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94–274 PDF 2016

S. Hrg. 114–413 

RISKY BUSINESS: EXAMINING GAO’S 2015 LIST 

OF HIGH RISK GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

FEBRUARY 11, 2015 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov/ 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

( 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin Chairman 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

RAND PAUL, Kentucky 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming 

KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire 

JONI ERNST, Iowa 

BEN SASSE, Nebraska 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota 

CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey 

GARY C. PETERS, Michigan 

KEITH B. ASHDOWN, Staff Director 

PATRICK J. BAILEY, Chief Counsel for Governmental Affairs 

GABRIELLE A. BATKIN. Minority Staff Director 

JOHN P. KILVINGTON, Minority Deputy Staff Director 

TROY H. CRIBB, Minority Chief Counsel for Governmental Affairs 

LAURA W. KILBRIDE, Chief Clerk 

LAUREN M. CORCORAN, Hearing Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Johnson ............................................................................................... 1 

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 2 

Senator Lankford .............................................................................................. 13 

Senator McCaskill ............................................................................................ 17 

Senator Baldwin ............................................................................................... 20 

Senator Heitkamp ............................................................................................ 22 

Senator Peters .................................................................................................. 25 

Senator Ayotte .................................................................................................. 27 

Prepared statements: 

Senator Johnson ............................................................................................... 39 

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 40 

Senator Ernst .................................................................................................... 42 

WITNESSES 

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2015 

Hon. Eugene L. Dodaro, Comptroller General of the United States, U.S. 

Government Accountability Office; accompanied by Cynthia Bascetta, Managing Director, Health Care; Debra A. Draper, Director, Health Care; Phillip Herr, Director, Physical Infrastructure Issues; David Maurer, Director, 

Homeland Security and Justice; J. Christopher Mihm, Managing Director, 

Strategic Issues; David A. Powner, Director, Information Technology; James 

White, Director, Strategic Issues; and Gregory Wilshusen, Director, Information Technology ............................................................................................... 4 

Eugene Dodaro, prepared statement ...................................................................... 43 

APPENDIX 

GAO Report submitted by Senator Baldwin ......................................................... 78 

Statement submitted by the Department of Homeland Security ........................ 142 

Information submitted by Mr. Dodaro for the Record .......................................... 148 

Questions submitted for the Record from Mr. Dodaro ......................................... 149 

(1) 

RISKY BUSINESS: EXAMINING GAO’S LIST OF 

HIGH-RISK GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS 

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2015 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Ron Johnson, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Johnson, Lankford, Ayotte, Ernst, Sasse, Carper, McCaskill, Baldwin, Heitkamp, and Peters. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JOHNSON 

Chairman JOHNSON. This hearing will come to order. 

I want to welcome everyone. I appreciate my colleagues coming 

here and all the members of the audience and, of course, Comptroller General Eugene Dodaro and other members of the Government Accountability Office (GAO). 

This is an important hearing. There is a reason this is the third 

hearing that we are having in this Congress on this Committee. 

The good work that GAO has done is demonstrated by the fact over 

the last 2 years, just recommendations implemented from previous 

High-Risk Lists have generated $40 billion of savings over the last 

2 years. I mean, that is a remarkable figure. 

Today, we are going to be talking about the update to the list. 

There is some good news. I am happy to report that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) management has made solid 

progress and there are some prospects of DHS coming off that list. 

We are looking forward to that. There has been progress made in 

terms of the Department of Defense (DOD) contract management, 

progress made with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA’s) 

oversight of medical devices. 

Unfortunately, there has been some expanded scrutiny—tax code 

enforcement and fraud. I appreciate the fact that the GAO is pointing out the fact that cybersecurity is a real issue, a real threat, and 

that is a top priority of this Committee, to start taking pieces of 

legislation or be involved in the passage of legislation that will address the first step in providing some measure of additional 

cybersecurity, and that would be information sharing. So, I appreciate that. 

I hate to report that there are some new areas added. Information technology (IT) acquisition—that is really not much of a surprise, but it is very disappointing to hear that Veterans Affairs 
2 

(VA) Health Care, has been added to this, and this hits pretty close 

to home with both Senator Baldwin and myself. 

We have a facility in Tomah. Over the last couple of years, we 

have lost three veterans to the system. Two died with deaths related to potential opiate drug over-prescription, and not even a 

month ago, a 74-year-old veteran—I am not a doctor, but pretty obvious stroke symptoms sat and waited in a waiting room for 3 

hours to be treated, probably had a stroke, was wheeled into an examination room, waited another 45 minutes, had a massive stroke, 

was finally ambulanced to a different hospital. The CT scanner was 

apparently not operational, so they could not administer anticoagulant drugs, and this gentleman died 2 days later. 

So, it is noteworthy to understand that GAO has been making 

recommendations to the Veterans Health Care System for a number of years. There are more than 100 recommendations that have 

not been implemented, about 80 percent of the recommendations. 

So, certainly what I would like to get out of this Committee, out 

of this hearing and hopefully out of Committee action, is coming up 

with some kind of method, some kind of control to make sure that 

these good recommendations that save the taxpayer so many dollars, that could potentially save lives, are actually implemented. I 

mean, that has to be a top priority of this Committee. Let us utilize 

the guidepost of the GAO High-Risk List and the other good work 

they do and let us make sure these recommendations are finally 

implemented at the agency level. It will save money. It will save 

lives. 

So, with that, I would like to turn it over to our Ranking Member, Senator Carper. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER 

Senator CARPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for convening us today. 

And, to Gene Dodaro and to the many members of your team 

that are in the audience and may be listening or watching outside 

of the building, we want to just say a big thank you to all of them 

for giving us a great to-do list. My wife is a big believer in to-do 

lists, and every morning, I go down to the kitchen and there on the 

island in the kitchen, usually is a to-do list. Sometimes it is for her. 

Sometimes it is for me. And, what you have provided, you and your 

colleagues at GAO have provided us, is an incredibly important todo list, and you do this every 2 years. We take that responsibility 

on your part seriously and we take the responsibility just as seriously for ourselves. 

It is interesting how you can make progress in addressing any 

number of the areas that need to be addressed within that to-do 

list you are providing for us. We can hold a hearing, and over the 

years, we have been able to make real progress just by scheduling 

a hearing and bringing folks to this table, in some cases, folks who 

are in charge of acquisitions at the Department of Defense for 

weapons systems. Just hold a hearing. In other cases, we send letters, and they can have an amazing effect. 

We not only will introduce legislation, we will simply call the 

Secretary of the Department or the senior person within the Department and say, we want to meet with you and here is why. And, 
3 

1The prepared statement of Senator Carper appears in the Appendix on page 40. 

2The prepared statement of Senator Johnson appears in the Appendix on page 39. 

you and your team are complicit in a very positive way in all of 

that. 

For those of you who have joined us, we had a press conference 

here early on and I talked about from time to time people say to 

me, ‘‘I do not mind paying taxes. I just do not want you to waste 

my money.’’ I do not want to waste their money, either, and this 

Committee is committed to making sure that we continue to fight. 

It is like whack-a-mole, and the government is so big, and there 

are so many people trying to defraud our government for money. 

I have an entire statement I want to make part of the record,1

but I just want to say, the kind of passion and commitment that 

we have brought to addressing the entire to-do list remains. Tom 

Coburn is gone, but that spirit that he brought to this Committee 

for all those years is still being nurtured by me and, I think, by 

Ron, and by a new Member from Oklahoma. A lot of work to do, 

and we are going to work it together. 

I will say one other thing that I think bears repeating. I am a 

big believer in leverage. When I chaired with Tom and led a Subcommittee of this Committee, we tried to be effective in addressing 

waste, fraud and abuse in government, and we found that we could 

be a lot more effective as a Subcommittee or this full Committee 

if we partnered with you and with your team. We found that we 

could be more effective if we would partner with the literally dozens of Inspector Generals (IGs) across the Federal Government. We 

found that we could be more effective if we would partner with the 

Office of Management and Budget (OMB), with the nonprofit organizations that are committed to reducing waste in government, and 

it works. It actually works. 

It is a little bit like changing the course of an air craft carrier, 

but if you stick with it, you do not give up, you can change the 

course of an air craft carrier, and we can change the course of our 

government and improve the service that we provide for the people 

of this country. 

So, we look forward to hearing from you, anxious to watch you 

read your notes yet again—actually, he never reads his notes, and 

is one of the most amazing people I have ever seen testify in the 

Congress. I always say this and hope maybe it will spook him so 

that he will forget where he is. [Laughter.] 

I remember Winston Churchill used to give speeches before the 

House of Parliament and he would, like, memorize his speeches, 

and one day he was giving a speech, a terrific speech—you know 

how good he was—and he forgot his speech and he lost his way. 

So, I keep waiting for that to happen with you—— [Laughter.] 

But I have been calling all these years, Gene, and you never do, 

so I do not want to jinx you today, but thanks very much for being 

here and talking with us and we look forward to this conversation. 

Chairman JOHNSON. That is that accounting background, right? 

I should have mentioned earlier, I do have a formal opening 

statement that I would like to enter into the record.2 Without objection, so ordered. 
4 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Dodaro appears in the Appendix on page 43. 

It is the tradition of this Committee to swear in witnesses, so Mr. 

Dodaro and any other GAO employees that might assist in the testimony, please rise. Raise your right hand. 

Do you swear the testimony you will give before this Committee 

will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so 

help you, God? 

Mr. DODARO. I do. 

Ms. BASCETTA. I do. 

Ms. DRAPER. I do. 

Mr. HERR. I do. 

Mr. MAURER. I do. 

Mr. MIHM. I do. 

Mr. POWNER. I do. 

Mr. WHITE. I do. 

Mr. WILSHUSEN. I do. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Please be seated. Mr. Dodaro. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. EUGENE L. DODARO,1 COMPTROLLER 

GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE; ACCOMPANIED BY CYNTHIA 

BASCETTA, MANAGING DIRECTOR, HEALTH CARE; DEBRA A. 

DRAPER, DIRECTOR, HEALTH CARE; PHILLIP HERR, DIRECTOR, PHYSICAL INFRASTRUCTURE ISSUES; DAVID MAURER, 

DIRECTOR, HOMELAND SECURITY AND JUSTICE; J. CHRISTOPHER MIHM, MANAGING DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC ISSUES; 

DAVID A. POWNER, DIRECTOR, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY; 

JAMES WHITE, DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC ISSUES; AND GREGORY WILSHUSEN, DIRECTOR, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 

Mr. DODARO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Good morning to you, Ranking Member Senator Carper, and Members of the 

Committee. I am very pleased to be here today to discuss the update to GAO’s High-Risk List. 

We provide this update with the beginning of each new Congress 

to help the Congress set its priorities for oversight and to help the 

Administration focus on areas that we consider to be of highest risk 

for either fraud, waste, abuse, or mismanagement, or in need of 

broad-based transformation across the government. 

This year, we are reporting solid, steady progress in the vast majority of the High-Risk Areas that we have had on the list to date. 

We are also providing ratings for the first time against each HighRisk Area’s status and progress getting off the list. 

In order to get off the list, High-Risk Areas need to meet five criteria. They need to have top leadership commitment. They need to 

have the capacity, the resources, and the people with the right 

skills to get off the list. They have to have a good corrective action 

plan that goes to the root cause of the problems. They have to have 

a monitoring effort with interim milestones and metrics to make 

sure they are making progress. And then they have to demonstrate 

that they are actually beginning to fix the problem. They do not 

have to have it 100 percent fixed to get off the list, but they have 

to have tangible progress that they are on the right path and are 

actually fixing the problem. 
5 

Now, of the 30 areas that were on the list based on our last update, 18 of those areas have at least partially met each of the five 

criteria for coming off the list. Eleven of those areas have fully met 

at least one or more of the criteria and partially met the others. 

So, there is good, steady progress as we report. 

