WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--The integrity and competence of the U.S. Department of Agriculture were called into question Thursday by U.S. senators concerned with the USDA's failure for several years to investigate anti-competitive cases in the livestock and meat packing sectors.
"It is totally unacceptable of our government to conduct business in this way," Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., said at a Thursday hearing. He threatened to call USDA officials back up to Capitol Hill again if improvements aren't made.
The Senate committee called the Thursday hearing to demand answers from the USDA over a recent Inspector General report charging that officials had blocked investigations into anti-competitive activities in livestock and poultry markets.
The Inspector General report laid much of the blame on JoAnn Waterfield, who resigned her post as a USDA Deputy Administrator in December, but Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said he also held higher-ranking officials accountable.
"I just wonder how Ms. Waterfield got by with not doing anything all this time or covering things up," Harkin told reporters. "What level did this go to? I don't know."
USDA's Inspector General Phyllis Fong said at the Thursday hearing that her office's investigation stayed within the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration, or GIPSA, a USDA agency.
It was Waterfield, as head of GIPSA's Packers and Stockyards Programs division, that decided whether investigations could be completed and referred to USDA's General Counsel lawyers, who then may turn them over for further action by the Justice Department.
Since November 2002, Waterfield's senior-level review panel referred only three cases to USDA's General Counsel lawyers, none of which were further passed on to the Justice Department, according to USDA's Inspector General.
Fong said she was unsure if any further action should be taken in regards to Waterfield's action and the investigation showed "no indication of criminal conduct."
Instead, Fong said, the obstruction of anti-competitive investigations was likely a result of "terrible mismanagement."
Back in 2003 Harkin went over Waterfield's head and complained to then-USDA Secretary Ann Veneman with concerns that anti-competitive investigations were not being completed by USDA's GIPSA.
Bill Hawks, a USDA Under Secretary at the time, responded to Harkin's concerns in two 2003 letters, telling him that USDA had "added economic and legal expertise to improve its ability to investigate prohibited anti-competitive behavior in the livestock, meatpacking and poultry industries."
Hawks also assured Harkin that GIPSA was investigating more than a thousand cases.
But USDA's Inspector General said many of those investigations were bogus because GIPSA officials, under order of Waterfield, began calling routine activities such as correspondence or onsite reviews "investigations."
GIPSA Administrator James Link, who also testified Thursday at the Senate hearing, vowed that he was working quickly to initiate reforms at the agency, but Chambliss demanded assurances.
Chambliss told Link to give the Senate committee results from a complete GIPSA agency-wide review in 30 days, and in 90 days provide proof that improvements were being made.