Republicans plan January takedowns of Obama’s ‘czars’
The Daily Caller/Yahoo News ^ | Oct 14, 2010 | John Rossomando
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Republicans will have President Barack Obama’s czars and his use of regulatory powers to circumvent congressional inaction on issues such as cap and trade in GOP crosshairs if the party takes control in January.
Since taking office, Obama has named more than 30 czars (though the exact number is hard to pin down) without Senate confirmation and congressional oversight, and together they hold power over everything from the environment and bank bailouts to the auto industry. The president’s practice of naming czars has garnered criticism from members of his own party, such as the late West Virginia Democrat Sen. Robert Byrd, who called it unconstitutional.
“When the Republicans are in charge, you will see the oversight subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee active on a whole host of fronts,” said Rep. Fred Upton, Michigan Republican, who likely would chair the subcommittee if the Republicans take control of Congress. “How are these [czars] funded? So whether it be the authorizing committees and appropriations committees in terms of deleting the funds for those, I think you could go after it in one of two different ways.
“It is time to hold them accountable for what they are trying to promulgate with rules and regulations.”
The relevant congressional oversight committees have not exercised close oversight over the czars and other administration regulatory efforts during the last two years, but Upton plans to change that in January by regularly subpoenaing administration officials.
“We need to go line by line, page by page through the line items they happen to fund,” Upton said. “For a lot of these programs, I’m not sure they were authorized [by Congress], so how is it we are spending money for them?
“We are going to be focusing like a laser beam on overreaching by the regulators.”
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
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Great first step to reign in these communist radicals like Sunstein, Holdren, Wright, Dunn, etc. .
