WASHINGTON - Perhaps the most frustrated man in Washington these days is a congressman from California who has had his fill of Jenna Dorn, administrator of the Federal Transit Administration.

Rep. Doug Ose, a Republican from Sacramento, says Dorn is deliberately subverting the will of Congress, failing to stop public transit agencies from violating FTA rules and not penalizing them when they do.

Additionally, he says Ms. Dorn is operating the FTA as if it were a private piggy bank for members of Congress and public transit systems.

"I believe she (Ms. Dorn) has decided she knows better than the collective wisdom of Congress and 30 years of federal law," Ose said in an interview with Bus & Motorcoach News.

The three-term congressman clearly knows where of he speaks.

For the better part of the past year Ose has been probing the Federal Transit Administration, including chairing two hearings that covered an array of issues, ranging from the FTA's resistance to write rules that reign in rogue transit agencies, to its lackadaisical oversight of the billions of tax dollars the FTA doles out to transit systems.

What Ose has learned at the hearings and during the investigations he and his staff have conducted has convinced him drastic action may be needed to halt Ms. Dorn's lax and profligate ways.

Congress, he says, may have "to cut the FTA back, and take away her discretion to get her attention, and to implement constructive oversight of the agency."

At the most recent hearing conducted by Ose at the end of September, Ms. Dorn testified the FTA "has worked hard to ensure that the private sector does not face unfair competition from public transit agencies" and that the "Bush Administration strongly supports continued involvement of the private sector in planning and delivering transportation services."

Ose didn't believe a word she said.

"You have to look at what she does, not what she says," he said. "She has no intention of maximizing the intent of Congress" to encourage private-sector participation in public transportation planning and service delivery.

In her remarks before Ose's subcommittee on Energy Policy, Natural Resources and Regulatory Affairs, Ms. Dorn offered a list of what she called "great examples" of private-sector participation in public transit operations.

None of her examples, however, represented anything new or an example of a transit agency recently expanding service and involving private bus operators.

But the FTA's failure to enforce private-sector participation requirements is only one aspect of Ose's frustration with Ms. Dorn. Just as aggravating is her failure to impose penalties on agency's that violate federal charter and other FTA rules, and the agency's complete unwillingness to monitor the spending of federal dollars by transit systems.

He said the FTA is the "most egregious case" he has seen of a federal agency failing to police the organizations that get its money.

"Oversight is tough, dirty work," he said. "You have to stick your nose in and understand the issues." The FTA, under Ms. Dorn, simply sits on its hands and lets transit agencies spend their huge federal grants as they see fit.

"The FTA doesn't understand what the role of a grant-making agency is," said a federal official who has examined its practices. "They just don't get it."

Adds Ose: "With oversight, you can't do it once a month. It's like raising hogs. You're either in the hog business or you're not. You can't go in and out of it."

Meanwhile, Ose and his committee intend to continue shining a bright light on Ms. Dorn and the FTA, and enlisting the support of other congressional committees with oversight over the agency, including appropriations committees.

Ose also is keeping up the pressure by submitting 10 pages of questions that follow up on Ms. Dorn's appearance before his subcommittee. The questions can be found on the Internet at: http://reform.house.gov/GovReform/oversight/ DocumentQuery.aspx?DocumentTypeID=66&CatagoryID=118.

Although Ose is retiring from Congress in January, he expects others in the House to continue probing and pressuring Ms. Dorn and the FTA.