In two areas, we report enough progress that we are actually 

narrowing the scope of the High-Risk Area. First, in FDA’s oversight of medical devices, in the area of recalls, we were concerned 

that they were not consistently applying recall criteria, actually ensuring that the recalls were effective, and did not analyze recall 

data over time to identify potential trends that warranted some 

alerts to the industry. They are now doing that. They have analyzed 10 years of data. They are ensuring greater consistency in 

having recalls. They are documenting whether the recalls have occurred and were effective. 

And, also, we have seen progress in their ability to process new 

device requests. In the past, they were slow to implement legislation that provided a dual-track process where certain devices that 

were similar to those on the market could go to an expedited review, but new devices that passed the highest risks needed to go 

through a more stringent review. They were slow to implement the 

Act. They have now corrected that and they are on track to implement the legislation by this year. 

They still have issues in ensuring the adequacy and the safety 

of medical products and devices in a global marketplace. Right 

now, 80 percent of the active ingredients for prescription drugs, 40 

percent of finished drugs, and about half of medical devices come 

from about 150 countries around the world. So we have encouraged 

them to move from an oversight process focused on overseeing domestic production to overseeing what is now a global marketplace 

for drugs and devices, and also to focus on drug shortages. They 

still have work to do in that area, and many of these are life-sustaining and life-saving drugs that are of concern. 

We have also seen enough progress in the contract management 

area at DOD to warrant narrowing that area, particularly as it relates to contracting tools and techniques. This is to ensure that 

they do not use overuse undefinitized contracts and time and materials contracts, which are more risky to the government. They also 

plan to ensure more competition and they have better oversight 

over those processes now. But, the remaining areas they need to 

fix are: (1) service acquisitions, (2) ensure they have an acquisition 

workforce commensurate with the challenges associated with that, 

and (3) they have to make improvements in operational contracting 

where they are using contracting to support military operations in 

the theater. 

We have also noted improvements in the Department of Homeland Security management functions. That area has been on the 

list for a number of years. We are very pleased with the leadership 

commitment of that Department and the Secretary, Deputy Secretary, and Under Secretary for Management. They have a very 

good corrective action plan and they are starting to make progress. 

They have received clean opinions on their financial statements for 

2 years in a row right now, but there are other areas that they 

need to fix. They have fixed about 9 of the 30 areas that we have 
6 

identified and they have agreed it needs to be fixed. So, they have 

to fix the remaining 21 areas, but they have a good plan. They just 

have to execute the plan over a period of time, particularly in the 

acquisition area and some remaining areas in financial management, particularly on internal controls. 

Now, we are adding two new areas. First is VA’s provision of 

health care services to our veterans. We have been very concerned 

about this area and really have five overarching themes of concern. 

One is ambiguous policies and inconsistent processes over time. 

The fact that they have inadequate oversight and accountability 

mechanisms. They have information technology challenges that 

they have to solve. There is inadequate training of VA staff and unclear resource needs and allocation processes. And, I can talk more 

about this in the Q and A session. 

Congress has passed legislation providing them with additional money, $15 billion, but the legislation has to be implemented effectively. And, as Senator Johnson has mentioned, we have over 100 

recommendations that we have made to the VA that have not yet 

been fully implemented and they need to do so. 

The other area, new, that we are adding is IT acquisitions and 

operations. The report that we are providing today outlines a litany 

of failed IT modernizations in the government, where hundreds of 

millions of dollars, and in some cases billions of dollars, have been 

spent, but the effort has been terminated or failed. There is even 

a longer list of areas that have cost overruns, schedule slippages, 

or provide less functionality than initially intended, thereby not 

really improving operations in the agencies that much. 

Congress passed some legislation late last year, the Federal Information Technology Reform Act, that gives Chief Information Officers (CIOs) additional authorities and puts in place in statute a 

number of good practices that we have identified, but it has to be 

implemented effectively. Typically, we have found these areas lack 

discipline and requirements management and project management 

to actually manage IT acquisitions effectively. 

We also talk about operations. Fifty-eight of the $80 billion that 

is spent each year is on operations and support of legacy systems 

that we believe may not be needed, may be duplicative, and may 

no longer be performing as efficiently and effectively as possible, 

particularly given opportunities in the marketplace to get IT services at less cost. 

In this new High-Risk Area, over the last 5 years alone, we have 

made 737 recommendations and only 23 percent have been fully 

implemented. So, again, Congress has made efforts in VA and IT, 

but the efforts need to be monitored. Congressional oversight is imperative, in my opinion. And, the agencies need to make reforms. 

We are expanding two areas. One is in tax administration. We 

had been focused on the next tax gap, which the annual latest estimate is $385 billion between taxes owed and taxes paid. But, identity theft has become a growing problem, so we are adding that to 

the list. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was successful in stopping about $24 billion last year, but they missed, on their estimate, 

about $5.8 billion in fraud. We have some potential action to remedy this situation and recommendations for the Congress and the 

IRS we can talk about in the Q and A session. 
7 

The last area is cybersecurity. We initially designated computer 

security across the entire Federal Government at High-Risk in 

1997. In 2003, we added critical infrastructure protection, because 

most of the computer assets are in the private sector. But, now, we 

are adding privacy to the High-Risk issue as more personally identifiable information (PII) is being collected. The number of incidents at the Federal Government level involving inadequate controls over IT, controls over the personally identifiable information, 

has more than doubled in the last 5 years. There have been a lot 

of high-profile incidents in the private sector, as well. Privacy law 

was passed in 1974. We believe it needs to be updated to provide 

greater controls, and we can talk about our recommendations. 

In closing, I would like to recognize that the progress that we did 

note in many of the areas was due to the Congress taking action, 

passing legislation. For example, five bills alone in the 

cybersecurity area, but more is needed, as we have talked about, 

in that area. Top leaders in the agencies and OMB have been focused on our High-Risk list. I have regular meetings with OMB 

Deputy for Management Beth Cobert and top officials in the agencies to discuss the High-Risk Areas and what needs to be done specifically to get off the list and to make continued progress. 

I appreciate the opportunity to be here today to discuss this further and look forward to working with this Committee. Fixing 

these high-risk problems as the potential to save billions of dollars, 

improve services to the public, and enhance trust and confidence in 

the Federal Government’s activities. 

So, thank you very much for the opportunity to be here. I would 

be happy to answer questions. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Well, thank you, Mr. Dodaro. 

Let me start with an apology. You are so familiar to me—you are 

the face of the GAO—I forgot to introduce you to those that may 

not be as familiar, so let me do it right now. 

Eugene Dodaro has been the Comptroller General of the U.S. 

Government Accountability Office since 2010 and has more than 40 

years’ experience at the agency, including as Acting Comptroller 

General, Chief Operating Officer, and Head of the Accounting and 

Information Management Division. So, you have extensive knowledge and we certainly appreciate your service. 

Let us talk dollars. We are both accountants. I was really pleasantly surprised at the answer I got when I asked for how much 

have we saved just in the last couple of years and the figure was 

$40 billion. I will not investigate that. We will take you at your 

word. 

If we were to implement the recommendations on the current 

High-Risk List—I realize this is impossible to probably answer, but 

I would like you to take a stab at it—what would you think might 

be the potential savings? 

Mr. DODARO. Well, I will just give you two benchmarks that 

would give you some idea of the magnitude of the potential savings. 

Improper payments this past year alone in the Medicare program 

were $60 billion. In Medicaid, it was over $17 billion. And, in the 

Earned Income Tax Credit, it was over $14 billion. So, any effort 

to reduce the size of those improper payments and ensure better 
8 

integrity in the payment process can yield billions, if not more, in 

savings, right in those three programs alone on the list. 

The DOD weapons acquisitions area has hundreds of billions of dollars in potential investments. Some of the $40 billion in savings 

have come from identifying weapons systems that were not ready 

to go into production, that would have wasted funds, and DOD or 

the Congress made decisions to reduce the procurement orders for 

those areas. 

And, let us take the tax gap alone. Any amount reducing one percent the tax gap—right now, there is 84 percent compliance, so we 

have about 16 percent noncompliance in the country, and it goes 

across the range of different taxpayers, whether it is business or 

individual taxpayers or small businesses. Any one percent increase 

in collection of taxes owed is $4 billion right there. 

So, there is lots of money on the table that is not being collected 

that should be collected. There is money being paid that should not 

be paid. So, there are plenty of opportunities to save money in 

these areas. 

And, I am particularly concerned that in the Medicare and Medicaid area, because they are the fastest growing Federal programs, 

if the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) does not 

get a better handle on these areas, that problem will get a lot 

worse before it will get better. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Well, my back-of-the-envelope calculation, you are already talking about close to $100 billion just right then 

and there. 

I know Senator Carper talked about Senator Coburn earlier 

using GAO reports. Senator Coburn always used to publish the 

‘‘Waste Book,’’ unfortunately, after the money was spent. My goal 

would be, let us publish a ‘‘Waste Book’’ before the money is spent, 

and again, you gave us the guideposts for doing that. 

Talk about implementation. I mean, what can we do? What could 

this Committee potentially do to induce, might I say, force implementation, because you have so much money at stake. And, like I 

say, it is not just money. Take a look at the VA. It could be lives. 

I mean, what can we do to prompt, induce, force as full implementation of your recommendations as possible? 

Mr. DODARO. I will give you an example of one of the things that 

I have done that I think could be replicated in the Congress to really induce more progress. One is, since I became Comptroller General, I went to OMB and I said, look, you have real serious problems here across the spectrum of the Federal Government. During 

the Bush Administration, GAO started having meetings with OMB 

and the agencies on the High-Risk List, but it was usually at the 

Assistant Secretary level and below. 

And I said, look, if you get the head or the deputy of the agency 

here to the meeting and the Deputy Director for Management is at 

the meeting, I personally will participate in those meetings to focus 

on what needs to be done to make improvement. We have been 

doing that for the past couple of years. I attribute raising the elevation of that level to the top agency leaders in the agency to the 

degree of progress that we have seen over the past several years. 

I believe engagement with those top officials, whether it be in a 

hearing or it be in a private meeting, it be with correspondence or 
9 

other efforts, with the Congress and with the agency, is really important. 

The second major thing Congress could do, on the High-Risk List, 

you will see an asterisk beside every area that requires Congress 

to act and pass legislation in order to rectify the High-Risk Area. 

Financing the Nation’s surface transportation system is an example. Postal Service reform is another example in that area. And, 

there are many other areas on the High-Risk List where Congress 

is an integral part of actually fixing the problem, and we have 

noted that so that the Congress could focus on those areas. 

So, those are two real fundamental things that I think are very 

important, and ensuring continuity over time so that progress can 

be achieved. 

One of the reasons I was very convinced to put VA Health Care 

and IT acquisitions and reform on those areas is because, I believe 

neither one will be fully resolved during this Administration’s 

watch and will have to be continued and sustained into the next 

Administration. And, so, it is very important to have that continuity to focus on these problems. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Well, certainly, one of the things we can do 

with this Committee is hold those hearings. We will work very 

closely with you to schedule those hearings and have you have a 

seat at the table as we are talking to those agencies. 

Mr. DODARO. We would be happy to. 

Chairman JOHNSON. I do want to, in my remaining time, I want 

to drill down in terms of the VA Health Care System. A hundred 

recommendations. Over what time period have you been issuing 

those recommendations? Why have they not been implemented? 

And, can you just kind of speak to the major recommendations that 

you think really need to be prioritized for implementation. 

Mr. DODARO. Sure. I will ask my colleague, Debbie Draper, who 

is focused on that work, to come to the table to help me answer 

the questions, but I will start. 

We first started reporting on this problem in the year 2000, so 

the recommendations have been made over a number of years. 

And, I might point out, in a number of these cases, VA agreed to 

implement the recommendations, but they were not being implemented over time effectively. I met with Secretary Eric Shinseki 

when he was there, talked about the need to implement the recommendations. I have just met with Secretary Robert A. McDonald 

and he agreed to make it a priority to implement the recommendations. 

Most of them are on access to care issues, where they do not 

have good scheduling systems put in place. The IT system that 

supports the scheduling system is about 30 years old. One of the 

IT failures that we point out in our report explained that after 7 

or 9 years and over $200 million, they terminated their effort to 

upgrade and modernize that system. 

