Senate hearing (118th Congress), GAO'S 2023 HIGH RISK LIST: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR REDUCING WASTE, FRAUD, AND ABUSE (PDF)
Summary
The printed record of an April 20, 2023 hearing of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, S. Hrg. 118–67, titled GAO's 2023 High Risk List: Recommendations for Reducing Waste, Fraud, and Abuse, chaired by Gary C. Peters. Opening statements come from Senators Peters, Paul, Carper, Lankford, Rosen, Hassan, Scott, Blumenthal and Ossoff. The witness is Eugene L. Dodaro, Comptroller General of the United States, whose testimony and prepared statement are followed by his responses to post-hearing post-hearing questions.
Summary drafted by a model from the document's text below and checked by script against that text before publication. It is a navigation aid, not a reading of what the document proves. Where AI is used
Full text
S. Hrg. 118–67
GAO’S 2023 HIGH RISK LIST: RECOMMENDATIONS
FOR REDUCING WASTE, FRAUD, AND ABUSE
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND
GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
APRIL 20, 2023
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
(
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
52–783 PDF WASHINGTON : 2023
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
GARY C. PETERS, Michigan, Chairman
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware RAND PAUL, Kentucky
MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
JACKY ROSEN, Nevada MITT ROMNEY, Utah
ALEX PADILLA, California RICK SCOTT, Florida
JON OSSOFF, Georgia JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut ROGER MARSHALL, Kansas
DAVID M. WEINBERG, Staff Director
ZACHARY I. SCHRAM, Chief Counsel
LENA C. CHANG, Director of Governmental Affairs
EMILY I. MANNA, Professional Staff Member
CARTER A. HIRSCHHORN, Research Assistant
WILLIAM E. HENDERSON III, Minority Staff Director
CHRISTINA N. SALAZAR, Minority Chief Counsel
QUINTON A. BRADY, Minority Investigative Counsel
ANDREW J. HOPKINS, Minority Counsel
LAURA W. KILBRIDE, Chief Clerk
ASHLEY A. GONZALEZ, Hearing Clerk
(II)
CONTENTS
Opening statements: Page
Senator Peters .................................................................................................. 1
Senator Paul ..................................................................................................... 3
Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 12
Senator Lankford .............................................................................................. 15
Senator Rosen ................................................................................................... 18
Senator Hassan ................................................................................................. 20
Senator Scott ..................................................................................................... 23
Senator Blumenthal ......................................................................................... 24
Senator Ossoff ................................................................................................... 28
Prepared statements:
Senator Peters .................................................................................................. 33
Senator Paul ..................................................................................................... 36
WITNESSES
THURSDAY, APRIL 20, 2023
Hon. Eugene L. Dodaro, Comptroller General of the United States, U.S.
Government Accountability Office
Testimony .......................................................................................................... 5
Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 38
APPENDIX
Senator Paul’s chart ................................................................................................ 58
Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record:
Mr. Dodaro ........................................................................................................ 59
(III)
GAO’S 2023 HIGH RISK LIST:
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR REDUCING WASTE,
FRAUD, AND ABUSE
Thursday, April 20, 2023
U.S. SENATE,
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room SD–
562, Senate Dirksen Office Building, Hon. Gary Peters, chairman
of the committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Peters [presiding], Carper, Hassan, Sinema,
Rosen, Ossoff, Paul, Johnson, Lankford, Romney, Scott, and
Hawley.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PETERS1
Chairman PETERS. The Committee will come to order.
Today I would like to welcome Comptroller General Gene Dodaro
to the Committee, and thank you for your years of service to the
American people.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent,
non-partisan ‘‘congressional watchdog,’’ charged with examining
how taxpayer dollars are spent and evaluating whether govern-
ment is working efficiently and effectively for the American people.
For over 30 years, GAO has reported on ‘‘high risk’’ government
programs and operations at the start of each Congress. The High
Risk List identifies government programs that are vulnerable to
fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement or need reforms to im-
prove them.
The High Risk List and GAO’s important oversight work have
been vital resources for this Committee to identify problems and
work on bipartisan legislation to improve the way the Federal Gov-
ernment works each and every day, and I hope we will continue
those efforts in this Congress.
Over the past 17 years, by addressing many of the concerns high-
lighted on the High Risk List, Congress and Federal agencies have
saved hardworking Americans more than $675 billion in taxpayer
dollars. I am grateful to GAO for their efforts to identify these
areas for improvement and for their continued commitment to en-
suring the government functions in the best interest of taxpayers.
Just within the last two years, the Federal Government has seen
an estimated $100 billion in financial benefits due to improvements
1 The prepared statement of Senator Peters appear in the Appendix on page 33.
(1)
2
in high-risk areas noted in GAO’s 2021 High Risk Report, and 16
out of 34 high-risk areas have made improvements, the most since
GAO began assessing high-risk areas.
For example, a 2016 law that I authored, the Making Electronic
Government Accountable By Yielding Tangible Efficiencies Act
(MEGABYTE Act), which was based on a GAO recommendation to
improve software license management, has saved taxpayers more
than $450 million by reducing duplicative software purchases. I
have reintroduced bipartisan legislation this Congress to continue
building on that success by improving how the Federal Government
manages software purchases, and will continue working to address
other high-risk areas highlighted in GAO’s report.
This year, GAO has placed our nation’s cybersecurity as one of
the top five high-risk areas that need significant attention, and has
issued more than 4,000 recommendations in the cybersecurity do-
main since 2010.
Strengthening our nation’s cybersecurity has been a top priority
for this Committee, and we moved several bills last Congress that
I authored to shore up our nation’s cybersecurity defenses, includ-
ing legislation to require critical infrastructure owners and opera-
tors to report when they have been attacked or they have paid a
ransom.
This is an important step toward safeguarding some of the most
frequent targets of cyberattacks, but it is clear we must continue
working to address this issue as the threats from cyberattacks con-
tinue to grow.
GAO has also highlighted challenges with hiring skilled cyberse-
curity and artificial intelligence (AI) experts to fill roles in the Fed-
eral Government. If we are going to be truly effective at strength-
ening our networks, leading the world in these fast-growing areas,
and protecting our national security, then we must have qualified
and dedicated cybersecurity, information technology (IT), and AI
experts working across the Federal Government.
I have also authored legislation to address these skill gaps to en-
sure we can fill these in-demand roles in the cybersecurity and ar-
tificial intelligence fields, and will continue working with my col-
leagues in a bipartisan way to build a strong talent pipeline for the
Federal Government.
The latest High Risk List also includes the need to address toxic
substances, including Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS),
also known as ‘‘forever chemicals,’’ that have contaminated commu-
nities in Michigan as well as all across the country.
These chemicals can be found in our food, air, water, and con-
sumer products, adversely affecting the health of millions of Ameri-
cans. PFAS exposure remains a serious issue, and the Environ-
mental Protection Agency (EPA) must be able to accurately assess
and monitor existing and emerging PFAS substances to determine
whether they pose a harm to human health.
I have pressed for the EPA and other agencies to increase clean-
up efforts, and will continue conducting oversight to ensure agen-
cies are detecting and responding to this threat in a timely man-
ner.
Finally, this year’s list includes pandemic preparedness and re-
sponse efforts. Last Congress, I released a report detailing the find-
3
ings from a two-year investigation into the Federal Government’s
preparedness and initial response to the Coronavirus Disease 2019
(COVID–19) pandemic. The investigation revealed serious systemic
failures in our nation’s ability to grapple with a pandemic of that
scale, and my report made key recommendations to ensure we are
better prepared for the next public health crisis. I will continue
working on legislation to address these shortcomings and strength-
en our ability to deal with future pandemics.
Mr. Dodaro, we appreciate you for your independent, non-par-
tisan work that you and all of the dedicated employees at GAO
have conducted and continue to conduct. I know last month, the
Partnership for Public Service named GAO the Best Place to Work
in the Federal Government for mid-sized agencies. Congratulations
on that, a great honor.
[Applause.]
I will add it was the third year in a row. Now that is worthy of
applause, three years in a row.
With all of that I look forward to our discussion here.
Ranking Member Paul, you are recognized for your opening com-
ments.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PAUL1
Senator PAUL. Thank you. This Committee is long overdue for a
hearing that focuses on the rampant waste, fraud, and abuse in the
Federal Government. We are faced with a $31 trillion mountain of
debt. Rather than attempt to get spending under control, though,
both parties continue to propose new spending with no regard for
the exploding debt or controlling the already existing spending.
To make matters worse, everyone in Congress knows that the
plague of waste has infected just about every Federal agency. But
rather than take steps to restore fiscal health, Congress buries its
head in the sand, doles out more and more taxpayer money every
year to the Executive Branch with no strings attached, crosses its
fingers, and hopes the problem will fix itself.
For years, I have documented outlandish spending in my annual
‘‘Waste Report,’’ which exposes how the Federal Government is
misusing Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars. My most recent re-
port uncovered over $482 billion in government waste. For exam-
ple, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) spent more than $1.1
million to get mice drunk—apparently we are not aware of what
happens when you drink too much—$2.3 million to inject six-
month-old beagle puppies with cocaine—apparently there is not
enough evidence of what happens to humans on cocaine—$3 mil-
lion to watch hamsters fight on steroids.
This is the tip of the iceberg. This has been going on since the
1970s. Many of you will remember the studies to figure out what
makes people happy. This stuff has been going on forever, and yet
the agency that funds a lot of this, the National Science Founda-
tion (NSF), we have doubled their budget in the last two years, and
we think, oh well, they will be much better with waste and fraud
with double the amount of money. It is my opinion the only way
1 The prepared statement of Senator Paul appears in the Appendix on page 36.
4
you ever rein in waste and fraud is give these agencies less money,
and then they will be forced to make do on less money.
