Government Tries to Balance Scrutiny, Speed

Kolbe's plan would use as its model the special IG office established to oversee Iraq reconstruction. That office has found numerous instances of potential waste or fraud and has referred several cases to U.S. prosecutors for further investigation.

The amount of money appropriated so far for Katrina dwarfs the $21 billion allocated for Iraq reconstruction.

The Department of Homeland Security's inspector general's office will receive an additional $15 million to monitor Katrina-related work. The department said earlier this week that nine-person auditing and investigative teams are fanning out across the Gulf to oversee spending as contractors begin their work. "The DHS IG is already hard at work monitoring these contracts," said department spokeswoman Valerie Smith.

Davis said through an aide that he thinks that office, and others like it, provide enough oversight.

David M. Walker, head of the Government Accountability Office, said in an interview yesterday that he, too, believes a special IG is unnecessary. "It's one thing to have a special inspector general dealing with a conflict zone halfway around the world," Walker said. "We're not dealing with a conflict zone around the world. We're dealing with a situation in U.S. territory."

Walker said GAO investigators would be active in monitoring Katrina-related spending and would coordinate with existing IG offices.

But Kolbe insists a separate entity is needed.

"The IG's staff at the Department of Homeland Security will be overwhelmed. We've already appropriated nearly twice as much money for [Katrina] as is in the entire annual budget for DHS," Kolbe said. "This needs to be done quickly."

The leaders of the Senate committee that oversees the Homeland Security Department, Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), are working on their own proposal for an IG office to monitor Katrina spending.

One idea being circulated on the Hill that could be used under Kolbe's legislation would be to simply expand the authority of the special inspector general for Iraq to include the Gulf Coast as well.

The spokesman for that IG's office, James Mitchell, would not comment yesterday on such proposals. But he said legislators have expressed strong interest in recent days about lessons learned from oversight of Iraq reconstruction. The main one, he said, is that action needs to be taken fast.

"Oversight should be set up quickly and should be highly visible," Mitchell said, citing the deterrent value of knowing someone is watching. "We learned that lesson from having come late to the Iraq situation and having to catch up."