They do not have good data in a lot of areas to compare whether 

it is cheaper for certain particular services to give treatment in a 

VA facility or send the person to a non-VA facility, and this is really important because Congress has just given them $10 billion to 

make those decisions. They do not have good information to make 

well-informed decisions in those areas. 
10 

But, Debbie has been doing a terrific job. I will ask her to elaborate a little bit more. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Please. 

Ms. DRAPER. Thank you. So, we made 167 recommendations over 

the past 5 years, and there are actually more prior to the 5-years, 

but more recently, it is 167. Just over 20 percent of those have 

been completely implemented and closed. So, there is a large number of recommendations, as Gene talked about. There are a lot related to access to care. And, it is not just the policies. It gets back 

to the five broad buckets of why we included VA Health Care in 

the High-Risk List. 

Inconsistent processes that play out at the local level—you have 

a lot of variation at the local level, and this is really attributed to 

ambiguous policies, which are widely interpreted. Policies do not 

tend to be standardized processes across the VA Medical Centers 

(VAMC). We also see certainly inadequate oversight and accountability and, for example, VA tends to rely on self-reported compliance with policies, and that information is often not verified. So, 

when we go in, we look at those compliance issues and, contrary 

to what the facilities have reported, most of the times, they are not 

in full compliance with the policy. So, there are a lot of different 

areas, but there are a large number of recommendations that remain open. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Well, thank you. We will work very closely 

with you in terms of trying to push and prod the VA to implement 

those recommendations as rapidly as possible, so we look forward 

to working with you. Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

You mentioned how large the tax gap is, and I think the number you mentioned, Gene, was $385 billion, is that correct? 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. That is the net amount. There is a gross 

amount, and then IRS expects to collect so much. Yes. 

Senator CARPER. Is that money that is owed in one-time money, 

or is it money that is lost on a recurring basis? 

Mr. DODARO. It is the latest estimate based upon tax year 2006. 

One of the reasons that the IRS has been on the list for many 

years, and the original list in 1990, was tax administration, where 

they were not measuring the tax gap. And, so, after a number of 

years and prodding by us and the Congress, they finally started 

measuring it. It is expensive to measure it, so that is the latest estimate. But, it is an annual estimate. 

Senator CARPER. All right. The Commissioner of the IRS is a fellow named John Koskinen, whom you probably know. Have you 

met with him? 

Mr. DODARO. I have worked with John in many areas over the 

years. He used to be the Deputy for Management at OMB. Actually, John and I worked to put in the Chief Financial Officer structure into the government and on legislative initiatives to actually 

create CIOs across the government and fixing the Y2K problem. So, 

I have much knowledge of working with John and I have met with 

him in his new capacity. 

Senator CARPER. That is good. He is a very impressive leader, 

and I am hopeful he is going to provide wonderful leadership at the 

IRS. 
11 

He testified before the Finance Committee last week, and later 

I met with him in my office. One of the things that he mentioned 

to me is that for every dollar that we invest in the IRS and their 

people and their technology, they generate roughly $10 worth of 

revenue. And, if you look at the amount of money that we provide 

for the IRS to do their job now, we actually provide less than we 

did a few years ago. And, as you suggest, we are leaving about 

$400 billion of money on the table of money that is not being collected. Would you just care to comment on his observation? 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. We have reported—in fact, we rate IRS as ‘‘not 

met’’ in the capacity area to fix this problem, largely because of 

some of the resources and the uncertain budget environment in 

this area going forward. Now, that being said, though, we also have 

a number of recommendations that they need to look at and evaluate the return on investment that they are getting from different 

enforcement efforts, and they could do more with the resources that 

they have been given and prioritize those efforts. So, we have a 

number of recommendations in those areas. 

But, that is an area that I believe needs attention to make sure 

that they have the resources necessary to be able to improve collections. They have been having budget cuts and they have been given 

increased responsibilities in the Affordable Care Act and a number 

of other—— 

Senator CARPER. And, the other thing they have been given is a 

tax code that is not made more simple every year, but generally 

made more complex. And, we muck around with it and change it 

at the last hour or do not change it and we make it difficult for 

them to actually provide the information to people who want to file 

their taxes in a timely way. There is plenty of work to be done 

here, but a good deal of that work is to be done by my colleagues, 

not just on this Committee, but our colleagues in the House and 

Senate working with the Administration, and thank you. 

Mr. DODARO. And there are some things that Congress could do 

to help IRS. One thing to do would be to increase the requirement 

for electronic filing. Another would be to give them additional math 

authority where they could fix errors right on the spot rather than 

generating and spending a lot of time over those errors. So, we 

have a lot of recommendations. Obviously, simplifying the tax code 

would be tremendously helpful. 

Senator CARPER. They have also been asking for legislation that 

would enable them to better ensure some quality in terms of capability of the people who help prepare returns and file returns. 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. 

Senator CARPER. I think that is a very large problem. 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. We have made that recommendation. We studied the use of that in Oregon. Oregon was actually piloting it for 

their own State and they found that making certification, training 

requirements for paid tax preparers increased their collections and 

we recommended that IRS do it. They went forward and the courts 

have ruled they did not have the authority to do it, and so it is 

really in Congress’ hands right now to give them that authority. 

We continue to recommend that would be a good thing to do. 

About 60 percent, of the people go to paid tax preparers. We have 

done work in the past where we have sent undercover teams in to 
12 

paid tax preparers, and the last time we did it, three out of ten 

were making mistakes and particularly errors in the Earned Income Tax Credit area. 

Senator CARPER. Good. Thank you for that. 

You mentioned the number of items that have been listed on the 

High-Risk List for years, and I think there are hundreds that still 

remain to be fully addressed and resolved. But, we have made 

progress. The agencies throughout the government have made 

progress. You mentioned a number of those areas where that 

progress has been made. Some of it is in the Department of Homeland Security, which we have jurisdiction over. We are pleased 

with that. Some is within the Department of Defense, and they 

have a lot more to do, but there is some good work that is being 

done. 

But, if you think about the areas, where it is department-wide 

or with respect to specific parts of the departments’ jurisdiction 

where actually real progress is being made, the real attention is 

being paid to the recommendations that they are receiving from 

you and, frankly, the hearings that we hold and the oversight that 

we conduct. What are the factors that better ensure progress? I like 

to say, find out what works, do more of that. 

Mr. DODARO. Right. 

Senator CARPER. What are the factors that appear again and 

again to be successful here? 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. No. 1 is top leadership commitment. If you do 

not have the head of the agency or the deputy focused on this 

issue, you will make marginal progress, at best, in those areas. 

And, what I have seen, in Homeland Security, I have talked to Secretary Janet Napolitano, Secretary Jeh Johnson, the deputies, Jane 

Holl Lute, and Alejandro Mayorkas are focused on this, as well as 

the Under Secretaries for Management, just to give one example. 

The same thing at National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

(NASA). The deputy has been focused on this, Bob Lightfoot, and 

I know John Koskinen at IRS. So, the top people need to be focused. These are big, tough problems. They require prioritization in 

the agencies. They require changes in the culture of the agencies, 

and if they are not led from the top, they are not going to be successful. 

Second thing is a good plan. A number of agencies start initiatives. There are no real performance measures or metrics in the 

initiatives. There is no way to hold people accountable for interim 

progress. The next thing you know, they are gone and there is a 

new political person that we are dealing with in the agency and we 

kind of start all over again. If there is a plan in place that has been 

followed, that is a good plan that has milestones and metrics that 

can transcend changes in political leadership in the Departments. 

And, so, those two things are really very imperative, and the 

third thing would be engagement from the Congress. If it does not 

matter to the Congress and does not matter to the agencies appropriation and does not matter to its oversight, it is not going to matter to the agency. And, I can say all that I can say and encourage 

them, but Congress has to be a real partner in this effort to ensure 

success. 
13 

Senator CARPER. Thank you for all that. Let me just conclude, 

Mr. Chairman, on one last point. 

I say to my colleagues, particularly those that are new, improper 

payments are a huge problem, and while they are being actually 

addressed, satisfactorily addressed in a number of areas, a big one 

that is still the elephant in the room is health care, Medicare especially, where the improper payments have gone up by about $15 

billion, and Medicaid, which has ticked up by about another few 

billion dollars. 

Dr. Coburn and I introduced in the last Congress something 

called the PRIME Act. It had over 25 cosponsors, and some of you 

on this Committee were cosponsors. We put it in the sustainable 

growth rate (SGR) fix, could not get it passed, but we are going to 

reintroduce it. My hope is that many Members of this Committee 

will be cosponsors of that legislation. We need to get it done. It will 

help ratchet down some of those improper payments, especially in 

Medicare and Medicaid, and we need to make progress. 

Mr. DODARO. Senator, if I might add, one additional area that I 

think Congress needs to focus on is the Temporary Assistance for 

Needy Families program. Right now, the Department of Health and 

Human Services (HHS) does not believe it has the authority to collect information from the States to measure improper payments, so 

it is one large program where there is no measurement going on 

at all, and I think Congress needs to send a signal—— 

Senator CARPER. Good. 

Mr. DODARO [continuing]. That needs to be taken care of. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. We will add that to our ‘‘to-do’’ list. 

Thank you. Thanks so much. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thanks, Senator Carper. I think you can 

rest assured that this Committee will be engaged, and the two of 

us working together, we will. 

Before I call on Senator Lankford, you mentioned a 10-to-1 payback for the IRS. I did not mention in the Committee but I mentioned in the press conference, we often talk about cutting budgets 

and all we are really talking about is reducing the rate of growth 

in spending. Unfortunately, the GAO is one of these agencies where 

we have actually cut spending. We have gone from $556 million in 

2010 to $480 million in 2013 and $522 million in 2014. 

A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation in terms of payback, 

using your $40 billion figures, that is a 76-to-1 payback. Now, some 

of those may be one-time savings. But, if you add the $100 billion 

of Medicare and Medicaid and the other things you mentioned, that 

is a 268-to-1 payback. So, I would recommend that certainly all the 

Committee members be somewhat supportive of making sure that 

the GAO is fully funded because it is a pretty effective payback. 

Senator Lankford. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANKFORD 

Senator LANKFORD. Comptroller Dodaro, thanks for being here, 

and thanks for all the work you and your whole team do to help 

keep us informed on some of these issues. 

I want to mention one thing that has been on your list for quite 

a while and that is managing Federal real property. I was surprised, because I know there has been a big initiative to try to 
14 

lower the footprint of the Federal Government and the real property that are both owned and leased, the Freeze the Footprint Initiative that started several years ago to try to at least drop our 

hold to what we have. 

I was a little surprised to see in your report that it listed that 

you all had done some studies on some of the Freeze the Footprint 

data and the drop, the 10 million square feet that we have actually 

reduced, when you actually studied and looked at it, you said it actually did not happen. They had either just moved to the General 

Services Administration (GSA) or it was just a timing issue. I 

wanted to give you a chance to talk about that a little bit, because 

this is a big issue that we have to resolve at some point. We have 

a lot of Federal real property out there. 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. I am going to ask our expert in the area, Phil 

Herr, to come up and talk about it, but you are exactly right. I 

mean, what we found was that many of the initiatives that were 

underway before they started Freeze the Footprint activities, so 

they really were not attributable to the initiative. 

A big problem in this area is lack of reliable data. 

Senator LANKFORD. Right. 

Mr. DODARO. That is one of the biggest problems. The government has a lot of underutilized or not utilized at all properties that 

need to be taken care of. There is an over-reliance on leasing in the 

Federal Government, where it may be more cost advantageous to 

have ownership over those areas over time. We have pointed out 

the program is not doing a very good job in securing the property, 

as well. 

But, Phil can talk a little bit more about that particular study 

that you have talked about, but your characterization is accurate, 

for sure. 

Mr. HERR. Yes. I would just add that it is a great example of the 

need for continuity and to followup. We know that OMB is working 

with GSA on a governmentwide strategy that is due in 2015. That 

is one we will be looking at closely. But, it is also really important, 

and I think it emphasizes the point that the Comptroller General 

just made, about just looking at the data and ensuring that there 

is integrity and looking and making sure those calculations are correct. When we did that, we found that there were some questions 

about double-counting, things being counted in multiple years, so— 

and that is a good example for the kind of oversight your Committee can do. 

