In case you missed it, Senator Gary Peters secured key accountability measures in the bipartisan Coronavirus, Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act which was signed into law last week, making sure funding intended to stimulate our economy will do just that – not end up in the pockets of millionaires and billionaires.
As Ranking Member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Peters worked across the aisle and authored key provisions with Chairman Ron Johnson (R-WI) to ensure proper oversight, accountability, and transparency. This includes establishing the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee composed of agency watchdogs from across the federal government to audit spending of Coronavirus relief and ensure it’s being used effectively.
Peters also locked in a key provision requiring the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congress’ watchdog, to monitor how taxpayer dollars are being spent, ensuring funds will go to the people who need them most – like families, workers, small businesses, hospitals and health care providers in our state. Peters’ bipartisan provision also establishes oversight of how the Trump Administration has managed its response to this pandemic – allowing the public to track pandemic response efforts in real time.
Read more about Peters’ efforts to ensure government accountability in the federal relief package:
AP: Congress locks Trump oversight into $2.2 trillion package
- President Donald Trump declared that “I’ll be the oversight” as lawmakers were in the final days of drafting what became a $2.2 trillion rescue plan for American businesses. In the end, Congress ensured that won’t be the case.
- The legislation, designed in part to help businesses and corporations hammered by closures due to the coronavirus pandemic, creates multiple layers of accountability for the billions of dollars in loans, grants and direct cash that will soon flow from the federal government. The House passed the bill by voice vote on Friday and Trump immediately signed it.
- In the end, the bipartisan final package incorporated much of what Democrats wanted, creating a trio of watchdogs, plus other checks, to try to ensure the money isn’t misused. It establishes an oversight board made up of inspectors general, called the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, stands up a separate dedicated inspector general position at the Treasury Department and creates a new committee of experts that reports to Congress.
- “Whenever you are appropriating over $2 trillion it’s important to ensure the money is spent the way it’s intended,” said Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Peters helped negotiate the oversight provisions with Schumer and the GOP chairman of the panel, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson.
- “This needs to be outside of politics, that’s the only way it has any credibility,” Peters said.
- Both Peters and House Oversight and Reform Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., suggested lawmakers could consider additional oversight provisions when Congress takes up more legislation to deal with the pandemic.
- The bedrock of the new oversight is the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, which will be made up of independent inspectors general. Modeled after a similar board created to monitor the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program that rescued banks, the panel will have the ability to obtain documents, coordinate audits and identify waste and abuse. The board will report what they find on a central website.
- The legislation also includes a provision ensuring that bailout funds are not given to companies where a federal official, including the president, has at least a 20% interest. Language directed at airlines would block stock buy-backs and limit executive compensation.
