary. After these problems are solved, then you could consolidate. What do you think of that?
A. That might be thoughtful. Again, he has jurisdiction over the entire department, and other areas that aren't a part of the department as well. But, some of the great oversight of homeland security issues is happening in, for example, Environment and Public Works, or Energy and Commerce, or Government Reform.
Q. Both DHS and some Republicans say they see adversarial oversight from the majority -- that Democrats want to drag in senior level people because they want headlines and to blast a representative of the Bush administration. Is that something you see with executive agencies whenever you have a Congress that's of a different party than the president?
A. I don't think it's unique to DHS, number one, and we see it in different two contexts. One is when you have the different parties, as we did with, for example, government reform oversight of the Clinton administration in the same way that you may be seeing it now with the Bush administration.
But there were times -- back in the good old days, I would argue, of congressional oversight, when you had both the Democratic Congress and a Democratic White House -- where there was much more of a sense among members of their loyalty to the Congress, not the party. So, you'd have incredibly aggressive oversight by chairmen like Jack Brooks (D-Texas, 1953-95), and it wasn't perceived as partisan; he was the same party, but he believed so strongly in the right of the Congress to oversee and their duty to correct the failings of the executive branch. ... What I hope to see, if the White House becomes Democratic, I hope to see Congress continue to exercise its oversight. I hope they're doing it because of their growing loyalty to the institution of the Congress, the constitutional responsibility to oversee the executive branch.
Q. Let me turn the same question around, then. There are Democrats who say it will be easier to perform oversight functions when they have the executive clout behind them to make the departments cooperate.
A. No way. That's totally naive. That's totally naive.
Q. Why's that?
A.Because, while it is undoubtedly true that the Bush administration has operated at a level of secrecy and hostility toward the Congress that I think I haven't experienced -- and I've been around since the Reagan years -- at the same time, it is the nature of any executive branch to try to stay as far from the Congress as possible. "Stay out of my business." So, they're going to have a rude awakening. And what I hope is that, when they find out that the executive branch isn't happily turning over documents that make them look stupid, Congress continues its aggressive oversight.
Q. In other words, that it doesn't fall back and say, "It's the same party, so we'll let it slide."
A. Right. You know, Mickey Edwards is just fabulous on this issue. He was a Republican in the leadership of the House during the Gingrich revolution and he's over at the Aspen Institute now and he gives terrific speeches on this issue. One of the things that he thinks is the biggest mistake either party can make is a perception of the president as the head of government.
First of all -- and I'm totally stealing from Mickey Edwards -- the president is the head of one of three branches of government. And, number two, the president is not the quarterback for their party. If a party has a majority in the Congress, he is not the party quarterback. Their quarterback is the Speaker. And that is definitely a cultural shift that we're really working hard to develop in the Congress. We're holding congressional training sessions and we always have a Democrat and a Republican staffer on each panel, because our point is that congressional oversight is not a partisan issue. It's an institutional prerogative -- Congress has to have a deep, personal belief that they're doing it out of duty, not because it can help their party.
Q. Consolidation aside, some feel there's a problem with the tone of oversight -- that's it's too hysterical, too adversarial. Is that a red herring? Is it something that's actually present? Or is it just something that always happens?
A. It's not always what happens. . . . Oversight can escalate to a level of hostility, but that's usually because the other side isn't providing the documents or answering the questions.
Q. So it can be in reaction to the body that's being overseen?
A. Right. If there's anything to worry about it's not that oversight is too aggressive. It's that it's not aggressive enough. Way too often, I see an agency stiff-arming a committee, "We're not going to turn over the documents, we're not going to turn over a witness," and the committee's backing down. That's a much bigger problem.
Testify Before Congress, Meals Not Included; Did the government buy Roger Clemens a plane ticket? Slate, By Chris Wilson, February 6, 2008.
Roger Clemens was in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday to discuss his alleged use of steroids and human growth hormone with congressional lawyers in a closed-door interview. The legendary pitcher agreed to appear before the committee voluntarily, but he didn't have much choice. Had he refused, the lawmakers could have issued a subpoena and forced him to fly to Washington or face charges of contempt. Since Clemens had to make the trip, will the government pay for his ticket?
No. Even if a congressional committee forces you to testify in Washington, the government is not obligated to pay your way. The Committee on House Administration's handbook for such matters calls reimbursements to witnesses an "extraordinary measure" that must be authorized by the chair.
Aides for the House committee investigating Clemens say that call is based purely on the importance of the witness and how difficult it would be for him to appear otherwise. Because the decision rests with the chair, the majority party in the House has control over which witnesses can get reimbursed. This is almost always reserved for witnesses who lack the means to pay their own way, and is unheard-of for millionaires like Clemens. In the rare cases where the feds do cover travel costs, standard government rates apply. That comes out to 48.5 cents a mile traveling by car, and a daily rate for lodging and incidentals that can be as much as $265 for the Washington area. (Committee funds are also reserved for witnesses coming in from overseas or those who require aid, like minors and people with medical conditions.) The judicial branch is a little more lenient. Witnesses in federal trials need only fill out this form (PDF) and submit it to the prosecutor who subpoenaed them in order to be reimbursed. They get a gratuity of 40 bucks that congressional witnesses do not, plus similar travel fees, which vary regionally.