Senator LANKFORD. When we deal with actual disposal of property, obviously, we have all gone through for years the difficulty of 

actually disposing of real property that we own. 

Mr. HERR. Correct. 

Senator LANKFORD. So, have you all done any examinations for 

those independent disposal authority, those agencies that have 

that, their capacity to be able to dispose of property versus other 

agencies in the Federal Government, or when you deal with, for instance, the Department of Interior (DOI) and some of their authorities to be able to move out properties versus others? 

Mr. HERR. We have not looked through that particular lens. The 

one thing we have looked at consistently are some of the barriers 

that agencies encounter in doing this. There is the processes—we 
15 

just did a report on the McKinney-Vento process and how that 

might be streamlined and how there could be better accountability, 

because that is something the property has to go through—agencies 

have to go through before proceeding with the disposal. 

Senator LANKFORD. So, the Department of Interior that has the 

expedited conveyance process, where they can look at State and 

local governments, if this is going to be transitioned into other public uses, seems to be a faster process. Have you all had any opportunity to be able to examine that process and see if it is being effective—— 

Mr. HERR. Not in real depth, but that would be something we 

would be happy to work with the Committee on. 

Senator LANKFORD. OK. that is one of the issues that I hope we 

can take a look at some point, to find out what is working, because 

it does not seem like every agency has this issue, but a lot of agencies do—— 

Mr. HERR. They do. 

Senator LANKFORD [continuing]. To find out which agency is 

being effective at actually transitioning property that really works 

and what process is helping us in this. 

I want to go back to some of our conversation on tax issues, as 

well, if I can jump back to that. The identity theft, you all brought 

up a very interesting set of statements there and I would like to 

go into a little greater depth on it, about the W–2 form and the 

time period of the W–2 form and how we have identity theft basically because the W–2 form does not come in late and we are doing 

returns early and there is a great opportunity for identity theft. 

How does that get resolved? 

Mr. DODARO. Under the current approach, IRS starts processing 

returns early. They do not receive the W–2s from the employers 

until April. They go to SSA first. There is a different deadline in 

statute. So, we are recommending that the Congress should give 

IRS authority to require employees to file W–2s earlier. But, IRS 

really has not studied the costs and benefits of that. It may impose 

some burdens on the employers, and so we are recommending IRS 

study that. So, that is No. 1. 

Senator LANKFORD. So, is it possible to just have that the returns 

cannot go out until the W–2s are in? 

Mr. DODARO. Well, that is another possibility, but it will delay 

refunds, and, the—— 

Senator LANKFORD. People get pretty excited about that. 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. Right. [Laughter.] 

Particularly those that are expecting a big refund—— 

Senator LANKFORD. Sure, but we have also $5 billion of fraud 

that is sitting out there from identity theft—— 

Mr. DODARO. Right. 

Senator LANKFORD [continuing]. And people are filing their taxes 

and finding out someone has already filed under that same number. 

Mr. DODARO. Yes, and that is why we are asking IRS to study 

this thing, so Congress can make an informed decision. You might 

want to delay it a little bit and accelerate the reporting. I mean, 

there is a lot of room between the end of January, when employees 

receive their statements, and April. But, right now, the only way 
16 

they find out that there is fraud is when the honest taxpayer actually files their return and IRS says, whoops, we already paid the 

refund to somebody else who used your identity. And, the way people can get the information to file fraudulently now, either at the 

Federal or at the State level, is so easy to be able to do it. 

The other thing that could be done is to give IRS math authority. 

In some cases, they know that a return is incorrect. They could fix 

it right away and not cause a problem over a period of time. 

And, the third thing would be what we were talking about a little bit earlier, in having certification requirements and training requirements for paid preparers in a lot of cases. We know in some 

cases paid preparers are not giving the best advice to people. In the 

vast majority of cases, they do. 

So, those three things, we think, can really help address this 

problem. 

Senator LANKFORD. One quick transition, as well, and that is to 

the surface transportation. I know that you looked at some of the 

needs, obviously, that are sitting out there that are financial needs 

and that Congress needs to address. Have you had the opportunity 

to be able to look at the expansion of what is considered a Federal 

project over the last 20 years, just on the number of miles or roads 

or type of roads, because there has not only been an expansion of 

the need, but there has also been a tremendous expansion—my 

perception is—of the number of miles that are considered Federal 

project or the number of things that are considered Federal project 

in the last 20 years. 

Mr. DODARO. Phil also happens to be our transportation expert 

so he is—— 

Mr. HERR. I will double-dip here. We have done some work related to that. I mean, one of the things that gets put into the Highway Trust Fund, you get a lot of the safety programs and things 

of that nature. Transit is also funded out of the Highway Trust 

Fund. So, you have a lot of things that have been put in there, a 

lot more demands, and the system is aging, so additional resources 

need to go into that to just help maintain those systems. And, the 

Interstate is now 50 years old, so rebuilding that is a big part of 

it. 

Mr. DODARO. Yes, and our focus has been on the financing 

streams that go in there. Obviously, the Highway Trust Fund has 

not been able to meet the needs, and it is declining for a wide number of reasons. 

Senator LANKFORD. Right. 

And part of my question was just related to the actual roads 

themselves. I understand the safety and the transit and other 

things, but the actual number of roads that are considered Federal 

projects versus 20 years ago, the number of roads that were considered Federal projects. 

Mr. HERR. Well, they worked to bring in the National Highway 

System, so that would be one area where you Federalized some of 

those. But, we can get back to you with additional data on that. 

Senator LANKFORD. Thank you. I yield back. 

Chairman JOHNSON. A real quick question. Is not the W–2 a 

multiple-part form? Would not a pretty simple solution be to add 

another copy? 
17 

Mr. DODARO. I will talk to our experts about it and see what—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. Senator McCaskill. 

OPENING STATEMEN TO SENATOR MCCASKILL 

Senator MCCASKILL. Yes. I was going to say the same thing. If 

the employee gets it in January, or early, that means the employer 

has it, so it is not like we are asking the employer to produce something earlier, because it has already been produced. We are just 

asking employers to get it in the hands of the IRS earlier. So, I do 

not know that asking the IRS to study this is a good idea—because 

I know what that ‘‘study’’ word means. It means we are going to 

be at this for much longer than we should be at it. So, Mr. Chairman, I would like to—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. We will cosponsor a bill. 

Senator MCCASKILL [continuing]. See if we cannot, with the protection of the Chairman, who would stand for the proposition that 

we are not trying to burden businesses, maybe we can get through 

this. 

Chairman JOHNSON. They should not be a burden. 

Senator MCCASKILL. There we go. 

Our Subcommittee last year held hearings, as you know. First of 

all, good to see all of you. Your stuff is required reading in my 

shop. Someone asked me about how depressing it must be to be in 

the minority, and I said, one thing about oversight, a GAO report 

is the same when you are a Democrat in the majority and the same 

when you are a Democrat in the minority. Thank you for all of your 

work and please share that with all of your colleagues at the mother ship. [Laughter.] 

We held a hearing last year, in the last Congress, about the overpayments in medical equipment, as you know. I want to make sure 

everybody understands how bad this is. In 2012, according to the 

data provided by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 

they made improper payments on medical equipment of almost $6 

billion. So, that means there is $6 billion worth of pure waste, overpayments being made, on durable medical equipment. And, that is 

an error rate—just so people have a concept of how bad it is—of 

66 percent. They recover hardly any of these payments. I think in 

the last data we had available, CMS recovered only $34 million of 

an estimated $5.2 billion in improper payments. 

We learned in that hearing that they do not do anything up front 

to screen. They keep sending to one address, thousands of businesses registered at one address, until after the fact, then clawing 

back and they are gone. They are indicted. In fact, one of the companies was at that hearing. As you recall, I was very suspicious 

about their name. Their name was Med-slash-Care. They were calling seniors and saying, ‘‘This is Medicare.’’ And you can get this 

and you need this. They were sent all this stuff out and they were 

criminally raided by the FBI a few weeks ago. 

So, your recommendations to CMS have not been followed. What 

is your sense as to what is the problem at CMS that they will not 

accept and adopt the recommendations in this incredibly low-hanging fruit where we could save a lot of money? 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. Cindy Bascetta is our expert in that health 

care area. I will give my take and I ask her to provide more detail. 
18 

First of all, part of this is changing this culture that had been 

ingrained in CMS for years. It was to pay fast and get the money 

in the hands of the providers to make sure there was nobody who 

needed care that was not receiving care, and so that culture is really ingrained in the process over a period of time. 

And, they have established a Payment Integrity Center, but they 

are slow to implement these recommendations. You have to keep 

bad actors out of the system. One of the things was to establish a 

surety bond up front so that there is money that the contractors 

have put up. They finally now have gotten to where they have a 

contractor that can do fingerprint and background checks ahead of 

time, so they are going to put that in place. 

So, the first thing is to stop bad actors from getting into the system to be providers, and that has been difficult for them to grapple 

with, and they are starting to move slowly in that area. 

The other thing is they give an incredible amount of discretion 

to the contractors who are making these payments in error. You 

would think Medicare was one system, but it really is not. There 

is a lot of discretion given to the contractors. We have been trying 

to say, get the contractors to identify their best practices for preventing payments and recovering the funds and to share that with 

all the contractors so that there can be best practices. That has not 

been implemented. We have encouraged them to set up core compliance programs that providers have to follow. That has not been 

implemented yet. 

I have tried to raise this as an issue. I have met with Secretary 

Sylvia Mathews Burwell and the former head of CMS, Ms. 

Tavenner, and I emphasized these open recommendations we had 

and the need to implement the changes. So, I have certainly been 

doing everything I can. I think additional congressional oversight 

would be really helpful in this area, and I will let Cindy give anymore details. 

Ms. BASCETTA. I would just add that we have also encouraged 

them very strongly to move more quickly on their predictive analytics, which would really help prevent the overpayments in the 

first place and identify bad actors rather than recoup payments. 

With respect to durable medical equipment (DME), I just point out 

that their competitive bidding program that was instituted several 

years ago—— 

Senator MCCASKILL. It is working. 

Ms. BASCETTA [continuing]. Has, indeed—— 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. 

Ms. BASCETTA [continuing]. Yielded many savings. We are watching carefully to make sure that they do not get to the point where 

there might be negative effects on beneficiary access to the equipment that they need. But, they are making progress in that area. 

Mr. DODARO. But, you are right. The problem is bad. 

Senator MCCASKILL. It is bad. 

Mr. DODARO. And it is going to get worse, because of the fast—— 

Senator MCCASKILL. It is going to get worse, and there are 

things that can be done to fix it. 

Mr. DODARO. Right. 

Senator MCCASKILL. So, I know Chairman Susan Collins—she 

and I are serving on the Aging Committee now—I know we are 
19 

going to continue this investigation, and continue to put pressure 

on CMS. 

In the comprehensive immigration reform bill that was passed by 

a wide bipartisan margin in the Senate, we funded an additional 

$46 billion in border security. I am confident, no matter how the 

immigration politics play out over the coming months in this Congress, that all of us agree that there has to be additional significant 

funding on the border. I am worried about whether or not DHS 

management is ready to absorb this flood of funding. I am trying 

to remember—53 miles of the border, I think, we did for a billion 

dollars. That is not exactly encouraging, that it took us a billion 

dollars to do 53 miles. 

I would like, just briefly, if somebody could speak to that, and, 

frankly, if you have an opinion, I think the Chairman is a former 

businessman and I know if he did not know if his receivables, if 

and when they were ever going to arrive, it would be very hard to 

manage an ongoing enterprise? And whether or not the fact that 

we are budgeting by crisis in fits and starts and continuing resolutions (CRs) and threatening shutdown, if that is contributing to 

some of the mismanagement at DHS. 

