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S. Hrg. 110–1039 

CENSUS IN PERIL: GETTING THE 2010 DECENNIAL 

BACK ON TRACK—PARTS I AND II 

HEARINGS 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

MARCH 5 AND APRIL 15, 2008 

Available via http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

( 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

BARACK OBAMA, Illinois 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico 

JOHN WARNER, Virginia 

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire 

MICHAEL L. ALEXANDER, Staff Director 

KRISTINE V. LAM, Professional Staff Member 

JOHN P. KILVINGTON, Staff Director, Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, 

Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security 

BRANDON L. MILHORN, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

JENNIFER L. TARR, Minority Counsel 

CHRISTOPHER J. BARKLEY, Minority Professional Staff Member, Subcommittee on Federal 

Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security 

TRINA DRIESSNACK TYRER, Chief Clerk 

PATRICIA R. HOGAN, Publications Clerk and GPO Detailee 

LAURA W. KILBRIDE, Hearing Clerk 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 1, 41 

Senator Coburn ................................................................................................. 5, 44 

Senator McCaskill ............................................................................................ 37 

Prepared statements: 

Senator Lieberman ........................................................................................... 69 

Senator Collins................................................................................................ 70, 71 

WITNESSES 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5, 2008 

Hon. Carlos M. Gutierrez, Secretary, U.S. Department of Commerce ................ 9 

Hon. Steven H. Murdock, Director, U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department 

of Commerce ......................................................................................................... 14 

David A. Powner, Director, Information Technology Management Issues, U.S. 

Government Accountability Office ...................................................................... 26 

Mathew J. Scire`, Director, Strategic Issues, U.S. Government Accountability 

Office ..................................................................................................................... 28 

TUESDAY, APRIL 15, 2008 

Hon. Carlos M. Gutierrez, Secretary, U.S. Department of Commerce ................ 47 

Hon. Steven H. Murdock, Director, U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department 

of Commerce ......................................................................................................... 57 

Mathew J. Scire`, Director, Strategic Issues, U.S. Government Accountability 

Office ..................................................................................................................... 59 

David A. Powner, Director, Information Technology Management Issues, U.S. 

Government Accountability Office ...................................................................... 60 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Gutierrez, Hon. Carlos M.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 9, 47 

Prepared statement ...................................................................................... 72, 107 

Murdock, Hon. Steven H.: 

Testimony ........................................................................................................ 14, 57 

Prepared statement ...................................................................................... 80, 113 

Powner, David A.: 

Testimony ........................................................................................................ 26, 60 

Prepared statement ...................................................................................... 83, 117 

Scire`, Mathew J.: 

Testimony ........................................................................................................ 28, 59 

Prepared statement ...................................................................................... 83, 117 

APPENDIX 

Questions and responses for March 5, 2008, Record from: 

Mr. Gutierrez .................................................................................................... 132 

Mr. Murdock ..................................................................................................... 144 

Mr. Powner ........................................................................................................ 155 

Mr. Scire` ............................................................................................................ 155 

Questions and responses for April 15, 2008, Record from: 

Mr. Gutierrez .................................................................................................... 162 

Mr. Murdock ..................................................................................................... 169 

PowerPoint presentation titled ‘‘Decennial Census Progress Review and Program Replan,’’ submitted by Mr. Gutierrez ....................................................... 173 

(1) 

CENSUS IN PERIL: GETTING THE 2010 

DECENNIAL BACK ON TRACK—PART I 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5, 2008 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:36 a.m., in Room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Thomas R. Carper, 

presiding. 

Present: Senators Carper, McCaskill, and Coburn. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN CARPER 

Senator CARPER. The Committee will come to order. 

All right. Let me begin by welcoming our witnesses, Secretary 

Gutierrez, Director Murdock, and our two other witnesses, who will 

be joining us on the second panel from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), for being here on such short notice. 

Your cooperation with our oversight efforts and your commitment 

to working with us to get the 2010 Decennial Census back on track 

are deeply appreciated. 

My thanks as well to Senators Lieberman and Collins for allowing us to hold this hearing at the full Committee level. 

As my colleagues are aware, the Constitution requires the Federal Government to conduct a census every 10 years. The data collected as a result of these efforts is used to support and ensure the 

equitable and effective operation of a number of programs here at 

the Federal level and in the States as well—programs that involve 

literally tens of billions of taxpayer dollars. 

The data obtained through the census is also used, as we know, 

to determine the make up of the Federal Government itself, at 

least a portion of the Federal Government in the Legislative 

Branch. 

The information that the Census Bureau collects about people 

and their communities once every 10 years is utilized to decide how 

the 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are apportioned. 

Senator Coburn and I called this hearing today because information we have learned from the Commerce Department, from the 

Census Bureau, and in the press indicates that the 2010 Decennial 

Census could be at risk of failure unless prompt and dramatic corrective action is taken. 

Right now, the Census Bureau is supposed to be in the midst of 

a period it calls the ‘‘dress rehearsal.’’ And during the dress rehearsal, all the procedures and technology that will be used in 2010 

2 

are to be tested so that adjustments can be made before the counting actually begins. 

Instead of being out in the field this month, though, doing a final 

run through, it appears that Census staff is stuck in headquarters 

trying to salvage a project that for years had been billed as the cornerstone of the Bureau’s 2010 efforts. 

The project, called the ‘‘Field Data Collection Automation,’’ involves hand-held computers that canvassers and census-takers will 

use to go into the communities and collect information from individuals who do not initially respond to the census forms that are 

mailed to them. 

The handhelds are supposed to lead to a more accurate census 

than the largely paper-based efforts conducted in 2000 and in previous decennials. 

The handhelds also were supposed to be the key to the Census 

Bureau’s projected cost savings this time around since using handheld computers instead of paper would hopefully mean fewer staff 

and less office space to be acquired. 

However, the Department of Commerce and the Census Bureau 

officials decided very recently, after preparations for the 2010 decennial began, that the hand-held project may not be viable. 

As we will hear from Secretary Gutierrez and Director Murdock 

today, Census staff is working now to come up with a series of options for how to conduct major portions of the 2010 count. 

Among those options, I assume, could be a complete abandonment of the hand-held project and a return to a paper census. It 

is my understanding that all the options on the table at this point 

will come with a significant price tag. 

I am profoundly disappointed in this outcome. My disappointment comes not so much from the fact that the Census Bureau has 

tried and, in all likelihood, failed to use technology to improve the 

Decennial Census. It comes, in part, because we may wind up paying more for a poorer quality census in 2010 because the Census 

Bureau did not heed the warnings coming from GAO and others 

that its hand-held project was troubled and in jeopardy. 

The Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security 

that Senator Coburn and I lead has held a number of hearings over 

the years on preparation for 2010. We take our obligation seriously. 

At all of those hearings—and also at some hearings held by our 

counterparts in the House—we heard warnings that the hand-held 

project was not where it should be. GAO witnesses testified that, 

years into the contract with the hand-held maker, the Harris Corporation, the Census Bureau had not finalized what it wanted done 

and when they wanted it completed. 

GAO’s findings were supported recently by the MITRE Corporation, an outside group hired by the Census Bureau to examine the 

contract with Harris. MITRE briefed top Census officials on two occasions—once in June and once this past November—that the 

hand-held project may not achieve the goals the Census Bureau 

initially had for it. MITRE even suggested that the entire project 

may need to be scrapped. 

Our goal in holding this hearing, and airing these problems is 

not to point fingers and not to raise or sound alarm bells. 

3 

We want to find out what needs to be done to ensure that all of 

us live up to our constitutional obligation to conduct a 2010 decennial that is accurate and timely. 

And, while it may become necessary at some point to pay what 

we need to pay to get the census done and done right, I want to 

make sure that we are doing all we can to try to control those 

costs, and my hope is that the Department and the Bureau will as 

well. 

One of my favorite old movies was ‘‘Cool Hand Luke,’’ where Paul 

Newman was a convict on the lam and finally was tracked down. 

And you probably remember the line there at the end of the movie 

where the warden of the prison said what we have is a failure to 

communicate. 

I think what we have here is a failure to communicate, but that 

is only part of the failure. I think there was a failure on the part 

of the Census Bureau to figure out what your needs are going to 

be in terms of this project and to be able to clearly state those 

needs at an early point in time. 

What we have here is a failure to manage this project. What we 

have here is a failure to listen to GAO and to others who raised 

the warning flags about the project and the direction that it was 

going. What we have here is a failure to communicate to us and 

to our colleagues in the House of Representatives the real status 

of this project and to let us know early on. 

The census in this country is nothing new. We have been doing 

them every 10 years for over 200 years, and censuses in the world 

are nothing new either. They have been doing them since Jesus 

was a baby and even long before that. 

In a day and age when other countries are using the Internet, 

harnessing technology to do at least a portion of their census, and 

when my family and I and millions of others submit our tax returns to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) electronically, rather 

than talking here today about how we are harnessing the Internet 

to be able to electronically conduct part of the census, now we are 

looking at the one significant step forward on technology, the computer handhelds, and find that they may not even be working as 

well. 

I read the testimony submitted to the Committee before this 

hearing. I will be honest with you. I read the testimony last night 

from GAO, and I am just in disbelief as I tracked the last several 

years where we have come from and where we are today. 

We cannot tolerate any more failures. You cannot, obviously, as 

the Secretary of Commerce, Mr. Guiterrez. We cannot either. 

And from this point forward, what we have to figure out is how 

to be successful. A lot of people in this country, a lot of tax dollars, 

are at stake in this. Getting it right and getting it done right soon 

is what we need to do now. 

Senator Coburn has been on top of this from day one as the 

former Chairman of the Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security, and he is probably going to revisit with us some 

of the back and forth that he had with your predecessor, Dr. 

Murdock, and that is very telling in itself. 

[The prepared opening statement of Senator Carper follows:] 

4 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER 

The committee will come to order. 

My thanks to our witnesses—Secretary Gutierrez, Director Murdock, and our two 

witnesses from GAO—for being here on such short notice. Your cooperation with our 

oversight efforts and your commitment to working with us to get the 2010 decennial 

census back on track are greatly appreciated. 

My thanks as well to Senator Lieberman and Senator Collins for allowing us to 

hold this hearing at the full committee. 

As my colleagues are aware, the Constitution requires the Federal Government 

to go out every ten years and conduct a census. The data collected as a result of 

these efforts is used to support and ensure the effective operation of a number of 

programs here at the Federal level and in the states as well. 

The data is also used to determine the make up of the Federal Government itself. 

The information the Census Bureau collects about people and their communities 

once a decade is used to decide how the 435 seats in the House of Representatives 

are divided up. 

Senator Coburn and I called this hearing because information we’ve learned from 

the Commerce Department, the Census Bureau, and in the press indicates that the 

2010 decennial census could be at risk of failure. 

Right now, the Census Bureau is supposed to be in the middle of a period it calls 

the ‘‘dress rehearsal.’’ During the dress rehearsal, all of the procedures and technology that will be used in 2010 are supposed to be tested so that adjustments can 

be made before the counting actually begins. Instead of being out in the field doing 

a final run through, however, it appears that Census staff is stuck in headquarters 

trying to salvage a project that for years had been billed as the cornerstone of the 

Bureau’s 2010 efforts. 

The project—called ‘‘Field Data Collection Automation’’—involves handheld computers that canvassers and census-takers will use to go into communities and collect 

information. It was supposed to lead to a better quality census than the largely 

paper-based efforts conducted in 2000 and in previous decennials. It was also supposed to be the key to the Census Bureau’s projected cost savings this time around 

since using handheld computers instead of paper would likely mean fewer staff and 

less office space. 

However, Commerce and Census officials decided very recently—about a decade 

after preparations for the 2010 decennial began—that the handheld project may not 

be viable. As we will hear from Secretary Gutierrez and Director Murdock today, 

Census staff is working now to come up with a series of options for how to conduct 

major portions of the 2010 count. Among those options, I assume, will be a complete 

abandonment of the handheld project and the return to a paper census. It is my 

understanding that all of the options on the table at this point will come with a 

hefty price tag. 

I am, of course, very disappointed in this outcome. My disappointment comes not 

so much from the fact that the Census Bureau has tried and, in all likelihood, failed 

to use technology to improve the decennial census. It comes because we could wind 

up paying more for a poorer quality census in 2010 because the Census Bureau did 

not heed the warnings coming from GAO and others that their handheld project was 

troubled. 

The Subcommittee that Senator Coburn and I lead has held a number of hearings 

over the years on preparations for 2010. At all of those hearings—and also at some 

hearings held by our counterparts in the House—we heard warnings that the 

handheld project was not where it should be. GAO witnesses testified that, years 

into the contract with the handheld maker, the Harris Corporation, the Census Bureau had not finalized what they wanted done and when they wanted it completed. 

GAO’s findings were supported recently by the MITRE Corporation, an outside 

group hired by the Census Bureau to examine the contract with Harris. MITRE 

briefed top Census officials on two occasions—once in June and once in November— 

that the handheld project may not achieve the goals the Census Bureau initially 

had for it. MITRE even suggested that the entire project might need to be scrapped. 

My goal in holding this hearing and airing these problems is not to point fingers 

and raise alarm bells. I want to find out what needs to be done to ensure that we 

live up to our constitutional obligation to conduct a quality 2010 decennial. And, 

while it may become necessary at some point to pay what we need to pay to get 

the census right, I want to make sure that we’re doing all we can to control costs. 

So I applaud you, Mr. Secretary, for involving yourself personally in the process 

currently underway and for seeking the advice and counsel of outside experts as you 

prepare to make a decision on how to move forward. 

5 

My thanks to you again for coming here on such short notice and for being as 

open with us as you have been since you realized that you had this problem on your 

hands. 

Senator CARPER. Dr. Coburn, welcome. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COBURN 

Senator COBURN. Thank you. And I appreciate you coming before 

us. I would like to ask unanimous consent that my statement be 

made a part of the record. 

Senator CARPER. Without objection. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Coburn follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR COBURN 

Good morning, I would like to start by first thanking Chairman Lieberman and 

Chairman Carper for holding this hearing today. I would also like to thank Secretary Gutierrez and Director Murdock for being here as well. 

We are here today because the Census Bureau finds itself in the midst of a crisis. 

So serious is the crisis that if it is not dealt with immediately, it could threaten 

the integrity of the 2010 count. At issue is a $600 million contract designed to create 

handheld computers for automating the way that census data is collected. Unfortunately, the contract has been managed so poorly that it might fail to produce fully 

functioning handheld computers, which could set off a chain reaction of events from 

which the Bureau might never recover. I hope that we can avoid such a worst-case 

scenario, but the question is: How? I hope that today’s hearing will shed some light 

on that subject. 

Most Americans are no doubt unaware of how much time and effort goes into 

planning for a census since it happens only every 10 years. But, because a census 

is such a large undertaking, the decisions that are made in the years beforehand 

are those that have the biggest impact on how much it will cost and, most importantly, how well it will be done. The Census Bureau has now reached a point in 

which decisions that should have been made months ago—if not years ago—must 

be made over the next few weeks. There decisions will determine whether the census in 2010 can be rescued from the brink. 

The problem that the Bureau faces is not mystery: Many of the functions that it 

planned to automate using the handheld computers may now have to be done on 

paper. How we got here is also not a mystery: Thousands of changes were made 

to the contract over the last two years, making it nearly impossible to know what 

the final product would be and when it needed to be completed—even if it could be 

completed. 

It should be noted that the problems with this contract seemed apparent to everyone except the Census Bureau. For years, the Government Accountability Office has 

warned that constantly adding new requirements to the contract could have disastrous effects. This Committee, as well as our counterparts in the House, held hearings to discuss the growing problems associated with the handheld contract. Internal reports from the MITRE Corporation and the contractor itself, dating back to 

June 2007, warned that serious problems were on the horizon. Inexcusably, the 

warnings were largely ignored. 

We now find ourselves facing a situation in which we might have to revert to conducting the census entirely by paper—no differently than it was done in the 19th 

Century. It is ironic that this hearing is happening in the middle of tax season, considering that electronic filings are hitting all time high. Just this week, the IRS is 

reporting that of the 47 million returns that were filed as of the third week in February, 38 million were done electronically. If we can file tax data electronically— 

which is far more sensitive than census data—we should be able to collect census 

data electronically. Unfortunately, the likelihood of this seems low. 

What is most important now, though, is what we do from this point forward to 

fulfill the constitutional mandate to count the population. The opinions are either 

to use the handhelds, revert to paper, or do something in between. As the Census 

Bureau, and ultimately the Secretary of Commerce, makes a final decision, I would 

like to outline four concerns I have. 

First, I’m afraid that the timetable for decisions is unreasonably slow. Information 

we have received from the Secretary’s office would push off final decisions until late 

this month or early April. Considering the problems have been well known by highlevel Census Bureau executives since at least early January, taking three months 

to make decisions is too long. 

6 

Second, I’m concerned that technology could be abandoned too quickly in favor of 

reverting back to a paper census. Because paper seems like the comfortable choice 

for those at the Census who have always relied on it in the past, I know it may 

be tempting to think that the technology is the villain here. Technology is not the 

villain—only the poor management of technology. We need to look at what the technology can offer us. Huge investments of time and money have already been made 

into producing handheld computers, which might still be used. Decisions about 

whether to use paper or handheld computers need to be based on sound analysis 

and not simply be based on what is more comfortable. 

Third, I’m extremely concerned that taxpayers might be unfairly stuck with an 

enormous bill to pay for the Census Bureau’s mismanagement. While no one has 

given Congress any reliable figures on what the possible impact would be, I’ve been 

assured that the dollar amount could be significant. For years, the Census Bureau 

has estimated that the 2010 count will cost between $11.3 billion and $11.8 billion— 

I hope that the Secretary of Commerce will work to ensure that the cost does not 

increase beyond that, even with these trying circumstances. However, let me be perfectly clear—if costs go over that amount, taxpayers should not have to subsidize 

this mismanagement more than they already have. If more money is needed, I fully 

expect that the Department and the Bureau will work internally and with the Office 

of Management and Budget (OMB) to find offsets out of programs that already exist. 

This subcommittee has identified billions of dollars in wasteful programs over the 

years, and I will not support any request that forces taxpayers to bail out the Census Bureau with an off-budget, emergency supplemental. 

Finally, and most importantly, I am concerned that the 2010 census may suffer 

significantly in the area of quality. The Constitution itself demands an accurate 

count as an essential element of our representative democracy. Allowing the quality 

of the count to diminish even slightly is unacceptable because of the impact it can 

have on those who deserve full representation. Every effort should be made to provide the American people full confidence in the apportionment process, which can 

only be accomplished by an accurate census count in 2010. 

