Statement of Michael E. Horowitz, Chair, Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (July 29, 2021)

Summary

A statement of Michael E. Horowitz, Chair of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee and Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Justice, before the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure on July 29, 2021, concerning Assessing the Federal Government's COVID-19 Relief and Response Efforts and its Impact. Horowitz states that the PRAC was created as part of the CARES Act in March 2020 and is comprised of 22 federal Inspectors General. He states that it is working to oversee the more than $5 trillion in federal pandemic-relief emergency spending. He describes its primary mission as working with Offices of the Inspector General to ensure that taxpayer money is used effectively and efficiently.

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            Statement of Michael E. Horowitz
  Chair, Pandemic Response Accountability Committee
     Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice


                      before the


            U.S. House of Representatives
    Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure


                      concerning



“Assessing the Federal Government’s COVID-19 Relief and
             Response Efforts and its Impact”




                                                      July 29, 2021
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Graves, and Members of the Committee:


       Thank you for inviting me to testify today to discuss the work of the Pandemic
Response Accountability Committee (PRAC), which was created as part of the
Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) in March 2020. In
addition to serving as the Inspector General of the Department of Justice since
2012, for the past 15 months, I have served as acting Chair and permanent chair of
the PRAC.

        The PRAC is a Committee of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity
and Efficiency (CIGIE) and is comprised of 22 federal Inspectors General (IGs) who
are working collaboratively to oversee the more than $5 trillion in federal pandemic-
relief emergency spending. Our primary mission at the PRAC is to work with Offices
of the Inspector General (OIG) to ensure that taxpayer money is used effectively
and efficiently to address the pandemic-related public health and economic needs
that were funded through the various COVID-19 relief bills. My testimony today will
focus on the PRAC’s role in coordinating oversight of the pandemic response, and
what lessons we have learned thus far.

       To put it in perspective, the more than $5 trillion in relief provided to address
the pandemic and its health and economic impact to Americans is more than the
federal government’s total spending in 2019 for all discretionary, mandatory, and
interest on the debt. Oversight of a program of this magnitude takes a monumental
and whole-of-government effort. The speed at which funds were disbursed last
year, and the sheer amount of money involved, put the funds at high risk of fraud
and misuse, making the work of oversight entities like the PRAC and IGs essential to
a successful national recovery.

       The PRAC was established to serve the American public by promoting
transparency and facilitating coordinated oversight of the Federal Government’s
COVID-19 pandemic response and associated spending with the goal to identify
major risks that cross program and agency boundaries, and to assist agencies in
preventing and detecting fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement. We also seek
to provide the public with accessible, timely, accurate, and comprehensive data
about the over $5 trillion in COVID-19 relief spending. To date, the 22 PRAC IGs, as
well as other IGs whose agencies received emergency pandemic funding, have
issued 250 oversight reports related to pandemic spending and the government’s
response to the pandemic. Recognizing the need to provide policymakers with
timely insights into pandemic relief spending, the IGs have issued many agile
oversight products, including inspections conducted remotely, flash reports, agency
program funding snapshots, management alerts, and white papers. These reports
have included specific reviews of the Department of Transportation and Department
of Homeland Security, which are covered in detail in Inspector General Soskin and
Assistant Inspector General for Investigation Izzard’s remarks.




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PRAC’s Work to Date

       In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, Congress authorized historic levels of
emergency funding for federal agencies to provide relief to individuals, businesses,
state and local governments, and public services. Since last March, the PRAC has
worked with member IGs to conduct oversight that seeks to identify programmatic
and systemic risks, and to develop recommendations for program improvements,
refer matters for criminal and civil investigations, and identify misspent covered
funds for recovery. I will briefly mention a few examples of the PRAC’s work over
the past year to fulfill this mission and its plans for the future.

Promoting Transparency through PandemicOversight.gov

       The PRAC fosters greater transparency of the government’s pandemic-related
spending through our robust, publicly accessible website, PandemicOversight.gov.
The website includes important information about the PRAC and makes publicly
available a wide range of data related to how emergency pandemic funds have been
spent. For example, the website includes pandemic spending data from
USASpending.gov, Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) data from the Small Business
Administration (SBA), and an updated list of all ongoing work from member IGs
related to the pandemic. In addition, our website provides direct access to recipient
and sub-recipient level reporting and the expenditures made using Coronavirus
Relief Funds. Our website is currently the only place where this data is available to
the public.

