Congress: Abdication of Oversight Responsibility

Congressman Henry Waxman (D-California) has made available a fact sheet on Congressional oversight, or more pointedly the lack thereof:

"One of Congress' main constitutional responsibilities is to conduct oversight to check abuses of power by other branches of government...[here is a] fact sheet detailing the Republican leadership's four-year failure to conduct investigations into allegations of misconduct involving Bush Administration officials, including:

* The role of the White House in promoting misleading intelligence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaeda;
* The responsibility of senior Administration officials for the abuses at Abu Ghraib;
* The role of the Vice President's office in the award of Halliburton contracts;
* The role of the White House in withholding the Medicare cost estimates from Congress;
* The identity of the energy industry campaign contributors that met with the Vice President's energy task force;
* The role of White House officials in leaking the identity of a covert CIA agent;
* The influence of industry lobbyists in writing EPA regulations;
* Allegations of conflicts of interest at multiple federal agencies and the White House;
* The role of Attorney General Ashcroft in illegal campaign finance activities."

Read the complete fact sheet (pdf): <http://democrats.reform.house.gov/Documents/20041001120136-07195.pdf>