The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), signed into law on March 27, created a committee of inspectors general to provide oversight of over $2 trillion available in response to the Coronavirus crisis.
The committee, called the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC), has the responsibility to promote transparency and to prevent and detect waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement of the money Congress directed toward pandemic relief. The committee’s mission also extends to managing major risks that cut across agency boundaries.
On March 30, Michael E. Horowitz, chair of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) and inspector general for the U.S. Department of Justice, appointed Glenn Fine, the acting inspector general for the U.S. Department of Defense, to lead PRAC.
On April 1, Horowitz and Fine announced the following members of PRAC in a press release from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General:
- Mitchell L. Behm, acting inspector general, Department of Transportation
- Mark Bialek, inspector general, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
- Kathy A. Buller, inspector general, Peace Corps
- Rae Oliver Davis, inspector general, Department of Housing and Urban Development
- Phyllis K. Fong, inspector general, Department of Agriculture
- Susan S. Gibson, inspector general, National Reconnaissance Office
- Allison C. Lerner, inspector general, National Science Foundation
- Jay N. Lerner, inspector general, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
- Vice chair, Paul K. Martin, inspector general, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
- Michael J. Missal, inspector general, Department of Veterans Affairs
- Tammy L. Whitcomb, inspector general, U.S. Postal Service
- Sandra D. Bruce, Acting inspector general, Department of Education
- Joseph V. Cuffari, inspector general, Department of Homeland Security
- Scott S. Dahl, inspector general, Department of Labor
- Richard K. Delmar, acting inspector general, Department of the Treasury
- J. Russell George, Treasury inspector general for Tax Administration
- Christi A. Grimm, acting inspector general, Department of Health and Human Services
- Michael E. Horowitz, inspector general, Department of Justice
- Hannibal “Mike” Ware, inspector general, Small Business Administration
The PRAC announcement also indicated that a special inspector general for pandemic oversight would be nominated by President Trump and confirmed by the U.S. Senate before joining the committee.
CIGIE is an independent part of the executive branch created by the Inspector General Reform Act of 2008. Council members include all inspectors general empowered by sections of the Inspector General Act of 1978, those appointed by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate, and those appointed by agency heads.
Appointment and removal power (administrative state)