GovExec reported that new GSA chief Lurita Doan, who's had it out for the GSA's Inspector General office, got two serious letters from Congress last week. One of the letters, from Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA), James Oberstar, (D-MN), and Eleanor Holmes Norton, (D-DC), questioned Doan's plan to hire contractors to conduct "pre-contract award audits" that the Inspector General's office has been doing for quite some time. The letter says the move raises conflict of interest and privacy concerns. Rightly so. The other letter, from Sens. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Tom Coburn (R-OK), questioned why Doan deemed it necessary to cut the IG's budget request for 2008, despite mounting concerns of waste, fraud and abuse in federal programs. The effective budget cut was apparently unprecedented, as Inspectors General offices are supposed to maintain a large degree of independence within the agency they've been charged to monitor. Otherwise, there's a clear conflict of interest, once again. Now, it's too easy just to blame Doan for all this mess (she called the IG a "terrorist" in a memo that was leaked to the Washington Post). After all, Doan is only exploiting loopholes in policy that Congress has failed to close- loopholes which allow for the systemic co-option of IG's offices and the systemic outsourcing of contractor oversight to other contractors. Congress is doing the right thing by questioning GSA here. And it might have been the only thing they could do, since improvements in procurement oversight policy just weren't an option in the last Congress, of course. But this is ultimately a policy issue, and if the next Congress wants to put a stop to these abuses, letters and hearings and what have you will only be the beginning. Let's hope they do some follow-up in January.