       We are continuing to update PandemicOversight.gov with additional datasets
and have been designing and developing new content and features that further
enhance the site’s effectiveness as a transparency tool for the public, Congress, and
other key stakeholders. In May, we provided updated Coronavirus Relief Fund data to
includes all funds spent from March 1, 2020 through March 31, 2021. In June, we
incorporated Provider Relief Fund data from hospitals and healthcare providers that
we obtained from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services into our
website. Most recently, in July, we updated our data visualizations on the Paycheck
Protection Program and for the first time incorporated loan forgiveness data.

       The website also contains accountability information, including findings from
OIGs, such as completed audits and inspections, as well as Government
Accountability Office (GAO) reports. We also track recommendations that IGs have
made to agencies to help them improve the operations of government programs
related to the pandemic.

        I am particularly pleased to report that, as a result of the PRAC’s outreach
effort to our oversight partners at the state and local levels, PandemicOversight.gov
also now includes reports from state, county, and city auditors overseeing pandemic
response funds. The website contains over 125 reports on unemployment insurance,
use of Coronavirus Relief Funds, pandemic preparedness, contact tracing, and more.
The reports can be found alongside the PRAC’s pandemic oversight reports by federal
auditors. A searchable database of state and local reports allows policy makers and
the public to better understand pandemic response oversight at all levels and helps
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federal oversight agencies, like the PRAC, better monitor and protect the $5 trillion in
pandemic relief distributed across the United States. For example, a report issued by
the California State Auditor in August 2020 designated the management of Federal
pandemic response funds as high risk for the state, stating that California must be
able to properly account for and report on the use of funds; specifically, the report
stated that California must effectively track and justify the costs of its COVID-19-
related emergency protective measures to ensure that it maximizes the
reimbursement that FEMA will provide. The California State Auditor further noted that
mismanagement of COVID-19 funds could result in serious detriment to the state and
its residents. In another example, work completed by the New York Comptroller’s
Office (which includes the state’s audit function) provided a data snapshot of the
impact of the pandemic on subway ridership as well as the impact of the pandemic on
the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s debt profile and highlighting that ridership levels
will likely not reach pre-pandemic levels until sometime in 2021. These reports
highlight the need for proper management of funds, as well as provide key insights
and information about the impact of the pandemic on the ground.

      We also have worked closely with GAO and its leadership to ensure that federal
oversight efforts are well coordinated and seamless. The outstanding reports issued
by GAO have been an integral part of the federal oversight effort and we look forward
to continuing to partner with GAO, as well as our state and local oversight colleagues,
as we conduct our independent oversight efforts on behalf of the taxpayers.

Work on Cross-Cutting Issues that Transcend Federal Agencies

       In February 2021, the PRAC issued a “Top Challenges in Pandemic Relief and
Response” report, which updated a similar June 2020 report by the PRAC, and
highlighted the major management challenges facing federal agencies during the
pandemic. The PRAC report also identified cross-cutting issues for policymakers to
consider as they implement the relief funding in the American Rescue Plan. Three of
these challenges particularly incorporate elements related to this Committee’s
jurisdiction:

       1.     Financial Management of Relief Funding. Even in non-pandemic times,
financial management controls and proper oversight of government contracts pose a
challenge to federal agencies and programs. The substantial increase in funding for
certain programs and an expedited timetable for the distribution of CARES Act and
other pandemic-related funds heightens the risks. Since the pandemic began in
March 2020, OIGs have found that payments have been made without the
appropriate checks and controls in place to verify the expenditures. A soon to be
issued PRAC report found that noncompetitively awarded contracts increase the risk
of higher prices and decreased contractor performance and may require additional
oversight. In addition, OIGs have identified contracts that pose potential conflicts of
interest and contractors that have not delivered products by the specified due dates.
Further, federal agencies may face challenges maintaining their agency operations
and programming, especially those supported by contracts if the contractors are
unable to fulfill existing requirements due to COVID-19 restrictions. As the
pandemic continues, federal agencies must continue to ensure they get what they
pay for in their pandemic response-related contracts as well as guard against fraud
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and improper payments.