Government watchdogs like the Government Accountability Of-
fice were created to expose and combat waste, fraud, abuse, and
mismanagement in the Federal Government. Every two years,
GAO publishes its own report that helps call out government mis-
deeds. The High Risk report is a compilation of government fail-
ures and vulnerabilities. It spotlights agencies and programs prone
to waste, fraud, and abuse.
One issue prominently featured in GAO’s most recent high-risk
report is the governmentwide problem with improper payments.
This has been listed in the past and is listed again this year. For
example, in 2022, GAO found Medicare made $46.8 billion in im-
proper payments. Medicaid made $81 billion in improper payments,
which should really not come as a surprise given the Medicaid pro-
gram suspended enforcement of eligibility reviews during the
COVID–19 pandemic. This has not been talked about much, but
during the pandemic all the so-called rules for looking at abuse just
went out the window and they said, oh well, everybody deserves
Medicaid, everybody deserves food stamps, and nobody came off
any of these programs. We just threw out all of the oversight of
these programs, and as a consequence, they are in some of the
worst state that they have been in in a long time.
If that was not bad enough, GAO looks at the substantial levels
of fraud that occurred in the Department of Labor’s (DOL) Unem-
ployment Insurance (UI) program and says it is almost impossible
to even grapple with the problem because it is so big and so
opaque.
Like my own waste report, GAO also identified the Department
of Defense (DOD) as a consistent perpetrator of waste, fraud, and
abuse. Since 1995, GAO has identified Department of Defense’s fi-
nancial management as ‘‘high-risk.’’ Unfortunately, not much has
changed since then, other than DOD receiving bigger and bigger
checks every year. This is an example of how this is really a bipar-
tisan problem, Republicans wanting unlimited checks for the De-
fense Department, Democrats wanting unlimited checks for the so-
cial welfare. Everything goes up and the oversight becomes less
and less proficient or profound.
Until the Department of Defense can properly account for the
money it spends, though, Congress can never effectively conduct
oversight of the department. The DOD has become a behemoth of
spending, and no one here ever questions it.
How does all this waste happen? A better question might be, how
does all this waste continue to happen and get worse all the time?
When I was a kid in the 1970s, William Proxmire, a conservative
Democrat, used to give his Golden Fleece Awards for nonsensical
government spending. But here we are, decades later, still facing
the same problems. There was one study that they did in the last
two years, I think it was over $1 million to study if you take selfies
of yourself smiling and you look at these selfies later on in the day,
whether or not you will be happier.
The thing is, do you think that is going to get better if we give
the National Science Foundation more money? We doubled their
budget and they do more of this craziness, and every year we point
5
it out and every year gets worse because no one is willing to call
them on it and say, ‘‘We are going to give you less money next year
unless you are better with spending the money.’’
The Chairman, GAO identified numerous instances of waste,
fraud, and abuse that Congress can easily address. I appreciate
GAO’s work, but what is really needed is congressional will to sig-
nificantly reduce government waste and spending. The American
people deserve an accountable government that manages their
hard-earned dollars responsibly. Mr. Dodaro, thank you for being
here today. I look forward to hearing your testimony and working
with you to reduce the waste, fraud, and abuse identified in your
report.
Chairman PETERS. Thank you, Ranking Member Paul.
It is the practice of the Homeland Security and Governmental Af-
fairs Committee (HSGAC) to swear in witnesses, so Mr. Dodaro,
and our subject matter experts, I think that may becoming, there
are a few that might be testifying in the question and answer
(Q&A) process, if you would please all rise and raise your right
hand.
Do you swear that the testimony that you will give before this
Committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth, so help you, God?
[Chorus of I dos.]
Chairman PETERS. You may be seated.
Today’s witness is Comptroller Gene Dodaro. Mr. Dodaro has
served as the Comptroller General of the U.S. Government Ac-
countability Office since 2010, following two years as the Acting
Comptroller General.
In his over 45 years of service at the GAO he has held a number
of leadership positions, including Chief Operating Officer (COO)
and head of GAO’s Accounting and Information Management Divi-
sion.
Mr. Dodaro, welcome to the Committee once again. It is always
great to see you. We enjoy hearing your testimony and enjoy work-
ing with you on these important issues. You may proceed with your
opening remarks.
TESTIMONY OF HON. EUGENE L. DODARO,1 COMPTROLLER
GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES, U.S. GOVERNMENT AC-
COUNTABILITY OFFICE
Mr. DODARO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Ranking
Member Paul, Members of the Committee. It is a pleasure to be
here. I appreciate all the kind words about GAO. We enjoy working
with this Committee and other committees across the Congress to
make our government more accountable, efficient, and effective.
The basic story with this High-Risk Update is that there has
been good progress in certain areas due to Congressional and Exec-
utive Branch actions, but there are still serious, very consequential
problems that need to be addressed—that need greater attention
from the Congress and the Executive Branch.
On the progress side, Mr. Chairman, you pointed out 16 areas
improved, two to the point that we are removing them from the
1 The prepared statement of Hon. Dodaro appears in the Appendix on page 38.
6
list. The first is the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC)
multiemployer pension program. Congress appropriated funds.
That program was projected to be insolvent in 2026. Now the pro-
jected insolvency date has been pushed off several decades. The
single employer program has also improved gradually and so PBGC
projects a very low risk of insolvency for either program for the
next 15 years. We are going to take them off the list. Now just be-
cause they come of the list, they are not out of sight, so we will
still continue to monitor what is going on with those programs.
We are also removing the 2020 Census. They were able to con-
tain, for the first time, the growth in spending in the cost of the
census. They successfully deployed an internet response option this
last time, and they took all our recommendations and those of the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to bring down cybersecu-
rity risk to the census. We are taking them off. Again, we will con-
tinue to watch whether or not risk builds up toward the 2030 Cen-
sus, and if so, we will add it back to the list.
There has been progress in other areas. Congress provided stable
funding, at least for the next five years, to the surface transpor-
tation area. It did not solve the problem long-term so it is still on
the list, but there was good progress.
Congress passed the Postal Service Reform Act that eliminated
some of the financial pressures on the U.S. Postal Service (USPS).
But the Postal Service business model is still not viable in the fu-
ture. It continues to lose money—and remains on the list as well.
Congress passed legislation to support a number of programs
that seek to build in climate resilience up front, so our high-risk
area of limiting the Federal Government’s fiscal exposure by better
managing and building resilience in up front was addressed.
Congress has provided some additional resources to the Internal
Revenue Service (IRS), which deals with our high-risk area of tax
administration on that area.
So good progress. Congress is to be commended for all the action
that they have taken, as well as the Executive Branch, in imple-
menting some of these reforms.
We added three new areas to the High Risk List. One is the De-
partment of Health and Human Services (HHSs) leadership and co-
ordination in responding to public health emergencies. Over the
last decade we have seen failure after failure to be adequately pre-
pared, and most recently during the pandemic. Roles and respon-
sibilities need to be better clarified and there needs to be better
data—and better communication—that is consistent and clear to
the public. I fear we are not any better prepared now for the next
emergency than we were for the last one. I wanted to put it on the
list to highlight it, so that it stays in the public eye and with the
Congress and the Administration.
We also added the Unemployment Insurance System. Here we
have estimated that at a minimum, there was $60 billion of fraud.
We are working on a higher-end estimate now. But due to the sig-
nificant fraud and improper payments—which was occurring even
before the pandemic, at a much less level—and the need to reform
the State IT systems. IT systems at the State level are very ar-
chaic. They are not well positioned. The program is not really de-
signed to meet the modern needs of our current evolving workforce.
7
We also are adding the management of the Federal prison sys-
tem. There have been problems in the Bureau of Prisons’ (BOP)
staffing, which has led to some concerns about inmate and staff
safety, and about their efforts to evaluate programs that are in-
tended to help deal with the recidivism issue. Programs have not
been very well evaluated and improved in those areas.
Now I would like to highlight a few of the other areas remaining
on the list. One is cybersecurity. The Federal Government is still
not operating at a pace commensurate with the evolving grave
threat. This has been something I have been focused on for many
years now. The National Strategy just came out, but there is not
yet an implementation plan for the strategy. They promised to
produce one. It needs to identify who is responsible for what, how
much money is needed, and how to measure performance and im-
provements in those areas. Cybersecurity remains a grave threat
to our economy and our national security, and it needs to be better
addressed.
Second is drug misuse. We added that to the High Risk List a
few years ago. The latest 12-month statistics show over 107,000
people died from overdoses. There have been problems now not
only with fentanyl and opioids but with xylazine, which is a tran-
quilizer given to animals, being mixed with the fentanyl, which is
causing even more severe problems. We need a national strategy—
that needs to be completed and implemented successfully. We need
more coordination with State and local governments, law enforce-
ment, and health care providers—to deal with this issue.
The last area I will mention is oversight—of medical products
and device. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is still not
in a good position to deal with potential drug shortages in the econ-
omy, and to provide oversight over foreign production of medical
products. Whether it is pharmaceuticals or medical devices, most of
what is consumed in the United States right now is produced in
other countries. FDA has to have more of an effective strategy for
the global supply chain, not just domestic production in the United
States.
We are committed to continuing to work on these high-risk areas,
to make greater progress. They are all very important to public
health and safety, our national security, and can save billions of
additional dollars.
I thank you for the opportunity to be here. I look forward to your
questions.
Chairman PETERS. Thank you, Mr. Dodaro. Thank you for the
testimony.
Federal cybersecurity has been on the High Risk List for years,
as you know, but as you have just testified to it remains in need
of significant attention. In many ways it is becoming a bigger prob-
lem that requires even more attention than in the past.
The Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA),
for example, the Federal oversight, has not been updated in almost
a decade, and that was before Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Se-
curity Agency (CISA) or the National Cyber Director even existed,
and yet we have not updated some key pieces of legislation.
Last Congress, this Committee marked up legislation that I
wrote relating to FISMA, and it passed with unanimous support,
8
but it still has not gotten through the House. We are going to con-
tinue to work to make that happen, and we are going to continue
to work in Congress in a bipartisan way to do that.