I again want to thank our witnesses for being here today and look forward to 

their testimony. 

Senator COBURN. And I will try not to spend a lot of time on it. 

I do not think this is a communication problem. I think this is 

an arrogance and management problem, and I am not saying that 

to the Secretary, nor to the present Director. 

But I am going to read you in a moment the testimony that we 

had with the former Director of the Census about this very issue, 

and I think it is very telling in light of what the GAO was saying 

at the time. 

Here are Mr. Kincannon’s words: 

Senator Coburn: What happens if these do not work? What is your plan B? 

Mr. Kincannon: They will work. They have worked. You might as well ask 

me what happens if the Postal Service refuses to deliver the census forms. 

Senator Coburn: I am not asking it facetiously. I am asking what happens 

if there is a computer glitch and these hand-held devices do not work. What 

is plan B? 

Mr. Kincannon: The computer devices have been tested and proven to work. 

That is the testimony. At that time, they had not been proven 

to work, but that was his testimony. 

Senator Coburn: All I want you to do is answer my question. What if they 

do not work. 

Mr. Kincannon: We have a big problem then. 

Senator Coburn: So are you going to have to hire more people to do the nonresponse follow up? 

Mr. Kincannon: I do not believe that condition will obtain, so I do not—— 

Senator Coburn: So there is no planning.’’ So, as we have talked about planning for what-ifs and—— 

Mr. Kincannon: We could hire more people. Yes, we could hire more people, 

sir. 

7 

Senator Coburn: Is it not true that GAO has said that this handheld device 

is a huge risk in their testimony? 

Mr. Kincannon: I do not know the precise formulation of words, but they 

say there is a risk associated with using handhelds. 

Senator Coburn: So your testimony to me is that there is no alternative 

plan if that does not work? 

Mr. Kincannon: We have no reason to believe that there is any systematic 

risk in all the handhelds. That system will work. 

Senator Coburn: Your testimony today is if that does not work—if GAO’s 

concerns happen to be borne out—there is no alternative plan if it does not 

work? 

This was June 2006, 21 months ago. There was no alternative 

plan, if they did not work. I will not continue the rest of it. 

Mr. Secretary, I had a meeting with you in September 2006 raising some concerns on just Web-based and computer issues, trying 

to get you to look at some of the things. We did not alert you to 

the significance of what we thought this was, and so we cannot 

hold you accountable to what we knew at that time. I am not going 

to try to do that at this time. 

But here is what the IRS said this week: It has received 47 million returns as of February 22, 2008. Thirty-eight million were filed 

electronically, up 5 percent from 2000. Twenty-six million e-files. 

Self-prepared electronic returns went up to 12.3 million; 12.3 million people without the help of accountants for their tax return or 

anybody else filed their tax returns, which are much more complicated and require much more serious data collection protection. 

Thirty-nine million returns were qualified for a refund, with the 

vast majority of those having direct deposit through the computer. 

Thirty-three million of them. 

We have been saying since 2005 to the Census, when they turned 

down looking at an information technology (IT) response for the 

Census that they ought to be doing that. And probably had they 

gone in that direction, we probably would not have some of the 

pressure points we have today. 

The other point I would make is we know that there are experts 

out there to help you, and you have a committee that you are putting together, but a guy like Dave Brady from Stanford University 

is not on that committee. 

He is the guru who has written all the statistical analysis of how 

you do things, but he has not been invited to be on the committee— 

he is the guy from Stanford who knows the basis under which all 

this statistical data is used. He wrote it. And yet, he had not been 

contacted. He had not been asked to be a part of the solution for 

your problems. 

And I would just hope that you broaden the scope of the people 

who are going to advise you in this short period of time. There are 

real experts in this country who have written the programs that 

the Census Bureau has used in the past to accomplish this, and let 

them help dig us out of this. 

I hold the Secretary in great regard. I appreciate him coming, 

and our new Director of the Census, he has the capability. But we 

have a real problem, and the problem is two-fold. 

One is the risk that we will not have an accurate enough census 

with which to do apportionment, which there is absolutely no excuse for, even being in a risk situation, given what GAO said; and 

8 

two, we did not have testimony, I do not believe, of what the additional costs are going to be, and that may be because you do not 

know. 

But I stated before this Committee over a year and a half ago that we are looking at probably $3 billion in increased costs based 

on what we saw as incompetence at that time coming out of the 

Census Bureau. 

So I hope I am wrong on that. I know Senator Carper and I both 

are worried about the increased cost for the value that we are 

going to get. 

I look forward to your testimony, and this cannot be that hard 

to figure out, especially because we know that the enumerators entering data into a handheld, if it is not working, we know we can 

always go to Web-based phones. 

You only got six questions. You already got the connection. So 

you do not even need the Harris Corp. 

You can get Web-based phones and enter six questions and 

transmit it. So, the question is there are a lot of alternatives out 

there that have not been looked at yet that certainly are not going 

to cost $600 million for us to be able to accomplish the census. 

I look forward to your testimony. Our goal right now is to help 

us work this problem out and continue in oversight. 

What is truly disappointing, Mr. Chairman, is that the Census 

Bureau did not listen to the Government Accountability Office and 

Inspector General. I mean, it was kind of like you guys do not 

know what you are talking about. You could not have good insight; 

so therefore, we are going to ignore you. 

And the consequence of ignoring the warning signs is that we 

find ourselves where we are today. And, to me, I think that is arrogance and mismanagement. 

The fact is they were not there to be critical. They were there 

to assess what they saw, and a good manager takes all options and 

looks at them and considers them and goes and checks the validity 

of them. And I do not think that happened in the Census Bureau. 

And my hope is that the good professionals—and there are tons 

in the Census Bureau—look at this and say this is a great learning 

experience. Let us use everything we can use in the future to help 

us do our job better. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you, Dr. Coburn, and in a moment, Secretary Gutierrez, I am going to ask you and Dr. Murdock to stand 

and take an oath before you testify—but not yet. 

I just want to take a moment to provide a brief introduction. 

Carlos Gutierrez is the thirty-fifth Secretary of Commerce. Before joining this President’s Cabinet in 2005, he served, as I understand, as both chairman and CEO of the Kellogg Company, having 

risen through the ranks of that company since starting out there 

I believe in 1975? 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. That is right. 

Senator CARPER. Nineteen seventy-five. 

Dr. Steven Murdock is the Director of the U.S. Census Bureau. 

He was confirmed to that position by the Senate this past December after serving for more than 25 years, a quarter of a century, 

as head of the Texas State Data Center and the Texas Population 

Estimates and Projections Program. 

9 

1The prepared statement of Secretary Gutierrez appears in the Appendix on page 72. 

The first-ever state demographer in Texas, Dr. Murdock played 

a leadership role in the State’s decennial census activities in 1980, 

1990, and 2000. 

Questions have been raised about the veracity of some of the testimony provided in the House of Representatives on this issue last 

year, and we just want to take the steps suggested by Dr. Coburn, 

and I think it is a good idea. 

And with that, I am going to ask you to stand. 

If you would please rise and raise your right hand and repeat 

after me. 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? 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. I do. 

Mr. MURDOCK. I do. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks very much. Please be seated. And normally we set 5 minutes as the target time for testimony. We are 

just going to ignore that today, and encourage you to take the time 

that you need within reason, and your full statement will be made 

a part of the record. 

Secretary Gutierrez. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. CARLOS M. GUTIERREZ,1 SECRETARY, 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. Thank you, Chairman Carper and Senator 

Coburn. Thank you both for your interest in the census, and I 

know that you have taken a leadership role in this, and you have 

shown interest throughout the years, not just in recent times. 

And I appreciate the opportunity to discuss preparations for the 

2010 census, specifically our efforts to implement the Field Data 

Collection Automation, known as FDCA. 

Preparing and executing the Decennial Census is one of the highest priorities and most important responsibilities of the Commerce 

Department. 

I am working closely with Census Director Steve Murdock to ensure that the Census Bureau and all of its dedicated hard working 

employees have the support necessary to carry out this constitutionally required task. 

I especially want to thank the Committee Members for your interest, for your concern and for your support on every aspect of the 

Decennial Census. 

The complexity of the 2010 census is compounded by our efforts 

to reengineer the historically paper-based Decennial Census by 

automating as much of it as possible to improve data collection and 

operations. 

The planning for the 2010 census began after the completion of 

the 2000 census and includes several key components: 

First is replacement of the Decennial Census long-form with the 

American Community Survey, which provides more timely information on demographic, housing, social, and economic data; a shortform only Decennial Census, which counts the population and gathers basic demographic characteristics; improved mapping, including 

use of global positioning technology for Master Address File/TopoVerDate Nov 24 2008 09:31 May 28, 2010 Jkt 041456 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 P:\DOCS\41456.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
10 

logically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (MAF/ 

TIGER); technology data capture from paper, telephone and field 

sources; replacement of legacy systems for tabulating and disseminating results; and the Field Data Collection Automation. 

While most of these components are on schedule and meeting 

current cost estimates, FDCA is experiencing significant schedule, 

performance, and cost issues that I will focus on today. 

We have discovered serious problems with the FDCA program, 

and I am personally involved in bringing key issues to the surface 

and developing a way forward. 

In short, the situation is unacceptable. As I know it is unacceptable to you, I want you to know that it is unacceptable to me. 

The American people expect and deserve a timely and accurate 

Decennial Census and the Department, and I will not rest until 

they have it and they have it on time. 

For background, FDCA has three major parts: One, automated 

data collection using hand-held devices both to verify addresses, 

called Address Canvassing or AdCan, and to collect data during the 

non-response follow-up (NRFU) of those households that do not return their census form by mail; the Operational Control System 

(OCS), that tracks and manages Decennial Census workflow for all 

the field operations, including those operations conducted on paper; 

and then finally the Census Operations Infrastructure, which provides office automation and support for regional and local Census 

Offices. 

The bid request for the FDCA contract was released in late 2005, 

and the Harris Corporation won the contract in April 2006. 

The first major test of FDCA systems occurred in the spring of 

2007 when the hand-held devices were used for an Address Canvassing dress rehearsal. 

Concerns about the FDCA program grew over time and Census 

and Commerce officials became increasingly aware of the significance of the problems through GAO and Office of Inspector General 

reviews, the 2007 dress rehearsal, and internal assessments. 

In his testimony on December 11, 2007, then-Director Kincannon 

mentioned that Census was addressing concerns that had been 

raised about the gap between the capacity to get the work done and 

the amount of time remaining. 

One of the main reasons for this gap was significant miscommunication concerning technical requirements between the Census 

Bureau and Harris. 

The lack of clarity in defining technical requirements was a serious problem especially with regard to testing and functionality of 

the hand-held devices in a full Census environment. 

For example, discrepancies arose over data upload times, screen 

change speed and data storage capabilities. 

In response, Census Deputy Director Jay Waite in mid-November 

initiated an integrated project team, essentially a SWAT team, to 

define the problems associated with the FDCA program and develop solutions that would ensure a successful 2010 census. 

The integrated project team focused on clarifying the remaining 

technical requirements where questions were still outstanding, 

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11 

essary, and examining the potential for the Census Bureau to absorb some of the activities originally planned for the contractor. 

The integrated project team undertook an in-depth review of all 

the technical specifications and provided Harris with an updated 

set of requirements in mid-January 2008. 

Harris conducted its evaluation of these requirements and provided a rough order of magnitude cost estimate in late January. 

The estimate highlighted potentially substantial increases in the 

contract cost, and raised new questions about staying on schedule. 

Clearly, the problem was more significant than had been conveyed in the December 11, 2007, hearing. What we had perceived 

as serious, but manageable, problems that were being addressed, 

we now view as critical and urgent. 

There is no question that both the Census Bureau and Harris 

could have done things differently and better over the past couple 

of years. 

I should add at this point that in late 2006 leadership changes 

did take place, and I would like to thank this Committee and the 

Senate for confirming Dr. Murdock, as the new Director of the Census Bureau, with whom I am working very closely to further clarify 

the problems and to develop a set of options for getting the Decennial Census back on track. 

Senator CARPER. Secretary Gutierrez, let me interrupt for just a 

moment. In your testimony, you say that leadership changes occurred in late 2006. Was it late 2007? Is that a misprint? 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. I am sorry. Which? 

Senator CARPER. Because Director Murdock was confirmed late 

last year. 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. Well, that is correct. 

Senator CARPER. But are you alluding to other changes? 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. The agreement to undertake the leadership changes was decided in late 2006. It actually did not take 

place until 2007. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. So, OK. In January 2008 after being confirmed, Director Murdock began a top-to-bottom review of all the 

components of the Decennial Census, including FDCA. 

Given the growing problems with FDCA and other possible impacts of building a more automated 2010 census, we want to be 

sure there are no other major issues or surprises. 

As part of that review, for example, we are carefully examining 

the Census cost estimating assumptions related to such matters as 

hours worked per enumerator and implications for supervisory and 

other costs. If necessary, adjustments will be made accordingly. 

As part of this broader review, Director Murdock launched the 

2010 Census FDCA Risk Reduction Task Force on February 6, 

2008, after receiving Harris’ response to the integrated project 

team requirements. 

The task force is headed by a former Acting Director of the Census Bureau, members from various parts of the Census Bureau and 

the Department of Commerce, and outside consultants from 

MITRE. 

The task force was charged with identifying and analyzing options for ensuring the success of FDCA. 

12 

These options include reexamining the current contract to determine what changes could be made if there was a decision to shift 

some of the work back to the Census Bureau. The task force will 

soon present its findings to Director Murdock. 

We are essentially 2 or 3 weeks away from the findings and from 

the recommendations. 

The first phase of the task force’s work focused on evaluating 

risks and options to manage these risks. Harris was not directly involved in this part of the analysis, which is one of the reasons why 

cost estimates are not yet available. 

Preliminary estimates do suggest the potential for cost overruns 

for the remaining life-cycle of the Decennial Census, we believe 

most occurring in 2010. 

While I have seen some of the same estimates that you have— 

I have not heard the number that you just mentioned, Senator 

Coburn, but I have heard a lot of different numbers—we are in the 

process of assessing these costs so that we can bring you what we 

believe is the right number. 

At this time, I am able to share the basic conceptual elements 

of the options being considered. All of these options call for using 

the hand-held computers for Address Canvassing, and we are continuing to work to ensure this requirement is met. 

For the other major components of the FDCA, each of the options 

considers a combination of responsibilities between Harris and 

Census in terms of capabilities, expertise, staffing, timing and 

costs. 

Option one is what we call the baseline. The first option is continuing with the current baseline largely as envisioned in the original FDCA project plan and contract. 

Harris would complete the hand-held computers for Address 

Canvassing and non-response follow-up. Harris would also complete the development of the operations control system and the 

field operations infrastructure. 

Harris has already developed major parts of the operations control system and has the IT infrastructure and staff to support further testing and development. 

However, given various issues related to handhelds, we would simultaneously evaluate the feasibility of a paper-based back-up plan 

for non-response follow-up should the next FDCA dress rehearsal 

not succeed. 

In the second option, we would shift everything but Address Canvassing back to the Census Bureau, including non-response followup, the operations control system and the field operations infrastructure. 

The non-response follow-up would be paper based and handhelds 

would not be used for NRFU. Census has extensive experience in 

conducting paper-based non-response follow-ups. 

The third option would shift non-response follow-up and field operations infrastructure to Census, but Harris would continue to develop the operations control system. 

As noted, Harris has already developed major parts of the operations control system. Again, this option would mean a paper based 

non-response follow-up. 

13 

Option four would shift only non-response follow-up back to Census and Harris would keep responsibility for the operations control 

system and field operations infrastructure. 

This option depends on Harris being able to successfully complete both. Again, the non-response follow-up would be paperbased. 

So we are now at a critical juncture, and we must move fast to 

evaluate these options and make decisions for moving forward. 

I am appointing an expert panel to quickly evaluate independently each of the options and report back to me before the end of 

the month. 

The expert panel will be composed of five to seven members, including former Census Bureau Directors Ken Prewitt and Vince 

Barabba, former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, and other knowledgeable experts in Census-type operations and large IT system development programs. And, Senator Coburn, we will definitely call 

Dave Brady at Stanford and get his experience onto this group. 

I know you will have many questions, some of which I will not 

be able to answer today, and I do not have a specific cost number 

today. There is so many numbers floating around that we are reluctant to throw another one around. The next time I give you a 

number, I want it to be the number. And you will have that number, Senators, as soon as I have that number. 

After the task force and expert panel complete their work and report back to me at the end of the month, we will brief you on our 

findings at that time. 

We know how seriously you take this and that the American people expect and deserve a correct and thorough census, so let me 

stress that I take this very seriously; and I take the constitutional 

responsibility to conduct an accurate Decennial Census extremely, 

extremely seriously. 

Over the past month, I have been briefed by the Director and 

Deputy Director of the Census Bureau, senior management at the 

Department of Commerce, our Inspector General, representatives 

of the task force, Harris Corporation, the MITRE Corporation, and 

GAO. 

And I can assure you that I will be extremely active in this 

project until my last day that I am in office. And if I need to be 

involved after that, I will be as well. I have one interest and one 

interest only and that is to have a good census in 2010 and perhaps 

even the best census in 2010. 

So I am fully committed, along with Director Murdock, to work 

in partnership with the Congress. And I appreciate, in advance, 

your support in allowing us to focus on solving these problems, addressing the issues, and looking forward. 

Senator Carper, if I may, just on your question. The former Director, Mr. Kincannon, left when Dr. Murdock was confirmed and 

then the other management change was Deputy Director Waite, in 

January 2007. So those were the decisions that were made in 2006, 

and one of them just took longer to implement while we recruited 

and got Director Murdock confirmed. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Dr. 

Murdock, you are recognized. Your entire testimony will be made 

part of the record. You are welcome to summarize as you see fit. 

14 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Murdock appears in the Appendix on page 80. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. STEVEN H. MURDOCK,1 DIRECTOR, U.S. 

CENSUS BUREAU, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 

Mr. MURDOCK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Senator Coburn. 

I appreciate the opportunity to come here before you and to talk 

about our preparations for the 2010 census, particularly the Field 

Data Collection Automation Program, what we call FDCA. 

Reviewing and evaluating all Census preparations has been the 

focus of my Directorship since I was sworn in on January 4, 2008, 

and, of course, FDCA is at the heart of the reengineered short form 

of the 2010 census. 