      2.     Informing and Protecting the Public from Pandemic-Related Fraud.
PRAC member OIGs have also found that Americans are being targeted in greater
numbers by dishonest people taking advantage of the crisis to harm individuals and
businesses through scams and harassment. Identity theft is on the rise and three
pandemic-related benefit programs have been particularly hard hit: the Department
of Labor’s unemployment insurance (UI) program and the Small Business
Administration’s Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program and Paycheck
Protection Program (PPP). According to the Federal Trade Commission, identity
thieves targeted pandemic unemployment insurance in record numbers, with over
394,000 people reporting that their personal information was misused to apply for a
government benefit—an increase of nearly 3,000% from 2019. 1

        In July, the PRAC announced formation of a new working group focused on
preventing and addressing identity fraud in pandemic response programs. The PRAC
Identity Fraud Reduction & Redress Working Group is a joint effort of multiple
Inspectors General who are members of the PRAC. The Working Group is taking a
holistic approach in seeking to help reduce identity fraud in government programs
and assist victims in recovering from what can be devastating impacts from identity
fraud. As an oversight community, we have identified several internal controls that
can prevent identity fraud in federal programs to avoid the scale of fraud that took
place in 2020.

       To educate the public about what watchdogs at all levels of government—
federal, state, and local—have found in their work related to identity theft in
pandemic relief programs, the PRAC has added an interactive timeline to our website.
The timeline takes a user through the oversight community’s audit and investigative
efforts to protect pandemic relief funds.

        3.    Report on Data Gaps. A third challenge we identified concerns data
transparency and completeness. A study commissioned by the PRAC with MITRE
identified key gaps in data sources and opportunities to close those gaps. The PRAC
is actively reviewing federal data sets to identify areas where high impact programs
contain reporting gaps that could affect the ability of agencies, OIGs, and the PRAC to
properly oversee their use of pandemic response funds. We have been working with
OMB, the Chief Financial Officers Council, OIGs and agencies on these gaps and are
working to improve data quality and transparency.

      An important result from these recent discussions was OMB Memorandum M-
21-20, Promoting Public Trust in the Federal Government through Effective
Implementation of the American Rescue Plan Act and Stewardship of the Taxpayer
Resources, issued on March 19, 2021. This guidance addresses some of the
concerns PRAC leadership and staff have been discussing with OMB since March
2020, particularly the need for detailed and accurate award descriptions, enhanced
transparency of spending through use of disaster and emergency funding codes, and

1
 Federal Trade Commission’s Staff Report, Protecting Consumers During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Year in Review
(April 2021).
                                                       5
working with the PRAC and IGs to strengthen payment integrity. The guidance
specifically mentions the Administration’s commitment to working with the PRAC and
agency IGs to strengthen payment integrity in order to minimize the risk of waste,
fraud, and abuse. Additionally, the guidance notes that “OMB anticipates continued
collaboration with the PRAC to include joint communications on issues related to ARP
relief that will raise awareness on specific challenges and opportunities for payment
integrity.”

       We continue to work with partner IGs, OMB, and the American Rescue Plan
implementation team to address program level data gaps and opportunities to
promote public trust and enhance payment integrity. In April, we issued a Joint
Alert with OMB on payment integrity. It is imperative that executive departments
and agencies incorporate in program design, tracking, and reporting the lessons
learned from previous rounds of COVID-19 stimulus. OMB and the PRAC’s joint alert
identifies risk factors and mitigating strategies that agencies can consider when
assessing impact to their respective programs. And just last week we issued a
second Joint Alert with OMB, this one on the benefits of using automation and data
analytics in reducing the risk of improper payments of government funds.

Coordinating Oversight Across the PRAC IGs

       To facilitate coordination and collaboration between the PRAC and its member
IGs, as well as with the GAO and state and local oversight entities, the PRAC has
established five subcommittees and four issue groups for healthcare, financial
institutions, data sharing, and identity fraud—chaired by PRAC members—to share
ongoing oversight and accountability efforts, best practices, and lessons learned.
These efforts include:

   •   ongoing reviews of multi-dipping, or recipients of pandemic funds using
       multiples sources of funds for the same purpose,
   •   a PPP working group that is discussing outcomes related from oversight and
       inspections of PPP fraud and misuse, and
   •   sharing of data analytics and data across the pandemic response community to
       create a more cohesive response to pandemic oversight,
   •   GAO, state and local coordination with the federal community on high risks and
       areas of concern.