But my question for you, sir, is you have been sounding the
alarm on Federal cybersecurity for more than two decades now,
and as we continue to work on this issue what do you believe are
really the key things that we should be focusing on to make these
improvements, going forward?
Mr. DODARO. There are four main areas and about 10 actions
that we believe are absolutely critical. One is the development and
successful execution of a national and global strategy to deal with
this issue. I mentioned the current status of that. Supply chain
issues need to be dealt with more effectively. We have done quite
a bit of work on those areas. We need a better cyber workforce.
There are not enough people in the workforce. They are not always
deployed in the Federal Government in the greatest priorities.
We also need to get ahead of emerging technologies. Artificial in-
telligence and quantum computing will dramatically increase the
cybersecurity concerns. Quantum computing can break encryption
methods that are currently being used. We need to get prepared for
these things ahead of time, which is why I tried to raise this issue.
I first put it on the list in 1997, to try to get action.
Second, we have to get the Federal agencies to have more com-
prehensive, effective security programs. Most of the Federal agen-
cies are rated by their Inspector Generals (IGs) as not having effec-
tive IT programs. That is why FISMA reform is, in fact, needed,
and we look forward, hopefully, that it will pass. We also need to
have better incident responses when things do happen, and they
will happen, that the agencies need to get on them right away, deal
with them, limit the damage, and do assessments going forward.
The third area, which I believe is one of the most important, is
critical infrastructure protection. I do not think the Federal Gov-
ernment knows the preparedness of many of these important sec-
tors of our economy as much as they should, in terms of the elec-
tricity grid, the communications networks, the financial markets,
and many other areas. There needs to be much more partnership
between the Federal Government and the private sector in this
area, if we are going to really have successful activities. Right now
it reminds me of the situation before September 11, 2001 (9/11),
where a lot of people had information but it was not being shared
with one another.
Last, privacy laws need to be desperately updated. The Privacy
Act was passed in 1974. There have been some minor improve-
ments with more recent legislation, but it really does not meet the
needs of the private sector or well serve the American people.
Chairman PETERS. I want to pick up on critical infrastructure. In
your report you noted that six out of the nine sector risk manage-
ment agencies need to better measure how critical infrastructure
entities are actually addressing the cybersecurity risk, as you al-
luded to there in your last answer. You have also recommended
that CISA establish milestones and timelines to help sector risk
management agencies carry out their responsibilities.
9
My question for you is, sir, in your view are sector risk manage-
ment agencies resourced and organized to handle their responsibil-
ities, or is there something else we should be thinking about?
Mr. DODARO. There needs to be more work to have them better
organized and resourced. On the resource side, it is considered, in
many cases, to be a corollary duty to their normal responsibilities,
so they are really not dedicated to this effort. There is not a lot of
focus on how to make improvements and measure whether or not
the efforts that they are taking with the private sector are really
improving the profile in those areas.
Both on the organizational level and on the resource level the
government is not where it should be, if we really are serious about
managing the threat in this area and trying to work cooperatively
with the private sector. I know there is a lot of reluctance to share
information between the private sector and the government. We
need to overcome that if we are going to, as a Nation, have a com-
prehensive approach. There needs to be some compromise on re-
quirements. I know there is resistance to a lot of regulation, and
I am not advocating that, but we need to get more serious and have
some more compromises. Where there is a Federal regulatory role
we should use it properly.
Chairman PETERS. Mr. Dodaro, the Toxic Substances Control Act
provides EPA with the authority to review chemicals already in
commerce, to keep the public safe, as you are well aware. However,
there are thousands of PFAS chemicals still in use that have not
yet been fully evaluated by the EPA.
In your opinion, what steps does the EPA need to take to ensure
that it can efficiently and effectively review PFAS chemicals to
keep the American public safe?
Mr. DODARO. EPA has come up with a national testing strategy,
which is a good first step. They have also established the first pro-
posed rule for regulating certain PFASs in drinking water, which
is a good step forward. But our observation is they are not
resourced properly. They are way behind, and they do not have
both the type of technical people in specialty areas as well as the
quantity of people necessary to deal with the proliferation of these
chemicals throughout our environment.
That has been the biggest area that has been a problem, and I
think Congress needs to focus on that. I am not advocating giving
them resources without accountability. They need to have re-
sources, but they need to produce and use those resources effec-
tively.
Chairman PETERS. Thank you. I was happy to see that the 2020
Census was removed from GAO’s High Risk List, and I appreciate
the work that the GAO did to provide key oversight during that
process. However, I think we should learn from some of the prob-
lems that occurred in the last census, and it is really critical that
we do that. One item in particular was the undercount of many
populations, including in the city of Detroit, and we need to ad-
dress this problem going forward. That has a significant impact on
a local area, as you know. The Bureau must incorporate lessons
learned in the 2030 Census planning process as it is ramping up.
10
I just quickly, in the time here, will you commit to continuing the
oversight of the Census Bureau? Even though it is off this list it
is still going to require some pretty close oversight.
Mr. DODARO. Absolutely. One of my earlier assignments at GAO
was looking at preparations for the 1990 Census, and we have fol-
lowed every decennial since, and we will continue to do so.
Chairman PETERS. Good. I appreciate that.
Ranking Member Paul, you are recognized for your questions.
Senator PAUL. Thank you, and welcome. I am very impressed
with your work through the years, and continue to be amazed at
some of it. In fact, you are able to get information that we are not
able to get. We have such great resistance from Executive Branch,
of either party, that everything is hidden from the people’s rep-
resentatives and from the people.
Recently you were commissioned to look at spending through our
agencies that has gone to China, and you found that there was $48
million that you can locate so far that went to China. But what
was extraordinary, and still is extraordinary, I think has not really
fully been recognized, is that you actually discovered that money
was going from American universities and being subcontracted to
military research in China. People would be kind of amazed that
we are actually funding research in China, since we have such an
adversarial relationship, but we are actually funding military re-
search.
There is an Academy of Military Medical Sciences (AMMS), and
I think you publicly identified at least two of the universities with
subgrants there, Duke and UC Berkeley. We have people thinking
there may be as many six or seven other universities that are sub-
contracting this—UC Davis, UTMB Galveston, University of Wis-
consin Madison, University of North Carolina, and University of
Minnesota—and I would like to hear your response if you know any
more about it, but also to look into those, because I think there is
a question of whether it is being done appropriately, honestly, and
actually, frankly, legally.
Are you aware of any other universities that you can tell us that
are subcontracting grants to China?
Mr. DODARO. Not offhand. I will talk to our team, and if we do
have something I will submit it for the record.
Part of the problem is there could be an award to a university,
and sub awards from the universities to different areas, and it can
go even a little further than that, and it is hard to track the sub
awards.
We are looking at that now. We are also looking at the Federal
Government’s coordination of research in international areas. We
have a separate effort to look at that right now.
Senator PAUL. In looking at these subcontracts are you looking
at whether or not they are obeying the law, the rules as to how you
are allowed to subcontract it? Do you look at the False Claims Act,
or are you looking at legality as well as good policy?
Mr. DODARO. We are looking at how the agencies are structuring
the awards, and what kind of requirements they have. I have a lit-
tle concern, in some of the preliminary briefings I have heard, that
the Federal Government is not striking these agreements in a way
11
that protects the Federal Government’s interests as appropriately
as possible.
Senator PAUL. Basically everything we know, we have learned
some from the GAO, and almost everything else we know is from
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The agencies will give us noth-
ing. Recently we voted unanimously to declassify all of the COVID
origins material, to give it to us. That does not mean they will give
it to us. We have been asking for declassified information for two
years and we get squat.
In fact, from Freedom of Information Act we have two people at
Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and the Department of
Defense, they are talking to each other, and they are saying, well,
we are reviewing EcoHealth but it looks like EcoHealth is doing
things with dollars beyond the definition of what they are supposed
to be doing. The lead researcher at DTRA writes back and says,
‘‘We probably should change the wording because if someone ever
FOIAs that, that is not going to look good.’’ Can you imagine these
people?
They also have exchanges going back and forth saying, ‘‘Senator
Paul has requested this but he is doing it by himself because we
cannot get a Democrat to help us, and so we are not going to give
it to him.’’ They actually are discussing that.
Anything you can do, I trust your honesty, your integrity, and
that you will try. We need your help, because government is so out
of control that we cannot get information.
We complain about the Chinese government. We cannot get in-
formation from our own government. We now have unanimously
passed to declassify things, and they are still holding on to all the
information. They will not give it up. We are still wrangling. We
have not yet gotten one Democrat chairman to sign one letter of
request for records.
This is a real problem. The thing is I do not do this for partisan
reasons. My concern is there are people, scientists, saying this, that
the next pandemic that escapes from a lab could kill as much as
five percent, or even as much as 50 percent of the people on the
planet. This is what we are looking at. We can create monstrous
super viruses and nobody seems to care whether this came from a
lab.
I appreciate what you are doing. I am very interested in the
other universities because they do gain-of-function research. They
have collaborated with China. But I am also interested in the mili-
tary aspect of this. People talk about viruses having dual use. You
can do it to look for vaccines. Everybody wants a vaccine. But it
also could be a weapon. Everybody has always talked about dual
use in this research, but we typically, ostensibly, only worked with
other countries in the civilian area.
It boggles my mind that nobody seems to know that univer-
sities—and you all discovered this, which is amazing—that our uni-
versities are giving the money, subcontracting it Academy of Mili-
tary Medical Research, where the scientist there has not the title
of doctor but general and colonel in the People’s Liberation Army.
This is something that I can only encourage you. We will be ask-
ing you also to do more of it, and we will try to get the other side
12
to agree to help us find out more information. But we would like
to encourage this.
I am sure you have a team that has been doing this, if you would
allow them to come and visit with us and talk more about what
they have. Because sometimes we read a conclusion, and they
might give us better ideas of things that we want to look at as well.
Mr. DODARO. Absolutely.
