(Daily Caller) House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and House Republicans are gearing up to investigate the Biden administration over a variety of issues should the GOP retake the House in the midterms this November, according to several discussions with ranking members of Congress and McCarthy.
Topping the list of GOP targets are Biden’s DOJ, the Department of Education and the border crisis. Republicans also intend to prioritize inflation, COVID origins and Big Tech.
As it gets closer to election day, McCarthy told the Caller that “a House Republican majority will be ready on day one to exercise Article I authority to hold the Biden administration accountable.” McCarthy said that “every congressional committee has an oversight responsibility, and under a Republican majority we will finally get the answers the American people deserve.”
House rules function by a two-thirds, one-third split on committee staff between the majority and minority. So even though there’s currently a small majority of only a couple of seats, it’s still a two-thirds to one-third split, which means that Republicans are in a position to double their staff.
Behind closed doors, McCarthy has told the ranking members on committees that when they are adding staff, they should first prioritize increasing the size of their oversight staff with counsels and investigative talent. Since Republicans have been in the minority and, with this in mind for a while, the committees have already started preparing for an avalanche of investigations.
The Caller got statements from top Republicans on a number of important committees. There have been training sessions, meetings with freshmen members and presentations about constitutional limitations and how oversight actually works. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Kevin McCarthy Plots An Investigation Avalanche If GOP Retakes House)
Representative James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky and ranking member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, speaks during a hearing in Washington, D.C., US, on Wednesday, July 27, 2022. (Photographer: Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Here Is A Breakdown From A Few Influential Committees:
Energy and Commerce under New Jersey Democrat Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr., has been focused primarily on helping to implement President Joe Biden’s priorities on health care and energy. They helped pass a series of coronavirus spending packages as well as pushing for abortion on demand until birth. They also held hearings on “America’s Broken Recycling System,” focusing on climate change with a goal to “significantly reduce climate pollution, create a clean energy future that produces millions of good-paying American jobs, and prioritize the needs of environmental justice communities.”
Overall, the committee’s focus on oversight is “to rebuild and restore critical functions of key agencies that were dismantled during the four years of the Trump Administration.”
Republicans contend time would be better spent investigating and alleviating things like gas prices and the fentanyl crisis.
“We have a full agenda,” Ranking Member Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers told the Caller. “[We plan] to hold President Biden and his administration officials accountable for how they’ve shut down American energy, broken trust at America’s public health agencies, made the fentanyl crisis worse, and increased our dependence on supply chains controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.”
Climate czar Jon Kerry has rankled members of Congress with his perceived kowtowing to China. Kerry’s green energy ambitions would be difficult if not impossible to achieve without Beijing’s partnership, according to a recent landmark study in Nature magazine.
The oversight subcommittee team is hiring rapidly in anticipation of oversight goals, an aide told the Daily Caller under the condition of anonymity to discuss strategy. “[The committee intends to] take action on policies to reverse the damage [the Biden admin] caused to our economy, our global competitive edge against China, and our American way of life.”
Democrats on the Homeland Security Committee, which is led by Democratic Mississippi Bennie Thompson, appear to be more focused on the Jan. 6 Select Committee than they were on the Homeland Security Committee. Democrats haven’t held one hearing on the border crisis this Congress. When it comes to hearings, the focus has been largely on violent domestic extremism, FEMA operations, and cybersecurity or hyper-localized issues such as the Mississippi water crisis.
Lesley Byers, a Homeland Security Committee Republican spokesperson, explained to the Caller that they plan to focus on the border crisis, Biden’s early withdrawalfrom Afghanistan and mentioned the Department of Homeland Security’s focus on the debut of its electric vehicle program, saying Democrats’ “priorities have been misplaced at best.”
“After two years of Democrat-control in the House, during which the Biden administration has not been held accountable for any of the numerous crises it has created, next year oversight will be king. Homeland Security Republicans are already looking ahead, and preparing agendas to get answers, provide clarity, and deliver accountability for the American people. We look forward to welcoming a new Chairman and hitting the ground running to implement the incoming Chair’s critical oversight agenda,” Byers added.
The House Appropriations Committee, led by Democratic Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, has not been focused on the current economic crisis, Republicans say. Instead, Democrats on the committee have been prioritizing liberal initiatives and increasing federal spending, with some accounts receiving double-digit and triple-digit percentage increases, which will further fuel inflation, Republican leaders contend.
The Ranking Member Rep. Kay Granger told the Caller that if Republicans take back the House she will “ensure the Committee focuses on oversight of taxpayer dollars.” Granger also said that she has “dedicated staff who are developing plans to do this.” She said she intends to hold hearings all year, not just before the committee marks up appropriations bills.
“I also think we should review programs that are funded across many subcommittees. These are just some of the ways we can hold agencies accountable for every dollar appropriated, and I’ll be working with our members to come up with other ideas,” Granger added.
Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX) speaks during a news conference with other Republican members of the House of Representatives at the Capitol on July 21, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
The Ways & Means Committee, chaired by Democratic Massachusetts Rep. Richard Neal, has also had a House majority in 2019 and 2020. While the pandemic was overtaking the world, Republicans tell the Daily Caller, Ways and Means Democrats were finding ways to raise taxes on vaping and trying to weaponize the tax code against their political enemies.
Rep. Kevin Brady, the Republican Leader for Ways and Means told the Caller that the GOP is focused on the Biden initiatives that have been “fueling the inflation crisis, pushing our economy to the brink of a recession, and making life harder for working American families and small businesses.”