When the Census Bureau reengineered the 2010 census at the 

beginning of the decade, the plan was really threefold: Leverage 

Global Positioning System (GPS) technology to bring GPS alignment of our street center lines and geographic features to improve 

our geographical database, or what we call MAF/TIGER; replace 

the Decennial Census long form with the American Community 

Survey to provide more timely, accurate household and demographic data; and automate census data collection operations for 

the short-form 2010 census. 

This was a bold vision, and the Census Bureau has taken great 

strides toward making it a reality. 

MAF/TIGER is on schedule for completion next month. This 

means that census maps and addresses are more accurate than 

ever before, and operations that depend on them, from censuses 

and surveys to commercial applications like MapQuest, are better 

than ever. 

The American Community Survey (ACS) is now fully implemented, and we are mailing forms to 250,000 households per 

month. And the ACS response rate is at 97 percent, and produces 

yearly estimates for municipalities of 65,000 and more people, and 

by 2008, will be producing multi-year estimates for municipalities 

of 20,000 or more. 

As a result, government officials and data users have more accurate and timely data to inform policy and planning decisions. These 

are important accomplishments that dramatically improve the Census’ ability to achieve its mission. 

However, as you have just heard from Secretary Gutierrez, most 

components of the Census are proceeding according to plan; but the 

Field Data Collection Automation program is facing significant 

schedule, performance and cost issues. 

There are really two sets of problems. The first concerns the 

functionality of the hand-held computers. 

Assessments of the Address Canvassing operation for the dress 

rehearsal revealed that there were difficulties in obtaining efficient 

transmission to and from the hand-held computers, resulting in 

enumerator downtime. 

In addition, the hand-held computers did not function well if the 

number of addresses in the enumerator assignment areas were too 

large. 

The second set of problems concerns the requirements for the Operations Control System (OCS). The sheer volume of requirements, 

as well as the complexity of the operations that FDCA supports, 

15 

contribute to problems that are particularly significant in the development of the OCS. 

Contract deliverables in the fall indicated that problems remained despite steps taken to clarify and strengthen the process 

we use to define contract requirements. 

As we grapple with these problems, I am committed to working 

with the Secretary and the Task Force and Expert Panel he described to finalize a plan to get the 2010 census back on track. 

The Task Force will provide rough cost estimates and risk assessments for each option they are outlining. We will then analyze 

their report and provide a recommendation to the Secretary and 

his panel of experts. 

Mr. Chairman, Senator Coburn, I cannot overemphasize the seriousness of these issues. My colleagues and I recognize that we 

must move quickly to implement solutions. While we still have an 

enormous challenge ahead, I am confident that we are close to defining and implementing a strategy that will ensure a successful 

2010 census. 

Under the current structure and with the continued support of 

Congress, we will fulfill our mission. Thank you for the opportunity 

to testify, and I am happy to answer your questions. 

Senator COBURN [presiding]. Thank you, Director Murdock. I will 

go on and start with the questioning while we are waiting on Senator Carper to come back. 

One of my pet peeves since I have been in Congress is cost-plus 

contracting, and when we asked Director Kincannon about this, he 

was unaware that it was a cost-plus contract. 

You can go back and check that in the testimony if you want. 

We are where we are. There has to be some lessons learned from 

where we are. When we say the requirements were not spelled out 

enough, Director Murdock, to Harris, does that imply we did not 

do a good enough job of creating expectations? We did not delineate 

what was expected or did Harris Corporation fail to supply what 

was asked for and just did not meet the needs of the Census Bureau? Which is it? 

Mr. MURDOCK. I would say that the major difficulty was in their 

getting an understanding of our business, of what we do, of how 

it needs to be done. We often thought that we were communicating 

effectively, in our own terminology, in our own processes, but at the 

same time, we were not providing the kind of detail that the contractor needed to implement the process. 

As I have indicated to you before, I think we did not properly 

scope this. We did not look at the detail that was needed in the 

way that we needed to in order to communicate it effectively to the 

contractor. 

Senator COBURN. Were there indications from the contractor that 

they were having trouble understanding what your need was? Was 

there communication from Harris that said, hey, we are having 

trouble? We do not think you all know what you want here. You 

need to give us a little more direction. Was there that communication from the Harris Corporation? 

Mr. MURDOCK. Well, obviously, I was not there at the time. 

Senator COBURN. Well, what does your staff tell you? 

16 

Mr. MURDOCK. Certainly, we were interacting with them continuously, and we perceived that we were making progress, that we 

were working through the issues. And only lately, starting in November when Deputy Director Waite began to look in great detail 

at this, did we see that we had not specified the requirements in 

a way and in a level of detail that was needed by our contractor. 

Senator COBURN. Why is it that the GAO knew that a year 

ahead of the Census Bureau? That is the thing I do not understand. The GAO knows this problem is occurring. They are putting 

it out there. They are telling you that it is occurring, and they are 

saying there is a problem a year ahead of this or soon after the 

contract was let that this was high risk. 

Mr. MURDOCK. These are the very kinds of issues that I have 

been raising and looking at as I have come into this position. They 

are the kind of things we know we have got to solve. We cannot 

continue to have these kinds of practices. We cannot continue to 

fail to communicate. We are working very strenuously now, including a very intense effort going on this week with the contractor to 

determine just how we can most effectively ensure that these problems are behind us; that we are going forward; and that we are 

communicating effectively. 

And one of my charges I think is to ensure that that communication continues, that we get good communication, and that we are 

effectively communicating with the contractor and vice versa. 

Senator COBURN. Is it disconcerting to you that, if the American 

people were to look at this and say, well, what is the cost per 

household of doing the Decennial Census plus the American Community Survey, we have gone from about $70 per household to 

$130 in 10 years and that, even figuring in inflation, we have gone 

from $90 to $130 per household? Is there any concern that there 

is a legitimate explanation to the American people why we would 

have a 40 percent increase in the cost of answering six questions? 

I mean, it is a pretty good question that we are going to have, with 

deference to the Secretary; we are going to spend $14 billion plus 

on this. I just will promise you. 

I was here in 2000. I saw us come with the emergency money 

to bail us out in 2000. There was $2.6 billion that you all came for 

as an emergency money request for the Census in 2000. 

So, we are just talking, $2.2 billion versus the Secretary’s latest 

estimate of $11.8 billion I think is the last thing that you gave us 

before this came up. So, does the American people have a right to 

say, well, what is going on here? We are spending more money 

than we have, and now we are going to do a census, something we 

have been doing every 10 years since we were formed as a Nation, 

and why should the cost of it be growing 40 percent? 

Mr. MURDOCK. Well, certainly, as the Secretary has indicated, it 

is premature to indicate any cost estimates at this time. We have 

the task force working and still coming to its decisions and its recommendation to me. 

Senator COBURN. I am not asking you to do that. 

Mr. MURDOCK. Yes. 

Senator COBURN. The fact is if you have to take back a paper 

survey for a NRFU to follow up—the people, the hours, and the 

time—that is a big cost. We all know that. You did it the last time. 

17 

If you have to take that back up, that is a large cost that is on top of the $11.8 billion. And so the question really is not focusing 

on the problems, just on the total cost, even at $11.8 billion, are 

they getting value out of the Bureau of the Census for what they 

are getting? 

Now I know a lot of that has to do with the American Community Survey and the great data we get out of that, but this kind 

of growth every 10 years, if you extrapolate it, the next one is going 

to cost $28 billion. 

Mr. MURDOCK. Well, obviously costs are a concern to us. They 

are a concern to me. I appreciate as a taxpayer these kinds of 

issues, and we certainly want to keep the costs as low as we possibly can. 

There are a lot of benefits from the census, Senator, as you have 

just indicated. Not only is it used for reapportionment, but it is 

used in a variety of programs to help administer them more effectively. 

But the increase in cost is a concern of mine. It is a concern of 

the Bureau. 

Senator COBURN. OK. One last question and this is to both of 

you. 

And I do not know that this is the case, but I am assuming it 

is the case. 

Why has the Internet not been considered as an option for helping the enumerators enter the data if the handhelds will not work? 

For instance, there are only six questions. Right? 

Mr. MURDOCK. Yes. 

Senator COBURN. We know that we have the technical capability 

to authenticate the enumerators remotely. We know that is out 

there, since that is what the handhelds were based on. So why 

would we not give them Web-enabled cell phones and allow them 

to enter the information over a Web-based application? I mean, 

that is not rocket science. 

I mean, are we considering that? 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. Senator, if I could just—and I will answer 

the Internet question. I share your overall concern on cost-plus contracts, and I have read much of what you have been saying about 

cost-plus contracts. 

When we get back the options, if we have a different scope, I 

think it may be an opportunity to review what kind of a contract 

are we going to have. We have already awarded Harris two bonuses as part of their fee award. The first year, they were rated 

a 93; and the second year, 91. 

So I think that says something about what we asked them for. 

What they thought they had been asked for and how we perceived 

their work. 

So that is something that we bring back to you; I would like to 

lay out what changes, if any, this makes to the contract. 

Senator COBURN. So you would say that there really had not 

been great problems with Harris as far as what you expected of 

them, based on the ratings of the contract? 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. Well, the ratings would suggest that we 

were pleased with the work they delivered at that time. 

Senator COBURN. That should really concern us, should it not? 

18 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. Well, it is all part of what we are trying 

to figure out. And it is all part of this management quandary that 

you mentioned. 

My understanding with the Internet is as yours, and I know you 

have been on this for a while, we did do a test. The response was 

low. However, as you pointed out, we did not advertise. So we did 

not advertise the fact that people could go online. So we had a 7 

percent response—very low. We know countries like New Zealand 

and—— 

Senator COBURN. Canada. 

Secretary GUTIERREZ [continuing]. Canada have done this. They 

have done it well. Obviously, they are different countries, but I do 

not believe we have time. 

Senator COBURN. Well, I am not talking about starting anew. I 

am talking about the fact that you already have the technical capability to authenticate the enumerators. So, you could really walk 

away from the hand-held devices you have now and use a Webbased phone and do the same thing. 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. Yes. 

Senator COBURN. I mean, that technical capability is out there 

for you, and my question is are you even looking at it? Are you considering it? 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. When we come back, I would like to look 

at the Web-based phone, because you mentioned that this morning, 

very specifically, and get back to you with an assessment of that 

option. 

Senator COBURN. OK. 

Mr. MURDOCK. One of the difficulties, of course, is that our Operating Control System, which is key to what we have been planning 

for a Web-based operation that keeps track of who has responded, 

and who has not. It is a very complex system that has to interact 

and provide reports on how enumerators perform other functions. 

The initial assessment is that this would be a difficult operation on 

a cell phone. But I agree with the Secretary. 

Obviously, we can get back to you and look at this in more detail. 

Senator COBURN. OK. Thank you. Mr. Chairman. 

Senator CARPER. [Presiding.] Secretary Gutierrez, I am going to 

ask you to put on your old Kellogg hat that you wore for all those 

years as the chairman and CEO. And obviously during that period 

of time, the folks who work for you developed and worked on any 

number of IT projects that had significant ramifications for the 

company. 

Put that hat on. Take the situation in which we find ourselves 

today. Explain to us what you would have done as CEO of Kellogg 

to have made sure this did not happen. And if it did on your watch, 

what you would have done as CEO of Kellogg to fix it. 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. That is a good question. Actually, Mr. 

Chairman, this reminds me of a similar project. On one hand you 

have a very longstanding, proud organization like the Census Bureau, which has traditionally done the work on its own, and then 

we inserted an outside player, as I think through this because this 

is a management problem. It is an organizational problem. In the 

end, we may say it is a technical problem, but technical problems 

are rarely technical problems. 

19 

So we brought in an outside third party to take over what the 

Census had been used to doing for a long time, and that requires 

two sets of challenges. 

One is a cultural change, which sounds easy. It sounds fluffy, but 

I have seen so many acquisitions fail and integrations fail because 

the cultures do not fit and then to be able to manage through that 

culture. You need some pretty experienced project management 

skills that bring together two organizations that do not come together naturally; that pay attention to an incredible amount of detail and ensure that people are talking to each other when they 

normally would not be talking to each other. 

For example, in one of the schedules, we noticed that the delivery 

date that Harris had for a certain product was different than when 

we needed it. That just says somebody did not bring them together 

and somebody did not pay attention to that level of detail, but it 

does require—and I mentioned this the other day—an autocrat 

with technical literacy, someone who is going to say this is where 

we are going, we have decided, and everybody get on board; this 

is how decisions will get made. We need to have a process in place 

where Harris and the Census Bureau are talking every day; people 

looking at schedules; people looking at flowcharts; people following 

up on the tremendous amount of details. 

I just do not think people did this on purpose. I do not think people did this maliciously. I just do not think that they had ever been 

involved in an integration of this magnitude. And the skills were 

not there to recognize that. 

So what I would do in a case of my experience in something like 

this is start at the top and ensure that the leadership is there and 

that the skills are there—the project management skills to do 

something as complex as this. I mean, this is not a simple thing 

to pull off. And regardless of where those skills are, whether they 

are inside or outside, the important thing is to bring the skills into 

the company. In the case of Harris, if the skills are in Harris, then 

Harris should come in, and the leadership should be there to inform the Census Bureau that Harris is going to provide a leadership role. That would be very difficult for that culture, but if that 

is what it takes, that is what it takes. 

And I cannot tell you if that is where we are. And I cannot tell 

you that Harris has that kind of discipline, but it is an integration 

challenge, a cultural challenge, and a skills challenge across the 

board, and this is why acquisitions fail. This is why 70 percent of 

all acquisitions fail. And I think what we are looking at is essentially an acquisition project. 

Senator CARPER. You mentioned this is really a management 

problem, and I agree. Senator Coburn leaned over to me and mentioned the word incompetence in kind of characterizing the way 

this whole thing has unfolded. 

But as I read the GAO testimony, it sounds to me like the Census Bureau was not really sure what they were asking for. And the 

requirements changed as time went by. There was a requirement 

creep, as requirements were modified from time to time. 

And Harris was being asked to do more and more. I do not know 

how well those communications were going. And you had the GAO 

out here saying something is wrong here. I presume the IG as well. 

20 

And somehow that never seemed to get to you. I presume it was 

getting to Dr. Murdock’s predecessor, and I presume once he got on 

board, he certainly got an earful of what was wrong. But somehow 

these warnings never got to you. 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. Yes. Again, I do not believe that people 

were hiding information. I truly believe that they thought that— 

in a meeting room things have a way of working themselves out. 

And it is new technology. We are going to work it out, and people 

convince each other. We like to work, and in the Commerce Department what we have said is, look, what we want to achieve as a culture is that bad news travels quickly. I like to hear bad news 

quickly, and once we get it, do something about it. 

There is no such thing as a CEO who never has mistakes happen 

in his company. The difference is which one addresses it quickly, 

and which one procrastinates. And the only thing I can do is assure 

you that once I knew that this was a problem, this became a top 

priority, and we are going to put it on the table, let the whole 

world know, because the important thing is that we solve it, not 

who looks good and who looks bad. And that is where we are today. 

But I do think that part of this communication problem was just 

not really knowing what Harris was supposed to know and what 

we were supposed to know, if they were saying do not worry about 

it. It is going to work. There is a lot of aspiration unfortunately involved in many of these projects, and sometimes you need a technical realist to say forget it. We are going to change or it is not 

working or—but that did not happen; that there is a human component here that—— 

Senator CARPER. Senator Coburn says that is what is wrong with 

a cost-plus contract. Well, you are not the only Department that 

has problems with IT projects. We had them in Delaware when I 

was governor of our State and then businesses and governments 

have them all too often. 

One of the things I find troubling here today is you mentioned 

the grade, if you will, that was assigned to the work that Harris 

was doing—a 91 in one instance, and a 93 in other instances. 

Senator Coburn and I get evaluated all the time on the work that 

we do. There are polls and so forth that are taken of our constituents, and we are evaluated by any number of interest groups, too, 

and sometimes I kid folks when they are giving us our evaluations 

of the work that we are doing. I ask them if they are grading on 

a curve, if we are being assessed on a curve. And all I can think 

is with a 91 and a 93, either you all are grading on a curve or the 

folks at Harris are doing a better job than maybe I was inclined 

to give them credit. Which is it? 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. Well, I would say two things. One is that 

because it was so early on in the contract that the requirements 

were minimal and they were able to achieve them or that we 

thought they were doing a better job than they actually were doing 

because we were not really sure what they were supposed to be 

doing. 

And I would like to find out those two, because in the course of 

this involvement, this is something that has come up, this award 

fee. We paid them over $3 million in the first year; over $7 million 

in the second year. And I just need to understand why. Let us see 

21 

the paperwork. Let us see the evaluation. Let us see the analysis. 

Let us see why we got to those numbers. 

But I can assure you that as we move forward, I will know why 

we are rating them what we are rating from here on. 

Senator CARPER. All right. 

Mr. MURDOCK. And I am also looking into that—— 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. 

Mr. MURDOCK [continuing]. To see why we created the awards 

fees that we did. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Dr. Coburn, why don’t you jump in for 

some more questions, and then I have a couple more. 

Senator COBURN. I just have a couple. In early February, did you 

all have Harris Corporation stop all work on this contract? There 

has never been a work stoppage on this contract? 

Mr. MURDOCK. There has not been a work stoppage—— 

Senator COBURN. OK. 

Mr. MURDOCK [continuing]. On the contract. 

Senator COBURN. One of the options that you have listed is 

bringing some of the IT stuff back in, that you are not going to be 

able to handle potentially under the options you laid out, Mr. Secretary. Do you all presently have the expertise in house to handle 

these IT functions? 

Mr. MURDOCK. We have expertise, but we clearly would need to 

augment it. We have, for example, the people who designed the 

OCS system for the 2000 census are still there. But they would 

have to be augmented extensively—— 

Senator COBURN. OK. 

Mr. MURDOCK [continuing]. Because their number are not sufficient to be able to form this without some additional hiring in the 

Bureau and some additional contractors. 

Senator COBURN. OK. So what you are talking about is using 

people in house plus contracting out with additional contractors to 

be able to bring it back in house? 

Mr. MURDOCK. I think that is the most likely case—simply getting the number—as in the 2000 census, in order to meet this need. 

That was the combination that we used then, and we had a substantially larger number of in-house IT people at that time than we 

do now. 

Senator COBURN. If I was Oracle and wanted to bid this contract, 

my bid would be pretty high right now because you are over a barrel, right? 

Mr. MURDOCK. I understand. 