       Specifically on state and local coordination, we regularly interface with state
and local auditors to keep the lines of communication open to federal offices. We
created a series of monthly listening posts to discuss challenges that are faced by
federal, state, and local audit program, and fiscal partners in their oversight of
CARES Act funds, such as challenges completing Single Audit Act requirements,
fraud risks associated with the unemployment programs, and sharing reports or
methodologies used for similar oversight activities, and to help find solutions to
these problems. Attendees include PRAC member OIGs, GAO, the National
Association of State Auditors, Comptrollers and Treasurers, the Association of Local
Government Auditors, and entities responsible for Tribal oversight.



                                           6
       We also have conducted new coordination efforts with state and local
oversight offices for pandemic-related hotlines and investigations so that states can
provide the PRAC, or the applicable federal agency, with hotline information outside
of their purview or applicable to a federal pandemic response program. Additionally,
the PRAC has initiated quarterly briefings to share investigative best practices or
fraud indicators identified by federal investigators that would benefit state and local
investigators and auditors.

       The PRAC Audit Subcommittee issued the Agile Products Toolkit to assist
members in providing expeditious oversight of federal response in a crisis like the
pandemic. The PRAC Healthcare issue group released a report on COVID-19 testing,
a risk area the group identified that cuts across agencies, and collaborated to create
a data brief on COVID-19 testing administered between February 2020 and August
2020 in six select federal health care programs. This report highlights critical areas
for policymakers to consider to improve testing for Americans, including availability,
accessibility, and cost effectiveness of tests. The PRAC Financial Institutions issue
group brought together expert stakeholders to gather their insights concerning the
Federal government’s pandemic response efforts in small business and housing relief
programs. The group released a series of videos highlighting those perspectives of
lenders, small business and borrowers, and housing stakeholders.

       To help assess the impact of CARES Act funding, as well as discuss lessons
learned, we held a virtual forum on March 25, 2021—CARES Act One Year Later:
Oversight of America’s Investment in Pandemic Response. The event was attended
live by 550 participants and featured prerecorded remarks from Sen. Gary Peters,
Rep. Carolyn Maloney, Rep. James Comer, and Rep. Jim Clyburn. To share these
insights widely with the public, the PRAC posted the event video on
PandemicOversight.gov and our YouTube channel. In August, we will host a virtual
roundtable webinar to discuss the impact of pandemic spending on underserved
communities, whether the funds reached those they were intended to help, and
what changes may be needed in connection with future disaster relief efforts.

       Meanwhile, OIGs and our law enforcement partners at the Department of
Justice and elsewhere have been aggressively pursuing fraud cases. The
investigative workload for a number of PRAC IGs has been substantial and,
regrettably, continues to grow. The PRAC is working to assist these IGs, including
through the PRAC’s pandemic fraud task force, which I discuss below. Those who
engage in fraud and other wrongdoing in connection with pandemic-related
programs will be held accountable, and we hope that these efforts will have the
necessary and important deterrent effect.

        To date, there have been 900 defendants publicly charged with criminal
offenses based on fraud schemes connected to the COVID-19 pandemic. The first
civil settlement to resolve allegations of fraud against the Paycheck Protection
Program (PPP) occurred on January 12, 2021 in the Eastern District of California.
Additionally, regulatory agencies like the Food and Drug Administration, have issued
7 civil injunctions and restraining orders against companies and individuals who are
falsely claiming to have treatments or cures for the coronavirus.

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       The Offices of Inspectors General are actively engaged in combating this
criminal behavior and have led or participated in investigations leading to over 481
indictments or complaints, 436 arrests, and 131 convictions thus far. PPP and EIDL
fraud continue to trend as the largest number of publicly announced investigations,
followed by Unemployment Insurance fraud, and investigations related to testing
supplies/treatments/vaccines.

      The PRAC is also continuing to track scam and fraud alerts issued by our
member agencies, to ensure the broadest dissemination on our website and social
media platforms. Most recently, the PRAC worked with HHS OIG to publish an alert
on the vaccine scams that have begun targeting the public.

