Virus-aid monitors miss first deadline
New commission awaiting chairman
The Congressional Oversight Commission, whose members include U.S. Rep. French Hill, R-Ark., and which will monitor billions of dollars in coronavirus assistance, missed a deadline Friday for informing Congress about its findings.
Federal law requires House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to agree on a chairperson to lead the commission. Thus far, they have failed to do so.
Among other things, the commission is supposed to track “efforts of the [Treasury] Department and the [Federal Reserve] Board to provide economic stability as a result of the coronavirus disease 2019 (covid–19) pandemic of 2020.”
It also will monitor “loans, loan guarantees, and investments” arising from the Coronavirus Economic Stabilization Act of 2020 and their impact “on the financial well-being of the people of the United States and the United States economy, financial markets, and financial institutions.”
Signed into law on March 27, the $2.2 trillion measure included $500 billion that was earmarked for business loans, loan guarantees and other assistance.
That money may potentially be leveraged into more than $4 trillion in lending power, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has said.
The law required the commission to begin issuing monthly reports “not later than 30 days” after the Treasury secretary and the Federal Reserve begin using their new authority.
The initial deadline was Friday, the Bloomberg news service reported.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., appointed Hill, a former banker from Little Rock, to serve on the bipartisan panel.
A member of the House Financial Services Committee, Hill was the Treasury Department’s deputy assistant secretary for corporate finance and subsequently executive secretary to the President’s Economic Policy Council during the George H.W. Bush administration.
Joining him on the commission are U.S. Rep. Donna Shalala, D-Fla., a Pelosi appointee; U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., a McConnell appointee; and Bharat Ramamurti, a former aide to U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who was appointed by Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.
In a written statement Friday afternoon, the four commission members said they “have begun to review actions taken by the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve to implement certain CARES Act lending activities to help support and stabilize the economy.”
“Although we will not issue a report today, we are working to fulfill our responsibilities, even in the absence of a staff, a budget, and a chairperson, and intend to publish one soon,” they said.
In an interview Friday evening, Hill said the commission is making progress as it awaits the appointment of a chairperson.
“We’re hard at work,” he said.
“Each of the four commissioners have reviewed the work of the Treasury and the Fed, each of the four commissioners have reviewed their statutory obligations as to the mission of the commission. Each of the four commissioners, in reviewing the work of the Treasury and the Fed, have assessed questions that that work raises,” he said.
Hill’s Democratic opponent, state Sen. Joyce Elliott of Little Rock, faulted Hill and the others for failing to meet their statutory deadline.
“This is the kind of oversight that we have the right to expect in these kinds of situations,” she said.
If money and a chairperson are needed, the commissioners should have drawn attention to the problem ahead of the deadline, she said.
“If they are demanding that they get the pieces in places for them to go to work, that’s one thing. But if they’re just sitting back waiting for it to happen … to me that’s not responsible,” she said.