Senator COBURN. So it is going to have a major impact on costs; 

right? I mean, we are not going to get any really efficient skinny 

deal because they know it has to happen in 2010, and you ask 

them to bid on it, nobody is going to be cutting this thing close. 

They are going to be cutting it high and fast, because you have to 

have it; correct? 

Mr. MURDOCK. Well, we have to have it. That is for sure. 

Senator COBURN. OK. 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. Well, I think that any company that bids 

and works with the Census and the Federal Government will know 

that people like you will be around next time, and I am sure they 

are going to want future contracts, so—— 

22 

Senator COBURN. But, if they got something to offer and you 

need it, it is a market, and they are going to advantage themselves, 

and I would, too, because you all have created the opportunity for 

them to do that. 

Mr. Secretary, we do not know what the increase in cost is. One 

thing I would like for you to think about is one good message to 

the American people is if this increased cost is coming, and some 

of it is mismanagement, the offsetting of the cost should not be the 

Census Bureau coming back to the Congress. It should be offset 

within the Department of Commerce through reprogramming. 

Why should the American people pay for this by borrowing additional money against the deficit rather than have the Department 

of Commerce become much more efficient in other things to pay for 

it themselves? In your Kellogg hat, that is what would happen. 

And the question is why do the American taxpayers deserve to 

have that happen on the Census? 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. Well, there is no question they deserve the 

best management that the country has on something like this, and 

we are going to look at all alternatives, Senator. We have to figure 

out first the timing, 2008, 2009, and 2010. We think that the increases will fall in 2010. We will have to look at that. But we will 

look at all options. 

Senator COBURN. Yes. 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. We will look at that. 

Senator COBURN. Yes. With most of the increases falling in 2010, 

that really relates back to the paper-based NRFU, right? 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. If that is where we end up. And I want to 

leave you a diagram, both of you, just so you get a sense of what 

we are looking at. 

Senator COBURN. OK. Was there ever any time that you believe 

Harris Corporation was under the impression in recent months 

that they should halt most work on this contract, to either of your 

knowledge? 

Mr. MURDOCK. There was a period of time when they interpreted 

a limitation of funds letter, or at least indicated they may have interpreted it, as a stop work order. But it was not—our contract 

lawyers say it was not such a letter. And it simply indicated what 

we had to spend and indicated what we would like to have them 

emphasize for the present period activities related to Address Canvassing. 

Senator COBURN. OK. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. Well, gentleman, I am encouraged at least to 

the point that you both seem to be saying you are going to take 

personal responsibility for getting this done and done right. 

It is possible that neither of you will be here for the next full 2 

or 3 years in order to be able to do that. Usually, when people sign 

up to be Cabinet Secretaries, they do so for the balance of a President’s term. I just checked with my staff, Dr. Murdock, to see that 

your tenure as Census Director is one that is for a set period of 

time, and apparently you serve at the pleasure of, I guess, the Secretary and the President. 

My guess is if you do a good job, if you are able to get this project 

out of the ditch and back on track, then we are going to be wanting 

and needing you to stay around. 

23 

And, Secretary Gutierrez, as you think about your legacy and 

you are prepared to move on I suspect next year—maybe not—but 

I am sure you do not want to leave as part of your legacy a census 

that turns out to be a failure. Let me say failure is not an option. 

It is not an option for you; it is not an option for us. And it is not 

an option for our country. 

But let me just ask what steps you all are planning to take to 

ensure that the career staff at the Commerce Department, and the 

career staff at the Census Bureau are going to be ready to carry 

on with whatever decisions that you make in the coming weeks 

given the options that you are looking at. What are you doing to 

ensure that the problems that you are currently facing are not a 

drag on morale on those who work in this case for you, Dr. 

Murdock? 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. If I could just—— 

Mr. MURDOCK. Yes, go ahead. 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. We met with the top 40 people at the Census Bureau just recently. And my sense is these are very highly 

skilled people who understand their work. And they understand 

what they do. Perhaps they had never been involved in managing 

an outside contractor, but from the standpoint of the technical aspects of the census, I walked away saying these people want to get 

it done. They have a certain amount of pride in their job, they do 

not want this to fail, and they are as frustrated as anyone else. 

But your comment is a good one and from here on, aside from 

getting the options in the technical part, the notion of people working together, understanding their roles, being able to follow one direction, I think, from here on is a big part of this. It is just as big 

as designing the software. And Director Murdock knows that. Deputy Director Waite knows that. This is all about management and 

leadership. 

Mr. MURDOCK. Yes. There is one clear thing that the staff of the 

Census Bureau has said to me repeatedly and that is when we get 

a decision, we are going to make this work. We are going to make 

the census work. This is an incredibly dedicated group of professionals, and they are ready to follow the Secretary’s lead in terms 

of determining and getting a very good census. There is no doubt 

about the motivation. Certainly, there has been some concern about 

where we have been in terms of things, but they are ready to go 

forward and with the Secretary’s leadership, we are going to get a 

good census. 

Senator CARPER. I think it is fair at this point to assume that 

most of the options, and you went through, I think, about four of 

them that you are currently considering for addressing the problem 

with the hand-held contract, are going to come with a price tag. 

Both Senator Coburn and I have been skeptical probably from 

the beginning about the Census Bureau’s estimates for the 2010 

census. I think we have got every reason to be skeptical. 

We saw the lifecycle costs of the decennial go up from about, I think, $11.2 billion to $11.5 billion just before our last Subcommittee oversight hearing. And then very recently our staff was 

told in a budget briefing that $11.5 billion was still an accurate 

number only to hear that Senator Coburn and I were told later 

that day that the real cost by the end of the process would be some 

24 

$11.8 billion; this does not inspire our confidence. I am sure you 

can see why. 

Well, how can we be sure that the numbers associated with the 

different options that you are putting on the table here today in the 

coming weeks are going to be any more accurate? 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. Well, I would just say that we understand 

that we do not have a lot of different shots at this. We have one 

shot to get this right, and time is not on our side. And one of the 

things that the people at Census are asking us is give us a decision 

because we need to start moving. 

So, as you said, we do not have an option to get this wrong 

again. So we are going to be putting the best brains and the best 

people and the best minds and experience on that number and on 

those options, and when we come to you, that will be as much my 

number as anyone else’s. And I will stand behind it. 

Senator CARPER. This is probably not a fix. It is a mission you’ve 

got to accomplish, and there are ways to do it, and it is going to 

cost some money. But I would ask you to, as you figure out how 

to go about it and which of these options to pick, just think about 

how much money we are going to borrow today from China, South 

Korea, Japan or other countries, in order to fund our budget deficit. 

So I just want you to keep that in mind as we try to squeeze those 

dimes. 

The last thing I want to say is it is not enough for us to hold 

oversight hearings. 

It is not enough for us just to put a spotlight on what is not 

going well. We have an obligation also to ask how can we help, and 

I hope that we are helping a little bit just through this dialogue 

today and some that we had earlier in the year. But what else can 

we do to help, to be constructive? 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. Well, I would just like to say just the tone 

of this hearing has been very helpful, and I know that you both 

have been frustrated. I have read a lot of your testimony, Senator 

Coburn, and I know what you said 4 years ago and 2 years ago. 

But the fact that you are approaching this from the standpoint of 

what can we do to get the right 2010 census, if we can continue 

to do that, and I told the folks at the Census we are going to look 

back only to inform the future, but not to find out who was at fault. 

Let us get this thing right. And if we can continue to work that 

way, I can assure you that you will have the information you need. 

And I want you to be involved, and you are like my board of directors and you will have the information. 

My request to you would be just help us get this done, as you 

are doing now. 

Senator CARPER. All right. 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. I appreciate that. 

Senator CARPER. Dr. Coburn. 

Senator COBURN. We will have a couple of questions that we are 

going to submit for the record. 

Mr. Secretary and Director Murdock, we are getting ready to 

have the testimony of those who are going to follow you. I think 

it is very important you stay here and listen to them. I mean, the 

big mistakes that have been made within the Census Bureau was 

ignoring the big warnings. And we have GAO to testify here, even 

25 

though you may have read their report, I think it is really important that you have your critical people here to hear what they have 

to say. In fact, you do not have to believe all of it, but at least you 

need to hear it in the context in which it is given because there 

has certainly been a lack of response to what they had to say in 

the past. That is all I have, and I thank you. And we will work 

with you. 

Senator CARPER. And in closing before you leave the table, let me 

just say Dr. Coburn and I have not talked about this, but my guess 

is we are going to invite you to come back and talk with us some 

more. Tell us again when you are expecting to make a decision on 

the options that you outlined for us. 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. I would say later this month. 

Mr. MURDOCK. That is the schedule. Yes, sir. 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. So the task force does their work. We will 

run it by the expert panel, and I would make a decision on that. 

Senator CARPER. Yes. We will talk about this. We will probably 

want you to come back some time next month and give us an update, and we are going to ask how are you doing and we we’re 

going to again ask what can we do to help to make sure we get 

this done right. 

The last thing I would say is not so much to either of you directly, but really to the people that work for you, Dr. Murdock. The 

responsibility that you and the folks who serve with you hold to 

our country is large and growing as we approach 2010. For those 

people that take their responsibility seriously and who are determined to do a good job and to get this right and get us back on 

track I would just say good. We are here to support those efforts. 

And for those who do not approach it with that spirit, we want to 

say get out of the way, and let those who are going to help us make 

this successful to do the work that needs to be done. 

Mr. MURDOCK. Senator, we just appreciate your concern, and we 

appreciate your support. It is important to all of us in the Census, 

and have no doubt about our dedication and about our assurance 

that we are going to meet the mission that is required. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you both very much. 

We are pleased to welcome our second panel here today. 

You fellows look familiar. I think we may have seen you before. 

And my guess is before we are done in 2010, we will see you a lot 

more. 

Let me just say from the outset, we are grateful for the work 

that you have done. Dr. Murdock, I am pleased that you are able 

to stay and listen. What you hear will be instructive to you and to 

the folks that you lead at the Census Bureau. 

Let me just briefly introduce our witnesses. I understand, Mr. 

Powner, I understand you may speak initially, and then as sort of 

tag team hand it off to Mr. Scire`, is that correct? 

Mr. POWNER. Correct. 

Senator CARPER. All right. David Powner, Director of GAO’s IT 

Management Team, where you focus on systems development and 

IT investment management. 

Before joining GAO, I understand that you held several executive 

level positions in the telecommunications industry that involved 

overseeing IT projects. 

26 

1The joint prepared statement of Mr. Powner and Mr. Scire` appears in the Appendix on page 

83. 

And Mathew Scire` is the Director on the GAO’s Strategic Issues 

Team. And your work is focused on the Census Bureau and on regulatory issues. We are told that you have more than 25 years of 

experience in evaluating the effectiveness of Federal programs, 

which should put you in good standing for the work that lies 

ahead. 

Both of your testimonies will be entered in the record, and you 

are welcome to summarize as you see fit. 

And, Mr. Powner, we will recognize you first. Thank you for joining us and for your work. 

STATEMENT OF DAVID A. POWNER,1 DIRECTOR, INFORMATION 

TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT ISSUES, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Mr. POWNER. Chairman Carper, Dr. Coburn, we appreciate the 

opportunity to testify on the problems associated with the Census’ 

Field Data Collection Project. 

With me today is Matt Scire`, Director with GAO’s Strategic 

Issues Team. Not only has he been looking at the performance 

issues with the hand-held devices, but overall he looks at the management of the 2010 Decennial Census. 

Our work has highlighted the key IT management gaps that unfortunately have not been addressed and now place the success of 

the 2010 Decennial at risk. 

In 2004, we started looking at the Bureau’s institutional IT management capacity and concluded from this review that it was not 

prepared to manage the $3 billion it was planning to spend on IT. 

In March 2006, we testified after our detailed look at the integration system and the Field Data Collection System that neither 

project had the full set of capabilities needed to effectively manage 

these acquisitions. 

At that hearing, we stated that incomplete management activities, including those with requirements management, risk management, and contract monitoring, increased the risk that the Decennial acquisitions will encounter problems in meeting cost and 

schedule deadlines. 

At that time, we specifically recommended that the Field Data 

Collection System program office approve and validate baseline requirements. We highlighted that not doing so placed the Bureau at 

risk of cost overruns, schedule delays, and performance shortfalls. 

This past October we reported to your Subcommittee that due to 

growing requirements, FDCA was experiencing cost increases and 

schedule delays. 

In addition, poor cost estimates were also a cause of the increases in delays. We also reported that due to the delays in these 

projects, the dress rehearsal would not include key systems 

functionality which raised the importance of systems testing post 

dress rehearsal. 

Given that relevant test plans were not completed, we recommended to the Bureau that such plans, including end-to-end test 

27 

plans to test the full complement of systems, be completed and executed. 

In October, we also reported that the Bureau had identified and 

was managing certain risks associated with its key acquisitions, 

several risk management weaknesses needed to be immediately addressed. 

Acknowledged risks include changing baselines, increasing requirements, and aggressive test schedules. Despite this, we found 

three areas that could be strengthened: Identifying risks, establishing mitigation plans, and reporting these risks to executives. 

For example, the mobile computing device performance issues associated with slow and inconsistent data transmissions had not 

been identified and tracked by the project office despite the problems arising during the dress rehearsal. 

Because these devices are a keystone to the reengineered census, 

it is essential that the Bureau perform the appropriate oversight 

of how the device performance compares to what is expected and 

ensure that all performance limitations are effectively addressed. 

We made a number of recommendations to the Bureau to improve its risk management activities and to its credit, it has been 

working on an action plan to strengthen these areas. 

I would like to expand on the requirements issue. This is particularly troubling because even before our extensive body of work that 

started in 2004 on this topic, a Commerce IG report on lessons 

learned from the 2000 Decennial identified the need for more disciplined IT management due to cost increases that were primarily 

attributable to ever increasing requirements. 

Last July, when we testified before your Subcommittee, Mr. 

Chairman and Dr. Coburn, we expressed great concern about requirements creep and the potential for significant cost increases. 

At that time, an independent assessment of the FDCA program 

found requirements problems similar to those we reported. The assessment found that the contractor was overwhelmed by a substantial increase in requirements. 

The study was not disclosed to us until the December time 

frame, and was not mentioned at your July hearing. 

Mr. Chairman and Dr. Coburn, this lack of transparency is unacceptable, as is not acting timely on this key risk. 

In late December, the Bureau further defined its requirements 

for the FDCA program. Nearly 20 months after our March 2006 

recommendation to do so and 7 months after the independent assessors told the Bureau to immediately stabilize requirements. 

Now the Bureau is faced with the crisis that could cost somewhere from $600 million to $2 billion to fix. 

As we just heard from the Secretary, the exact amount is uncertain, as are the specific technology acquisitions affected, the operations affected, the amount of manual paper-based contingencies 

that will be pursued, and the game plan to move forward. 

This uncertainty is currently being addressed by a task force. It 

is imperative that the task force act quickly with its decisions. If 

the task force decides to move forward with the FDCA program, 

the Bureau should swiftly take the following steps: 

First, put someone in charge who has a proven track record of 

rescuing troubled projects; 

28 

1The joint prepared statement of Mr. Scire` and Mr. Powner appears in the Appendix on page 

83. 

Second, demand from the prime contractor their A-team and top 

attention; and 

Third, manage the program risk daily and aggressively. 

Addressing the FDCA problem is one issue, but other issues also 

need to remain on the Bureau’s radar screen, including the delivery 

on the other contracts. 

There was a comment made from the Secretary that the other 

contracts were on schedule. We would not agree with that comment. 

In addition, conducting disciplined testing post dress rehearsal 

needs to occur, especially since late deliveries and deferred 

functionality makes the dress rehearsal less important now. 

Because of these issues and others, today we are adding the 2010 

Decennial to GAO’s list of high-risk programs, and I will turn it 

over to Mr. Scire` to expand on this further. But before I do so, I 

would like to thank you, Mr. Chairman and Dr. Coburn, for your 

leadership and oversight of the Decennial Census. 

Senator CARPER. Mr. Scire`, thank you for joining us. 

STATEMENT OF MATHEW J. SCIRE` ,1 DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC 

ISSUES, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Mr. SCIRE`. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Coburn. Thank 

you for the opportunity to be here today to discuss the 2010 Decennial Census. 

In our written statement, we highlight a number of longstanding 

and urgent issues facing the Census Bureau. My colleague just described the need for urgent action in managing IT acquisitions that 

are central to the reengineered Decennial Census. 

Today, there remains much uncertainty, as the dress rehearsal 

continues to unfold. The magnitude of how well the hand-held computers performed in their first field dress rehearsal operation Address Canvassing is not clear. The ultimate cost of the Decennial 

Census is uncertain. 

Already it is estimated to be the most expensive, even after adjusting for inflation. 

Also the Bureau has dropped certain dress rehearsal operations, 

in part, to devote greater attention to testing information technology. The dress rehearsal is the Bureau’s last opportunity to 

identify potential risks in operations under census-like conditions. 

Because of these critical issues today, we designate the 2010 Decennial Census as a high risk area. 

There is much the Bureau can do to address these issues. My colleague just described what the Bureau could do to address longstanding issues in managing information technology investments 

and the urgent steps the Bureau must take to address pressing 

risks. 

We have also recommended that the Bureau establish performance measures and benchmarks for the hand-held computers, 

measures that would enable the Bureau to not only assess the performance of these devices, but also to hold contractors accountable. 

29 

We have recommended that the Bureau use tools, such as a comprehensive integrated project plan and sensitivity analysis that 

would help the Bureau better measure and manage the costs associated with individual operations and to provide the Congress with 

credible, accurate, and lifecycle cost estimates. 

Going forward it will be important for the Bureau to demonstrate 

that it not only is committed to addressing these longstanding and 

pressing issues, but that it has concrete plans in place, is making 

substantial progress, and has effective solutions to the root causes 

of these problems. 

Mr. Chairman, we believe that the challenges highlighted today 

require careful monitoring and oversight. As in the past, we look 

forward to supporting the Committee’s efforts to promote a timely, 

complete, accurate, and cost effective census. 

Thanks again for the opportunity to be here today. I would be 

glad to take any questions that you may have. 

Senator CARPER. Mr. Scire`, thank you so much. 

Let me just ask you. Sort of set aside your prepared testimony. 

Just talk to us from your hearts. What went wrong here? 

Mr. POWNER. Well, from a requirements perspective with FDCA, 

I mean, clearly what you want to do is define to the contractor 

early in as much detail as possible what you want the system to 

provide. That was not done. 