Shared Services Support to OIGs

       The PRAC is seeking to use the resources and tools that Congress have given
us to enhance shared services across the IG community, and to fill gaps to help our
partners meet the challenge of overseeing this pandemic spending. For example,
we are working with data science programs at leading academic institutions to
recruit and hire data science fellows and build a talent pipeline for the OIG
community. The PRAC is also providing resources to PRAC members to combat
fraud in pandemic relief programs. The PRAC hosted an Educational Loan Fraud
Forum on April 22, 2021, that highlighted activities in the oversight community
related to loan fraud schemes. This allowed OIG investigators to hear from SBA
OIG, FDIC OIG, and FHFA OIG about their experiences in pursuing PPP and EIDL
cases; as well from the Department of Justice and the Special Inspector General for
Pandemic Relief (SIGPR) related to their ongoing efforts in this area. Further, the
PRAC Data Sharing workgroup coordinates regular meetings of OIGs to discuss data
sharing opportunities to identify potential cross cutting initiatives, to share lessons
learned from OIG data-related oversight work, and to consider ways to prevent and
detect fraud, waste, and abuse using data analytics. For example, the workgroup
organized a two-day Data Expo to share information among OIGs in terms of their
data analytic capabilities, tools, and ongoing projects.

       Additionally, the PRAC Data Sharing workgroup held an International Data
Forum with counterparts from the United Kingdom and Australia in early July. The
event featured discussion of pandemic relief programs in each country, the
challenges faced in overseeing those relief programs, and how innovative
approaches to data sharing and analytics allowed officials to address those
challenges.

       The PRAC also launched a hotline complaint site on its webpage
(https://www.PandemicOversight.gov/contact/abouthotline) to enable
whistleblowers and the public to report alleged wrongdoing related to federal
pandemic programs without having to determine which OIG office has primary
responsibility for a particular government program. All of the complaints made to
the PRAC hotline are reviewed by staff and then forwarded to the appropriate OIG.
As of July 20, 2021, the PRAC has received 1,787 complaints, and has made 1,363
referrals to OIGs (since some hotline complaints impact multiple programs and
offices). Additionally, PRAC hotlines are provided to the PRAC Task Force for
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investigative follow-up where applicable.


PRAC Initiatives

       Having highlighted some of the work of the IG community and PRAC to date,
let me briefly discuss some of the initiatives that the PRAC is currently undertaking
or planning to initiate going forward.

Pandemic Analytics Center of Excellence

        We greatly appreciate Congress’s continued support of the PRAC, including
the $40 million provided in the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. Fulfilling the
PRAC’s mission of rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in COVID response spending
requires better technological tools, including the use of advanced data analytics that
can be used to identify and stop fraudulent payments before they are made, to
strengthen compliance and audit efforts, and detect fraud and support efforts to
recover any ill-gotten gains. To that end, the PRAC is operating the Pandemic
Analytics Center of Excellence (PACE) to: (1) conduct data analysis and visualization
of all pandemic response funds; (2) provide fraud-fighting tools and central shared
services to the IG community; (3) enable the broad sharing of data, analytics and
leading practices across the oversight and law enforcement community; and (4)
assist investigations and audits of pandemic relief programs with expanded data for
open source investigative intelligence.

      The PACE is providing the enhanced capacity needed to ensure that pandemic
response funds are used for their intended purpose, and not wasted or misused.
The PACE is comprised of three primary functional capabilities (IT & Data
Management; Analytics Visualization & Reporting; and Investigative Support) to
execute and operate its mission:

      • Analytic support tools include data matching, anomaly detection, risk
      modeling, social network analysis, robotic process automation, geospatial
      analysis, link analysis, business intelligence, and open-source intelligence.
      Currently, we are using robotic process automation to assist a member OIG to
      automate tasks associated with monitoring of pandemic spending that are
      currently manual reviews. This project will save critical time for both the OIG
      and the recipients that report spending information. In addition, we are
      assisting OIGs with development of risk models to help them identify high-risk
      recipients of pandemic funds for additional oversight. Our social network
      analysis assists in investigative work to uncover insights on networks of
      individuals who may have defrauded pandemic relief programs.

      • Data science staff will utilize the tools to identify trends, patterns and
      anomalies and generally develop insights to detect and prevent potential or
      suspected fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement of covered funds based
      upon best available data and analytic techniques. Currently, we have
      augmented the data science talent focused on pandemic relief in the oversight
      community with 12 data science fellows placed at the PRAC and member OIGs.
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      • Development of capabilities necessary to identify, acquire, and curate data
      that can be used for pandemic oversight to allow for a flexible and adaptable
      cloud-based platform to analyze data. This should include capabilities to
      support data governance, data quality, data policies and standards, data
      inventory, and data security.

