Is US accreditation moving away from the accountability function?

The US Senate seems intent to refocus accreditation to become mostly aimed at improvement and to scrap some of its accountability functions. In white papers released by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions accountability functions such as the link between accreditation and institutional eligibility for federal student aid and the powers of the Department of Education when it comes to the recognition of accrediting agencies are questioned.  To promote competition it is suggested to eliminate the geographic-based structure of regional accrediting agencies, thereby ending the monopoly on institutional accreditation that these agencies have in their region. Innovation should be encouraged by opening up accreditation to non-college providers of higher education.

 http://www.nasfaa.org/Main/orig/2015/open/White_Paper_on_Accreditation_Calls_For_Refocus_on_Quality.aspx