Our recommendations in March 2006—that was prior to contract 

award. The contract was awarded in April, and our point is you 

want to do this early or soon after contract award so that you do 

not get into these change requests that typically result in increased 

costs. We see it on all the high-risk and watch-list projects that we 

discuss at other hearings. 

And what happened was that the list of 418 requirements should 

have been defined and validated soon after contract award, not 2 

years later. 

Senator CARPER. So this is the kind of thing that we see not just 

in this instance, but a lot of times when we end up with these similar problems. 

Mr. POWNER. Well, I think requirements creep and not defining 

requirements up front is a common problem—one of the core reasons why we have overruns and delays. 

But to this extent, when you are talking about a doubling or potentially even a tripling in cost—those are the rough numbers that 

are being thrown out right now. Typically, you do not see it to this 

extent. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Mr. Scire`, you want to add to that? 

Mr. SCIRE`. Yes. I think I would add to what was talked about 

earlier and that was lack of communication or poor communication, 

and I would go beyond the communication difficulties between the 

Bureau and the contractor, but also between the Bureau, the Department, the oversight committees, and the GAO; there is a lack 

of transparency as to where things stood as they progressed or did 

not progress as the case may be. 

Senator CARPER. We talked with our first panel and I think Secretary Gutierrez said this is a leadership problem, and I appreciate 

the fact that he has assumed responsibility, and he is, in his words, 

30 

embarrassed by the situation that the Department and the Bureau 

find themselves in. We are embarrassed, too. 

If you were able to turn around and just to talk with Dr. 

Murdock—he is sitting behind you—and say these are the things 

that you and your folks need to do to get this project back on track, 

what would you say? Because he is there taking notes. 

Mr. POWNER. Several items, and we talked to Secretary Gutierrez about a similar program within his Department. It was a large 

environmental satellite acquisition, referred to as the National 

Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System 

(NPOESS). 

When NPOESS went from a $6 billion to a $12 billion project, 

what did we do? We secured a key program executive to oversee 

it, who had a history of rescuing troubled projects. We need to find 

someone like that to manage this. So you need someone to manage 

that on a daily basis, and then Director Murdock and Secretary 

Gutierrez need to stay on this on a weekly, if not a daily, basis on 

progress. I mean, we are under the gun in terms of time. 

I think the Secretary mentioned about a solid program manager. 

That is fine. But the executives—what drives solid program management is executives being on their case daily, reporting progress, 

disclosing risk, and making sure that things get done. 

And if there are issues with the contractor, those executives 

ought to be picking up the phone and having those real tough discussions with the executives at the Harris Corporation. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Mr. Scire`, you want to add to that 

please? 

Mr. SCIRE`. Yes. I think that it is important to ask some tough 

questions here about what it is that FDCA will ultimately produce 

so that you are looking at not just what it is going to cost. Three 

of these options suggest that they will not be using the handhelds 

for non-response follow up. In all options, they are planning on 

using the hand-held computers for Address Canvassing. 

And we have said for a while now, that it is important to lay out 

what the costs are, but also what the expected benefits are, what 

the expected savings are of utilizing that technology. 

So I would advise Dr. Murdock that he delve into that, to find 

out whether or not you now are getting something out of the investment during Address Canvassing that rationalizes the potential reward that you could be getting by the use of this technology. 

Senator CARPER. All right. 

Mr. SCIRE`. That is part of it. I think it is also important to take 

a look at the opportunity costs for loss of being able to do a latemail return, and so that is another aspect that needs to be looked 

at in making the decisions as to which of these options you are 

going to take is what you are getting and what you are going to 

pay for it. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Over the years, GAO has made a 

number of recommendations on how the Census Bureau could improve the way that they are managing not just this hand-held contract, but really contracting in general. And it appears that a lot 

of those recommendations were, frankly, ignored. 

Do you have any sense that the Bureau might finally be starting 

to understand why it is important that they make changes? Dr. 

31 

Murdock has been on the job for less than 2 months. But have you 

had the opportunity to meet with him, to brief him, to brief his senior management team since he has come on board, and to just get 

a sense that they are feeling a sense of urgency and listening and 

acting on what you have recommended? 

Mr. SCIRE`. We have not yet met with Dr. Murdock and his management team to talk about these issues. I spoke with Dr. Murdock 

yesterday actually about the possibility of setting something up, 

and he is interested, and wants to make that happen, where we 

could go through and talk about all of the different areas that we 

have had recommendations in and what we think they could today. 

Mr. POWNER. Mr. Chairman, we did meet with the Secretary and 

discussed our recommendations. 

Senator CARPER. When was that? 

Mr. POWNER [continuing]. Two weeks ago—— 

Senator CARPER. All right. 

Mr. POWNER [continuing]. We met with the Secretary. One comment here is obviously with GAO’s recommendations, and we sat 

down with key executives during the course of our reviews, not just 

when we issued a report, to go over our recommendations. So we 

made an effort to convey our concerns personally with individuals 

within the Bureau. 

Senator CARPER. At what level did that take place? 

Mr. POWNER. At Mr. Waite’s level. 

Senator CARPER. OK. 

Mr. POWNER. One of the things that is troubling here is that obviously with GAO’s work, we have inconsistent application of our 

recommendations across the Federal Government. But one of the 

things that was particularly troubling was the MITRE study in 

June, which reiterated exactly what we said back in March 2006. 

And it still took 7 months to immediately validate the requirements. Seven months is not immediate, and we need a sense of urgency here to get this on track. 

Senator CARPER. Let me yield to Dr. Coburn, and I have another 

question or two for you once he has asked whatever questions he 

would like to. 

Senator COBURN. Thank you. First of all, thank both of you for 

your efforts in this regard. And my staff handed me a note that 

said it might be very interesting for the Secretary to have David 

Powner on his team looking at how we respond and fix this. If you 

really want the people who have had the critical eye looking at it, 

you might want them on the advisory team that is helping to solve 

the problems. So if anybody from Commerce is still here, you might 

take that message back. 

Mr. POWNER. Dr. Coburn, he asked that we attend those meetings, and we agreed to do that. 

Senator COBURN. Great. One thing you said, Mr. Powner, which 

really concerns me is that in our last hearing in July, they knew 

the MITRE report was there and did not tell us. Is that correct? 

Is that your testimony? 

Mr. POWNER. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. We did not get this in June. We had no receipt 

of the MITRE report. 

32 

Mr. POWNER. There is a MITRE briefing. It is dated June. So our 

understanding is that the MITRE information, with these comments and recommendation to stabilize requirements immediately—that was the recommendation—was known in the June 

time frame. 

Senator COBURN. We had a hearing in July, and Census said 

nothing to us about this report in their testimony? Is that right? 

Mr. POWNER. Correct. We found out about all the MITRE efforts 

in the December time frame. 

Senator COBURN. But you all did not find out until December? 

Mr. POWNER. We had an ongoing review for you because we testified on our preliminary findings at that point in time and issued 

a report in October. And we were not aware of that MITRE assessment until the December time frame after our report was issued. 

Senator COBURN. So there are really two problems. One is the 

lack of response to it, and two, the lack of disclosure—— 

Mr. POWNER. Correct. 

Senator COBURN [continuing]. That is here. And that is the part 

that is unacceptable. And I do not know about Senator Carper, but 

after we are through with this, we are going to find out. 

It is like the little kid in the corner who did something and is 

trying to hide it, and it is obvious that he is hiding it. And it does 

not change anything. As a matter of fact, it makes things worse. 

And that kind of behavior is why we are in the situation we are 

in; rather than fess up and say, hey, we have this problem, the 

problem is hidden. It does not go away when you hide it. 

Mr. POWNER. Right. Well, Dr. Coburn, to add to that, you mentioned the IRS—they use MITRE extensively—and you mentioned 

some of their successes with using technology. The IRS approach 

to using MITRE is to disclose exactly what MITRE and other independent assessors, the Software—— 

Senator COBURN. Right. 

Mr. POWNER [continuing]. Engineering Institute of Carnegie Mellon, identify to say that, hey, we are on top of these risks, and we 

want to let everyone know we are effectively managing them instead of not disclosing them. 

Senator COBURN. Is it your gut feeling, based on what you know 

on the contract with the handhelds, that they can use any aspect 

of the handhelds in the 2010 census? I am asking for an educated 

guess. I am not holding you on it. You do not have to be right or 

wrong. 

Mr. SCIRE`. Well, it seems that what is being proposed here is to 

use it for Address Canvassing. 

Senator COBURN. Only. 

Mr. SCIRE`. Only, essentially, insofar as the handhelds are concerned. There is a separate issue in terms of other items—the Operating Control System and so forth. 

I think it is a fair question to ask if that is the case. What will 

it deliver? Are we now at a point where we are trying to find a use 

for the technology as opposed to asking the hard question about 

whether or not the cost for just doing Address Canvassing, say, is 

outweighed by the benefit. 

33 

The greatest selling point for the handhelds up until now, as I 

have heard, is the ability to pull late-mail returns. And this is the 

non-response follow-up operation. 

What we are talking about there is the ability to quickly identify 

those individuals who returned their questionnaire, but returned it 

late, and be able to pull it from the workload of those who go doorto-door to follow up. 

Last time, there were 4 million forms that were returned late, 

where the Bureau knocked on the door and followed up. As you can 

pull those out, there are potentially great savings there. I have 

heard that is the greatest argument for the technology. 

It seems that, in three of these options, that is off the table. So 

that is why I add—— 

Senator CARPER. I am sorry. Say that again. Start that sentence 

over again. 

Mr. SCIRE` [continuing]. The greatest selling feature that I have 

heard for the handhelds—— 

Senator CARPER. Right. 

Mr. SCIRE` [continuing]. Is ability to use the technology to pull 

these late-mail returns. 

Senator CARPER. Yes. I got that. 

Mr. SCIRE`. So if it is not going to deliver on that, and that is 

where you are expecting a lot of the cost savings, what will it deliver in the Address Canvassing operation? 

Senator COBURN. What will it save? 

Mr. SCIRE`. Yes. Now it should improve MAFs, and that should 

have an implication in terms of non-response follow up. 

The Bureau knows quite a bit actually about what happened during the Address Canvassing dress rehearsal. So it should have 

some information to tell you what benefit you are getting out of 

this. Is it going to improve the MAF to such a point that it is worth 

whatever the cost is? 

Now there is a trade-off here, too, because there is a risk in taking on an Address Canvassing operation or going back to block canvassing or some other technique that is not tested in a dress rehearsal. It actually was used in 2000. 

So I do not want to diminish that, but I think it is still important 

to ask what are you getting out of this technology if you take out 

its ability to deliver on this one feature, pulling late-mail returns. 

Mr. POWNER. Dr. Coburn, if I could also add, too, I think that 

is a key question. What will it deliver and ultimately save? But if 

you look at these 400 requirements, roughly a fifth of these are associated with the handhelds, so there is a fundamental question 

about getting them to work as expected and desired in addition to 

that basic fundamental question. 

Senator COBURN. All right. I want to follow up on another question, which was disturbing to Senator Carper and me, as well, 

which is that we paid bonuses on a cost-plus contract where we 

knew requirement creep was happening, and yet the assessment 

system that Commerce and Census used to evaluate that contract 

said that everything was hunky-dory and that we are going to pay 

a bonus because you are performing. 

34 

To me, there seems to be some type of problem in contract assessment if, in fact, we are paying a bonus based on premium performance that ends up with where we are today. 

So would you comment for me on the bonus assessment system 

of how they evaluate contract performance and whether or not it 

was accurate in this case. 

Mr. POWNER. Dr. Coburn, we did not look at the award fees that 

were paid, the $3 million and $7 million that were mentioned by 

the Secretary. But a couple comments here. We have seen instances on projects within the Department—and I will mention 

NPOESS—where they were actually getting close to a hundred percent of their award fee when there were significant overruns and 

schedule delays. 

So typically, it is hard to figure out here whether they were actually delivering on what was expected and they deserved these 

scores of 91 and 83 or whether the contract oversight was just so 

poor from a program office perspective that the Bureau did not 

know. 

Senator COBURN. Well, I think that is an important question for 

you all to look at so we know the answer to that. 

Mr. POWNER. OK. 

Senator COBURN. That is important. Is there any reason why you 

think that this Harris contract could not be converted to a fixedprice contract now that we know what the requirements are, why 

cannot we have a fixed-price contract and know what it is going to 

cost us? 

Mr. POWNER. I think that is clearly a possibility, and I also think 

we understand why we do not have fixed-price contracts on some 

things that are extremely complex. What we are trying to do here 

is not on this far end of complexity. 

Senator COBURN. Yes. 

Mr. POWNER. It really is not. The technology is there to do it, and 

this should—now that it is more clearly defined, that should clearly 

be an option. 

Senator COBURN. I will just say one other thing. In all of the 

oversight hearings, we know GAO has done great work on these 

fees, on fixed-plus contracts and the $8 billion per year problem 

what we have in DOD in terms of this same thing, of paying for 

performance bonuses on non-performing contracts. So it is a big 

issue within the Federal Government, and it is not surprising that 

it is here, too. But it is really important, I think, that you go back 

and look at that. 

How in the world did we give a great rating to a contract that 

obviously was not performing? I do not mean that to be a reflection 

on Harris Corporation. We were making the assessment. And we 

were paying the bonus. With that, I will yield back to the Chairman. 

Senator CARPER. A couple more and I will turn it back over to 

Dr. Coburn for any other questions that he might have, and we will 

wrap it up. 

But gentlemen, this is probably more for Mr. Scire`. But do you 

think we are running the risk right now of having a census in 2010 

that might actually be poorer in quality than that which was conducted in 2000 or do you think the risk is that we will not be able 

35 

to live up to our constitutional obligation to conduct the decennial 

on time and at a level of quality that can be used not just for congressional apportionment, but for a whole myriad of other purposes 

that the decennial serves? 

Mr. SCIRE`. I believe those risks are there. I would say that at 

this point, there is an awful lot that we do not know. I would say 

that it is also very important to make decisions about which way 

the Bureau is going to be going with non-response follow up. 

It seems as if three of the options are saying that they are going 

to go to paper. That dress rehearsal was scheduled to start within 

the next month. 

And if you back up from that, you have to get training material 

and so forth going. So I guess the fundamental decision here is 

whether you are choosing between option one and the other three. 

That decision needs to be taken sooner rather than later, and again 

what I mentioned before about whether or not it makes sense to 

keep this and the technology for Address Canvassing needs to be 

looked at, too. 

You asked earlier about what it is that we would advise that the 

Bureau could do right now. And we have for a number of years 

made recommendations about how the Bureau could make more 

credible and accurate the lifecycle cost estimates that they are providing to you. 

And we have serious concerns about the accuracy of the estimates that are being provided. I would advise Dr. Murdock to look 

carefully at the assumptions going into these estimates right now; 

whether or not those assumptions reflect what has been learned already in the Address Canvassing dress rehearsal. That also has the 

potential to increase costs—as we heard today for the first time, I 

think, from the Bureau and from the Department that productivity 

was an issue. 

If that is the case, then you will need more people. You might 

need more hand-held devices. You will need more resources in 

order to complete the operation in the same amount of time. And 

you really do not have a lot of flexibility of adding time. 

So is that reflected in this $11.5 billion estimate that was delivered to the Congress this February? I think that is important to 

know so that you have a full idea of what the potential cost increases are. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. We have been joined by Senator 

McCaskill. And I have one more question to ask, and then we are 

going to kick it over to you. And we are just glad you are here, and 

I know you were trying to get here for the first panel. 

Senator MCCASKILL. I think you guys have covered a lot of it. 

Senator CARPER. Well, we have tried to, but I am sure we have 

not covered it all. 

Senator MCCASKILL. You always do. 

Senator CARPER. Well, we have uncovered some things that are 

mighty disturbing, but that we knew some of this already. 

Let me just ask one last question of our panel. As we have discussed, I think, before, the 2010 census is going to be expensive, 

but it is hard to be certain just how expensive it is going to be by 

the end of the day. 

36 

And since Dr. Coburn and I have started our oversight in preparation for 2010, the projected lifecycle costs of the Decennial has 

gone up several times. I mentioned that before. 

Are you any more confident than you were before in the cost estimates that we are now getting out of the Census Bureau? And 

what is your best guess as to what the final cost is likely to be? 

And I underline best guess. 

Mr. SCIRE`. We are no more confident than we have been in our 

prior reports, where we said that the process for developing 

lifecycle cost estimates was not documented and that assumptions 

are not reflected. So we are looking at that right now as a matter 

of fact, and we have serious questions about the accuracy and the 

credibility. And in terms of credibility, we are thinking there is 

more the Bureau can do to do sensitivity analysis and uncertainty 

analysis so that they can present to the Congress more than a simple point estimate, but it can also express some level of confidence 

in that or even a confidence interval and what the price ranges 

could be. 

Right now, the Bureau does not do the analysis to provide you 

that kind of information. And it is not clear. There is not the transparency for us or anybody else to go and independently assess the 

estimate and say that all the assumptions are updated in the 

lifecycle cost model. 

Senator CARPER. Before Dr. Coburn has to leave, I am going to 

ask you one last question. And I asked this of our first panel. But 

be thinking about it while you answer his question. What advice 

do you have for us? Not just for those who serve on this Committee, 

but for the Legislative Branch, in terms of what we can do, what 

our responsibilities are to make sure we get this right and get it 

straightened out. Just be thinking about that, and, Dr. Coburn, go 

ahead and ask your question. 

Senator COBURN. Are there other IT systems at Census that you 

have significant concerns over? 

Mr. POWNER. Dr. Coburn, I would not say significant at this 

point in time, but the comment that was made that everything was 

within cost and schedule, we would not agree to that. The DRIS 

Program that we have testified on there is a comment—what has 

occurred, and this occurred with FDCA, is they delayed or deferred 

functionality. OK. So you pushed out. 

So things that were planned during the dress rehearsal, you 

push it post dress rehearsal, and that is why we made the point 

that the post dress rehearsal testing is so important. 

But when you defer functionality, you are not on schedule. 

Senator COBURN. Right. 

Mr. POWNER. And that is what, in fact, is occurring with the Decennial Response Integration System (DRIS) also. So we need to 

keep an eye on DRIS. That also is a large contract. It is very important for the integration of the paper and phone responses. 

Senator COBURN. Is that a cost-plus contract as well? 

Mr. POWNER. Yes. 

Senator COBURN. Is there any reason that you all know why all 

these contracts are cost-plus at Census? 

Senator MCCASKILL. Unbelievable. 

37 

Senator COBURN. Yes. You cannot give an explanation for why 

they are rather than a fixed-price contract? 