Senator PAUL. I guess the main thing is to isolate in on what are
the rules for these things, whether people are obeying the rules on
the subcontracting. And just by not listing it, that can be more
than an oversight. That can be actually obscuring where the money
is going as well.
But I appreciate your work on it, and we would like to get back
with you further to talk about it, if we can talk to your team indi-
vidually. Thank you.
Mr. DODARO. I am equally concerned about this issue, and we
will continue to focus on it, and to work with your staff.
Chairman PETERS. Thank you, Ranking Member Paul.
Senator Carper, you are recognized for your questions.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER
Senator CARPER. Thanks. This is one of my favorite days of the
year. I understand there are one or two people in the room that
actually work with you at GAO, and if there are a few that work
at GAO, the most popular place to work in the Federal Govern-
ment, raise your hand. Just convey to your colleagues our heartfelt
thanks for the great work that you do, and Gene, to you for the
extraordinary leadership you provided for a long time.
My wife has an interesting sense of humor, and every year when
it is my birthday—she is a year or two younger than me—every
year when it is my birthday she will say to me, ‘‘What do you want
on your tombstone? What kind of scripture? What kind of songs do
you want them to sing at your funeral?’’ Finally I just said, ‘‘I have
had enough. On my tombstone, this is what I want.’’ Thinking of
all the years that I worked on postal reform legislation, and with
the Chairman, Rob Portman, Richard Burr, and others. But any-
way, thinking of the great work that we did passing postal legisla-
tion, I said, ‘‘Martha, I think I would like to have on my tombstone,
‘Return to Sender.’ ’’ [Laughter.]
She did not even blink. She did not even smile. I thought it was
a pretty good line, and she said, ‘‘If that is not available what else
would you like to have on your tombstone?’’ I said, ‘‘I would like
to have ’He was deaf on improper payments to dead people.’ ’’ That
would be pretty good, you know? We worked on that one, and sev-
eral of us worked on that one, pretty hard for a long time.
But on a more serious note, I want to pause and address the im-
proper payments, something we talked about ad nauseum, but we
still need to continue to focus on it. Thank you and your folks for
your diligence in working with us.
I also am encouraged—we still have too many government oper-
ations, too much to criticize and find fault with—but as you re-
ported to us, that we are making an improvement in a number of
areas and several of the key areas have actually been taken off of
the High Risk List, and we are happy about that.
13
As we have learned, payments made through the Paycheck Pro-
tection Program (PPP), the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL),
program during the onset of the pandemic, resulted in hundreds of
millions of dollars in improper payments. While this emergency re-
lief, we know helped thousands of small businesses, probably mil-
lions, across the country coped with adverse economic conditions,
these programs remain susceptible to high levels of improper pay-
ments and fraud.
In the 116th Congress I worked with Senator Kennedy, Senator
Peters, Senator Paul, and others on this Committee to pass legisla-
tion that would endeavor to stop making improper payments to
dead people, and require data-sharing among Federal agencies to
ensure that these payments are reduced and eventually eliminated.
Question. Comptroller General, what suggestions does GAO have
for additional legislative improvements to further address improper
payments and fraud?
Mr. DODARO. Yes. First, I recommended legislation for any new
Federal program that is created or where there is a major increase
in a program of $100 million or more, be automatically designated
susceptible to improper payments. Right now it could be one or two
years after the program is started before the very first improper
payment estimate is made. That is too late, particularly in some of
these emergency programs, the program is over before estimates
are made. The later you make these estimates the less likely you
are to recover the improper payment.
Second, agencies should be required to have special procedures
in place and internal controls before emergency spending, or major
increases in spending. Right now we have made that recommenda-
tion to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Everybody in
the Executive Branch thinks the normal controls are enough. We
do not. We think they need special controls, and they know what
they need to do. Because this is where the push is to get the money
out fast without having the normal controls in place. You need
some kind of tailored controls, and you can do both. You can pro-
tect the government and get the money out fast if you plan ahead
and use those experiences.
The last thing I would mention is that there needs to be a per-
manent analytical capability within the inspector general commu-
nity. We had it during the Recovery Act days. It was eliminated in
2015. I recommended that Congress make it permanent. That did
not happen. I am at it again. I would like to see it made perma-
nent. The IG community is supportive. They can help prevent fraud
and improper payments.
Senator CARPER. Great. My staff and my colleagues have heard
me say, over and over and over again, everything I do, I think ev-
erything we do, we can do better, and you have given us three good
ideas to how to do it, an even better job on improper payments, es-
pecially to people who are no longer with us.
The second area I wanted to pursue in my questions deals with
establishing a governmentwide cyber workforce plan. As folks in
this Committee know well, the cyber threat posed by hostile na-
tions and groups around the world cannot be overstated. We con-
tinue to see cyber threat actors evolve and advance their tech-
niques in ways that pose a threat to business, health care facilities,
14
critical infrastructure, and put at risk the financial and personal
safety of our countrymen and women.
Unfortunately, the cyber threat landscape is not getting less
volatile. It is actually getting more volatile. Comptroller General,
in your statement I believe you mentioned that further action is
needed in cyberspace when it comes to establishing and effectively
implementing a governmentwide cyber workforce plan.
My question along those lines is, given that each Federal agen-
cy’s mission and size is so different from one another, how best can
we establish a governmentwide cyber workforce plan that would
address the needs of each department in an appropriate way.
Mr. DODARO. Yes. I am going to ask Nick Marinos, who is our
expert in the IT and cyber area, to respond, Senator.
Mr. MARINOS. Yes, Senator. First, just to point out we have
heard from the White House that there are intentions to establish
the national strategy for cyber workforce in the summer. What we
would be looking for is, one, a push-back to the agencies to con-
tinue to identify where they have gaps. Even though we have seen
some improvement in this area, there is no comprehensive way for
us to know whether each Federal agency actually knows what it
needs.
The second thing is that each agency then needs to focus on not
only recruiting and hiring but also retaining really highly qualified
staff. We know there is a shortage, not only within the Federal
Government—but across the Nation, and so it will be important for
them to leverage not only the tools that they have right now but
recent legislation that has called on creative ways to try to gen-
erate ideas for how to keep Federal Government employees actually
staying within the Federal Government.
Senator CARPER. Great.
Mr. DODARO. There are a couple of things I would add. One is
that there is a problem now between competition among agencies
for the same talent. I think a governmentwide plan can help deal
with that issue a bit because there is an unlevel playing field.
Some agencies have special hiring authorities and pay; others do
not. I think there needs to be a look at that and whether that is
rationalized properly.
The other thing is the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).
We have just issued a report recently saying Office of Personnel
Management does not have its own plan for improving its work-
force—and needs to. The human resource (HR) people in the gov-
ernment, whether they are centralized in OPM or in individual
agencies, are not what we need in order to help support the recruit-
ment and hiring of cyber people.
I think this is also a cautionary tale that we need to get ahead
in artificial intelligence and quantum computing, because there
were really no qualification standards for cyber people for a num-
ber of years, and so we were way behind the curve.
Senator CARPER. Mr. Chairman, we have a saying in the Navy,
when people do extraordinary work, we use the phrase, ‘‘Bravo
Zulu.’’ I would just say to you, to both of you, to the folks that are
behind you from GAO and those that may be listening in or watch-
ing, tuning in today, and those that are hard at work, Bravo Zulu.
Keep up the great job. Thanks so much.
15
Chairman PETERS. Thank you, Senator Carper.
Senator Lankford, you are recognized for your questions.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANKFORD
Senator LANKFORD. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Gene, it is good
to see you again. Let me start with the same question we talk
about every year. You will know the rest of this question when I
start it. Taxpayers Right To Know. We have talked about it year
after year. It has obviously passed. Twenty million dollars was
given to OMB to go through the implementation. They received
that funding. They have said they are doing pilot programs. They
have also said they are coordinating with you on the process.
Tell me how it is going for Taxpayers Right to Know. They have
the funding. They have the law. What is actually happening?
Mr. DODARO. Their current plan right now is to create an inter-
agency working group to leverage additional resources needed and
to get buy-in from the agencies because they are going to need to
do that. They are going to deploy resources this summer and make
a major push to try to begin developing an inventory and having
the pilot.
I am encouraged by that. It has taken them a while to get to this
point, so it may put them at a disadvantage in meeting the 2025
date that has been established.
Senator LANKFORD. Or try anyway. Is your team at the table in
the conversations on setting the list, setting the priorities, setting
the program definitions? Because the program definitions is a big
part of this, and we have to get that right at the beginning.
Mr. DODARO. Yes. We have been playing an appropriate role, pro-
tecting our independence, but also being a sounding board and
making suggestions to them. They are listening, and they are
adopting some of our suggestions.
We were the ones that were encouraging them to bring the agen-
cies in, not only for resources but to get buy-in.
Senator LANKFORD. Get the conversation.
Mr. DODARO. Yes, absolutely.
Senator LANKFORD. Strategic human capital management has
been on your list since 2001. It remains on the list. This is an issue
that I talk about a lot. Our Committee has talked about it a lot.
Best I can tell there is about 105 hiring authorities. When I asked
the Chief Human Capitol Officers (CHCOs) about it, about 20 of
them are used more than 90 percent of the time. But every time
I bring up direct hiring authority, everyone has a conniption on it
and thinks that will never work or whatever it may be, except for
the entities that actually use it.
What is it going to take on the strategic human capital in trying
to be able to figure out, on the hiring side, just the hiring portion
of it, to be able to simplify this so it is actually usable and it does
not take 145 days to hire someone at the IRS?
Mr. DODARO. One of the government-wide shortages and critical
skill gaps is in the human resource people who actually support
and run the hiring efforts and activities. There are problems at
OPM itself, and there are problems in the individual agencies. A
lot of the human resource people were trained over the years, going
back to the civil service reform days to be compliance oriented, to
16
make sure you do not do anything wrong in these areas, as opposed
to what can I do to be helpful, to help in these difficult areas.
