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Policy
Obama Calls For Agency Revamp
Bureaucracy: Reorganization plan faces skepticism in Congress
by Glenn Hess
January 23, 2012
| A version of this story appeared in
Volume 90, Issue 4
President Barack Obama is asking Congress for authority to merge six federal agencies with overlapping programs into a single department. The Administration asserts that the move will improve government efficiency and the competitiveness of American companies.
“We live in a 21st-century economy, but we’ve still got a government organized for the 20th century,” Obama said on Jan. 13 at the White House. “With this authority, we could help businesses grow, save businesses time, and save taxpayer dollars.”
Congressional Republicans greeted the President’s proposal with skepticism.
“Given the President’s record of growing government, we’re interested to learn whether this proposal represents actual relief for American businesses or just the appearance of it,” said a spokesman for House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).
The plan would create a new agency that combines the Commerce Department’s business- and trade-related functions with five smaller agencies: the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), the Small Business Administration, the Export-Import Bank of the U.S., the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and the U.S. Trade & Development Agency.
The White House says the consolidation could trim, through attrition, 1,000 to 2,000 jobs from the federal payroll and save $3 billion over 10 years.
The chemical industry and other export-oriented businesses, however, are concerned with the proposal to eliminate USTR, which develops U.S. trade policy and conducts trade negotiations with other countries, as a stand-alone agency.
“USTR is already one of the leanest federal agencies,” says Lawrence D. Sloan, president and CEO of the industry group Society of Chemical Manufacturers & Affiliates.
Obama’s proposal would also move the Commerce Department’s National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration to the Interior Department.
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