Mr. POWNER. No, I can not. 

Senator COBURN. OK. All right. Thank you. And thank you both 

for your testimony. 

Mr. SCIRE`. If I could add to that on the mention of the DRIS contract, this is another key point looking forward is the ability for the 

Bureau to do a targeted second mailing. And this will depend in 

part on DRIS, and the Operating Control System. 

We had estimated that doing a targeted second mailing has a potential for saving over $400 million. So I think it is important that 

that be tested as part of the dress rehearsal and that DRIS be in 

place and capable of testing that second mailing. 

Senator COBURN. OK. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. Dr. Coburn, thank you. And thanks very much 

for your intensive involvement in this for several years now. 

Let me just yield at this time to Senator McCaskill. And then I 

will come back and ask my closing question. Senator McCaskill, delighted that you are here. Thank you. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MCCASKILL 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you very much. I know that this subject matter has been covered. I am disappointed I could not get 

here for the first panel because you all have done the work of basically fleshing out the details of this particular contractual train 

wreck, but you obviously are not the ones responsible for it, and 

my questions would be more appropriately directed to them. 

The cost-plus part, the lack of specification in terms of the requirements part, I mean, I keep hearing the same song over and 

over again. It is like it is an old-fashioned record and the needle 

is stuck: Cost-plus specifications not laid out, award performance 

fees when there has not been performance. And this is whether we 

are talking about reconstruction in Iraq or whether we are talking 

about the Census Bureau. 

Now the issue for me is how do we fix it. And the only way you 

fix something that is broken is by requiring accountability. Has 

GAO discussed or do you all have any ideas—and obviously, I will 

direct these questions to the Census Bureau and to Secretary 

Gutierrez about accountability—but has anybody been demoted? 

Has anybody lost their job over the failure to enter into a contract 

that was going to function appropriately for the taxpayers and not 

reward a company that was not doing what we needed to do? Are 

you aware of anybody who has been held accountable for these mistakes? 

Mr. POWNER. We are not aware of anyone who has lost their job, 

Senator. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Are you aware of anyone who has been accountable in terms of being demoted or anyone who has been reprimanded or during your audit was there anyone who said that 

person made this mistake, and we took this action because of it? 

Mr. SCIRE`. I am aware that there is at least one individual who 

will be taken out of their current position, but that decision I do 

not believe has been taken. 

38 

Senator MCCASKILL. Well, and as so often happens in this, it 

rolls downhill. One of our challenges in government is making the 

accountability go to the levels where you change the culture. And 

is it your opinion the problem as it relates to contracting at the 

Census Bureau, is it cultural? Is it systematic? Or is it leadership? 

Mr. POWNER. I think it is a little bit of everything. Our work 

starting in 2004 definitely showed they did not have the management processes in place to effectively manage these large acquisitions. It got into requirements management, risk management, and 

contractor oversight—all things that have come true. 

But the other thing that you want to make sure—that is all typically focused at the project level. You want to make sure that the 

key executives are performing the appropriate governance-related—— 

Senator MCCASKILL. Right. 

Mr. POWNER [continuing]. Accountability at the executive level. 

And we have addressed that in numerous reports calling for more 

executive level oversight of key risks, where they take ownership 

and accountability. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Well, I do not know if I will be around in 

the next one, but I think we need to help GAO in this regard by 

taking your report seriously, demanding accountability as it relates 

to the failures of this contracting exercise, and being on top of the 

next contracting exercise that is going to occur because it would be 

one thing if this was the first time this had happened. But obviously, this is not the first time it has happened. This is a recurring 

theme, and I am very concerned about it. 

I have some other specific questions, but I do not want to ask 

them because I think most of them have been asked and answered. 

But I will check the record and make sure that all these questions 

have been answered and I will submit them in writing if they have 

not because I do not want to subject the great folks from GAO to 

my railing against the Census Bureau and the leadership thereof 

in terms of their contracting failures. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator CARPER. Senator McCaskill, my guess is you will still be 

here when the next one rolls around in 2020. And my hope is that 

when it happens, you probably will be chairing the Committee, and 

you will be—— 

Senator MCCASKILL. I am way down on the food chain, Senator. 

Senator CARPER [continuing]. Getting a report that says that we 

learned from our mistakes in 2006, 2007, 2008, and that we ended 

up coming out OK in 2010 and the census in 2020 would be one 

that our people can be proud of and that the rest of the world will 

use as a model. So that is a goal, and my guess is you are going 

to be in a position to help make sure that happens. 

Thanks so much for being here today. 

The closing question again, as I telegraphed before, is your advice to us. I asked you to give advice to the Census Bureau and 

their leadership. Your advice to us in the Legislative Branch, and 

what we need to do, and can do, to make sure we get this right. 

Mr. POWNER. Well, first of all, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank 

you for your oversight and also, too, for Senator McCaskill’s comments. I mean not only was this raised as part of our work for you 

39 

on the Census Bureau, but FDCA and DRIS came up as part of our 

hearings on high-risk and watch-list projects, where initially they 

were not included on the OMB’s list, and we got them on the list. 

And now OMB is focused and helping hold some folks accountable. 

So that is all a move in the right direction. 

I think the key going forward is to continue to apply pressure. 

There are key dates coming up. There was a key date last Friday, 

where Harris was to come up with a rough order of magnitude. 

And I know the Secretary and the Director—no one wants to throw 

out a point estimate, but there are numbers floating around, and 

we need to get those numbers sooner rather than later, and we also 

need this decision in 2 or 3 weeks from now. 

So I think the more you can apply pressure in the short term, 

the better. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Mr. Scire`. 

Mr. SCIRE`. I agree with all of that. I would also point out that 

the Bureau is scheduled to complete its draft assessment of the Address Canvassing dress rehearsal the middle of this month. And so 

I think that is something that you need to hold the Bureau accountable for presenting the results of this because it will talk 

about more than just the hand-held computers. 

I think that it is important for the Committee to keep a focus 

also on the Operating Control System, and how that is performing, 

not only in the operation where the handhelds were used, but also 

in the paper-based operations. It is also a central system that is 

important to all of the field operations. 

So those are a couple areas that in the short run, I think, need 

attention and so I think there is more that the Bureau could do to 

describe what they are learning about those. 

And the other issue is, I think, to encourage greater transparency on the part of the Bureau. In many ways, GAO is your 

eyes and ears, and so I think it is important that the Bureau be 

more transparent and forthcoming and more quickly respond to the 

information that we are looking at for you. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Well, on behalf of all of us, the Senators who have been here today and those who are not, and I think 

really on behalf of the American people, I thank you very much for 

your stewardship on this and for being our watchdogs, and we need 

you to continue to be vigilant. Thank you very much. And with 

that, this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:35 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

(41) 

CENSUS IN PERIL: GETTING THE 2010 

DECENNIAL BACK ON TRACK—PART II 

TUESDAY, APRIL 15, 2008 

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:19 p.m., in Room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Thomas R. Carper, 

presiding. 

Present: Senators Carper and Coburn. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER 

Senator CARPER. The Committee will come to order. Welcome, 

Secretary Gutierrez, and other witnesses and guests. We are starting a couple minutes late. I explained to Secretary Gutierrez we 

had a couple of special guests who just happened to drop by. The 

Air Force announced today its selection of what they describe as 

the best Air Force base in America. There are over 100 Air Force 

bases in this country and around the world. And today, for the first 

time in the 23 years that this award has been given, an airlift command was named as the Air Force’s finest, and we are proud to say 

that the Dover Air Force Base has been named the best of the best, 

and we are enormously proud. And the wing commander and the 

commander master chief were here just by coincidence. We were 

exchanging high fives out in the hallway. We are just so proud of 

them, the men and women, civilian and military, who work there 

and have for so many years. They fly C–5s and C–17s and take 

cargo and personnel all over the world. 

The Committee is going to come to order, and I want to thank 

Senator Lieberman and Senator Collins for working with us again 

to continue our oversight in this important area. 

My thanks as well to our witnesses for talking with us and for 

taking the time to be here today. You also deserve some thanks for 

all that you have been putting in over the past several weeks and 

months to try to get our planning and early preparation for the 

2010 Decennial Census back on track. 

Last month, we held a hearing about problems that the Census 

Bureau was having with a project it calls ‘‘Field Data Collection 

Automation.’’ The Field Collection Automation Project is a project 

that, for a number of years now, has been a major part of the Bureau’s efforts to streamline decennial operations and to find cost 

savings. 

42 

The major component of the project is hundreds of thousands of 

handheld computers that census takers would use to verify addresses and, later on, to collect information door to door from 

households that do not initially mail in their census forms. 

At our last hearing, the Department of Commerce and the Census Bureau officials admitted for the first time that the handhelds 

did not work as well as they had originally planned and hoped. 

They also admitted that, contrary to previous Administration testimony to Congress, the handhelds may not be a viable option come 

2010. 

We have been informed now that, due in part to the very short 

amount of time between now and the beginning of major decennial 

operations, the handhelds will be largely set aside in favor of the 

‘‘pencil and paper’’ counting method that we have used since the 

very first census some 200 years ago. 

I know that a limited number of the handhelds will be used next 

year to perform some address verification work in the field. And I 

know that there are some technological and other improvements to 

the census process this time that should result in some efficiencies. 

But I am disappointed that, at a time when so many countries are 

relying to a greater and greater degree on technology to do their 

census work, we are stuck with what is probably the most rudimentary enumeration method out there. Maybe not the most, but 

one of the most for an advanced country like our own. 

The method the Census Bureau will be using to count non-responders in 2010 also seems to be the most expensive out there. 

Just over a month ago, you may recall that the life cycle cost of 

the entire 2010 census was expected to be about $11.5 billion. Now, 

due largely to the need to hire more census takers, costs could go 

as high as $14.5 billion. That is roughly twice the cost, maybe a 

little more than twice the cost, of the 2000 census. 

I still have some questions about how we got to this point. I 

know some of my colleagues do as well. And Senator Coburn, who 

was here and who will be back shortly, will certainly have his questions to ask, as will I and others who join us. It is not clear to me, 

for example, why the top managers at Commerce and Census did 

not know until very recently about the serious problems with the 

handheld contract. 

Mr. Secretary, you and our new director, Director Murdock, 

should be commended for moving quickly to find a solution once 

you were fully informed about the mess, if you will, that is on your 

hands. But I do not know why your predecessors were not able to 

take similar action much earlier, even when experts like the Government Accountability Office (GAO) were warning that things 

were not right. Earlier action could have saved the handhelds and 

probably saved a whole lot of money as well. 

That said, we are probably at a point where we need to limit the 

fingerpointing and figure out quickly what needs to be done to get 

us the best, most accurate census that we can obtain. 

The Census Bureau has been spending the better part of a decade planning—some might say hoping—to use some of the handheld devices for non-response follow-up in 2010. Now the Bureau 

must quickly pivot and develop new plans and procedures for handling paper census reforms. Getting the right plans in place, testVerDate Nov 24 2008 09:31 May 28, 2010 Jkt 041456 PO 00000 Frm 00046 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 P:\DOCS\41456.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
43 

ing them, and making the appropriate adjustments before the 2010 

count begins will be vital to getting a good response rate, collecting 

reliable data, and ensuring that decennial operations run smoothly. 

Poor planning and testing can only lead to confusion, wasted resources, and a bad final product. 

So I look forward to learning today not only about what went 

wrong with the handheld project, but about what the leadership at 

Commerce and the Census Bureau plan to do to set things right. 

It is clear from the testimony we have before us today that reverting to paper does not solve all of the problems with the 2010 census. We need to move quickly if we really are going to put preparations for the 2010 census back on track. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Carper follows:] 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER 

I’d like to start by thanking Senator Lieberman and Senator Collins for working 

with us again to continue our oversight in this area. 

My thanks as well to our witnesses for taking for taking the time to be here. You 

also deserve some thanks for all of the time you’ve been putting in over the past 

several weeks and months to try and get the planning and early preparations for 

the 2010 census back on track. 

Last month, we held a hearing about problems that the Census Bureau was having with a project it calls ‘‘Field Data Collection Automation.’’ This is a project that, 

for a number of years now, has been a major part of the Bureau’s efforts to streamline decennial operations and find cost savings. 

The major component of the project is hundreds of thousands of handheld computers that census-takers would use to verify addresses and, later on, to collect information door to door from households that do not initially mail in their census 

forms. 

At our hearing, Commerce and Census officials admitted for the first time that 

the handhelds did not work as well as they originally planned. They also admitted 

that, contrary to previous administration testimony to Congress, the handhelds may 

not be a viable option come 2010. 

We’ve been informed now that, due in part to the very short amount of time between now and the beginning of major decennial operations, the handhelds will be 

largely ditched in favor of the ‘‘paper and pencil’’ counting method used since the 

very first census more than 200 years ago. 

I know that a limited number of the handhelds will be used next year to perform 

some address verification work in the field. And I know that there are some technological and other improvements to the census process this time that should result 

in some efficiencies. But I’m disappointed that, at a time when so many countries 

are relying to a greater and greater degree on technology to do their census work, 

we’re stuck with what is probably the most rudimentary enumeration method out 

there. 

The method the Census Bureau will be using to count non-responders in 2010 also 

seems to be the most expensive out there. Just over a month ago, the life cycle cost 

of the entire 2010 census was supposed to be about $11.5 billion. Now, due largely 

to the need to hire more census-takers, costs could go as high as $14.5 billion. That 

is more than twice the cost of the 2000 census. 

I still have some questions about how we got to this point. It’s not clear to me, 

for example, why the top managers at Commerce and the Census did not know until 

very recently about the very serious problems with the handhelds contract. 

Both you, Secretary Gutierrez, and Director Murdock should be commended for 

moving quickly to find a solution once you were fully informed about the mess you 

had on your hands. But I don’t know why your predecessors weren’t able to take 

similar action much earlier, even when experts like GAO were warning that things 

were not right. Earlier action could have saved the handhelds and probably a lot 

of money as well. 

That said, we’re probably at a point where we need to limit the finger-pointing 

and figure out quickly what needs to be done to get us the best, most accurate census we can get. 

The Census Bureau has been spending the better part of a decade planning— 

some might say hoping—to use some sort of hand-held device for non-response follow up in 2010. Now, the Bureau must quickly pivot and develop new plans and 

44 

procedures for handling paper census reforms. Getting the right plans in place, testing them, and making the appropriate adjustments before the 2010 count begins 

will be vital to getting a good response rate, collecting reliable data, and ensuring 

that decennial operations run smoothly. Poor planning and testing can only lead to 

confusion, wasted resources, and a bad final product. 

So I look forward to learning not only about what went wrong with the handheld 

project, but about what the leadership at Commerce and Census plans to so to set 

things right. It’s clear from the testimony we have before us today that reverting 

to paper does not solve all of the problems with the 2010 census. We need to move 

quickly together if we really are going to put preparations for the 2010 back on 

track. 

Senator CARPER. And with that having been said, let me call on 

my colleague, Dr. Coburn. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COBURN 

Senator COBURN. Thank you, Senator Carper, and thank you and 

Chairman Lieberman for having this hearing. 

In June 2006, the Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Sercurity held a hearing titled ‘‘2010 Census, Off-Line and 

Off-Budget: The High Cost of Low-Tech Counting.’’ That was $3 billion ago and before the handheld computers were scrapped. We 

know things now were far worse than what we knew at that hearing. It is not going to do us a lot of good to look backwards other 

than on a couple of things. 

At the last hearing, I asked if there was ever a time at which 

the Census Bureau told the Harris Corporation to stop processing 

on the handhelds, and we were told no, and then we were told yes. 

Well, we did send them a letter as far as non-response follow-up 

(NRFU) was concerned, to keep going on the geographic but the 

NRFU stopped. It took 8 days to answer the Census Bureau’s letter. Two days later, the Harris Corporporation sent the Census Bureau a letter, and it was 8 days after that before the Census Bureau even responded. So, that 10 days does not seem like a lot, but 

that 10 days could have been the difference in terms of whether or 

not non-response follow-up could have been used on this heavy investment we are going to have in these computers. So I think that 

is a breakdown that we ought to think about in terms of responsiveness within the Census Bureau. And I am very appreciative of 

the Secretary and Director Murdock. You all have been straightforward with us from the start, and this has no reflection. 

I have great heartburn over the previous Census Director. I will 

not hide that. ‘‘Incompetency’’ comes to my mind, and we find ourselves today unprepared because of the incompetent answers that 

we received that were, in fact, untrue, unstudied, and 

unknowledgeable. 

A couple of other things that I think are important that we 

should highlight is why Americans should be outraged at this. It 

is not that we have management problems. It is that we have gone 

from a contract with Harris Corp. for $600 million to $1.3 billion. 

That is for a handheld computer that will only do half the work we 

asked it to do before. 

Second, the cost of the handheld computer has increased from 

$400 a unit to $600 per unit—that is according to your Department, Secretary Gutierrez—for a mapping function that can be 

done on a $150 BlackBerry. 

45 

So we are still going to pay $600, four times what the American 

taxpayers should be paying for something that could be done on a 

$150 BlackBerry. Right now, we are going to continue a contract 

with a corporation that either did not perform or we did not send 

the right signals for them to perform and pay four times what we 

should be paying. 

And, third, the Census Bureau has contracted for the help desk, 

services for enumerators that are going to have to be in the field 

because we are not going to have computer technology to help us, 

and we have gone from $36 million to $217 million. And the reason 

that has happened is not because the cost went up. It is because 

we did not ask appropriately when we contracted the first time and 

really define what our needs were going to be. 

The other thing that is concerning to me is that there is a risk 

that the quality of this census could be lower in 2010 than what 

it was in 2000. And the 2000 census was not without dispute as 

far as Utah was concerned, and there is still some question of 

whether or not we accurately reflected the enumeration in this 

country. 

I offered an amendment when I was in the House during the 

2000 census when the Census Bureau came and said, oops, we 

need more money. And I asked for it to be paid for. I asked for us 

to offset spending. And what is going to happen this time is the 

same thing that is going to happen next time—the American people 

are going to get charged for the mistakes that have been made. We 

are not going to trim spending somewhere else, and most likely it 

is going to get added to a supplemental. And because we have 

abandoned our responsibility to do a great job, our kids are going 

to pay for it. That is what it is. It is going to be on a supplemental. 

It is going to get added to the debt, and they are going to pay it 

back three times over. 