We need to change that mindset, change that approach, and get
the right people in there to support them. Then I think things will
be a lot easier.
Senator LANKFORD. You and I have talked several times about
the census, and I know census has dropped off the list this year.
But one of the issues that I bring up consistently is the IRS, every
single year, touches every single person, basically, across the coun-
try, or a vast majority of them. The census does it every 10 years.
But for whatever reason, census and IRS will not talk to each
other. There is some information-sharing behind the scenes. But
why could not the census, every 10 years, partner with the IRS,
what they do every one year, and add a couple of additional ques-
tions to your IRS filing, and that also fulfills your census as well
for that year, and then for everyone else that does not do a filing
to be able to then go pursue those folks?
That seems too common sense to actually work in the Federal
Government, but I have been told for 10 years it will not work, it
will not work, it will not work. I have also asked why it will not
work, and no one can give me the answer why it will not.
Mr. DODARO. Yes. The only limitation I can see offhand of why
it would not work is the timing of it. The census is where every-
body is on one particular day, when they do the measurement, and
the IRS filings are a year later. You file one year for the previous
year.
Senator LANKFORD. Right.
Mr. DODARO. There may be a timing issue there. But I will look
at it. I will have our team look at it, and there may be ways to
overcome that. But to me the timing would be the major thing.
Senator LANKFORD. It is obviously because it goes door to door,
trying to be able to check on people. They get as close as they can
to one day. That one day could be April 15th. That would be just
a statutory thing for us to be able to say April 15th is the one date.
Mr. DODARO. I will think about it. But you file on April 15th you
are filing for the previous calendar year.
Senator LANKFORD. But you are filing where you are this year,
with your address, where you are this year on it, as well. But let’s
talk about that at length——
Mr. DODARO. OK.
Senator LANKFORD [continuing]. To be able to go from there.
There are a couple of things I actually want to bring up. Can
GAO do oversight on it. You have been in telework status for three
years now. You are in the process of coming back from telework
status. I look at your numbers typically in the past. You are typi-
cally $145 to 1 of recovery. Well done. Spike the football. But now
in telework status you are at about $72 to 1. Is that because of
telework status or is that something else?
Mr. DODARO. No, that is something else. We have been in
telework status for a decade. We have had expanded telework. We
have studied it. It has had no impact on our quality and produc-
tivity of our work.
There were two factors that led to the 145, and one year we had
an all-time record of about $200 billion of savings. Normally it is
17
more of a $50 to $70 billion range. Then second, during the pan-
demic, we spent a lot of time looking at the $4.6 trillion in pan-
demic spending, so that took us kind of off our normal path.
But we are in pretty good shape and I think we will continue to
produce a great return on investment.
Senator LANKFORD. We do need to talk about telework, because
I am an advocate for remote work. I think that is a possibility. But
one of the things I always want to ask you is, if you are doing re-
mote work or telework and you are actually somewhere else but
you are getting paid at a higher rate as if you are in Washington,
DC, or San Francisco, or somewhere else, there are some real in-
consistencies there.
But I think there are some real opportunities. I call the time of
COVID the world’s largest pilot program for telework, and there
are some real opportunities that I think we can do, especially for
spouses of military and others in the days ahead.
Mr. DODARO. Absolutely. Actually, we are in the process of nego-
tiating a remote work option with our union right now, and the
issue around pay is the most appropriate thing. I want to make
sure it is equitable but not out of line.
Senator LANKFORD. Yes. It is an appropriate conversation to be
able to have, based on where people live and work.
GAO, it is my understanding, has also put out a new style guide
for language in it, and I want to just bring this up. We can have
a longer conversation on this as well. But the style guide is trying
to be more inclusive in the language. I prefer to use the term ‘‘re-
spectful’’ in language rather than ‘‘inclusive,’’ and let me give you
a reason why.
In the style guide it tells folks at GAO, when using terminology
like ‘‘male’’ and ‘‘female’’ that an agency uses or that is written into
law, GAO should state the source to not give the impression that
GAO endorses ‘‘male’’ and ‘‘female.’’ I am not sure that is a good
idea because we are back to, if we are going to be not offensive,
we need to not be offensive to everybody.
There are several other things, taking out terms like ‘‘manmade’’
or ‘‘manpower’’ or ‘‘unmanned’’ or not using the term ‘‘policeman.’’
Not talking about a person whose gender identity does not align
with their sex assigned at birth implies a much larger not only po-
litical issue but a societal issue as well.
There are several things in the style guide that I look at and I
say, hey, I really need GAO to stay out of cultural battles and to
definitely not say if Congress writes a law that says ‘‘male’’ and ‘‘fe-
male’’ GAO should basically apologize for it and say, ‘‘Hey, their
word, not ours.’’ There are some concerns that are in this.
I would love to be able to have a conversation about how we can
keep GAO consistent with where we are both in law and not trying
to compete with Congress and trying to apologize that Congress in
errantly uses the word ‘‘male’’ and ‘‘female.’’ This will be a bigger
issue that we can talk about at a different time as well. But we
need GAO to stay GAO. Can I just say that?
Mr. DODARO. I understand your point, and I would be happy to
talk to you about it.
Senator LANKFORD. Yes. I do not mind respectful language. That
is a good thing, to honor all people in the process. Thank you.
18
Chairman PETERS. Thank you, Senator Lankford.
Senator Rosen, you are recognized for your questions.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ROSEN
Senator ROSEN. Thank you, Chairman Peters. Thank you for
holding this hearing. Thank you for being here today, for all the
work that you have been doing.
I want to focus a little bit on government legacy IT. Once again,
this year’s High Risk Report notes that the Federal Government ef-
forts to improve the management of IT acquisitions and operations
is a work in process. We know technology is moving quickly. But
while your report gives credit to OMB for pushing agencies to im-
plement IT reforms, it also states that all five ratings for this par-
ticular goal remain unchanged since 2017. Specifically, you cite 20
recommendations that have still not been addressed at 14 agencies,
including the development of modernization plans for legacy IT sys-
tems.
As someone who began my career in computer programming,
writing code in Common Business-Oriented Language (COBOL),
Formula Translation (FORTRAN), Assembler, and others, it does
trouble me that so many of our Federal agencies continue to use
that legacy technology that in some cases has been around since
the 1980s, and it is based on coding language that virtually no one
works in anymore. This poses serious challenges when the tech-
nology breaks or malfunctions. Maintenance is a huge part of what
you do, upgrade and maintenance. You can only patch it so many
times. I know this from personal experience.
I am concerned the Federal Government is still getting an incom-
plete on this report card. Can you talk to me about the importance
of getting our IT systems modernized, streamlined, forward-facing,
and nimble in our ability to do all the things that we have to do,
and why are people still only partially meeting their goals?
Mr. DODARO. This has been a vexing problem that we have been
trying to push people on for a number of years. The problems in-
clude poor security. A lot of these systems were not built with secu-
rity in them, so it is complicating our ability in cybersecurity area.
The cost is expensive. There were efforts to try to replace them, but
they often fail because of lack of discipline with IT management
issues.
One of the things is they are not forced to get off the systems
and commit to a date. We recommended that OMB do that, and
they have not implemented that recommendation. I think Congress
needs to step in here and try to require fixed dates, because they
just keep rolling these systems forward. It is not good for taxpayer
customer service issues as well.
Senator ROSEN. I will tell you, none of it in the old code, cyberse-
curity, I mean, there was a single mainframe. There was just one
point of entry. The world has changed now, and it does leave us
vulnerable.
I want to move on now to our cybersecurity strategy overall, be-
cause since 1997, GAO has designated information security, of
course, it is high risk. We know it. Everyone knows that. This
year’s High Risk Report calls for the Administration to fully estab-
lish and implement a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy and the
19
implementation plans. Maybe we should put those hard dates in
there.
Last month, the Administration released the National Cybersecu-
rity Strategy. As the Administration executes the National Cyber-
security Strategy, what should be the roles and responsibilities of
the individual Federal agencies to this national strategy that,
frankly, if we do not do, all of us, in every single way, are vulner-
able?
Mr. DODARO. This is a critical area. They have committed to try
to clarify the roles and responsibilities. I will ask Nick Marinos to
elaborate a little bit.
Mr. MARINOS. Yes, Senator. You raise a really important point
and one that we would expect to see within an implementation
plan, which is ultimately outlining not only timeframes, outcomes
that you want to have in mind, but also who is going to ultimately
be responsible for working together and then being accountable for
actually taking action on them.
Senator ROSEN. Could you talk about duplicative programs, be-
cause maybe we can share front ends. We can populate data be-
tween agencies that everyone does not have to develop every single
thing. Maybe you could address that as well.
Mr. MARINOS. Absolutely. The legislation that Congress has re-
cently passed not only to enact and create CISA but also to em-
power CISA to be one of the key coordinating bodies, especially
across the Federal agencies when it comes to its own cybersecurity,
is an area that you would want to see within an implementation
plan, and likewise, with the creation of the Office of the National
Cyber Director, heading in the right direction. We would want to
see what role does the National Cyber Director actually play in
holding agencies accountable for taking these actions.
Senator ROSEN. Thank you. I am going to keep on this because
I think it is so important. It is something on the top of everybody’s
mind, whether it is personal, professional, or for the world, we see
a lot going on. We need people to do this work. We need program-
mers. We need engineers. We need cybersecurity, just every kind
of analyst that is involved all along the chain. We have a huge
workforce shortage, and this is not just a challenge in this area but
in others.
The report does state, and I am going to quote here, ‘‘Federal
agencies need to take additional actions to address the Federal cy-
bersecurity workforce shortage.’’ What practices—and either one of
you can answer—should the Federal agencies adopt to solve the cy-
bersecurity workforce shortages? I have a lot of opinions, but what
measures, what should we be putting in place to address this? Ap-
prenticeships? Certificates? Two-year? Four-year? All of the above?