Cross-Cutting Oversight Work

       The PRAC has eight ongoing cross-cutting oversight projects. One of the
projects is reviewing the spend rate data across five federal pandemic response
programs that provided a large majority of their funds to states for expenditure,
such as the Coronavirus Relief Fund. On another project, with member OIGs, we
are identifying programs where multi-dipping has occurred, or there is a risk of it
occurring. Additionally, we are examining COVID-19 contracting data from Fiscal
Year 2020 where first-time federal contractors or limited competition was used.
Further, with the Audit Subcommittee, the PRAC developed an acquisition and grant
workforce data call to assess qualifications of personnel and resources provided, as
required by Section 15110(d)(1)(B)(vii-viii) of the CARES Act. The data call will go
out to the acquisition and grant workforce in early Fiscal Year 2022. With MITRE, we
are researching best practices and lessons learned from pandemic response in state
unemployment insurance (UI) benefits programs. As I previously mentioned, the
PRAC is reviewing the degree of transparency provided in publicly available award-
level data for federal pandemic relief and assistance spending to provide Congress,
policymakers, and the public with specific examples of gaps in reporting. We are
also evaluating whether fraud controls that SBA applied in phase III of the Paycheck
Protection Program (PPP) (and which we understand are being applied in the SBA's
new Restaurant Revitalization Fund program) would have likely detected known
fraud that occurred during last year’s distribution of PPP funds. Finally, we are
collaborating with member OIGs to conduct impact case studies at six different
locations to identify the federal pandemic response funds provided to those
locations, the purpose of those funds, and whether the federal program spending
aligned with the intended goals and objectives. Access to information about the
total amount of funds received, the purpose of those funds, and the progress made
toward achieving the program goals and objectives is not always centralized and can
be difficult for the public to track down or may not even be available to the public.

         In May, we also issued a report on COVID-19 in prisons and detention
facilities pulling together insights and trends across multiple agencies and programs,
presenting a comprehensive cross-agency view with Department of Justice OIG,
Department of Homeland Security OIG, and Department of Interior OIG. This report
is the first in a series of cross-agency reviews.

       Our staff is also working on deconfliction with OIGs and GAO, as well as the
tracking of all work in the community to identify cross-agency trends and patterns,
as required by our authorization in the CARES Act 151109d)(1)(B)(i) through our
strategic plan to ensure coordinated, efficient, and effective comprehensive
oversight. Some examples of these efforts include the development of a systematic
coordination and deconfliction tracker that is regularly updated, distribution of a
                                           10
monthly report that provides a list of all ongoing pandemic response oversight
projects to all pandemic OIGs and GAO, and monthly meetings with GAO to share
key activities and priorities.

PRAC Fraud Task Force

       Earlier this year, the PRAC stood up a Fraud Task Force to serve as a resource
for the IG community by surging investigative resources into those areas where the
need is the greatest: pandemic loan fraud. As of July, we have 28 agents from 8
OIGs who have been detailed to work on Task Force cases. These agents have
partnered with prosecutors at the Department of Justice’s Fraud Section and at
United States Attorneys’ Offices across the country.

       The idea behind our Task Force is to harness the expertise of the oversight
community and attack this problem with every tool we have: criminal, civil,
forfeitures of money and property, suspension and debarments. Our PRAC Fraud
Task Force works closely with other initiatives to combat pandemic fraud such as the
Department of Justice COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force.

       Additionally, the PRAC adopted a subpoena policy in April 2021. This policy
directly supports the Fraud Task Force and our member IGs, and contributes to the
IG community’s efforts to stop the large-scale fraud we are seeing in pandemic
response programs.


Conclusion

      The PRAC was created 16 months ago in the midst of a pandemic, yet our
extraordinarily talented staff, working with our member OIGs and our oversight
partners at GAO and at the state and local level, have fulfilled the independent
oversight responsibilities that the CARES Act placed on us and that the public
expects from us. While we know oversee more than $5 trillion in federal spending, I
am confident that the IG community is up to the task of doing what we can to
advance transparency and accountability through our oversight efforts.

      Thank you again for your strong support for our work, and we look forward to
working with the Congress and the Administration as the PRAC and our IG partners
continue to fulfill our crucial oversight mission. This concludes my prepared
statement, and I would be pleased to answer any questions that you may have.




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