Building Good Oversight Into Climate Legislation - Scott Amey
06/09/22 • 53 min
For years, activists, scientists and politicians have fought to get enough federal funding to make a start to slow climate change and stop the incessant temperature climb of the planet. Although the job of getting money is far from done, the first large tranche of appropriated money from the infrastructure law is starting to be spent. This important money will only be effective if it is spent well and scandals and waste could affect the success of climate goals and deter future and follow-on appropriations. To do this correctly, there has to be strong and workable oversight structure either built into the legislation or established by the Executive Branch.
For this week's podcast episode, we are lucky to have Scott Amey from the Project on Government Oversight (POGO). He is one of the best people in Washington DC on how to build effective oversight into government and what has worked or not worked over his decades of experience. Every climate activist and the politicians who support climate change legislation should listen to Scott so that the federal government can be pushed to do it s job and make sure the money is well spent on realistic and effective projects. The whole system that is spending this money, clear down to state and local governments, has to be pushed from the inside and outside the federal government to make it work the first time. Scott has seen it all and he talks frankly about his concerns of what can happen when well intended money is spent badly. (full disclosure: Dina Rasor is the founder and was the first director of POGO and serves on its board of directors and Greg Williams worked as an investigator at POGO)
Scott Amey is POGO’s general counsel and executive editorial director. In addition to organizational legal demands, he oversees the investigations, research and policy teams, the Center for Defense Information (CDI), and The Constitution Project (TCP). Scott also participates in contract oversight investigations, including reviews of federal spending on products and services, the responsibility of federal contractors, and conflicts-of-interest and ethics concerns. Scott is an attorney and can practice law in Maryland.
In October of 2021, Scott was asked to testify before the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology’s Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight and Subcommittee on Energy on best practices for federal spending. This podcast provides reflection on that testimony, and his decades of experience.
Scott's October 21, 2021 before the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
Visit us at climatemoneywatchdog.org!
For years, activists, scientists and politicians have fought to get enough federal funding to make a start to slow climate change and stop the incessant temperature climb of the planet. Although the job of getting money is far from done, the first large tranche of appropriated money from the infrastructure law is starting to be spent. This important money will only be effective if it is spent well and scandals and waste could affect the success of climate goals and deter future and follow-on appropriations. To do this correctly, there has to be strong and workable oversight structure either built into the legislation or established by the Executive Branch.
For this week's podcast episode, we are lucky to have Scott Amey from the Project on Government Oversight (POGO). He is one of the best people in Washington DC on how to build effective oversight into government and what has worked or not worked over his decades of experience. Every climate activist and the politicians who support climate change legislation should listen to Scott so that the federal government can be pushed to do it s job and make sure the money is well spent on realistic and effective projects. The whole system that is spending this money, clear down to state and local governments, has to be pushed from the inside and outside the federal government to make it work the first time. Scott has seen it all and he talks frankly about his concerns of what can happen when well intended money is spent badly. (full disclosure: Dina Rasor is the founder and was the first director of POGO and serves on its board of directors and Greg Williams worked as an investigator at POGO)
Scott Amey is POGO’s general counsel and executive editorial director. In addition to organizational legal demands, he oversees the investigations, research and policy teams, the Center for Defense Information (CDI), and The Constitution Project (TCP). Scott also participates in contract oversight investigations, including reviews of federal spending on products and services, the responsibility of federal contractors, and conflicts-of-interest and ethics concerns. Scott is an attorney and can practice law in Maryland.
In October of 2021, Scott was asked to testify before the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology’s Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight and Subcommittee on Energy on best practices for federal spending. This podcast provides reflection on that testimony, and his decades of experience.
Scott's October 21, 2021 before the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
Visit us at climatemoneywatchdog.org!
Previous Episode
Why Does the Cost of EV Charging Stations Vary So Much - Dave Mullaney, RMI
The cost of installing an electric vehicle (EV) charger can vary from $400 to $150,000. Dave Mullaney of the RMI's Carbon-Free Mobility team takes us through their recent report - Reducing EV Charging Infrastructure Costs - to help us understand why, and how these costs can be reduced.
If you've ever installed an electric oven or clothes dryer where there wasn't one before, you have some idea what it's like to get the necessary 220 volt electrical source installed. Unless you've been involved in building a large factory, electrified rail line or commercial computing center, you probably don't know what it's like to get a megawatt or more of electrical infrastructure planned, funded, permitted and installed. Dave introduces us to some of what's involved and how we can make it less expensive, faster and more predictable.
Dave also explains why we should have different expectations for charging EV's than we have for fueling conventional gasoline and diesel powered cars. Whether you fill your tank all at once in a few minutes, or over several hours, it costs the same. Charging an EV is orders of magnitude less expensive if you do it overnight vs. all at once at the fastest available charging station. One the one hand, this will require big adjustments in people's expectations. On the other hand, wouldn't it be nice to wake up each morning to your car being fully charged, without having to go anywhere?
Visit us at climatemoneywatchdog.org!
Next Episode
Increased Oversight for Climate Infrastructure Law Falls Short - Sean Moulton
Sean Moulton is a Senior Policy Analyst at the Project on Government Oversight (POGO). We’ve invited Sean to discuss his recent report on how Increased Infrastructure Oversight Falls Short for the Biden Administration’s infrastructure law, while still being an important step forward. Sean explains how new oversight measures are implemented via executive order, which means they can easily be dismantled by future administrations, lacking the permanence and manifestation of consensus of legislation. Also, the new measures rely on executive branch officials accepting the advice of Inspectors General and fail to provide consistency across the multiple f ederal departments, state, county and local governments, and contracts, grants and loans across which trillions of infrastructure and climate money will be spent. These observations echo those in past podcasts by retired U.S. Treasury Inspector General Eric Thorson, and Contra Cost County Supervisor John Gioia.
Prior to POGO, Sean worked for over a decade on transparency and government accountability issues, leading the Center for Effective Government’s open government work for 13 years. The Center for Open Government, previously known as “OMB Watch”, pioneered making federal government spending visible to taxpayers through an online database. (“OMB” stands for Office of Management and Budget, an office within the White House that oversees the implementation of the President’s financial vision across the executive branch. OMB eventually licensed OMB Watch’s database technology to create usaspending.gov, a detailed, comprehensive and official accounting of federal government spending that’s open to the public.
Visit us at climatemoneywatchdog.org!
Climate Money Watchdog - Building Good Oversight Into Climate Legislation - Scott Amey
Transcript
Thanks, everyone for joining us today. Today's podcast features Scott Amey general counsel to the project on government oversight. Scott has been with Pogo for over 23 years on his recently testified before Congress on different ways we can make the government's oversight and and spending more effective and efficient. And so we're looking forward to hearing more about that today, after Dina shares a little bit more about our history wit
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