Washington ? The Treasury Department has decided not to challenge the independence of the government watchdog agency that Congress created to oversee spending of the $700 billion rescue package for the financial sector.

The confrontation between Treasury and the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, SIGTARP, had prompted congressional complaints that the Obama administration was seeking to restrain the work of inspector general Neil Barofsky.

This week, Barofsky declared in a letter to lawmakers that Treasury had, in effect, acknowledged that he is not subject to Treasury’s supervision.