Vice President Biden to Oversee the Administration's implementation of the Recovery Act's Provisions

President Barack Obama announced Vice President Joe Biden will oversee the Administration’s implementation of the Recovery Act’s provisions and the appointment of Earl Devaney as Chair of the Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board in a meeting with the Nation’s Governors this morning. The Vice President will meet regularly with key members of the Cabinet, Governors and Mayors to make sure their efforts are speedy and effective. He will also make regular, public reports to the President on implementation and those will be posted on Recovery.gov. The Chair of the Transparency and Accountability Board Earl Devaney will report to the Vice President.

"Beginning this week, Vice President Biden will meet regularly with key members of my cabinet to make sure our efforts are not just swift, but efficient and effective. He’ll also work closely with our nation’s Governors, and our Mayors, and everyone else involved in this effort, to keep things on track. The fact that I am asking the Vice President to personally lead this effort shows how important it is for our country and our future to get this right, and I thank him for his willingness to take on this critical task," President Obama told a group of Governors this morning. "I am also proud to announce the appointment of Earl Devaney as Chair of the Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board. For nearly a decade as Inspector General at the Interior Department, Earl has doggedly pursued waste, fraud and mismanagement, and Joe and I can’t think of a more tenacious and efficient guardian of the hard-earned tax dollars the American people have entrusted us to wisely invest."

As head of the Office of Inspector General, Earl Devaney is currently responsible for overseeing the administration of a nation wide, independent program of audits, evaluations, and investigations involving the Department of the Interiors programs and operations.

Mr. Devaney began his law enforcement career in 1968 as a police officer in his native state of Massachusetts. After graduating from Franklin and Marshall College in 1970 with a degree in Government, he became a Special Agent with the United States Secret Service. At the time of his retirement from the Secret Service in 1991, Mr. Devaney was serving as the Special Agent-in-Charge of the Fraud Division and had become an internationally recognized white collar crime expert regularly sought by major media outlets. During his tenure with the Secret Service, Mr. Devaney was the recipient of five U.S. Department of Treasury Special Achievement Awards and numerous honors and awards from a wide variety of professional organizations.

Upon leaving the Secret Service, Mr. Devaney became the Director of the Office of Criminal Enforcement, Forensics and Training for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In this position, Mr. Devaney oversaw all of EPA's criminal investigators, EPA's Forensics Service Center, and the National Enforcement Training Institute. Mr. Devaney's years of managerial excellence were recognized in 1998 by the prestigious Meritorious Presidential Rank Award for outstanding government service.