(WASHINGTON, D.C.) --- The Senate Democratic Policy Committee (DPC) will launch a series of major oversight and investigative hearings, beginning in January in the 109th Congress, because Republicans who control the White House and the Congress have made clear they have no intention of meeting their responsibility to provide congressional oversight.

At a Capitol Hill press conference, Monday, Senate Democratic Leader-elect Harry Reid (D-NV) and Senate Democratic Policy Committee Chair Byron Dorgan (D-ND) announced that the DPC will form a committee on Oversight and Investigations to hold these hearings next year.

"Members of Congress have a constitutional obligation and public responsibility to oversee the activities of the President and the executive branch," Senator Reid said. "There are too many unasked and unanswered questions and the American public deserves better. I have asked Senator Byron Dorgan to lead this effort and the expanded role of the Democratic Policy Committee. This is about honesty and accountability and reforming our federal government."

"Congressional oversight is a constitutional responsibility of the Congress," Dorgan said. "It's not about embarrassing anybody. It's about protecting American taxpayers and asking the hard questions to make sure government policies, government spending and the integrity of government agencies conforms to what the American people expect and deserve. Congress appropriates more than $2 trillion a year and taxpayers have a right to know that somebody is tracking how it is spent."

Dorgan said reports of contracting abuses in Iraq which cheat the American taxpayer have become routine, "but there's almost no congressional oversight to put an end to it. The Constitution envisions a congressional watchdog, but this congressional watchdog has been asleep."

Among other issues that "cry out" for congressional oversight, but which have generated none are the following:

• The cover-up of true cost estimates of the administration's prescription drug benefit.
  
  
• Contracting abuses in Iraq.
  
  
• The Administration's use of pre-war intelligence.
  
  
• The large number of "no-bid" contracts awarded in Iraq.
  
  

"When you have one party rule of government, it is critical that you have aggressive congressional oversight," Dorgan said. "The Republicans conducted oversight hearings on nearly 50 issues during the Clinton era from everything from Whitewater to how the White House Christmas cards were mailed out. But they now they've retired their interest in oversight activities."

Dorgan noted a then-little-known Senator named Harry Truman rose to national prominence in 1941 conducting oversight hearings of how the Democratic Roosevelt Administration was spending funds on the war effort and how some companies were defrauding the government and wasting money.

"This isn't about partisanship," Dorgan said. "Republicans are welcome to join us at our hearings, and if they start conducting their own real oversight hearings, we'll be happy to work with them and there will be no need for our hearings."

They said the Democratic Policy Committee, which was established by law in 1947 and which has the authority to conduct congressional hearings, will do so at least monthly, beginning in January.

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