The Government Accountability Office (GAO)—an ostensibly nonpartisan congressional watchdog—has come under fire in recent days from Republicans, who accuse it of showing bias and overstepping its bounds.
Established in 1921, the GAO does not possess veto power over Congress, but it has generally been respected as a rules-keeper and referee for both chambers.
The agency is supposed to audit the federal government for waste and inefficiency, and for obedience to the law.
Last Thursday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., intentionally ignored the GAO’s guidance against using a Congressional Review Act (CRA) to undo a Biden administration EPA waiver that allowed California to institute its own emissions regulations on vehicles.
The Senate ended up voting 51-44 to undo California’s ability to institute its own emission regulations.
California, as a disproportionatel large portion of the U.S. economy, often has the power to shape national business practices, so congressional Republicans were keen to nip a de-facto national electric vehicle mandate in the bud by undoing the waiver.
A Congressional Review Act is exempt from the Senate’s usual 60-vote requirement to end debate and allows Congress to undo federal rules and regulations.
The GAO argued that the Senate could not use a CRA to undo a Biden administration waiver that allowed California to sidestep federal emissions requirements, since the waiver would not qualify as a rule.
In response, a number of Republican senators have accused the watchdog of bias in its decisions.
“For the first time ever, the [GAO] has decided to insert itself into the process and affirmatively declare that an agency rule submitted to Congress as a rule is not a rule,” Thune said ahead of the vote.
“It’s an extraordinary deviation from precedent for an agency that should be defending Congress’ power, instead of constraining it,” he added.
“The Environmental Protection Agency submitted these rules as rules to Congress this year after being released by the Biden administration in its last days in office. That is a fact,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said Wednesday.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, told The Daily Signal in a statement that he views the GAO’s actions as a blow to its credibility.
“The GAO ignored all precedent when it presumed to tell Congress that it could not review a duly submitted rule from a federal agency. The GAO is supposed to ‘work for Congress,’ by its own description, not tell the legislative branch that it can’t do its job,” he said.
He added, “Prior to its reversal on the CRA, the GAO was generally regarded as fair and nonpolitical. Telling Congress, ‘No, you can’t review certain agency actions Democrats like, even if they’ve been duly submitted,’ is an egregious departure, and a sadly self-inflicted blow to its reputation.”
Some in the White House have also joined in on criticizing the agency.
After the organization denounced the Trump administration’s pause on funding for a Biden-administration electric vehicle charging program, White House budget chief Russell Vought called the GAO “a quasi-independent arm of the legislative branch that played a partisan role in the first-term impeachment hoax.”
Vought was likely referencing how In January of 2020, in the midst of impeachment proceedings against Trump over his phone call to Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the GAO released a report saying that Trump’s withholding of funding to Ukraine violated law. That report was requested by Sen. Chris Van Hollen, R-Md.