Mr. DODARO. Well, I can just speak from trying to run the GAO 

under continuing resolutions; it is a difficult process. I told our appropriators one of the things I never aspired to be in public service 

was an expert at managing under continuing resolutions. It does 

create a lot of uncertainty and make it difficult to manage. 

Dave Maurer is here. He is in charge of our work at DHS. I do 

think they are still struggling in the acquisition area to properly 

manage their acquisitions. That is something we are keeping an 

eye on and we will focus on this additional funding. Dave. 

Mr. MAURER. That is absolutely right. Acquisition is one of the 

major challenges DHS faces on the management front. They also 

face some significant challenges in other aspects, as well. Employee 

morale, for example, at DHS has consistently been bottom-of-thebarrel compared to other departments. Their numbers have been 

going down at a faster rate than in other Federal agencies. That 

is something of concern. We are encouraged by the fact that the 

Secretary and the Deputy Secretary have taken some efforts to address both of those issues head on—both acquisitions and morale. 

It is something we are going to be watching very carefully in the 

coming years and months. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Real quick, to answer your question of the 

Chair, it is our side of the aisle that is actually trying to get a bill 

on the floor to be debated to fund the Department, so—— 

Senator MCCASKILL. Well, we would disagree on that. 

Chairman JOHNSON. I think, also, Senator Baldwin and I will 

also agree that I think our paper industry would kind of like our 

W–2 fix, so we will work on that. 

Senator MCCASKILL. That is right. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Senator Baldwin. 
20 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BALDWIN 

Senator BALDWIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Dodaro, 

thank you for being with us today. 

I would like to focus in on the problems that you have identified 

in the GAO report with the Veterans Health Administration 

(VHA), both systemwide but also in Wisconsin and facility-based 

issues. The GAO report provides ample evidence to corroborate 

what I have learned in disturbing detail over recent weeks, that 

the VHA suffers from mismanagement and inadequate oversight, 

especially of individual facilities. It appears that the Veterans 

Health Administration lacks not only clear and appropriate systemwide policies and protocols, but also lacks the ability to ensure that 

they are followed at the facility and the regional Veterans Integrated Service Networks (VISN) level. 

For example, at the Tomah VA facility in Wisconsin, current and 

former employees and veteran patients have brought to my attention allegations of inappropriate opioid prescription practices and 

abuse of administrative authority, including retaliation against 

whistleblowers. This facility is currently under investigation by 

Secretary McDonald and we all hope that it yields appropriate and 

positive results. But, make no mistake, extremely troubling issues 

have come to light regarding the VA and this specific facility, and 

I believe that Congress is going to have to act in a variety of ways 

to make improvements so that our veterans in Wisconsin receive 

the care that they deserve. 

Mr. Dodaro, in the case of the Tomah VA facility, a report initiated in 2011 and concluded in March 2014 from the VA Office of 

Inspector General found evidence of troubling opioid prescription 

practices that were at considerable variance from peer facilities in 

the regional network. This report recommended changes to address 

those problems at the facility level, and subsequently, actions were 

taken. 

In the last month, however, media reports have revealed that 

whatever those actions were that took place to remedy the problems had either not been implemented, not been implemented effectively, or were entirely insufficient. It is also unclear if any senior 

VA official ever was made aware of the report that the Inspector 

General did or the remedial actions that were recommended or 

taken at the Tomah VA. 

In your view, does the Veterans Health Administration have adequate oversight controls in place to ensure that facility-level problems are first, identified, and then sufficiently addressed? 

Mr. DODARO. I will ask Debbie Draper to elaborate on this. She 

is our expert in the VA area. 

But, one of the areas we point out in the report we are releasing 

today is there really is inadequate oversight and accountability. 

The individual facilities have been given wide latitude to implement the policies and procedures. There are not reviews being done 

by headquarters that should be done of the facilities to make sure 

that they are adequately following the policies and procedures. 

And, when we go in, we find that those reviews are not done. They 

are relying on self-reported data from the facilities, which is not 

consistent with proper internal controls, and to have a good accountability and evaluation of function and program. So, it is a real 
21 

problem over there that needs attention, but I will ask Debbie to 

elaborate. 

Ms. DRAPER. I mean, it is certainly a system that is in need of 

major transformation, and I think that we have seen—and one of 

the reasons we have added it to the High-Risk List is that over and 

over in the past 5 years, the reports that we have issued have constantly highlighted the inadequate oversight and accountability 

and ambiguous policies and inconsistent processes. So, there is an 

aversion to standardization within the VA, but when you have that 

much autonomy at the local level, you often hear the story, you 

have seen one VA medical center, you have seen one VA medical 

center, and that is really true, because there are, like, 150 different 

processes that play out at the local level. 

We are particularly concerned because of the growing demands 

on the VA Health Care System. So, between 2002 and 2013, the 

number of veterans enrolled in VA health care increased from 6.8 

million to 8.9 million, and over that same period of time, the number of outpatient medical appointments increased by 40 million. So, 

if you have weaknesses in place and you do not correct them, then 

the problems are going to really become much bigger. 

Senator BALDWIN. Mr. Chairman, I have a second question on 

Tomah, but I believe I am not going to have time to get to a third 

question on a GAO report that was issued in November 2014 regarding protocols with treatment of veterans with major depressive 

disorder. I would like to be able to submit that remaining question 

for the record and get a response after the fact. 

But, to my next question in the case of Tomah, there seemed to 

be virtually no internal Veterans Administration communication 

and certainly no external communication to Congress or the public 

regarding the problems at this facility. In fact, when I first contacted the Tomah facility and the VA headquarters here in Washington on behalf of a constituent who had raised a number of concerns covered in the Office of Inspector General (OIG) report that 

I just referred to, no one at any level of the VA talked about the 

existence of this report or informed me of the existence of this report. 

And, in light of this lack of transparency, I wonder if you think 

that a GAO-type model of investigating, issuing recommendations, 

and requiring the affected agency or group to formally and publicly 

respond would improve the Veterans Health Administration’s ability to perform successful oversight at the regional and individual 

facility level and hold them accountable for any wrongdoing uncovered. 

Mr. DODARO. Well, there definitely needs to be accountability 

over reacting to audit findings. In fact, there is existing OMB guidance that agencies are supposed to track audit reports and track 

followup efforts and have a response. I met with Secretary McDonald last Friday, actually, and he said he has given high priority to 

begin following up on IG recommendations and GAO recommendations. So, hopefully, this will be addressed. 

But, you are exactly right. There are policies and procedures already in place that should have assured that they followed up on 

every IG report and recommendation that would be in place, and 

GAO reports, as well. Those could be strengthened, and there may 
22 

1The GAO report submitted by Senator Baldwin appears in the Appendix on page 78. 

be a need to do that in this particular case. But, those policies 

exist. So, it is a lack of compliance with existing policies that it 

sounds like. I mean, we have not looked at this specific information, so I really do not know for sure, but it sounds like from your 

description that they just did not adhere to the policies that already exist. 

Senator BALDWIN. Thank you, and I will submit for the record 

the GAO report1 that was issued in November 2014 regarding veterans who are diagnosed with major depressive disorder. It appears 

that there is a huge deviation from VA guidelines with regard to 

the treatment that you have uncovered and I think that is very disturbing and that we need to do more in followup to that, too. 

Mr. DODARO. And we will be happy to respond. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Baldwin. I can assure 

everyone, this Committee will be fully engaged to make sure these 

recommendations are carried out, and we are going to do everything we can to make sure they are carried out. Senator Heitkamp. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HEITKAMP 

Senator HEITKAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to get to process, because if we were going to go through 

each one of these and debate their relative merits, Comptroller, we 

would be here all day. And, so, I want to talk about why we have 

these hearings and then everybody retreats, goes back to their 

agency, goes back to what we do, and then we come a year later 

and have another discussion. 

So, I want to ask about ongoing supervision and get to the heart 

of what you were talking about earlier, which is agency heads 

change, administrators change, and then you are back in the game 

again trying to educate or re-educate on why these recommendations were necessary. Let us just presuppose that every time something like this was done, we had a sit-down, we had a strategic 

plan put together, time-lined, with accountability measures that 

everybody agreed to and said, ‘‘Yes, we are going to do it,’’ taking 

a look at—I think earlier, Senator McCaskill talked about return 

on investment, low-hanging fruit, prioritizing those things that actually give us the biggest bang for the buck, and then periodically 

actually getting reports on whether we are meeting those requirements so that this process becomes institutionalized between the 

Congress and the agencies and GAO. 

Mr. DODARO. I think that would be an excellent idea and I would 

be happy to participate. 

Senator HEITKAMP. I think it would be an excellent idea, but I 

have a tendency to fall in love with my ideas, so I just need—— 

[Laughter.] 

I need people to argue against me frequently, but—— 

Mr. DODARO. Well, I will not argue on this one. 

Senator HEITKAMP. I think that is the level of frustration that we 

all have here, which is—— 

Mr. DODARO. Well, and I have the same frustration. I try to do 

what I can, working with the agencies and the Congress, but we 

need more concentrated focus on this. I mean, our government’s fi-
23 

nancial condition is not sustainable over a long period of time and 

we are wasting too much money on these inadequate processes and 

procedures. So, whatever process that you can convince your colleagues to do, I will participate in. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Well, it does seem to me that that would be 

a critical kind of component of followup, because the great work 

that you do and actually going out there and identifying these 

problems, identifying the areas of concern, if we do not have a systematic process piece to go behind it, we really are only talking to 

each other—— 

Mr. DODARO. Right. 

Senator HEITKAMP [continuing]. And wringing our hands and decrying the waste of Federal dollars instead of actually fixing the 

problem. 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. A good model is what we have been doing with 

DHS, for example. When I first met with them, the Deputy Secretary, they said they really did not know what to do to get off the 

High-Risk List, so I sent them a 29-page letter and specified all the 

things that they needed to do to get off the list. [Laughter.] 

But, to their credit, they said, ‘‘OK, we understand now. We 

agree.’’ They put a corrective action plan together. That plan has 

withstood changes in political leadership over at DHS. I meet with 

the current Deputy and they are making good, steady progress to 

that area. We have informed the Congress of these matters and 

Congress has given some attention. So, most of this stuff, except 

maybe for NASA, it is not rocket science, but—— [Laughter.] 

And it just requires disciplined follow-up. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Well, and it requires some continual oversight that is not sporadic—— 

Mr. DODARO. Right. 

Senator HEITKAMP [continuing]. That is meaningful. And, I think 

that is to the extent that you guys need us to play bad cop, we are 

way willing to do that. So, we will work on a discussion, I think, 

going back and forth on what that process could be. 

I want to just, in the time that I have left, talk about the IRS 

and talk about what seems to be a systemic failure to institutionalize processes that would prevent fraud. And, I want to start 

out by saying, obviously, if someone has a W–2 in their hand, there 

is a W–4 somewhere that has been filed with someone relaying this 

information. But, this information, according to Social Security dollar amounts, is relayed every time there is a payroll, is it not? 

Mr. DODARO. I am not sure. Jim, do you know? This is Jim 

White, who is our tax expert. 

Mr. WHITE. Some come in throughout the year, but the information that IRS needs to match, they do not have all of that information until after April 15 for the prior year—— 

Senator HEITKAMP. But Social Security has it. 

Mr. WHITE. Social Security—— 

Senator HEITKAMP. When is the W–4 due to Social Security? 

Mr. WHITE. It depends on whether it is paper or electronic, but 

it is due either February or March—— 

Senator HEITKAMP. Give me the date, though. 

Mr. WHITE. Well, some of them are due at the end of February. 

Some are due at the end of March. 
24 

Senator HEITKAMP. So, the employer can have prepared W–2s, 

but transmittal of those W–2s to Social Security does not occur 

until the end of February? 

Mr. WHITE. Correct. And, part of the reason for that is there does 

need to be a window in there for employers to correct errors, so 

they give it to the employee. Sometimes the employees go back. 

There are errors there that need to be corrected. Social Security 

also has an error correction process. And then those go to IRS. 

