Rep. Blake Farenthold (R., Tex.) will chair a new subcommittee for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, according to a source within the committee.
Farenthold will chair the Federal Workforce, U.S. Postal Service, and the Census Subcommittee in the upcoming 113th Congress.
The new subcommittee is part of a broader restructuring within the Oversight Committee for the 113th Congress. No subcommittee currently matches the new subcommittee’s full jurisdiction, although there is a subcommittee on the Federal Workforce.
Farenthold first won election to Texas’s 27th district around Corpus Christi in 2010, defeating longtime Democratic incumbent Solomon Ortiz by just 799 votes.
Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) praised Farenthold’s work and leadership during his first term and looked forward to his work in the next congressional session.
"Representative Farenthold's leadership in his first term in Congress and his experience as a businessman gives me the confidence he is the right point man to help us enact reforms that will save taxpayer money and improve government services," Issa said.
Farenthold’s subcommittee will oversee the troubled Postal Service, which this year defaulted on a payment for "future retiree health benefits," according to Reuters.
Issa blamed the default on the Postal Service’s failure to cut costs sufficiently and to adapt to new means of communication.
Farenthold’s subcommittee will also seek to cut government costs. Late last year the House passed the "Spending Reduction Act of 2012," many parts of which fall into the new subcommittee’s jurisdiction.