The language on the home page of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is simple enough to sound innocent:

"The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is the main investigative committee in the U.S. House of Representatives. It has jurisdiction to investigate any federal program and any matter with federal policy implications."

Precisely what are the federal policy implications of the use of legal drugs by Major League Baseball players? There are none. When I pay my $15 for a reserved seat at Dodger Stadium, the federal government might have inspected and approved the hot dogs, but Congress needs to keep its nose out of the clubhouse.

The committee has been asking dozens of ballplayers: "Do you now or have you ever used steroids?" but that is the wrong question.

The appropriate questions are: "Why is Congress even investigating the use of steroids in baseball? What business of Congress' is Major League Baseball — a privately incorporated organization that asks for no federal tax dollars?"

The statutory authority is derived by stretching Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution more painfully than any hamstring pull. Congress has the authority to regulate business that passes between the states, but it usually chooses to regulate these matters sparingly. And this is as it should be.

Baseball players might have, indeed, broken MLB's rules. But those are the rules of a private, for-profit organization that pays its taxes and exists largely outside the reach of the federal government. Using steroids or human growth hormones is not illegal. No Major League Baseball players — not Roger Clemens, not Jose Canseco, not even Barry Bonds — stands accused of any crime for having used steroids or HGH. (Bonds and others might be in trouble for allegedly lying about how they attained such drugs, but it is not illegal to use them.)

Using HGH, steroids and other chemicals might indeed be against the rules of private organizations that regulate professional or amateur sports. They do not want certain athletes to gain an unfair advantage over other athletes. That is fine. They run the games. They make the rules.

But it is not up to Congress to regulate these private organizations for making rules that say our athletes are not allowed to use these legal drugs.

— Tim Gallagher is president of Gallagher 20/20, a Westlake Village-based organization consulting in news and Internet strategies. He can be reached at tim@gallagher2020.com.