I am proud of GAO, I must tell you. They were raising these 

flags the whole time, and we were hearing concerns about the 

NRFU from GAO. And I think there is a great lesson for the Census Bureau, which is pay attention to your outside critics rather 

than put up a shield and become defensive—and this is not intended for Director Murdock. Rather than put up a shield, listen 

to what they have to say and make absolutely sure there is not any 

credence to what they say because our kids and our country pay 

for it. 

With that, I would yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Coburn follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR COBURN 

I would like to thank Chairman Lieberman and Ranking Member Collins for calling this hearing, the second hearing that the Committee has held in recent months, 

to discuss the 2010 census. 

In June 2006, the Federal Financial Management Subcommittee held a hearing 

titled: ‘‘2010 Census, Off-Line and Off-Budget—the High Cost of Low Tech Counting.’’ That was three billion dollars ago and before the handheld computers were 

scrapped. We now know that things were far worse than this Committee was ever 

led to believe. 

It has become apparent in recent weeks that the Census Bureau and the Department of Commerce should have known about these problems long ago, but failed to 

act. Worse yet, they ignored the problems. Even as auditors from the Government 

Accountability Office sat in this room and explained to this Committee in great detail about the problems facing the 2010 census, the Bureau sat next to them at the 

46 

table testifying that everything was on track. Somehow the problems were ignored 

again when the MITRE Corporation—hired by the Bureau for its ability to give 

frank advice—warned the agency a year ago that problems with the handheld computer contract were threatening the entire 2010 census. 

The consequences will, as usual, be laid at the feet of those who had nothing to 

do creating the problem in the first place—taxpayers. This is exactly what happened 

in 1999 when Congress decided to increase spending for the 2000 census by $2.8 

billion more than it originally planned. Instead of cutting funding someplace else 

it simply declared that the additional amount was ‘‘emergency spending.’’ This provided a convenient way to bust through the spending caps and avoid any budget 

cuts. At the time, I tried to prevent that increase by offering an amendment on the 

floor that would force budget cuts instead of new spending—the amendment had bipartisan support but ultimately lost. 

This time is shaping up to be no different. Taxpayers will get stuck with the bill 

for the most expensive census of all time, which will be nearly $15 billion even after 

inflation is factored in. Some in Congress again want to take the well-worn path 

of paying for these problems through more ‘‘emergency’’ deficit spending rather than 

to cut the funds of programs with bloated budgets. Every single Member of Congress 

who supports paying for these outrageous cost increases and reduced deliverable by 

charging it to our grandkids should be ashamed of themselves for punishing taxpayers this way. 

The following few examples highlight exactly why Americans should be outraged 

by the price tag of the next census: 

• First, the estimated value of the contract awarded to the Harris Corporation 

has ballooned from $600 million to $1.3 billion, even though the handheld 

computer will have only half of the functionality originally planned; 

• Second, the cost of the handheld computer has increased from about $400 per 

unit to upwards of $600 per unit, according to the Commerce Department, for 

a mapping function that could easily be performed on a $150 Blackberry; and 

• Third, the Census Bureau has contracted for help desk services for enumerators in the field, but the cost has increased from $36 million to $217 million, 

seemingly overnight. 

On top of the spending problems we face, the Director of the Census has also told 

us that the quality of the census could be lower than it was in 2000. This has a 

direct impact on the Bureau’s constitutional duty to apportion the House of Representatives. Even after the 2000 census, which was billed as the most accurate census ever, there was significant controversy about whether Utah should have been 

given an additional seat. I fear what may result from a less accurate census in 2010. 

Admittedly, the picture I’ve just painted is bleak. There is no good way to put a 

positive spin on this situation and I don’t believe that the American people are looking for excuses. I have serious questions about the decision to abandon the handheld 

computers for non-response follow up. And I hope to receive some more of the detailed justification for that decision at this hearing. Regardless, the decision has 

been made and we need to ensure that the plan for moving forward is a sound one. 

I want to thank the witnesses for being with us today and look forward to their testimony. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you, Dr. Coburn. 

Senator COBURN. Here is the difference, a $400 iPhone can do 

twice as much as the $600 handheld computer. You can buy 

iPhones that do all this, plus the NRFU. The American people 

should know that they are pating 50 percent more. Here is the latest technology in telephones, and it can do everything this can do. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Mr. Secretary, thank you for joining 

us. We look forward to your testimony. And I understand you can 

be with us for about another 45 minutes and then you need to be 

excused. 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. We will be sure to make that happen. 

47 

1The prepared statement of Secretary Gutierrez appears in the Appendix on page 107. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. CARLOS M. GUTIERREZ,1 SECRETARY, 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. Well, thank you, Chairman Carper and 

Senator Coburn. Thank you again for your interest in the census, 

and I have a brief oral statement, and then I will submit my written testimony for the record. And I do appreciate your interest and 

I appreciate your wanting to look forward and figure this out and 

have the best census possible. And I appreciate that. 

I am here to update you on the progress toward addressing the 

challenges facing the 2010 census and to seek the Committee’s support in ensuring success. The American people expect and deserve 

a timely and accurate census, and we are working diligently to ensure they get it. 

While taking the census sounds simple, it is anything but. As 

you well know, its scope and complexity have steadily increased, 

whether it be that we have more households or it is harder to reach 

households, and there is more fragmentation of media. And it is 

today the largest peacetime mobilization in the United States. And, 

of course, the challenges have only increased with time. 

To deal with some of these challenges, at the beginning of the 

decade, the 2010 census was reengineered to build a better, faster, 

and simpler census. The plan was to leverage technology; eliminate 

the long-form and conduct a short-form-only decennial census—and 

that would reduce time from perhaps 45 minutes to 10 minutes an 

interview; introduce the American Community Survey; take further 

steps toward conducting a multi-language census; and coordinate 

and target messaging with integrated communications and partnerships. 

While the majority of these elements are on track, problems have 

developed with the Field Data Collection Automation (FDCA) program. The FDCA program has experienced significant schedule, 

performance, and cost issues. A lack of effective communication 

with one of our key contractors has significantly contributed to the 

challenges. 

To address these issues, we sought advice from a wide range of 

respected sources, including our Inspector General, the GAO, the 

MITRE Corporation, the 2010 Census Risk Reduction Task Force, 

and an independent panel of experts. 

Based on these inputs and serious consideration, we have decided to move forward with a paper-based non-response follow-up 

in the 2010 census. And I know how disappointing this is for you, 

Chairman and Senator Coburn. This allows the Census Bureau 

and the Harris Corporation to focus on what they do best and represents a significant step in the use of automation. We will continue to use the handhelds for Address Canvassing. 

The effect of moving forward with this alternative as well has 

placed the non-FDCA-related planning challenges that we have 

faced and will require an increase of anywhere from $2.2 to $3 billion through fiscal year 2013, bringing the total life cycle cost of the 

2010 census to between $13.7 billion and $14.5 billion. And as you 

mentioned, the last number we brought the Committee was $11.5 

billion. 

48 

The broadest reason behind the cost growth is the initial lack of 

sufficient communication between Harris and the Census Bureau. 

And while the revised plan does shift some duties away from Harris, the amount of work that Harris is responsible for has actually 

increased. So while it is a reduced level of activities, they have 

more work within each activity. 

To successfully pursue this course, we estimate an increase of ap- proximately $160 million to $230 million is needed for fiscal year 

2008. While we continue to assess the cost impact for fiscal year 

2009 and beyond, our current rough estimate for additional funding 

in 2009 is approximately an increase of $600 to $700 million. We 

expect to have more concrete numbers for 2009 when we submit to 

Congress an amendment to the President’s 2009 budget that will 

be fully offset. Most of the life cycle cost increase occurs in 2010, 

and we are evaluating all options to keep the cost increase towards 

the low end of the range, while ensuring an accurate count. 

To address the funding needed for 2008, we have developed a 

transfer proposal from existing Department resources that will 

cover the needs for the 2010 census. Our transfer proposal would 

require legislative authority to remove certain limits on our ability 

to make intra-departmental transfers. I believe it is responsible in 

light of the importance of the decennial census and our shared 

need to avoid additional burdens on the American taxpayer. 

Both at the Census Bureau and at the Department of Commerce 

we have made substantial management changes to address the 

challenges facing the 2010 census. It will remain a top priority for 

me and for the Department, and I look forward, as always, to continuing to work with you as we move ahead. 

Again, I thank you for your interest, and I will be glad to answer 

any questions. Thanks. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you for that statement. 

I want to start off by looking back a bit, and then I want us to 

pivot and to look forward. Again, let me start by commending you 

for taking swift action once you were fully briefed on the situation 

with the handhelds and for taking control of things and doing what 

you needed to do to try to set things right. And while I am disappointed that we will not be taking more advantage of the technology that is out there—I know Senator Coburn is at least as disappointed as I am about that—to find cost savings and to get a better census result, I believe that the decision you have shared with 

us is probably the only decision you could make at this point in 

time. 

Having said that, I think it is unlikely that we would find ourselves in the situation if the top leadership at the Commerce Department and the Census Bureau were more fully and practically 

involved in what anyone can see is a very complicated and very important project. 

Again, looking back, why is it that—I will not say that nobody, 

but the right people were not paying attention to the warnings 

from GAO and from MITRE. I read some of the comments from 

work done by MITRE at the behest of the Census Bureau. But why 

wasn’t somebody paying attention to those warnings about the 

risks that were associated with the project? And I think I know the 

answer to this question, but are you taking steps to ensure that 

49 

you and the other key people in the Department and at the Bureau 

are more involved in major investments like this? And if so, what 

are some of those steps? And if not, why not? 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. Sure. I suppose, and to put it in simple 

terms, I think the folks who were on this felt confident in what was 

being talked about in meeting rooms, and they felt that they were 

on the right track and that either GAO or others who were informing them of the risks did not have the full story right. But I think 

it is one of those senses of false confidence that things always have 

a way of working out without necessarily having the plan, the process, or the mechanism to make it work. And for all of us, it is a 

great management lesson that these projects are complicated and 

they tend to get worse before they get better. Problems tend to happen more easily than one expects, especially with something as 

large as this. To take it lightly is a big mistake. 

So I recall that the first meeting I had when it was clearly a 

problem, the way the meeting started was somebody saying we 

have a problem, and at least what we have talked about inside of 

the Commerce Department is that we would like to think that our 

culture is one that bad news should travel just as quickly or more 

quickly than good news. And so once we heard about this, we have 

tried to move forward, confront it, face up to it, but not try to step 

back and hope that things just all of a sudden got better. 

I think Director Murdock would say that he is getting a little bit 

too much help from the Commerce Department. This has clearly 

been what we have spent the most time on over the last month or 

so. And looking forward, a lot of it does depend on the Commerce 

Department, and we have had daily involvement. At some point we 

would like to move to weekly involvement. At some point we would 

like to move to a monthly board involvement. And what is happening inside the Census Bureau, I believe, is very positive—daily 

meetings, accountability, decisiveness. Harris is going to collocate 

with Census. It is a concept that the Director calls ‘‘embedding.’’ 

I have said this to Harris, and I do not think I would be speaking 

out of school, that where I would fault the Harris Corporation is 

if they saw that things were not moving forward, if they saw that 

decisions were not being made, they should have either knocked 

my door down, knocked the Deputy Director’s door down, or 

knocked the Under Secretary’s door down, but somehow it is too 

big of a project to be diplomatic about it. 

But we have processes, we have systems, we have information 

systems going forward, and I feel good about the people and about 

the systems and about the processes that we have moving forward 

to the 2010 census. 

Senator CARPER. I will just say one thing on this point, and then 

we will look forward. The idea that we had GAO out there consistently ringing the alarm, sounding the alarm, and MITRE Corporation, which is—is the MITRE Corporation a nonprofit? 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. Yes. 

Senator CARPER. MITRE Corporation in there basically saying, 

‘‘Houston, we have a problem here.’’ And then to have literally 

within weeks of that the kind of exchange that Dr. Coburn had 

with the former, I think, acting director, which almost suggested 

50 

that he had never seen or heard of the findings reported by MITRE 

is just very disappointing and almost hard to believe. 

Well, let me set that aside, and let’s just talk about going forward. Just lay out for us, if you will, Mr. Secretary, the path forward, step by step as we proceed through this month and next 

month and the balance of this year getting us ready for next year, 

please. 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. I would say that the most critical time period is the next couple of months. In our estimate, we know we 

have a void of anywhere from $160 to $230 million this year. In 

2009, within the President’s budget, we plan to look inside of Commerce and look elsewhere and get an amendment for the budget. 

But this year, we have approached this saying we believe that the 

responsible thing is because it is not as much as next year and it 

is an amount that is somewhat manageable, that we should try to 

get it from inside the Department. 

We have a couple of months to do that, but in order to be able 

to give ourselves some breathing room to July, we have requested 

the ability to move $33 million within Census. And my understanding is that we only need to inform, but we would like to have 

at least a sense from the House Committee that this is acceptable, 

that this is fine. Without that $33 million, which we believe is not 

a high risk, we are then facing a June deadline. And if we are facing a June deadline, then sometime in May we have got to tell 

Harris to stop working. And it begins to roll up into a major problem because we incur more delays. 

So, for me, that is one of the things that concerns me the most 

is just—— 

Senator CARPER. Let me just interrupt for a second. What you 

are saying to us is that you need the ability to move $33 million 

within Census from one pot to the other? 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. That is right. 

Senator CARPER. And it is your understanding that you do not 

need legislation to do that; it is something that can be done administratively? 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. Yes, I just want to let you know because— 

for me, that is perhaps the single biggest issue in the very short 

term. We are also in the process of renegotiating the contract with 

Harris, and that should be done toward the back half of the summer. We want to pay a lot of attention to that. We want to get it 

right. And that is also a big activity that needs to get done correctly. 

We are also looking at what programs within the contract can we 

make fixed price as opposed to making the whole contract costplus. And Harris has been very supportive, and we are trying to 

parcel out as much as we can and fix it as opposed to leaving it 

on a cost-plus basis. That is another major activity. And then getting the processes right—— 

Senator CARPER. Let me just interrupt again. One of the things 

that became apparent to me in reading the testimony for today is, 

given the hundreds of changes that the Census Bureau was making 

in the requests of Harris, it is hard to have a fixed-price contract 

when you are working in that kind of environment. And my hope 

is that this time you actually have a pretty good handle on what 

51 

you want, what your deliverables are so that you could actually expect from them a fixed-price contract. Go ahead. 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. Yes, well, one of the things that we are 

talking about this morning is that, in the event of some technological, infrastructure, or material need, that could be fixed price. 

So maybe not all of it can be fixed price. We are trying to get as 

much of it as we can, and we will obviously get back to the Committee. We know your interest in this. So that is a major part of 

immediate steps that we have to take. 

I think it is safe to say within the Census Bureau, there is a lot 

of management change, process change, and a lot more intensity. 

There should be daily meetings and decisions made daily. People 

should be feeling pressure because decisions cannot be delayed. So, 

really, the heart and the nerve system are right there in the Census Bureau, and that is where the management changes are being 

made, not in terms of perhaps moving a lot of people around, but 

in terms of how people work together, how they communicate, what 

kind of information they look at, what kind of deadlines are put in 

place, and what kind of pressure is put on the system. And that 

needs to be happening as of today, and those are the things that 

I think about. We have got to redesign the whole non-response follow-up system. Even though it is something we have done in the 

past, we were not headed in that direction. We were headed in the 

direction of the handhelds. Granted, it is still lower risk than going 

to the handhelds, but that requires an awful lot of work to kind 

of get that wheel restarted again. And Address Canvassing has to 

go on. That needs to be happening. We have a higher requirement 

of Census workers than we thought we had sometime back, one, 

because we are doing paper and, two, because our productivity assumptions were wrong. So that needs to be fired up as well. So, in terms of the $3 billion, about $2.2 billion—if you take the 

upper range—are non-Harris. So we have got the Harris contract 

to deal with. But then we have a lot of other costs that were underestimated within the system. So there is a lot to get right, a lot to 

get into timetables. We need milestones, we need deadlines. And 

very importantly, we need a tremendous amount of management 

focus and intensity, which I believe we have. 

Senator CARPER. I am over my time. Let me just ask you to clar- ify one point, please: $33 million to move within the Census Bureau, and then for this fiscal year, do I understand there is roughly 

another $150 to $200 million that needs to be moved within the 

Department of Commerce’s budget? Does that require legislation in 

your view? Or is that something that you believe you can do administratively? 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. Yes, that does require legislation. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thanks. 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. Dr. Coburn. 

Senator COBURN. Thank you again for being here. Let me make 

a couple of points. This is not a question. 

It is not against human behavior when somebody has a cost-plus 

contract for them not to tell you when things are not going well because they have every economic advantage for them not to go well. 

So that is a lesson on cost-plus contracts. 

52 

The second lesson on cost-plus contracts is if you do not know 

what you want, it is always going to cost a whole lot more than 

what the estimate is. And Census did know what they wanted, and 

they changed it all the way down through the deal. 

Why do you have to redesign the non-response follow-up? We 

have done it for 4 or 5 decades in a row, and we have done it on 

paper for 4 or 5 decades in a row. Why does that have to be redesigned? 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. You are right, there is a lot that we have 

done before in the past. I suppose the part that does require sort 

of bottoms-up work at this point is how to integrate manual information into an operating system that was designed for handhelds. 

So that would be a part that is probably different than what we 

have done in the past. A lot of it, we should be able to dust it off, 

but we have got to crank it up, which is something that we had 

not done. 

Senator COBURN. That cannot be that expensive. Let me ask another question. We have got $33 million in additional costs over the 

next 3 months, correct? 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. Right. 

Senator COBURN. Until July. What makes up the $33 million? 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. Well, a big part of that is getting the work 

on the new requirements for the handhelds, the Address Canvassing, which is happening as we speak. 

Senator COBURN. But Address Canvassing was always part of the contract, so why is there a $33 million increased cost in the Address Canvassing? 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. You are right. The Address Canvassing 

work was underestimated. Part of the new requirement, the 419 requirements that you have heard about, many of those came out of 

the Address Canvassing dress rehearsal. So Address Canvassing 

was underestimated. 

Senator COBURN. So if, in fact, we were right on track and we had NRFU on the handhelds, would you still be wanting $33 million for Address Canvassing? Is that the answer? 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. So it does not have anything to do with the 

previous incompetency. That is just a function of asking for more 

stuff on a cost-plus contract. 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. Well, this is what came out of the dress rehearsal that was done in mid-2007. 

