Last week, the National Institutes of Health officially ended its relationship with Sciences International, a private consulting firm. As OMB Watch has reported, SI had essentially been managing an NIH group studying reproductive health. The consultant's research and summaries of a particular chemical, bisphenol A, exhibited industry bias. Subsequently, SI became the focal point of a controversy over scientific contractors and conflicts of interest.

Yesterday, the Senate Appropriation Committee held a hearing to examine the budget of the White House Office of Management and Budget (not the federal budget, but the budget of OMB itself). During the hearing, Subcommittee Chairman and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) questioned OMB Director Rob Portman on a number of issues.

In today's issue of Roll Call, Norm Ornstein — a political pundit and scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute — articulates a rather damning assessment of recess appointment power (reprinted on the AEI website). Ornstein points out the danger of precedent in forming executive power. He then calls for Congress to stand up against President Bush's most recent batch of recess appointments including that of Susan Dudley. Every time a president abuses a power like this one, stretching the circumstances under which he will use recess appointments, it becomes a precedent for his successors, who will use his actions as a base point to stretch the power even further. The more the power is used with impunity, the more the core principles of the separation of powers are eroded. So what is a Congress to do? The only answer is to use its own powers to make clear to the president that there is a cost, and a serious one, to such behavior. Specifically, Ornstein suggests hitting the White House and these illegitimate appointees where it hurts: in the wallet. Congress could easily withhold the salary and other perks from embattled former nominee Sam Fox, and otherwise "make White House operations more difficult without cutting essential services." Ornstein also suggests this whole recess appointment mishigas is unconstitutional. In addition to the explicit language of Article 2 Section 2 Clause 3, Orstein cites America's original political genius, Alexander Hamilton. In Federalist paper No. 67, Hamilton articulates the caution with which America should consider the power of the recess appointment.