Thursday January 29, 11:23 PM
New U.S. Senate panel to oversee federal contracts
WASHINGTON, Jan 29 (Reuters) - A new U.S. Senate subcommittee is being created to oversee the hundreds of billions of dollars spent annually on U.S. government contracts, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman
said Thursday.
Committee member Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat who has pushed for greater government accountability, will chair the new ad hoc Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight, said Lieberman, a former Democrat turned independent from Connecticut.
Lockheed Martin Corp (NYSE: LMT - news) , Boeing Co (NYSE: BA - news) , and Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC - news) were the largest recipients of federal contracts in fiscal 2008, in that order, unchanged from the year before, according to USASpending.gov, a federal website that tracks contracts.
Next came General Dynamics Corp , Raytheon Co (NYSE: RTN - news) and BAE Systems PLC (LSE: AP16.L - news) , followed by United Technologies Corp and L-3 Communications Holdings Inc.
.
Spending on federal contracts rose to $532 billion last year, Lieberman said in a statement, adding: 'Management of federal contracts is one of the greatest operational challenges facing the federal government.'
With her background as a prosecutor and state auditor, McCaskill has 'unique investigative experience that will be crucial for this new subcommittee,' Lieberman said.
McCaskill said major strides in contracting accountability had been made last year by establishing an independent, bipartisan Wartime Contracting Commission to investigate fraud and abuse. She crafted the commission with fellow Democrat Jim Webb of Virginia.
'While I look forward to those investigations, we all know that outrageous contracting abuses occur in every facet of government,' McCaskill was quoted as saying in the statement issued by Lieberman.
'I can't wait to get to work saving huge money for taxpayers. They deserve it,' she said.
(Reporting by Jim Wolf; editing by Bernard Orr) Keywords: USA CONTRACTS
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