Committee approves H.67 amendments, shifts focus to legislative oversight and removes auditor pilot

A House Government Operations & Military Affairs committee on March 11 approved amendments to H.67 that narrow and redefine the powers of a proposed Joint Government Oversight and Accountability Committee and remove a pilot audit provision, voting to report the bill as amended by a voice/roll call that the chair summarized as 10-0-1.

The changes approved by the committee replace the phrase "government oversight" with "legislative oversight" in the bill's duty section, add a clause directing the new committee to examine "any failure to properly implement policy," remove a sentence that would have allowed the committee to take issues referred by resolution from either chamber, and strike section 6, which would have required the auditor of accounts to submit an annual audit report to the new committee. Tim Devlin, counsel, summarized the package and the specific text changes for members.

Why this matters: H.67 would establish a…