Explainer thanks the Project on Government Oversight, the House Committee for Oversight and Reform, Congress Watch, and George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley.
All Oversight Is Local: The Questionable Priorities of Former Oversight Czar Tom Davis, The Washington Independent, By Matthew Blake, February 4, 2008.
Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), a ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee, announced Thursday that his 14th year in Congress would be his last. Davis was first elected in 1994, one of many Republicans who won on Newt Gingrich’s "Contract with America" platform that year. He may have been one of the lesser-known foot soldiers in that "Republican revolution," when the GOP took control of the House for the first time in 40 years, but his impact could prove more lasting than almost any other congressman. Davis chaired the House Government Reform Committee from 2003-2007. This gave him the power to investigate and subpoena anything government-related. A lot was going on: faulty Iraq intelligence information, Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, possibly industry-influenced energy energy and Medicare legislation. But the committee mostly chose to ignore these and other controversial issues. … He did hold several hearings on government contracting, including some critical of no-bid contracts quickly rewarded after Hurricane Katrina. But with committee Democrats calling to slow down and reassess contractors, Davis took the opposite tack. Hearings like "Modernizing the Federal Acquisitions Workforce," concluded that the problem was that the Pentagon hadn’t been given clearance fast enough for contracts. "Davis kept trying to put in procurement legislation that accelerated the contracting process under the guise of reform," said Dina Rasor, founder of the Project of Government Oversight, a non-profit that investigates government misconduct. … "Davis was cordial," says Rasor, "but he just halted investigations if it meant looking at the White House and Dick Cheney."
Members of Congress also wait on FOIA requests, Congress Daily, by Daniel Friedman, November 13, 2007.
When 51 Democrats wrote the Pentagon in 2005 seeking information related to Britain's Downing Street memo on U.S. planning for the Iraq War, the signatories -- representing almost one-eighth of the House -- might have demanded deference. But the members, led by then-House Judiciary ranking member John Conyers, D-Mich., sent their letter as a Freedom of Information Act request, accepting the legal standing of ordinary citizens. The usually assertive Conyers recognized their minority status and a 23-year-old Justice Department policy instructing federal agencies to treat queries from members or staffers not acting through committee chairmen as FOIAs. Agencies can choose to act faster, but often do not. That their document demands are treated like an average person's is accepted by many members. But it galls both old hands who cite days of a more powerful legislature and some newcomers. … "A growing number of members are fighting back," said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit watchdog group that offers bipartisan training sessions to staffers on how to monitor federal agencies and programs. POGO uses a blown-up version of Conyers' letter as an example of an approach to avoid. Brian said the training sessions have convinced many attendees that after writing FOIA, Congress need not accept the executive branch's interpretation of it. In September, the House Homeland Security Committee took on the Homeland Security Department over a staffer's request for copies of a no-bid contract offered by the department's Office of Counternarcotics.
Oversight Chiefs Differ in Style and Agendas, CQ.com (Congressional Quarterly), by Martin Kady II, May 8, 2007.
In the House, the committee chairman with the broadest investigative power churns out subpoenas and launches a dozen major probes of executive branch activities. In the Senate, the chairman with the broadest investigative power seems to prefer reviews and “status report” hearings to televised confrontations. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman is taking a quieter approach on oversight than his House counterpart. For some critics, the independent from Connecticut has been too quiet. ... Danielle Brian, executive director of the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight, said, “Why be chairman if you can’t be as aggressive?” “You have to be comfortable making people uncomfortable,” Brian added. “You have to be willing to make enemies.”
New majority party compiles a mixed record in Congress, Virginia Pilot, by Dale Eisman, April 15, 2007,
Democrats have completed their first 100 days in control of Congress at loggerheads with President Bush over the war in Iraq and with their domestic agenda largely stalled by Republican senators. After a fast start on bills that would reform c ongressional ethics, lower prescription drug prices for seniors, cut student loan interest and tighten tax breaks for oil companies - all passed by the House in less than the 100 hours they promised - Democrats are finding tough going in the slower-paced Senate. ... Jennifer Gore, a spokeswoman for the non partisan Project on Government Oversight, argued that the new Congress "has been a lot more active than several Congresses before it " in pursuing allegations of government misconduct and mismanagement. Gore's group is among the best-known government "watchdogs," privately financed groups that look for wasteful spending and corruption in federal agencies. The Republicans who ran Congress last year were receptive to results of the group's investigations, she said, but often didn't follow up on those findings. Under the Democrats, "what's done with our input has changed," Gore said.
Congress girds up for return to oversight, Christian Science Monitor, by Gail Russell Chaddock, April 12, 2007.