Maybe you could elaborate on that a little bit.
Mr. MARINOS. Yes, Senator. I think the important thing is to be
creative here, and we realize that if the Federal Government is not
the only game in town when it comes to cybersecurity employment,
it needs to be positioned in a way that is going to have a lot of
flexibility. As mentioned earlier, we have seen hiring authorities,
flexible hiring authorities as one way for Federal agencies to take
advantage of it. In order to do so, the human resource employees
20
need to be aware and cognizant of how to leverage those flexibili-
ties.
Likewise, the potential to use things like rotational workforce or
potentially even——
Senator ROSEN. What about a reserve workforce? I have some
bills out there to create a cyber-reserve workforce to surge up.
Mr. MARINOS. It is a really viable option, and I know your inter-
ests are particularly in DOD and DHS, two places that obviously
we need to see a very strong and well-capacitied cyber workforce.
I think all options should be on the table because ultimately the
Federal Government is going to be a competitor with its private
sector partners and has to operate off of different measures.
Senator ROSEN. If we can include them to surge up, that is a
positive thing. Thank you.
Senator Blumenthal.
Senator BLUMENTHAL [presiding.] On behalf of Chairman Peters
I recognize Senator Hassan.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HASSAN
Senator HASSAN. Thanks, Senator Blumenthal, and I want to
thank the Chair and the Ranking Member, and I want to thank
you, Mr. Dodaro, for your service and for being here and for all the
folks from the GAO who are here this morning and do this work.
Thank you for your work.
I want to start with a question and really drilling down on tech-
nology issues. You are hearing about it all around the dais this
morning.
In 2023, the Federal Government is expected to spend more than
$100 billion on new and existing technology. GAO’s High Risk List
makes two recommendations to help lower costs and better manage
technology purchases all across the government. First GAO rec-
ommends that Congress consider giving the Federal Chief Informa-
tion Officer (CIO) greater responsibility to address longstanding
technology challenges. How could expanding the role of the Federal
CIO help curb excessive Federal spending on technology, and what
specific authority do you believe the Federal CIO still needs?
Mr. DODARO. I am going to ask Nick to respond to this, Senator.
But first, an historical perspective. I worked with the Congress,
and this Committee back in 1996, to create the Clinger Cohen Act,
to create Chief Information Officers in the government. They were
intended to have much greater responsibilities than what has
played out over the years. Congress attempted to change this in
2014, with the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform
Act (FITARA), but still the CIOs do not have all the authorities.
Nick can give the details.
Senator HASSAN. Thank you.
Mr. MARINOS. Senator, two quick thoughts. First, with respect to
the Federal CIO’s own position. The reality is that the Federal
Government represents probably the biggest buyer of technology
within the Nation, and so it is important for us to have a way to
know that IT’s money is being spent effectively. Having a strong
Federal CIO presence would allow that individual to bring Federal
agencies to the table, and CIOs and leaders of agencies, to know
21
not only are they spending money wisely but they are leveraging
buying power and we shared services.
Then the other side of it is ultimately to hold CIOs accountable,
and Federal agency heads accountable toward those CIOs as well.
We continue to see Federal agencies improve in aligning the CIO
with agency leadership so that they can actually have the ability
to see across a Federal agency where their IT dollars are being
spent. It is a lot of money and does require a stronger oversight.
Senator HASSAN. Thank you for that, and you just referenced
quickly the importance of collaboration between the CIOs and their
agency leadership. But can you talk a little bit more about why
that collaboration is so important for reducing IT costs and ensur-
ing that agencies have the technology they need to serve the Amer-
ican people?
Mr. MARINOS. Certainly. We have seen, on the General Service
Administration (GSA) side has established a lot of functions that
allow agencies to leverage shared services, which is one way to
bring the costs down. But in order to encourage agencies to actu-
ally leverage those available services a Federal CIO could bring
CIOs to the table and ensure that they are ultimately using their
buying power effectively.
Senator HASSAN. OK. Thank you.
Mr. DODARO. I think the other issue, Senator, in that case is that
a lot of the program managers who actually run the programs have
their own ideas on what they think they need technology-wise, and
sometimes it is not the most efficient approach. You need a tech-
nical person to partner with the program people, but they need to
be supported by the agency head. That communication needs to be
there in order to make the right decisions.
Senator HASSAN. Absolutely. Let us talk a little bit more about
the National Cybersecurity Strategy, while we are at it. For 25
years, the High Risk List has highlighted the importance or cyber-
security as a matter of national security, affecting not only govern-
ment but individual schools and businesses, and you have talked
about that.
As you mentioned, last month the Biden administration released
the first-ever National Cybersecurity Strategy, something that
GAO has supported for years. What should be the Federal Govern-
ment’s next step toward executing the National Cybersecurity
Strategy?
Mr. MARINOS. Ultimately an implementation plan, Senator.
There are a lot of to-dos in that strategy, and we commend the Ad-
ministration for pursuing it. We have seen it align quite closely to
many of the actions that we have been calling for over the years.
But the rubber will meet the road, ultimately, with implementation
of those strategic goals.
You mentioned, the issues that we see, for example, in K–12
schools and the ransomware attacks that we see are only going to
be assisted by Federal Government agencies if we have better co-
ordination. We would want to see the implementation plan reflect
that coordination as well.
Senator HASSAN. I will also urge them to look at collaborating
with the Center on Internet Security (CIS) more effectively, be-
cause I think they are doing some pretty good work too.
22
Mr. Dodaro, I want to move to a different topic, and thank you
for highlighting the substance misuse crisis in your testimony. In
2022, New Hampshire had the highest death toll from drug
overdoses since 2017, and as of today, in 2023, 55 people in my
small State have died from drug overdoses. Sadly, these numbers
reflect a national trend.
GAO found that expanded access to medication-assisted treat-
ment is critical to getting more people into recovery. I am proud
that my bipartisan bill with Senator Murkowski was recently
signed into law to expand the number of providers who are able to
prescribe this lifesaving treatment.
The High Risk List, however, points out that the Office of Na-
tional Drug Control Policy’s (ONDCP) 2022 National Drug Control
Strategy did not identify resources needed to expand the avail-
ability of medication-assisted treatment so that more people can
get it. Why is it important to identify financial, personnel, or other
resources needed to expand access to medication-assisted treat-
ment?
Mr. DODARO. Actually, that is a very important issue. We have
looked at it in terms of both how Medicaid funds could be used for
that, as well as having additional supporting assistance. But part
of the problem we have had with the strategy is it does not allocate
resources appropriately so we could measure the impact in that
area. But it is very important.
I will ask Jess Farb, who is the director of our health care area,
to address that more specifically.
Senator HASSAN. Thank you.
Ms. FARB. Senator, I think in terms of what is expected in the
Office of National Drug Control Policy’s Strategy, we are looking to
see metrics and goals that will measure the spending that you are
talking about, to make sure that there is the correct amount of
funds available to support this. It is definitely a tool that is very
important for recovery from drug misuse. I wanted to also bring in
my colleague, Charles Johnson, as well, who is my partner in this.
Senator HASSAN. Thank you.
Mr. JOHNSON. Thanks, Jess. Senator, one of the things we did
see absent from the strategy was they have goals set up but they
do not have the budget allocations over a five-year period. What we
have heard from the ONDCP is that they do not disclose the Presi-
dent’s budget over a five-year period.
But we will continue to look into this and work with them to see
if we can get them to think about that as well as engaging with
some of the key partners, other agencies involved, as well as State
and locals.
Senator HASSAN. Thank you. I mean, one of our challenges, now
that we are allowing much more access to medication-assisted
treatment is to figure out how to make sure that it is truly acces-
sible and that pharmacies are participating as well. I look forward
to working with you on that. Thank you.
Senator BLUMENTHAL. On behalf of Chairman Peters I recognize
Senator Scott.
23
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR SCOTT
Senator SCOTT. Thank you, Chairman. Comptroller Dodaro, I
think you and your team do an unbelievable job. I think you are
a great Federal resource. I have been up here four years and you
have been unbelievably helpful in reviewing how government
works. I wanted to thank you and your entire team for what you
do.
The first question is how important is it that the Federal Gov-
ernment have independent inspectors general?
Mr. DODARO. I think it is absolutely essential.
Senator SCOTT. What would be some of the reasons why a Fed-
eral agency should have one, an independent inspector general?
Mr. DODARO. There are two reasons. One is that they need to
have an investigative function in there. Many of them have crimi-
nal investigators and other tools that can look at misconduct with
regard to the Federal employees in that area or contractors or
other areas. Some of these agencies are so large that you need to
have an independent audit function as well to be able to provide
information. They are structured so that they report not only to the
agency head but also to the Congress. That was the way they were
set up, and by and large it has worked effectively over the years.
At GAO, we cannot cover the entire Federal Government with
the resources that Congress has given us, so we leverage the IGs
to make sure we do not duplicate what they do. They arrange, for
example, the annual financial audit, of the agency’s financial state-
ments. We review the work. It is usually done by an Intergovern-
mental Personnel Act (IPA), and then we can use that to rely on
and make our report on the governmentwide financial statements.
Senator SCOTT. So the Federal Reserve has nearly a $9 trillion
balance sheet, and I do not think there is any Federal agency that
has probably a $9 trillion balance sheet other than the Federal Re-
serve. And they do not have an independent inspector general. So
do you think it would be appropriate for them to be like, what is
it, over 30 Federal agencies have independent inspectors generals?
Would that make sense?
Mr. DODARO. Yes, I think that would make sense. When I first
became Acting Comptroller General I actually came to the Con-
gress and asked for a statutory inspector general at GAO, so we
have one there. I think it is important that the statutory IGs have
certain protections and notification requirements, et cetera.
There is one agency that has a balance sheet higher than that.
Unfortunately, it is the Bureau of Public Debt. But in any event,
that is a side issue.