The other problem is IRS does not have the information systems, 

the computer systems that would allow them to do real-time 

matching. So, that would be another part of this. If the forms came 

in earlier, IRS would need improved computer systems to be able 

to match real time to taxpayers’ tax returns. 

Senator HEITKAMP. It is really hard for those of us who deal with 

the complexities of Amazon.com to really believe that in this day 

and age, they do not have real time matching capability. And, so, 

that is something, obviously, that needs to be funded if we are 

going to be serious about fraud detection. 

I want to get to the identity theft, because none of this would 

really solve the problem of someone seizing that Social Security 

number, filing a fraudulent return, and what would be a way that 

we could prevent that if, in fact, the real taxpayer does not file 

until April 15? 

Mr. WHITE. Well, you are right. The crooks file early. They need 

to beat the honest taxpayers’ tax returns. So, they file early. When 

the honest taxpayer files, IRS at that point discovers they have duplicate returns and they know they have a problem. But, they do 

not find out until after they have issued the refund to the crook, 

and at that point, then they are trying to chase the money. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Yes. 

Mr. WHITE. So, the solutions—the pre-refund matching, getting 

the W–2s in in time to match to taxpayers’ tax returns before refunds are issued, would put a big dent in the fraud. It is not the 

only solution. 

Another solution—— 

Senator HEITKAMP. That, I do not understand, and I am obviously out of time, but if somebody is going to seize that Social Security number and file a fraudulent return, you need to know that 

that is a fraudulent return if you are simply matching it against— 

are you suggesting that because the dollar amounts would vary, 

that would—— 

Mr. WHITE. Right. 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. The person perpetrating the fraud really does 

not know what is in the other person’s W–2—— 

They are just making up the numbers. The other thing that is 

related to this is another recommendation we have. For 54 million 

Americans that are enrolled in Medicare, their Social Security 

number is right on their Medicare card, and we have—— 

Senator HEITKAMP. Yes. Not good. 

Mr. DODARO. Not good. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Mr. Chairman, if I can just ask one more 

question, if we take and actually use old data—by that, I mean old 

numbers, this is your employer on that Social Security number, 

and use the previous tax year, you might actually get at least a 
25 

bank of those returns that would be incorrect or would not match 

unless that taxpayer changed their status or changed their address 

or changed their job. Would that not be a screening technique we 

could use? 

Mr. WHITE. It is a possible screening technique. The tradeoff 

there is, given the number of Americans that change jobs, change 

home addresses each year, IRS would have millions of false 

positives with that kind of match so they really need current information. 

Senator HEITKAMP. I agree, but what I am saying is at least then 

you might be down to 20 percent of those returns that you do not 

know. I mean, I do not think more than 20 percent change jobs or 

change addresses every year. 

Mr. WHITE. Yes, and IRS has made real progress with their filter 

system, so they have caught—they have prevented $24 billion 

worth of fraud because of filters that do some of what you are talking about right now. The problem is the $6 billion—it is the $5.8 

billion of fraud that is still getting out the door. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Senator Peters. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PETERS 

Senator PETERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Dodaro, thank you for your testimony, and for appearing before this Committee this morning. I certainly appreciate all the 

work that you have done with your agency in developing a HighRisk List that we are discussing today. We are looking for common 

ground in Congress. I think we all can agree that trying to eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse, mismanagement, those are things we 

should all be able to agree on, focus on, and work to achieve. 

But, as you know, in many cases, there is only so much that a 

Federal agency can do to deal with some of these issues without 

legislation and congressional action, and the GAO has identified a 

substantial number of High-Risk List areas that will many times 

require some sort of legislative action in order to be addressed. 

Last Congress, when I was in the House, I introduced with my 

colleague Cory Gardner, who is now a Senator with me here, legislation that would have modified some of the House rules, put a 

process in place to require Committees to hold hearings on programs, agencies, offices, and initiatives with duplicative goals identified by your annual GAO report, which I always find a fascinating 

report. One example I often give, particularly in my district, is the 

example where you have multiple folks that inspect catfish in this 

country. 

Now, I would think we should at least have one government 

agency that regulates catfish. I would agree with that. I like to 

know when I am eating catfish that it is safe and it has been 

raised properly. But, whether or not we need more than one does 

not make a whole lot of sense to me, and oftentimes it is Congress, 

because of different jurisdictions that we have with our Committees, that we like to hold on to those jurisdictions, it is Congress 

is the problem here, not just the agencies, as to why we have to 

have that duplication, and I certainly think that we can do better. 
26 

In the House, I also introduced with another one of my colleagues now, Senator Lankford, who is actually on the Committee 

with me here, a followup to a report that I requested from the 

GAO. I appreciate the reports that I get from you. Your report 

studied the use of remanufactured auto parts in the Federal vehicle 

fleet and found that these parts can reduce operation and maintenance costs, sometimes significantly. To ensure that the findings of 

this report are available and considered by all Federal fleet managers, together, we introduced the Federal Vehicle Repair Cost 

Savings Act to encourage all Federal agencies to consider remanufactured vehicle parts, and we are going to continue to work on 

that in this Congress. 

However, the reason I bring this up is I am concerned that too 

many of your GAO recommendations—I have heard that from some 

of the other questions here—are never implemented and Congress 

never follows up on these recommendations. It is Congress, the 

folks right here in this room and other places, that never followup 

on these. 

So, I am going to ask you to be candid. I am going to ask you 

to give us a critique of Congress. In your experience, how effective 

has this body been in actually responding to the incredible work 

that the GAO does? And, again, please be candid, and we will not 

hold it against you. I certainly will not. I know the Chairman will 

not, either. 

Mr. DODARO. Well, that is good to know. [Laughter.] 

In the overlap and duplication work that we do and issue our annual report, we actually have a separate scorecard for the Congress 

and a separate scorecard for the Executive Branch in terms of responding to the recommendations. And, we found that the Congress 

was responding to the recommendations a tad less, the rate—but 

still responding—than the Executive Branch activity. So, on a comparative basis, the Congress’s record was relatively less favorable 

to the Executive Branch, if my memory is correct. I will go back 

and I will give the exact numbers for the record. 

Our next report will be out this April. It will be our Fifth Annual 

Report. So far, we have made 440 specific recommendations for 

change in those areas. But, there is much more that Congress 

could and should do. 

Last time we updated the High-Risk List, I was before this Committee and I raised the issue of the need for legislation on the Postal Service. Their business model is broken. They are losing billions 

of dollars. One of the first hearings the Committee held was on the 

Postal Service. I testified at that hearing. The next one was on 

cybersecurity, and eventually, there were bills passed on 

cybersecurity. So, there is a lot more that the Congress needs to 

do in order to rectify these High-Risk Areas and address the overlap and duplication problems. 

If legislation is introduced again along the lines of what you talk 

about, that require hearings in the overlap and duplication area, 

my suggestion would be that it also require joint hearings of different Committees, because, really, the most difficult problems are 

because of jurisdictional issues in the Congress. 

But, that is not the only problem. The problem is in the Executive Branch, too. I mean, they are compartmentalized the same 
27 

way that the Committees are compartmentalized in terms of jurisdiction, and I have difficulty getting OMB’s attention to—and 

prioritize, because they only have limited resources—to get the 

agencies to work together or to say, these things ought to be combined into one function. So, that problem exists in the Executive 

Branch and the Congress, which compounds the difficulty in getting solutions to those areas. 

That is about as candid as I could be—— 

Senator PETERS. Well, we appreciate that. 

Mr. DODARO [continuing]. At this point, and thank you for the 

question. 

Senator PETERS. Well, I appreciate that, and what I am hearing 

from your answer, and obviously, there are problems in both the 

Executive and Legislative, but as you are saying, with the scorecard, we actually in Congress perform less than the agencies, 

which is not a good standard for us. We think the agencies should 

be doing a lot more, and if we are behind them, that just shows 

that we have more work to do, and particularly when you are as— 

which is a great suggestion about having the joint hearings to deal 

with some of the turf battles that are there. 

But, I think you would agree, then, that if we introduce bills like 

I have introduced with some of my colleagues here in the House 

and do that here, and putting in place a more formal process that 

forces Congress to deal with this in a formalized way, you think 

that is a good idea? You would support it and encourage it? 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. And, I would participate. 

Senator PETERS. Right. 

Mr. DODARO. I would be here any day to testify. 

Senator PETERS. Great. And be equally as candid. 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. 

Senator PETERS. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. DODARO. Sure. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Senator Peters, coming from a manufacturing background, I certainly understand, without a good process, 

you do not have a good product. So, I appreciate your enthusiasm. 

I see you are on the Subcommittee under the Government Affairs 

part of this. We will stay engaged. I am looking for low-hanging 

fruit. When we are passing through the Senate, we need six Democrats joining us. We have seven on this Committee. That is an aspirational goal. Let us find those areas, and certainly the biggest 

bang for the buck, but also just those areas of agreement. So, we 

are committed to doing that and appreciate your engagement on 

the issue. Senator Ayotte. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AYOTTE 

Senator AYOTTE. Well, thank you for your important work. We 

appreciate it. And, I think Ronald Reagan once said, there is nothing closer to eternal life than a government program. [Laughter.] 

So, one of the things is to followup on Senator Peters’ comments, 

is I am not surprised that we have a low score in terms of when 

it comes to duplication and overlap. In fact, Senator Manchin and 

I have a bill—it is called the Duplication Elimination Act—and I 

hope the Chair might consider taking a look at that bill. Because 
28 

this issue, as you have identified, is a problem on both ends. It is 

the Executive Branch and it is the Congress. 

And, so, this bill would actually require the President to submit 

to Congress a joint resolution to implement or reject GAO recommendations when they are made. And, if they are rejected, let 

us know why. If they are accepted, let us know why and how we 

plan to do it. And then it would require us in Congress to actually 

undertake an expedited review of those and to vote on them so that 

we could adopt things more quickly, because you do excellent work. 

GAO does excellent work and it sits on the shelf too often. The last 

thing we want is to continue funding programs that are not effective where we have places we need resources and it is a better allocation of resources. 

So, I am hoping that might be a bill we might consider making, 

but, basically, we all need a kick in the pants on this, and with 

your help, I hope we can do that, because what ends up happening, 

and I do not need to tell anyone here what happens. I have done 

it. Offer an amendment on eliminating or reforming one program 

on the Senate floor in an appropriations bill, and every program 

has a constituency. So, even if it is underperforming for almost 

every constituent it serves, that one constituency comes to their 

Senator and argues for it and here we are and nothing gets done. 

Well, we need to look at the big picture here, and I know that 

you are doing that and that is important, and so I am glad to hear 

Senator Peters focus on this, because this is a bipartisan issue. It 

is really—the Chairman, as well. And, I thank you because the 

work you are doing is excellent. 

I wanted to followup on the VA issue, because for New Hampshire, on the Choice Card issue, we are getting, as a State that is 

one of the States that does not have a full-service Veterans Hospital, the Choice issue in the veterans bill is very important to my 

State. So, what I am hearing from people in New Hampshire is 

that the third—the Choice Card is being processed through a thirdparty contracting agency and that we have veterans calling the office essentially saying that there is not enough information being 

given to veterans, that veterans are saying that they want to—if 

a veteran comes to you and says, ‘‘I want to see a particular doctor,’’ that might allow them to go and connect the veteran with the 

doctor. It may or may not. That has been complicated on that end. 

But, also, that if the veteran just says, ‘‘I need this service,’’ they 

are sort of left hanging. 

