Agriculture Department Inspector General Roger Viadero came under intense fire at a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing Wednesday for releasing a report on the crop insurance program without first allowing the USDA's Risk Management Agency to read and comment on its findings.
The report to Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman details the inspector general's view that the government is assuming too much risk for crop insurance policies, suggests that crop insurance companies have been making inappropriate profits since the program was privatized in 1994, and alleges that the Risk Management Agency has not been properly monitoring the companies' quality control programs.
Viadero said he did not allow Risk Management Agency Administrator Kenneth Ackerman to view the report because it was not an "audit" and was based on previous reports that Ackerman had seen. Ackerman testified Wednesday that the report covered new areas.
In an even more scathing memo, which was approved for release by Glickman, Ackerman wrote that the report "detracts from a fact-based public dialogue by, among other things, relying on unsupported generalizations and omitting relevant information."
Ackerman also contended that the report asks the agency to take actions that Congress has strictly prohibited in legislation, and that the agency had already made many changes to address problems raised by the report.
Senate Agriculture ranking member Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., questioned Viadero about his procedures. Noting that the IG's office had to correct factual errors after Ackerman's response, Harkin said he supports the independence of inspectors general in all agencies, but added, "I want to make sure there is a flushing out process before we put it out there."
Asked by reporters whether the IG's credibility had been damaged, Senate Agriculture Chairman Lugar said he "would not come to that judgment." Lugar said he scheduled the hearing shortly after the report's release because Congress is considering reforming the crop insurance program and putting more money into it.
Lugar said the cost of delivery through insurance companies is so high that Congress might consider ending the crop insurance program in favor of disaster bills.
But insurance executive Ron Brichler told Lugar that rural bankers have come to expect farmers to have crop insurance and would take a dim view of making farmers dependent on the passage of disaster bills.