From Fierce Government:
| By Molly Bernhart Walker |  Comment |  Forward |  Twitter |  Facebook |  LinkedIn |
 The Obama administration unveiled Jan. 13 a proposal to reorganize federal agencies as part of what it says will be a broad strategy to streamline the executive branch. If the White House plan is approved by Congress, six federal agencies would be combined into a single, new business-focused department.Under the proposal, the Small Business Administration would join functions from the Commerce Department, as would the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, to create the new department. The National Institute of Standards and Technology would be included in the new business-focused department, an administration official told FierceGovernment. The department will consolidate programs from a total of 11 agencies and will have four focus areas: small business, trade and investment, technology and innovation, and statistics, said the official. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, currently the largest component of Commerce, would go to the Interior Department. President Obama, in announcing the proposal during a Jan. 13 event at the White House, said he will also seek reorganization authority from Congress in order to further shuffle federal departments and agencies. For the time being, the president elevated the SBA to a cabinet-level agency--a move that did not require congressional action. If approved, the plan would save government $3 billion and eliminate 1,000 to 2,000 full time employees, said Jeff Zients, federal chief performance officer and deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, during a Jan. 13 press call. Most of the job cuts would be in administrative positions and "will be handled through attrition," said Zients. Obama said NOAA should not have been part of Commerce in the first place. "Apparently, it had something to do with President Nixon being unhappy with his Interior Secretary for criticizing him about the Vietnam War. And so he decided not to put NOAA in what would have been a more sensible place," he said. Administration officials often cite fisheries oversight in their example of federal duplication: the Interior Department oversees salmon in freshwater but NOAA oversees salmon in saltwater. The reorganization is "good news for salmon," said Zients. However, it's not good news for NOAA's weather employees, says the National Weather Service Employees Organization, which represents 4,000 NOAA employees. "Whomever is advising the president on this issue is ignorant of the mission and history of the National Weather Service," Richard Hirn, general counsel and legislative director of the National Weather Service Employees Organization, toldthe Washington Post. Obama's plan is also likely to face difficulty in Congress, which regardless of partisan divisions, often resists presidential reorganization attempts. Most presidents since the Great Depression have attempted at least one reorganization, with mixed success. |
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