And, one, I wanted to get your thoughts are, is one of the things 

that was identified on the veterans’ end in the report that you 

issued is the provision of non-VA care. So, in a State like mine, it 

is really important, because we do not have a full-service Veterans 

Hospital. It is addressed in the bill. So, we are giving our veterans 

access to more non-VA care. Are you going to do further work on 

this non-VA care issue, because Congress clearly shifted and expressed a preference to introduce more opportunities for our veterans in it. It seems to me, though, that the Veterans Administration has been really resistant to reform. And, we talk about access 

in veterans facilities, but they seem somewhat resistant in terms 

of informing veterans on what their rights are on the non-VA care. 
29 

And, so, I wanted to get your thoughts on what further work we 

think we need to do on this provision of non-VA care. How do we 

get this, the Veterans Administration, to stop being so resistant to 

reform, because Congress has clearly expressed on a bipartisan 

basis it is about the veteran and we want to make sure that we 

get them proper care. 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. Well, I would just say that we will do the work 

necessary in the future to make sure that this issue gets resolved 

satisfactorily. Debbie Draper is our expert in this area. I would like 

her to speak to the issues that need to be resolved. But, in putting 

this area on the High-Risk List, a couple areas I was really troubled by. One was the fact that VA does not followup to make sure 

if there is a referral that it actually happens, and they do not have 

good information to know whether it is more economical—— 

Senator AYOTTE. Right. 

Mr. DODARO [continuing]. To give VA care or non-VA care. 

Senator AYOTTE. So, what makes me worried about all this is I 

hear it, because for New Hampshire, really important, and the 

issue is this, is that if the VA almost wants to—I mean, I do not 

want them to want to undermine the access to non-VA care, because if we have good data, we may find down the line that this 

is actually a better way to serve veterans, to avoid wait lists, and 

the cost efficiencies may be there. But, if they do not follow through 

on this, it is almost a self-perpetuating failure—— 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. 

Senator AYOTTE [continuing]. Which is contrary to what Congress wanted to happen in the reform bill. So, I appreciate your 

being here. 

Ms. DRAPER. Yes, we have several concerns. I mean, before the 

Act was passed, we had done prior work looking at non-VA care 

and we found that the payment to providers was slow or often inaccurate and community providers were really unwilling to take some 

of the VA patients. 

But, beyond that, it was intended to improve access to health 

care, the timeliness of care. However, there was no infrastructure 

in place to really monitor wait times, how long people are actually 

waiting to get into those community providers. So, we do have a 

number of concerns and that is one of the reasons that we put VA 

health care on the High-Risk List. 

Many people see this as a panacea for some of the access problems. I think there is a lot of work that needs to be done to make 

sure that the infrastructure is in place, to make sure that people 

are actually getting timely care through that system. And, I think 

another important point is the VA Health Care System is a difficult system to navigate. So, now you are introducing a second system for someone to navigate. So, it just compounds the problems 

that exist or could exist. 

So, we do have a number of mandates under that Act to really 

look at the issue. So, we will be doing that over the next couple 

of years, looking at the non-VA care. 

Senator AYOTTE. I think it is really important, and I hope that 

you also look at, as you look at this, how embracing has the VA 

been of access to non-VA care, because, again, I worry that if the 

VA does not embrace giving veterans access to non-VA care, then 
30 

you can basically ensure that it really does not give veterans that 

option and it really becomes self-perpetuating in terms of the conclusions that can be drawn from it. 

And, for veterans in New Hampshire, for example, they were on 

buses being shipped to Massachusetts and other places. If they can 

go to a local provider in their community, which, obviously, people 

have been able to do through other Federal programs, then that, 

in the end, if you look at the cost efficiencies of not paying for the 

transportation, of access to care in terms of quality—now, not everything is going to fit in that category, but a lot of care can. 

So, I am hopeful, in the long term, that we are not just allowing 

the VA to want to perpetuate their own system, but we really do 

look at what is best for the veterans. So, I know that you can be 

a very important voice on this. Thank you. 

Ms. DRAPER. And, just one other thing. I think we have seen a 

lot of variation, as we do with most other things related to VA, 

about how each facility is handling the non-VA care. And, so, that 

is something that, again, there are not standardized processes, and 

they also rolled out this program very quickly, so over a couple 

months, Choice Cards were mailed to veterans—— 

Senator AYOTTE. Yes, and they were not told anything about 

them and they were, like, all contacting our office. So, information, 

I think, is important, as well. 

I know I have gone over my time. I have a couple of additional 

questions that relate to the IRS and also the Earned Income Tax 

Credit (EITC) and Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC) tax payments that I will submit for the record. I appreciate all that you 

do. Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Ayotte. 

I think you can tell by the number of questions, by the depth of 

the concern, how much, first of all, we appreciate the fact that you 

are highlighting the problems in the VA, and so you can, again, 

rest assured, you will have support and we will continue to be fully 

engaged, which is certainly what you mentioned in terms of the 

process to make sure these reforms are implemented across your 

High-Risk List. 

You will have full engagement by this Committee on all the 

items, but in particular, that you can rest assured that the VA system is going to be a top priority of this Committee. 

Just real quick, I do want to followup on IT acquisition. I have 

been meeting with the different agency heads within DHS and I 

am pleasantly surprised by the repeated, I guess, assurance that 

they are starting to look more at off-the-shelf solutions as opposed 

to having the government specify something and have through government contract, trying to have some IT solution created specifically for the government, which is not particularly efficient. Are 

you finding that not only within DHS, but is that a reoccurring 

theme? Is that something you support, or are there any dangers to 

that? 

Mr. DODARO. Well, we have long said that commercial solutions, 

and even if you have to change your business process a bit, are 

more efficient than customized software development. So, that has 

been something we have been emphasizing over time to agencies. 
31 

Dave Powner is our expert in the IT area and he has a good vantage point, across government, so I will ask him to elaborate on 

that. 

Mr. POWNER. Yes, Senator Johnson. If you look at commercial solutions, that actually is one area you should look at instead of 

building. That is buy. There are a couple of things in our High-Risk 

Area that endorse that. If you look at incremental development, if 

we go with smaller, quicker deliveries, commercial solutions will be 

considered more heavily. 

The other area is cloud computing. We need to look more at cloud 

solutions and have providers actually provide those services to 

agencies instead of always building them and go more to the cloud. 

So, I think with commercial, both incremental and the cloud solutions, which is emphasized in our High-Risk Area, will be quite 

helpful. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Well, thank you. Again, I am really encouraging that. Coming from the private sector, I never liked reinventing the wheel, so it just makes perfect sense. 

Before we conclude the hearing, I do also want to just touch a 

little bit on cybersecurity. Our first hearing was on cybersecurity. 

That is a top priority of this Committee, is that first step. Can you 

just speak to the privacy that Americans are going to lose if we do 

not address this problem? Again, part of the reason we have not 

been able to pass cybersecurity legislation is because we have not 

been able to provide the liability protection to facilitate the needed 

exchange of information within the private sector, the private sector to the government, and back down. 

And, again, there are legitimate concerns of privacy. But, one of 

the points I tried to make in the hearing and I think we need to 

underscore, and I just want to get your comment on it, if we do not 

take that first step, if we do not allow that information sharing, 

which does allow us to share that threat signature which can prevent attacks—it is not a panacea. It is not going to protect everything. But, the more attacks we can prevent, we are protecting 

Americans’ privacy. Can you just comment on that? 

Mr. DODARO. First of all, I think people need to understand that 

the amount of information that is collected, disseminated, and 

stored in the Internet by most projections is expected to double and 

triple every 2 years going forward. So, you have a tremendous 

amount of information available now, but the storage capacity is— 

such that so much more information is going to be collected and it 

is going to be shared and disseminated, including personally identifiable information, over time. 

The only way to deal with this, and we have been advocating 

sharing, partnerships with public-private sector for many years 

now, since we have been focused on this area, and people have to 

understand that the best safeguard is continuous monitoring and 

diagnostics and preventing these events from occurring. 

Greg Wilshusen is our expert in this area. I will ask him to 

elaborate on it. But, we will do whatever we can to help people understand that information, more information is going to be available. The question is how best to protect that from getting into unauthorized hands and information sharing is a critical component 

of that protection. 
32 

Chairman JOHNSON. I would also, quickly, like to point out that 

every time you agree to the privacy statement of an application, 

you are giving up so much information that is widely disseminated 

in the private sector, and so people need to also understand that. 

Sir. 

Mr. WILSHUSEN. Yes. And, I would just like to say, too, that the 

need for sharing information, particularly about actionable 

cyberthreat information and incident information, is really critical 

to help better protect our critical infrastructures. 

A couple years ago, we did a report which identified among our 

private sector partners that they said that their expectations of the 

public-private partnership for protecting critical infrastructure, 

that 98 percent of them indicated that receiving actionable 

cyberthreat information and incident information from the Federal 

Government was of a great need for them. However, only 27 percent of the respondents to our survey, who were the critical infrastructure owners and operators, said that they were actually receiving that type of information to a satisfactory degree from the 

Federal partners. So, it is critical that the information sharing 

processes be improved. 

Chairman JOHNSON. One of the hangups always has been that 

liability protection, and I am not the person to say exactly what 

that liability protection ought to be, but I can say that the metric 

is going to be if we pass something with liability protection, the 

success or failure is whether or not that information actually is 

shared. I mean, can you speak a little bit in terms of the reluctance 

of private sector companies to share the information the threats 

they really do feel in terms of lawsuits if they share that information, and the reluctance, as a result, to share it without really 

strong liability protection. 

Mr. WILSHUSEN. Well, certainly, I think, liability protection is 

one of the areas that is an inhibitor to some of the private sector 

companies. Our reviews have also shown is that often when private 

sector companies do provide information to their Federal counterparts, they do not really receive anything in return. It is like giving 

this information and there is not really getting much in return for 

that. So, they are somewhat of a disincentive to provide that information. 

In addition, it is not always clear. They want to make sure that 

the information they do provide is sufficiently anonymized in order 

to allow it to be used by government agencies in an appropriate 

manner and not necessarily be shared with others. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Let me talk about that personal information. In terms of preventing further attacks, in other words, that 

threat signature, there is really no reason to have personal information attached to that information that is shared, correct? 

Mr. WILSHUSEN. I would say, generally, that would be the case. 

Chairman JOHNSON. But, if you actually want to solve the crime, 

if you want to trace back, where did that hacking come from— 

which, quite honestly, to prevent further attacks, it would be awful 

nice to find out who these bad actors are, who the criminals are— 

that is where you need some personal information, potentially. How 

much can we limit that? 
33 

Mr. WILSHUSEN. Well, part of the what you would need would be, 

for example, the IP addresses from which these attacks are originating. And, so, while that may not be considered personally identifiable information, it is a key part of trying to trace attacks and 

the sources of those attacks. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Oh, Senator Carper is back. He has returned. I have no further questions. Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks so much. 

Some days are busier than others. This is a day where, when my 

train finally got here, I had the opportunity to participate with you 

and Senator Johnson and others in a press conference announcing 

the updated list the High-Risk List. And then we have almost simultaneously a markup and we are voting on legislation, part of 

which I authored, in the Finance Committee, and defending, and 

the Environment and Public Works Committee is having a hearing 

as we speak on clean air legislation, which is very important to my 

State, which is threatened by rising seas, and this important hearing. So, there is a lot going on. People from Delaware want to see 

me. And, so, I apologize for being in and out. 

People sometimes say to me, I do not know if they say to Ron, 

but they say, ‘‘Can we come to Washington and meet with you?’’ 

And, I say, my life here is frenetic. Why do we not meet in Delaware? I go there every night. But, thank you for bearing with us. 

I want to ask you a question about the Federal workforce, but 

before I do, let me preface it by making this observation. One of 

the pieces of cybersecurity legislation that this Committee adopted, 

reported out, and was ultimately signed into law by the President 

was one that strengthens the ability of the Department of Homeland Security to hire people, well-qualified people, to better enable 

them to help defend not only the Federal dot-gov world, but also 

to help businesses, the private sector and others, to defend their 

personally identifiable information, their intellectual property, and 

to give the Homeland Security Department actually the ability to 

do some of the hiring and retention for employees that they have 

not been able to do. 

When I was Governor of Delaware, we used to lament the fact 

that on IT projects, we would hire people to work in the IT world 

for us, train them, they would become better and more proficient, 

and then they would get hired away. And, the same kind of thing 

actually happens with the Department of Homeland Security with 

their cyber warriors and they have asked for the tools to enable 

them to hire good people, retain people, and we have done that, 

and I am pleased the President has signed that. It is one of three 

or four pieces of legislation that has actually come through this 

Committee, signed into law last year, that will strengthen our 

cybersecurity. 