Not since the Depression-era Congress of 1932 has Capitol Hill ramped up so quickly for oversight hearings and related legislation – most targeting the Bush administration. Both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue are hiring more lawyers, and watchdog groups say they are swamped with calls from committee staff asking for advice on pursuing the nearly lost art of congressional investigation. ... The move to improve congressional oversight isn't coming only from the newly empowered Democratic majority. "We're getting inundated with calls from staff across the Hill, asking for advice and training," says Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight in Washington. "It is not just Democrats. The Democrats took over, but what that has done is give a sense of freedom to Republicans who are inclined to conduct oversight."
Project on Government Oversight’s Baker’s Dozen, by Thomas D. Williams, Truthout, January 12, 2007.
Even as the new Democratic majority considers a top-heavy Congressional agenda including complex war, budget and ethics issues, legislators are awash in two overwhelming and appalling inventories of potential governmental reforms. Watchdogs claim the reforms are decades overdue. The newest scathing catalog, aimed at downsizing burgeoning government corruption and mismanagement, is authored by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO). POGO is an independent, non-profit group with more than a dozen staffers who work on investigations of "systemic waste, fraud and abuse in all federal agencies." The organization's chronicle follows an even more extensive lowdown two months earlier from the official congressional sentinel, the U.S. General Accountability Office. POGO, based in the nation's capital, is urging Congress to embrace an ambitious "baker's dozen" of reforms, including cutting back Pentagon spending on "wasteful" multimillion-dollar weapons systems and creating better scrutiny of military contractors and their lobbyists.
Watchdog group urges Congress to attack contractor misconduct, Govexec.com, January 5, 2007, by Jenny Mandel.
A government watchdog group published a task list for the new Congress on Friday that included addressing federal contractor misconduct and the "revolving door" between employment in government and industry. The 13 priorities outlined by the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, focused heavily on federal contracting issues. The group urged lawmakers to hold hearings on contractor suspension and debarment rules that are rarely invoked, in part due to the lengthy and expensive legal process involved.
POGO Alert - POGO Releases Its “Bakers Dozen” of Issues for Congress in 2007, January 5, 2007.
POGO’s 2007 "Baker’s Dozen” of Suggested Congressional Oversight Priorities, January 2007.
Gov’t watchdogs under attack from bosses, Washington Post, December 27, 2006, by Larry Margasak, Associated Press.
The inspectors general entrusted to unearth waste, fraud and abuse in federal agencies are increasingly under attack, as top government officials they scrutinize try to erode the watchdogs' independence and authority. … "It's hard to believe that the government is serious about policing itself when it's whacking the people who are actually minding the store," said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project On Government Oversight, a nonpartisan group that tracks government waste and fraud. "These people are our security officers who help guard tens of billions of dollars. It's ridiculous to prevent them from doing their jobs."
The story of ‘O,’ Capitol Hill Blue, December 22, 2006, by Lisa Hoffman.
It will be all about the big "O" when the new Congress takes over next month. "Oversight" will be the name of the game. Defense contractors, pharmaceutical firms, oil companies and others are all expected to come into the sights of Democratic committee chairmen who are promising to open investigations and hold oversight hearings into the practices and products of these industries. Also on notice for similar scrutiny are a host of agencies, from the EPA to the CIA. As a result, K Street lobbying and public-relations firms are scrambling to set up what one prominent firm has named a "Congressional Investigations Response Team" and hiring former congressional staffers who had run Hill probes in the past to perform damage control for those summoned before the House and Senate panels. Meanwhile, the watchdog Project on Government Oversight is holding highly popular seminars for the new inquisitors in which they are taught "how to root out documents from uncooperative companies," the "anatomy of government contracts" and about "Congress' rights to classified and proprietary information."
IT at the core of many GAO oversight areas, Government Computer News, December 11, 2006, by Mary Mosquera.
The Government Accountability Office’s recent report to Congress on the top concerns facing government recommends more oversight of federal IT management than might be apparent at first glance. The oversight areas in comptroller general David Walker’s recently issued report run the gamut of governmentwide contracting, identity theft, human capital, management reform and specific agency programs. And each area relies heavily on IT components, said David Powner, director of GAO IT management issues. … Government observers’ reactions to GAO’s list and Democratic plans to look at contracts more closely are mixed. Jennifer Porter Gore, a spokeswoman for the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington nonprofit group that advocates increased accountability for federal spending, wants GAO to look at more specifics about contracts and IT management. GAO should examine, for example, whether agencies can quantify results and track exactly where the money went, she said. “Congress is going to have to ask the right questions and request the right investigations.”
Homeland, sweet homeland, CQ Weekly, November 22, 2006, by Patrick Yoest.
During a break on the Senate floor as the lame-duck session got started the week after the election, Maine Republican Susan Collins succumbed to a moment of levity, handing off a chocolate gavel to Joseph I. Lieberman. The move symbolizes the coming change in chairmanship for the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. When the 110th Congress convenes in January, the Connecticut senator will take the seat that Collins has had for four years. But the moment also underscored the close relationship of the two New Englanders -- a chumminess that some critics find all too close and all too sweet. "We keep each othe