The congressman the New York Times called “Obama’s annoyer-in-chief,” Rep. Darrell Issa, R-CA, will head the Oversight and Government Reform Committee when the Republican majority takes control of the House in January.

The committee has jurisdiction over procurement legislation, but Issa has indicated he will focus on a series of high-profile investigations of the Obama administration. He listed four areas in which the committee’s outgoing Democratic majority refused to hold hearings: the bailouts of mortgage behemoths Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; “failures” at the Securities and Exchange Commission; and the response to BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

A Washington Post columnist has already started a contest inviting readers to guess which administration official will receive the committee’s first subpoena.

Other new committee chairmen chosen by the House Republican caucus include Hal Rogers of Kentucky, Appropriations; Buck McKeon of California, Armed Services; and Sam Graves of Missouri, Small Business.

The head of the Veterans Affairs Department’s office of small and disadvantaged business utilization, Tim Foreman, has been placed on administrative leave after he publicly questioned some of the department’s contracting awards.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported Foreman had posted a letter on the VA website asking whether the department was justified in bypassing veteran-owned companies in several contract awards.

The letter to VA’s general counsel questioned whether the department was abiding by the Vets First law that gives service-disabled and other veteran-owned firms first priority in VA contracts.

A VA spokeswoman confirmed that Foreman was placed on leave, but declined to comment further because of privacy rules. Foreman could not be reached.

He joined VA early this year after a long career in federal service, most recently as director of the Navy small business office.

Federal contractors won less than one out of five bid protests filed with the Government Accountability Office last year.

GAO said it sustained 82 protests out of 441 decisions in fiscal 2010, a rate of 18.6%, about the same as the year before. A few years ago the sustainment rate rose as high as 29%.

In three cases agencies did not follow GAO’s recommendation to recompete the protested contract. All three involved GAO’s ruling that HUBZone firms were first in line for set-asides, an opinion rejected by the Justice Department. The Small Business Jobs Act, passed by Congress this fall, established parity among set-aside programs.

The number of bid protests filed increased by 16% to 2,220. It was the fourth straight year of increases. Some acquisition specialists say the rising value of federal contracts makes companies more willing to file protests.

Most of the protests did not reach a decision, either because they were dismissed on procedural grounds, withdrawn, or settled through alternative dispute resolution.