But, with respect to the Federal workforce, as your report highlights, there are gaps in mission critical skills in the Federal workforce and they have significant impact on many of the high-risk 

issues. Unfortunately, efforts to identify and address current and 

emerging critical skill gaps have been slow and not fully successful. 

Addressing these gaps needs to be a priority, given their impact on 

so many important issues facing our country. 
34 

Let me just ask what strategies you think have been most successful. What strategies have been most successful in identifying 

and addressing those skill gaps, and how can we help to ensure 

that the Office of Personnel Management—and other agencies, 

too—are using the best strategies and giving this issue the focus 

that it deserves? 

Mr. DODARO. First, I think the efforts need to recognize the skill 

gaps. I mean, we have pointed out this to a number of agencies and 

it is almost like they are not identifying them proactively on their 

own as much or using available authorities for retention and recruitment that could be used in the process. So, the first thing is 

sort of an awareness they have an issue, and also planning ahead 

for the future to be able to do this. At the same time you have critical skill gaps, you also have succession planning problems 

throughout the Federal Government because of the retirement of 

the Baby Boom generation. So, you have a dual problem that needs 

to be dealt with. 

Chris Mihm is our expert in these areas. I will ask him to elaborate on some specific best practices. But, this area worries me as 

much as any on the list because it really goes to the heart of the 

government’s ability to effectively function, and you cannot do it 

without the right people, whether you are talking about petroleum 

engineers and making sure we are getting our right oil and gas estimates, cost estimating expertise at NASA, the right people in a 

lot of these different departments and agencies, cybersecurity you 

mentioned. So, it is a real critical issue. I am glad that you asked 

the question. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

Mr. DODARO. Chris. 

Mr. MIHM. Thank you, Senator. I agree very much with the preface of your question, that many of the High-Risk Issues that we 

find, a root cause of that is a critical skills gap in agencies. You 

had a discussion this morning about the problems over at VA. One 

of the five areas that you have heard about is a skills gap issue 

associated with training of staff over there. Skills gaps are certainly a big part of the acquisition area, in the acquisition workforce, notwithstanding an awful lot of attention that Congress and 

other agencies have given to that. The IT area, as you referenced 

in your question. 

When we see the successful efforts to get at this, it is actually 

the two things the Comptroller General just mentioned. First, it is 

heavy use of data analytics. There is a wealth of Federal personnel 

information that is in our personnel files that is not being effectively mined. We talk all the time about big data. One of the big 

data things that we are not effectively exploiting is Federal personnel information, stripping out all the PII, of course. But, it can 

tell about career paths and training and development and exactly 

what are the succession planning challenges that an agency should 

be expecting. So, mining this big data that is out there on Federal 

personnel is one of the first key steps. 

The second, as the Comptroller General also mentioned, is really 

effective strategic human capital planning. All too often in agencies, we go in and they seem to have a succession planning approach that goes under the very inelegant name of what is called 
35 

‘‘truck sensitive,’’ meaning if a truck hit the person, they know who 

is next in line. They are not thinking very far—— 

Senator CARPER. I like that, truck sensitive. 

Mr. MIHM. Well, unless you are the one that is being hit on. 

Senator CARPER. Senator, what did you get out of your hearing 

today? Well, truck sensitive. 

Mr. MIHM. Well, here to contribute. 

Senator CARPER. Among other things. [Laughter.] 

Mr. MIHM. Well, but they are not thinking, what are the knowledge and skills that we are going to need to be effective 5, 10, and 

even 15 years in the future. We need to start recruiting on that 

now. We need to start training based on those skills now. We need 

to start developing those skills now. We cannot have a government 

where the working assumption is, the key to our future success is 

to be more like we are today. Many of the personnel systems that 

we have, certainly the human capital planning systems, seem to be 

implicit on that, is that if we just hire the same people that were 

just like us, we are going to be successful in the future. That is not 

going to be workable in the context that we face today. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

Last question and I will make it real quick and I will ask for a 

short answer. This year’s High-Risk Report discusses improvement 

in a number of High-Risk Areas. We are grateful for that. Unfortunately, no issues, I think, were removed from the list from last 

year. Are there issues on the list that you think are within striking 

distance of being removed from the list, maybe, by 2017? And, for 

those issues, are there any things that come to mind that you think 

are the final reforms that are needed? Just touch on one or two, 

if you would. 

Mr. DODARO. Sure. I am very pleased with the progress that we 

have made working with NASA on their acquisitions area. The big 

challenge now is to get as many people trained up as possible in 

their cost estimating and using Earned Value Management techniques and issues. 

The big hang-up we have had with NASA is to agree on an approach to evaluate the design sophistication of their technology and 

the stability of it early in the process, before it develops along time, 

and they have implemented that for a number of their smaller 

projects. The big issue will be, can they extend that on their big 

major projects, like the James Webb telescope, the Space Launch 

System, the Orion capsule. So, we have been working with them. 

But, they have met, right now, three of the five criteria and they 

have top-level attention. They have a good plan. The question is 

whether they can execute over a period of time. 

I also believe the Department of Homeland Security is within 

this if they stay the course in those areas. They really have to improve their acquisition area, though. I am really concerned about 

that. That is one that they have been late in implementing. And, 

they have to improve their internal controls environment and deal 

with their morale issues over there. I mean, those are three. You 

need a workforce that is more engaged and feeling better about 

themselves to be successful over a period of time. You cannot have 

the situation that they have right now and be successful. No business would be successful with that level of dissatisfaction and no 
36 

government agency will, as well. But, so, there are challenges there 

in those areas. 

So, those are two that I would mention off the top of my head 

that are successful and, I think, doable within a reasonable period 

of time. 

Senator CARPER. Good. Mr. Chairman, I would just say that, in 

closing, what Gene has said reminds me oh how important the 

work is we have done to try to vet and clear and send on to the 

Senate the leadership team that the President has asked for and 

Jeh Johnson has asked for in that Department. There is one more 

that we are working on, a fellow named Russ Deyo, who we have 

a lot of respect for. He has been nominated for the No. 3 position 

there, for management, and it is critically important that he be 

there. 

I will close with—you mentioned NASA, and Mr. Chairman, you 

may have heard this story, and Tammy, you may have heard this 

story. A friend of mine was going through visiting NASA one night. 

Most of the people had left and gone home for the day. This one 

guy was still there working, and he was the janitor. And my friend 

said to him, ‘‘What do you do here? What is your job?’’ And, the 

man said, ‘‘I am helping to put a man on the moon.’’ 

The folks that are working at NASA to help make sure that they 

cleanup their performance with respect to high-risk, they are helping to put men and women not on the moon, but all over the galaxy 

and to do good things for our country. So, that is kind of making 

it real. Thanks so much. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Well, we certainly share that commitment 

to make sure the agencies have the best people working for them, 

and I continue—I have said this repeatedly—I am very impressed 

with the people who work for the Federal Government. Senator 

Baldwin. 

Senator BALDWIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member. 

I did not expect to have a chance to return from the Budget Committee, but, indeed, I am here, and I appreciate the chance for another opportunity to ask a question that I was going to submit for 

the record. 

GAO found that local VA facilities are carrying out processes inconsistently, including those dealing with the provision of medical 

care. A GAO report from November 2014 found that about 10 percent of veterans who received health care services through the VA 

were diagnosed with major depressive disorder, and of those, 94 

percent were prescribed an antidepressant. VA policy states that 

antidepressant treatment must be consistent with the VA’s current 

clinical practices guideline. However, the GAO’s review of medical 

records identified deviations from those guidelines for most veterans reviewed, and I will quote the report now. ‘‘As a result, VA 

does not know the extent to which veterans with major depressive 

disorder who have been prescribed antidepressants are receiving 

care as recommended in the clinical practice guidelines and, whether appropriate actions are taken by VAMCs to mitigate potentially 

significant risks to veterans.’’ 

In other words, the VA does not know if veterans with severe 

mental illnesses are getting the correct care. This is completely unacceptable, and I am extremely concerned that the VA may have 
37 

a similar blind spot regarding the appropriate standard of care for 

mental health patients at the Tomah VA, as I have outlined earlier 

today. 

Indeed, in a tragic example last August, former Marine Jason 

Simcakoski died as an inpatient at the Tomah facility from mixed 

drug toxicity. At the time of his death, he reportedly was on 15 different prescription drugs, including antipsychotics, tranquilizers, 

muscle relaxants, and opioid painkillers. There are serious questions as to whether Mr. Simcakoski was receiving the correct 

standard of care, and your reports would indicate that the VHA’s 

mental health treatment programs, including the drugs prescribed 

to patients, are deeply flawed. 

So, I would love it if you could take a moment to explain these 

findings from the November 2014 GAO report in further detail and 

provide recommendations regarding how the VHA can fix this problem as soon as possible. 

Mr. DODARO. Debbie. 

Ms. DRAPER. Sure. We looked at a sample of medical records 

from six different VA Medical Centers and we did find exactly what 

you had talked about, and I think this really still gets at the issue 

of why we are putting VA Health Care on the High-Risk List. 

There are issues around oversight and accountability. Training is 

an issue, looking at how practices play out at the local level. Again, 

there are inconsistent processes and ambiguous policy. 

So, in this report, we did make a number of recommendations to 

VA, and one was to implement processes to review the data and assess deviations from recommended care, because it was a large 

number of the records that we reviewed, they deviated from the 

clinical practice guideline, and that included things like a necessary initial review of the situation and then a followup review. 

Those were not conducted as they were outlined in the clinical 

practice guideline. 

We also made recommendations—because in that same report, 

we looked at the template that was used to complete information 

about suicides and that information was also found to be incomplete. So, what happens is that it really diminishes VA’s ability because they do not have complete data when they develop processes 

or initiatives on suicide prevention. So, we made a number of recommendations related to ensuring the completeness of that information, as well. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Baldwin. 

Mr. Dodaro, again, thank you and all of the associates from the 

GAO that have come here and provided some good information for 

all your good works. You can tell by the level of attendance at this 

hearing, you can tell by the level of engagement—it might be an 

overstatement, but this is this Committee’s favorite agency. You do 

so much good work, and we truly appreciate that. 

From my standpoint, one of the major take-aways, of course, is 

we are going to be supportive of making sure the recommendations 

of the VA get implemented as quickly as possible. But, also, we are 

looking at what we can do to develop a process to ensure implementation of as many of your recommendations, or all of your recommendations, across the agency. So, we want to work very closely 

with you on that process. 
38 

I was handed an interesting little fact. I talked about how you 

actually were suffering budget cuts. I guess last year, GAO had the 

fewest number of employees since World War II. Now, the Federal 

Government has kind of grown a little bit since World War II, so 

I think we would like to give you some more resources and some 

more associates to continue your good work and expand it so we 

can implement your recommendations. 

So, again, thank you for your testimony. Thank you for all your 

good work. 

This hearing record will remain open for 15 days, until February 

26 at 5 p.m., for the submission of statements and questions for the 

record. 

Senator CARPER. Mr. Chairman, just one quick closing comment. 

If you read the Preamble—in fact, we all learned it as kids in 

school, the Preamble to the Constitution—and one part of it says, 

‘‘In order to form a more perfect Union’’—‘‘In order to form a more 

perfect Union.’’ It does not say, ‘‘In order to form a perfect Union,’’ 

but it does say, ‘‘In order to form a more perfect Union.’’ 

What you and the folks that are sitting there behind you in the 

front rows of this hearing room are trying to do is to help us form 

a more perfect Union. We know we will never be perfect. But we 

strive for perfection, because we know everything that we do, we 

can do better. 

This is a team sport. You are critical members of the team. We 

like to think that we are, as well. Others within the agencies 

spread across the government, the President, OMB, we are all 

members of the team, and it is important that we pull together in 

the same direction, because if we do, some amazing things can happen. In fact, they already have, and we need more of that. Thank 

you so much. 

Mr. DODARO. Thank you very much. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Carper. 

In manufacturing, good operations always engage in continuous 

improvement. GAO helps the government continuously improve, so, 

again, we thank you. 

This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:01 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 
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