Senator SCOTT. You have written a lot about this, but I watched,
when I was Governor of Florida and we had the hurricanes, and
I watched how much fraud and abuse there was with regard to a
variety of things that FEMA would contract for, or the Corps of En-
gineers. And one of the biggest is debris cleanup. It is frustrating
because you just see this significant amount of waste.
So I have had a bill that would require, as an example, any enti-
ty that is going to do debris cleanup, like counties and cities have
a pre-landfall contract and then enforce it. And then we have way
more review because, as you know, as I think you all have written,
24
the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) cut
back on a lot of their review of when they pay.
I think with Hurricane Irma it was over $1 billion just in debris
cleanup. Do you think we ought to have some way to stop all this
fraud?
Mr. DODARO. Absolutely. I think that debris removal is not only
expensive but it is the critical path to recovery. It is the first thing
that needs to be done. I think because of that there are a lot of peo-
ple who take advantage of that situation because of the urgency
and the dilemma facing people. Whenever we have seen in emer-
gencies, you saw that with the pandemic, it brings out the best in
human nature but it brings out a lot of the fraudsters in those
areas, and disaster relief is no exception to that.
I think the bill that you and Senator Peters are working on is
a good step forward to help focus on that issue and put more atten-
tion on it, as was the Advanced Contracting Act that this Com-
mittee passed in 2020. But the proposed legislation builds further
on that.
Senator SCOTT. Another issue that came up while I was Governor
is national flood insurance. We have been three-plus donor States
since national flood insurance came in, and what I watched while
I was Governor is there is an unbelievable increase in certain areas
of rates. You would think, if you were a donor State, of any amount
but especially triple donor State, you would not think you would
see that.
How important is it for FEMA and the Federal Government to
do everything they can to help build a private flood insurance pro-
gram to reduce the risk of the National Flood Insurance Program
(NFIP)?
Mr. DODARO. I think it is very important that that program be
reformed. It has been on our High Risk List as a separate program
since 2006 following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Right now there
is an over $20 billion debt that the program owes to the Treasury,
and that is after the Federal Government has forgiven $16 billion
in debt that was owed before. It is not actuarially sound, and as
a result, there are a lot of inequities in the program that are hard
to keep up to date.
Trying to have a private market for it, the question is whether
or not that could be structured in a way that would be attractive
to insurers, because they are going to charge actuarially sound
rates or they are not going to insure. The Federal Government
could provide more affordability assistance to help people with the
rates, as opposed to running the program itself. I think that should
be given serious consideration.
Senator SCOTT. Thank you. First off, I will tell you, the reports
you guys put out are unbelievable. You guys do an unbelievable
job, your whole team does, so thank you for what you do.
Mr. DODARO. Thank you, Senator.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BLUMENTHAL
Senator BLUMENTHAL. Thank you, Senator Scott. I have a few
questions and then we may reach a conclusion.
I want to come back to an area that Senator Carper asked about,
on the Small Business Administration (SBA), and I want to drill
25
down a little bit on PPP and EIDL. I think the SBA did vital work
in dispensing $1.1 trillion very expeditiously, as was required by
the times, and we all, I think, realized that there was also a good
deal of waste and possibly even fraud.
In your view, is there still a need to look into and dig down deep-
er into the way those programs were performed, both to hold ac-
countable the companies that may have received benefits illegally,
and also to learn some lessons, more broadly, about these kinds of
programs in the future? As much as we may appreciate what SBA
did, there were also a lot of companies, small and medium-sized
businesses that were denied these benefits because the program
ran out of money. It performed a vital function, making money
available, saving businesses, but at the same time it became a tar-
get for waste and fraud, and thereby denied some of the worth-
while businesses what they needed and deserved.
On those two programs is there work still to be done?
Mr. DODARO. Absolutely. I think your articulation of the cir-
cumstances and what happened is exactly, precisely the way I have
seen it unfold, and we are working with SBA to try to have them
build in a better fraud risk framework in the first place. We actu-
ally worked with the Congress back in 2016, to pass the Fraud Re-
duction and Data Analytics Act, which required agencies to imple-
ment GAO’s best practices for how to prevent fraud in the first
place. SBA was slow to implement that, and therefore it was not
in place before the pandemic hit, when it should have been. They
were not well positioned to take on the additional spending during
that period of time.
The first fraud risk assessment that they did was after the pro-
gram was over, and that is not as helpful, obviously. They need to
have a better program in place. The Economic Injury Disaster Loan
Program is an ongoing program activity too, going forward. Even
though they built a special component on it, it is there. Then there
is the normal disaster loan program that SBA has in place going
forward. We are working with them to try to get them to be better
prepared.
I think another lesson learned is to not allow self-certifications.
That was a problem and that invited fraud in a number of areas.
There are key lessons learned by digging deeper into the pro-
grams, and I have made some additional recommendations to the
Congress as well about making sure agencies can focus on and pre-
vent fraud in the first place, because they do not recover that much
as a percent of the funds after it happens.
Senator BLUMENTHAL. There is a lot of money still to be recov-
ered. Is that what you are saying?
Mr. DODARO. Yes, there could be. Congress, for those two pro-
grams, has passed an extension of the statute of limitations so that
the inspectors general can go further, and the Department of Jus-
tice (DOJ), into criminal prosecutions, and I think that is fine. The
Administration has also recommended doing that in the unemploy-
ment insurance area, and I think that would be a good idea as
well.
Senator BLUMENTHAL. In your view, from what you have seen,
was there an awareness at the time that these loans, later becom-
ing grants, going out were going to the wrong people?
26
Mr. DODARO. I tried to raise awareness that we needed to do a
better job checking about that, but SBA was not in the mindset of
hearing that, initially in the program. To their point, there was
enormous pressure to get the money out quickly during that period
of time, and I understood that. But when I went in I offered, I
talked to the SBA administrator at the time, to help them design
things.
We did that, if you recall, during the global financial crisis when
the Troubled Asset Review Program (TARP) was set up. I worked
with Secretary Paulson and his team. We helped give advice on
building internal controls in up front. That program, while it was
not popular, was effective, and you had nowhere near the amount
of fraud that you have in these programs. But the SBA, in the
original days of the creation of that program, were too busy to focus
on that. We have to get this money out.
I think there were people who had concerns, us and the inspector
general, but we were not able to persuade them to listen.
Senator BLUMENTHAL. But they could have listened. In other
words, you can be busy getting money out and at the same time
impose some safeguards. I will tell you, just anecdotally, I heard,
during this time, because I was going to bat for small businesses
who needed money, and what I heard was, ‘‘Oh, we have run out
of money.’’ The small businesses would come to me and say, ‘‘We
have heard X, Y, and Z company got millions of dollars. They do
not fit the criteria. What is going on here? Can’t you do something
about it?’’ They were coming down, rightfully, on their elected rep-
resentatives. If we were aware of it, was not SBA, and could they
not have done something.
Mr. DODARO. Yes, they could have but did not.
Senator BLUMENTHAL. I would like to follow up with you on this
issue because I think that the lessons that you are learning should
be more widely known throughout government. This is an unfair
question but I am going to ask it—of the $1.1 trillion, do you have
kind of a ballpark number on how much was misdirected? I am
using ‘‘misdirected’’ purposefully because I do not want to say
‘‘waste,’’ I do not want to say ‘‘fraud,’’ but just went into the wrong
hands?
Mr. DODARO. Yes. I do not have that number for SBA and the
PPP program. In the unemployment insurance area, we have esti-
mated that at least $60 billion, at the low end, was fraudulent. We
are working on a higher-end estimate now. They had an already
existing methodology for estimating fraud in the regular unemploy-
ment insurance program ahead of time, so we have been able to
use that as a basis to make an estimate. You really did not have
that in the SBA programs.
But we have information on the number of investigations and
prosecutions and the amount of recoveries. We are happy to share
with you and your team. I am happy to talk about this. We are
making more headway now with the current Administration on
this area, and they are taking that seriously.
But for three straight years now, the financial auditor of SBA’s
financial statements has been unable to give an opinion on their
financial statements because of these problems. There is a signifi-
27
cant amount of issues here. That is why I have kept them on the
High Risk List until they get them resolved going forward.
But there are definitely lessons to be learned that could be more
broadly applied, and hopefully used in the future. In June I will
have been in GAO 50 years, so what I have seen, over the years,
is the lessons fade in terms of when the next crisis comes, and then
the whole thing gets overcome by events and people doing this.
Also, there has been an estimate at SBA for the PPP program
that there was $29 billion in improper payments that were made.
Now that does not mean they were fraudulent, but that tells you
some level of magnitude.
Senator BLUMENTHAL. Some impropriety.
Mr. DODARO. Yes.
Senator BLUMENTHAL. Let me ask you, I am assuming, as a
former prosecutor, I was the U.S. Attorney in Connecticut for four
and half years and then I was State Attorney General for about 20
years. But I am assuming there is still a lot of work to be done in
recovering that money. Am I correct?
Mr. DODARO. That is correct. There is a Pandemic Response Ac-
countability Committee (PRAC) made up of the inspectors general
that is led by Michael Horowitz as the chair, who is the Inspector
General of the Justice Department. They are focused on this. There
are investigations ongoing both at Labor and at the Small Business
Administration, in addition to the IG community. That is why they
have asked for the extensions on statute of limitations. They are
working hard at it.
Senator BLUMENTHAL. I would like to follow up with you, and I
will be contacting Mr. Horowitz as well, as not only a Member of
this Committee but also as the Chairman of the Permanent Sub-
committee on Investigations (PSI).
I do not know whether Senator Ossoff wants to ask his questions
now. I have a few more questions on a different topic, if I may.
Senator OSSOFF. Sure. I have not yet voted. Have you, Senator
Blumenthal? OK, then go right ahead. We will be stragglers to-
gether.
Senator BLUMENTHAL. Food safety, another area that is close to
your heart, I know, and close to mine as well. I have been a strong
advocate of a separate food safety agency. Right now, as you well
know, the authority is fractured in 15 different agencies. There are
30 different Federal laws, and as a result nobody is really doing
enough and doing it quickly enough. I think you are well aware
with what happened with the infant formula contamination. But it
is just one example of how the present system is failing.
Do you favor establishing a dedicated food safety agency?
Mr. DODARO. That is obviously a policy issue for the Congress.
I think it is worthy of examination. It has been on the High Risk
List for a number of years. Initially, when we put it on the list, we
were pushing for a single food safety agency, but we were getting
no traction. We went with the next best thing, which was a govern-
mentwide plan with performance measures, and a permanent
working group on food safety issues, which was in place years ago
but had been abandoned. There was not a formal coordination
mechanism. There was not a governmentwide plan. That is what
our current recommendations are.
28
What we said is if that does not happen Congress should look at
reorganization and creating a blue-ribbon commission to look at
that. But certainly that is one option that I think is worthy of con-
sideration, particularly on how stretched FDA is with their respon-
sibilities. With the drug area and the food area, there is a lot on
their plate.
Senator BLUMENTHAL. They have a lot on their plate, and we
may not have success this session with the Food Safety Adminis-
tration Act, introduced last Congress by my colleague in the House,
Representative DeLauro, and here in the Senate by Senator Dur-
bin. I co-sponsored it and I have been a strong advocate of it. The
FDA could do more, and it has a lot of different responsibilities.
But I think the Nation needs to do a lot more, and I welcome the
opportunity to continue this conversation with you.
Mr. DODARO. Yes, I think it is very appropriate, particularly
given the imported areas of where we are bringing food in. We still
have a lot of good domestic production, but in a lot of areas we are
using a global supply chain. I think that heightens, as it has on
the drug side. It is equally heightened on the food side.
Senator BLUMENTHAL. Thank you. Thanks for your work and
your team’s. I really appreciate you being here and your contribu-
tion to our Nation. Thank you.
Mr. DODARO. Thank you, Senator.
Senator BLUMENTHAL. I will yield to Senator Ossoff and turn the
gavel over to him.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR OSSOFF
Senator OSSOFF [presiding.] Thank you, Senator Blumenthal.
Comptroller General, nice to see you again. I want to thank you
and your team for the support that you have provided to several
investigations I have led over the last couple of years, in particular
the research and analysis that you produced supporting the PSI bi-
partisan investigation into deaths in custody in State and local fa-
cilities across the country, an issue I know Senator Blumenthal is
focused on as well.
I led an investigation last year into the Bureau of Prisons, and
introduced bipartisan legislation with Senator Braun called the
Federal Prisons Oversight Act, to establish greater accountability
and transparency within the BOP.
In the newly added section of the High Risk List titled ‘‘Manage-
ment of the Federal Prison System,’’ you cite a February 2021 re-
port that you produced, which found BOP did not have reliable
methods for assessing its staffing levels. Can you describe the
methodology that you observed BOP using to evaluate its staffing
needs, and how and why it so inadequately guides their staffing ef-
forts?
Mr. DODARO. Yes. I am going to ask my colleague, Charles John-
son, who is head of that work. But what we noticed initially that
led to the conclusion, between 2017 and 2021, their use of overtime
went up over 100 percent, and that is always an indication that
you have kind of staffing challenge. But Charles can explain the
details.
Senator OSSOFF. Sure. Thank you, Mr. Johnson.
29
Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, Senator. In addition to what the Comptroller
General just mentioned, not only did overtime go up, it is con-
tinuing to go up, and there have been continued gaps in their staff-
ing as well. As a matter of fact, the data we have in the report now
we have recently gotten updates, as of yesterday or this morning,
and the numbers are continuing to decline. They have a 15 percent
gap in their authorized staffing levels.
Also based on all the work we have done in the past couple of
years where we have looked at their efforts to calculate staff, we
did not see a good methodology in place. That is one of the rec-
ommendations we had made, and we think the new Director Peters
is committed to looking into that issue. We have had several meet-
ings with her, including the Comptroller General meeting with her.
At the time we were meeting with her she was in the process of
doing strategic planning. She also is looking to establish clear goals
with respect to their staffing needs, as well as other programs that
they have.
Senator OSSOFF. I think Director Peters has acknowledge mul-
tiple times the negative impact of these staffing challenges.
From your perspective, Mr. Johnson, what are those impacts, the
ramifications for the Administration of Federal Prisons?
Mr. JOHNSON. Some of the things we point out in our report, she
has acknowledged the safety and security of the inmates as well as
her own staff. As you know, some of the deaths in custody work
that you looked at and championed, and some of the things we
have looked at recently with respect to some of the facilities, there
has been a unit closed as result of the lack of sufficient care in cus-
tody of some of the inmates, and Director Peters herself has been
responsible for the closure.
Senator OSSOFF. Remaining on the subject or deaths in custody,
the bipartisan investigation that I led with Senator Johnson de-
tailed the failures of DOJ to account for deaths in custody. GAO
recommended, in March of this year, that BOP collect and monitor
participation data for unstructured activities that incarcerated peo-
ple participate in to earn first-step time credits, but BOP did not
concur with this recommendation.
Given that participation in these programs can mean an earlier
release for offenders, good-time credits, can you describe some of
these programs and the difficulties BOP is having with implemen-
tation?
Mr. JOHNSON. Yes. Part of the issue is that there is a not a clear
sort of criteria for what programs count. There are some situations
where inmates may be getting credit for just sitting in their cell,
which should be not part of the criteria. In addition, there are in-
consistencies that we found at different facilities in terms of how
time credits are being allotted, or not given credit for certain time
credits. Even the inmates themselves do not know what they can
do to get the time credits.
Those are some of the things that we recommended that they ad-
dress as well, come up with clear guidance and criteria for how you
can obtain time credits.
Senator OSSOFF. Did BOP communicate to you why they did not
concur with your recommendation that they collect and monitor
participation data?
30
Mr. JOHNSON. They did not see the need. They felt like what
they had in place was clear. Obviously, we wrote in our report that
we disagree, and we think it is something important that they need
to do, primarily so individuals incarcerated will know what they
can do to earn their time credits.
Mr. DODARO. I plan to elevate this to what we consider a priority
recommendation that should be implemented. We are going to con-
tinue to push for the implementation of this recommendation. I
think it is needed. Every year I write a letter to every major de-
partment in the Federal Government, to the head of the agency, in
this case the Attorney General (AG), and list what I think are pri-
ority open recommendations that have not been implemented yet.
This will be on the list for this report.
I asked the same question, and that is not a satisfactory answer,
in my opinion.
Senator OSSOFF. This Congress I am leading the Human Rights
Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee alongside Senator Black-
burn. As I mentioned, GAO has provided, the last couple of years,
very robust support and prompt responses to my requests for anal-
ysis at the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
Comptroller General, will you duly and timely consider any re-
quests for further GAO work product that I may make in order to
advance investigations at the Human Rights Subcommittee?
Mr. DODARO. Yes.
Senator OSSOFF. Let us talk a little bit about some DOD issues.
Since 1990, when GAO first published the High Risk List, DOD
weapons system acquisition has been consistently listed as a high-
risk item, indicating the potential for fraud, waste, abuse, and mis-
management. As the GAO report states, for much of this period
DOD weapons systems were, ‘‘consistently costing more, taking
longer to develop, and performing at lower-than-anticipated levels.’’
In your view, is DOD negotiating effectively when it engages in
procurement, to get the best value for taxpayers? How would you
assess the work of the Director, Operational Test & Evaluation
(ODT&E) at evaluating the development of systems that DOD is
procuring, and do you have any other specific recommendations for
Congress whereby perhaps through the National Defense Author-
ization Act (NDAA) we could improve procurement practices at the
Department?
Mr. DODARO. Yes. First, with regard to prices, competition is the
key to getting the lowest price, as we have seen over the years, and
initially there is some competition in this area, but quickly they go
down to a single contractor. Now they do have the ability to get
price information from that contractor, but also negotiate. But once
you go down to a single contractor you lose a lot of the value of
competition. That is part of the problem with the weapons systems.
What we have also said in that area is that they move forward
at times from research into development (R&D) and then into pro-
duction before the technologies are mature. There are simultaneous
things going on, and then that leads to costly redesigns later on in
the process.
What happens in the DOD, and particularly in the weapons sys-
tems, is an enormous push to be on a par with or ahead of our ad-
versaries, and there is a military need for this, which tends to over-
31
ride some of the normal practices you would use to bring down
costs, and not do simultaneous production while you have not ma-
tured fully the technology. That is an issue.
We have made a number of recommendations to not go into full
production until they have matured the technologies. We have
raised that issue on the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) and other things
over the years. That is definitely an issue.
We have constantly recommended leading practices for how to
manage these acquisitions over time, and we have seen some im-
provements in some areas. But where there is that desire to com-
pete with China or Russia or whatever, sometimes the cost takes
a back seat.
Senator OSSOFF. Where there are substantial cost overruns, the
Department still has substantial leverage in these relationships.
How could it better exert that leverage in order to spare taxpayers
the cost, whether either the program office has not accurately pro-
jected costs or the producer has failed to meet a budget?
Mr. DODARO. Yes. A lot depends on how they structure the con-
tract in the first place. They have been trying to move in some
areas to a fixed-price structure, and if things go over then the con-
tractor eats some of the costs, versus the Federal Government. But
if they are on a cost-reimbursable contract, we suggested they be
careful in what type of contracts that they struck over time.
But we have some additional recommendations. I will provide
them for the record in that area, because it is a pretty complicated
area.
Senator OSSOFF. Thank you for your testimony today and the
service of your whole team to the Legislative Branch. You really
empower us to more effectively execute our oversight and responsi-
bility. We are grateful to you and your team.
The hearing record will remain open for 15 days, that is until
May 5th, at 5 p.m., for the submission of statements and questions
for the record. The hearing is adjourned. [Whereupon, at 11:39
a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
APPENDIX
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