Senator COBURN. Do you buy the fact that Harris says that this 

thing that works slowly is because the people could not use it faster, it is designed to be slow? I mean, I have seen it work. I have 

seen them go through the handheld. Do you buy that, or have you 

asked for it to be speeded up to the operation of what an eighth 

grader could use it at? I know I cannot use it that fast, but I know 

my eighth-grade grandchildren can. 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. Yes, I had not heard this notion that it 

cannot be faster. I believe it can be designed to be faster. I do not 

see why it would not—— 

Senator COBURN. Well, we were told it was specifically designed 

to be slow by Harris. That is just something else—that is just another problem. 

53 

And we have got a mess. I know you are trying to solve the mess, 

and I know the people at Census are trying to solve the mess. 

There is a measure of this Congress that is going to come out of 

this census, and the measure is going to be whether or not somebody takes responsibility and is culpable for what has happened 

here. And I will bet you now, I will bet Senator Carper a steak dinner in Delaware, that the vast majority of these funds will be 

charged to our grandchildren rather than Members of Congress say 

we are going to have to sacrifice somewhere else in Commerce to 

pay for this error. And that is the real problem the American people have with Washington. There is no accountability. 

And what you are doing and trying to do is admirable. I applaud 

you for trying to do it. But as sure as I am sitting here, they are 

not going to let you do it because they got their little fiefdoms and 

they have got their little special things, and they are not going to 

want any of them cut even though we have made mistakes. 

A final point: We had a hearing in June 2006 where the Director 

of the Census was asked: What is Plan B? With your background, 

there has always got to be a Plan B. There always has to be a Plan 

B. It is Murphy’s law. What can go wrong, will. We were told and 

we were reassured then that there is no reason to have a Plan B, 

everything is on track. 

Was that Director misinforming us or just totally clueless? Which 

was it? Because it cannot be anything either than he was misleading this Committee or he was totally out of touch with reality. 

Which is it, Mr. Secretary? 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. I think he believed that he could pull it off, 

that the Census Bureau could pull it off. I think he was truly confident that this would work out. As in many information technology 

(IT) projects I have seen in the past, somehow there is a belief that 

the technology will take care of itself, and we know it does not. 

Senator COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit some 

written questions. I do not want to keep the Secretary any longer. 

I would be happy to have those questions back in a couple of 

weeks. I know you have got plenty to do. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you, sir. 

Senator COBURN. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. Mr. Secretary, I asked you to do this last time 

you were before us, and that is, put on your hat from your job 

when you headed up Kellogg and do that for us again today. As I 

have read today’s testimony, yours and that of the Director and 

GAO, I was trying to figure out why does it cost twice as much to 

do this year’s census, more than twice as much as it did almost 10 

years ago? And among the things that I read, there are more people. In some cases people do not speak the same language. They 

do not all speak English so that is a challenge. They may live in 

more dispersed locations. That is a problem as well. 

And one of the other comments that I read is sometimes people 

are less inclined to open their mail. They get a lot of mail. Some 

of it is solicitations. It took me about half an hour to go through 

our mail last night when I got home to Delaware just on a regular 

day. And some people maybe get the request from the Census for 

information and just throw it away. So that increases the requirement for us to do our non-response follow-up. 

54 

I am trying to think—and you have probably tried to think this 

through, too, and the folks at the Census—how do we increase the 

likelihood that people who receive something in the mail are actually going to fill it out and mail it back in? As I recall, the expectation is something like 60 to maybe 70 percent of the folks who receive the questionnaire, a short questionnaire, in the mail are 

going to respond to it. And I am just trying to think, how can we 

inspire people to do more? 

I will just give you a different kind of example. We have been 

trying to encourage people to recycle more in the city of Wilmington, where I live. One of the things that has been done is we 

have bar-coded the cans that people put their recyclables in, and 

when they are loaded into the recycling truck, the truck actually 

measures and apportions back to my account for my family so 

many points based on how much we are recycling. And at the end 

of some period of time, we can use the points that are accumulated 

for tickets to theaters or for discounts on restaurant dinners. We 

actually incentivize people, so not only are we doing something that 

we think is right for our environment, but there is also some financial incentive for us to recycle. 

But have you given any thought to incentivizing folks to actually 

comply? For example, if you send it in, you have a chance to—not 

to win the lottery, but you have a chance to win something, and 

it is something that might be of value to you and your family. 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. I think that the question you are asking is 

an important question, and it may be the question in order to get 

the cost down. We are estimating, I think, 64-percent response. If 

that becomes 65 percent, we save $75 million. So for every 1 percent, it is a $75 million reduction. 

I have met with the advertising agency, because that is my background, to see how they can help us because they should have that 

goal. Their advertising is only good if that response is higher than 

what we had expected or what we had 10 years ago. So we have 

challenged them, and they are going to come back. 

We also have a huge number of partnerships locally which are 

designed to do that—church groups, local community groups who 

are asked to go out and tell people, please, respond to the census. 

It is not intruding into your privacy. It is not going to be used 

against you. 

The other thing that we have working for us—and it is hard to 

put a number on this—is that the questionnaire is a lot shorter. 

Because we did the American Community Survey (ACS) over the 

last decade, we have pushed a lot of the questions to a monthly 

survey, so now people have to spend 10 minutes instead of 45 minutes. And it is hard to imagine in this day and age somebody giving 

an enumerator 45 minutes. Now they only have to give him 10 

minutes. So those things should work. 

The incentive, we have talked about it, and I do not know if the 

Census has—that we have gone into it as much as we have, but 

I would be glad to go back to that because I think these are all 

good questions, and if we can get that number up, we could probably figure out something to do, perhaps in the second response— 

which we are doing this time. We are doing one mailing, and then 

55 

we are doing a second mailing. Perhaps there is room there to do 

something to motivate people more. 

Senator CARPER. Well, this is 1 a percentage point increase, $75 

million saving? 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. Yes. 

Senator CARPER. If you can go from 64 percent to 74 percent, 

that is three-quarters of a billion dollars? 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. That is correct. 

Senator CARPER. You can probably come up with some pretty 

clever ways to incent people for that kind of money. 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. That is, if whoever comes up with the idea 

to get 80 percent, I think they should be classified as a genius, because that is the ultimate challenge we have every 10 years. 

We are looking at the Internet. Can we get 1 percent from the 

Internet, additional to what we are doing? If we do that, that 

would be anything that we can do, that is the big number. And 

then my understanding is the rest of the job is less difficult than 

it would have been had we just started out with 64 percent. 

Senator CARPER. Senator Coburn says maybe a $5 certificate for 

Starbucks or McDonald’s. But look back a couple years ago when 

everyone wanted to get an iPod. The idea that you turn in your 

census on time, you do not need a non-response follow-up, and your 

name goes into the hat for a new iPod, something that people are 

excited to get, interested in getting, something that is highly timely. 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. It is a great thought. 

Senator CARPER. I would urge you to consider that. 

In terms of language barriers, how do you cope at a time when 

a lot of folks are concerned that there is a great deal of Spanish 

spoken in our country, but it is not just Spanish. I mean, people— 

a friend of mine, Roy Romer, who used to be Governor of Colorado, 

ended up as superintendent of the public schools in L.A. for a number of years. He told me that one of his challenges—he said, ‘‘This 

is the toughest job I have ever had, superintendent of the school 

district. I have got 110, 115 languages that are being spoken in my 

school district.’’ You probably have there, and in other places 

around the country, folks who are going door to door talking to people and maybe speaking Laotian or Haitian or whatever, not just 

Spanish. 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. Right. 

Senator CARPER. How do we deal with that? 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. On the Spanish part, because of the ACS— 

and this is one of the benefits of ACS—we know where we need to 

provide a Spanish language questionnaire. So we will be able to do 

that from the start, targeted at those households. We also have a 

multi-language manual of how to go about answering the questionnaire. 

A big part of how we get to these other hard-to-reach communities—Vietnamese, Croatian—will be through these community 

partnerships where they should know where people live who do not 

speak English or who could use some help in speaking English. So 

that is where the partnerships will come in tremendously handy. 

But that is another part that makes it more complex. 

56 

I would like to think that we may have more languages today 

than we did 80 years ago or 100 years ago, although we have always had that problem. I mean, 100 years ago it was Europeans 

who did not speak English yet, and we were doing a census. So 

maybe we do have more languages today, but I think it is a problem that we have had before. But no question about it, it is one 

of the variables that makes this so complex. 

Senator CARPER. And I do have one more question, and that will 

be it. I understand from what you are telling us that you are going 

to stick with Harris, they are going to be involved in the portion 

of the project that I think involves Address Canvassing, but there 

is other work that you want for them to do as well. Explain the 

other piece that you have negotiated or are negotiating with them 

to do. I do not fully understand what that other piece is. 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. I will give you the primary examples. The 

integration of the paper non-response follow-up into the automated 

Operating Control System is a big part of what they have to redesign. We have given them more work in the Address Canvassing. 

We had assumed that we could manage a help desk for $34 million. 

We now have $197 million into the help desk. So there are things 

that on the one hand we have increased the requirements. There 

are others when we have realized we got this wrong. But it is a 

combination of those, and I would be glad to provide you with a list 

of how that $700 million is made up. 

Senator CARPER. Fair enough. Dr. Coburn, anything else? 

Senator COBURN. No. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Secretary Gutierrez, thanks for being 

with us today. Thanks for your testimony. Thanks for responding 

to our questions, and thanks for making this the kind of priority 

that it needs. 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. Thank you, and thank you for your suggestions. 

Senator CARPER. You bet. 

Secretary GUTIERREZ. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. 

Senator CARPER. All right. 

Gentlemen, we welcome you here. We have appreciated your testimony before, and we look forward to your testimony here today. 

This panel includes Dr. Steven Murdock, who is Director of Census for almost 4 months now. It probably seems like 4 years. 

Mathew Scire`, we welcome you as the Director of Strategic 

Issues at the GAO. 

I was over there the other day when we said good-bye to David 

Walker, Dr. Coburn. Did you have a chance to stop by there? As 

it turned out, Comptroller General Walker shares the same birthday, same day, month, year, with Sting. 

Senator COBURN. That is notable. 

Senator CARPER. It really is, when you think some people consider GAO a sting operation. I thought it was more than just a coincidence. I enjoy music, and as it turns out, General Walker does, 

too. And I think he is especially fond of the music of Sting. So I 

looked through Sting’s portfolio, and I found a CD called ‘‘Brand 

New Day’’ and presented that to him in front of all of his folks, because, really, it was his last day at GAO, and he is looking forward 

to a brand new day. But we appreciate the work that you and 

57 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Murdock appears in the Appendix on page 113. 

David Powner have done to make Comptroller General Walker look 

pretty good during the time that he was in charge of GAO. But we 

welcome you here today, and thanks for your input. 

Dr. Murdock, we have your testimony. You are welcome to proceed, and we will make it all a part of the record so summarize as 

you see fit. Thanks for joining us. 

TESTIMONY OF STEVEN H. MURDOCK,1 DIRECTOR, U.S. 

CENSUS BUREAU, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 

Mr. MURDOCK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Dr. Coburn. 

Thank you for the opportunity to come before you again to discuss 

our ongoing efforts to address the problems associated with the 

Field Data Collection Automation (FDCA) Program. 

Secretary Gutierrez has just outlined our plans for going forward 

with the FDCA program. And since the Secretary last spoke to you, 

all of the options that we talked about before regarding the FDCA 

program were thoroughly examined. We have considered feasibility, 

timing, and, of course, costs, while placing our greatest emphasis 

on ensuring the most accurate possible census in 2010. 

I fully support his decision. Our contractor will continue developing the Address Canvassing operation utilizing the handheld 

computers and develop the Operations Control System, and the 

Census Bureau will implement a paper-based non-response followup operation and provide the regional census centers infrastructure. We will work with our contractor to ensure that the other 

components of the FDCA program are successfully completed. This 

option maximizes our control of 2010 census operations, and our 

decision to do so again gives us flexibility and minimizes the risks 

we identified in the FDCA program. At the same time, the plan allows us to leverage Global Positioning System (GPS) technologies 

by using handheld computers in the Address Canvassing operation. 

This will improve the accuracy of our address list, which is fundamental to an accurate census. 

This is not a decision that any of us have taken lightly. The Risk 

Reduction Task Force, chaired by former Deputy Director William 

Barron and made up of key Census Bureau officials from each office involved with decennial census operations, as well as personnel 

from the Department of Commerce, and MITRE Corporation, carefully assessed every aspect of the FDCA program. Their work was 

then reviewed by an expert panel established by the Secretary. 

Nearly all of us involved with this effort reached the same conclusion: Moving to a paper-based NRFU operation significantly reduces risk. There are several reasons for this: 

We experienced a series of problems with the handheld computers during the dress rehearsal Address Canvassing operation. 

The handheld computers often took far longer than expected to 

move between screens, and they occasionally froze up resulting in 

enumerator downtime. 

There were difficulties in obtaining efficient transmission to and 

from the handheld computer. This, too, led to delays for the enumerators. 

58 

The handheld computers could not handle assignment areas that 

contained more than 700 addresses, and our contractor does not believe that this flaw can be corrected. The result is that we now 

have to develop an alternative outside of the FDCA system for situations where we cannot reduce the size of large assignment areas. 

We determined that if we had similar problems in the NRFU 

dress rehearsal, it would be too late to correct them and too late 

for us to pursue any alternative. 

Given our efforts to mitigate elements of risk to decennial operations, the automated NRFU operation provides less flexibility 

than a paper-based operation because of the lead time required for 

ordering and equipping additional handheld computers. 

We know we can successfully complete a paper NRFU since we 

have done so in past censuses. And by taking this work back, the 

Census Bureau can focus the work of the contractor on completing 

work on Address Canvassing and the operational control system. 

We recognize that the option we chose is not without risk and 

has cost implications. However, we believe it is the best way to ensure a successful census, and we are taking actions that mitigate 

risk, particularly the ultimate risk of a failed, incomplete, or inaccurate census. 

As we move forward, I am taking a number of steps to ensure 

that we address the organizational weaknesses that caused the 

problem with the FDCA program. This begins with a new management approach. 

Arnold Jackson, a seasoned census manager with extensive experience directing information technology projects, has taken over as 

Associate Director for the Decennial Census. He is establishing a 

schedule for daily assessment meetings with the Census Bureau 

and contractor personnel, weekly status assessment and resolution 

meetings with the Deputy Director and me, and regular meetings 

with the Department of Commerce. We will continue to keep Congress informed of our progress and of any problems that arise. 

We will move quickly to strengthen management planning and 

oversight relative to key areas such as risk management, issue 

identification, product testing, communications, and budgeting and 

cost management. 

We are also instituting an embedding process, which the Secretary referred to, of Census Bureau personnel with the contractor 

at the worksite and contractor personnel at Census Bureau headquarters. This will help alleviate the communications problems 

that led to the breakdown in the requirements definition process. 

We will institute periodic, unscheduled reviews by MITRE and 

departmental specialists in IT, project management, and contracting. 

Within the next 30 days we will produce a detailed plan for the 

FDCA re-plan that includes deadlines for key milestones. In 45 

days we will develop an integrated project schedule for the program. And in 60 days we will produce a testing program for the 

automated Address Canvassing operation. All of this will strengthen implementation of the Decennial Census as we move forward. 

I want to stress again that since becoming Director in January, 

addressing the problems associated with the FDCA program has 

been my highest priority. My colleagues and I share the concerns 

59 

1The joint prepared statement of Mr. Powner and Mr. Scire` appears in the Appendix on page 

117. 

of the Congress about the increased costs we are now facing. Nonetheless, we must find a way to move forward. With the steps I have 

outlined today, I am confident we can put the 2010 census back on 

track. 

Thank you for the opportunity to be with you today. I am happy 

to answer any questions you may have. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you, Dr. Murdock. 

Before I introduce our two witnesses from GAO, let me just say 

that I am going to be asking you to respond to the schedule that 

Dr. Murdock has laid out, which seemed to make sense. Is it logical? What questions would you suggest that we ask about it or 

would you have about that timeline? Thank you. 

Mr. Scire`. 

STATEMENT OF MATHEW J. SCIRE` ,1 DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC 

ISSUES, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Mr. SCIRE`. Mr. Chairman and Dr. Coburn, thank you very much 

for the opportunity to be here today to discuss the 2010 Decennial 

Census. With me today is David Powner, Director of GAO’s Information Technology Team, who has been reviewing the Census Bureau’s major information technology investments. 

Last month, we testified before this Committee on the growing 

uncertainties surrounding plans for the 2010 census. At that time, 

we designed the Decennial Census as a high-risk area. We cited 

longstanding weaknesses in technology management, operational 

planning, and cost estimation. We also cited uncertainty over dress 

rehearsal plans and the ultimate cost of the decennial. 

Earlier this month, the Commerce Department and Census Bureau announced major changes to how it plans to conduct the 2010 

census. This redesign will have significant implications for decennial operations and costs. The redesign also highlights again the 

critical need for aggressive management of technology investments. 

First, the redesign will require that the Bureau quickly develop 

and test a paper-based non-response follow-up operation. This will 

require different operations, printing, and training programs. Also, 

because this change comes late in the decade, the Bureau will need 

to provide assurance that this huge operation and its linkages with 

other operations and systems will be tested in the absence of a full 

dress rehearsal. 

Second, the redesign calls for using the handheld computers for 

the Address Canvassing operation except for large assignment 

areas. This will require additional planning for operations, training, and equipment. Also, there remains some uncertainty as to 

how the Bureau will work around potential inabilities to update incorrect address lists once Address Canvassing has been completed. 

In this event, the Bureau may elect to deliver census forms by 

hand rather than via mail. It is critical that the Bureau ensure 

that the technology for conducting Address Canvassing is a success 

and that it tests the design for large assignment areas and the 

linkages among Address Canvassing and other operations. 

60 

1The joint prepared statement of Mr. Powner and Mr. Scire` appears in the Appendix on page 

117. 

Third, the redesign will result in additional costs. It is important 

to note that had it chosen to go forward with its original design, 

the Bureau estimated that the cost of the decennial would be up 

to $2.3 billion more than it previously estimated. In comparison, 

the cost of the redesigned decennial is expected to be up to $3 billion more than the previous census estimate. Regardless, it is not 

clear that these cost estimates fully recognize changes in the expected productivity of field workers, and the ultimate cost of the 

decennial is uncertain. 

We recommended that the Bureau use tools such as a comprehensive, integrated project plan and sensitivity analysis that 

would help the Bureau better measure and manage the costs associated with individual operations. To provide the Congress with 

credible, accurate life cycle cost estimates, it will be important for 

the Bureau to demonstrate that its cost estimates reflect the most 

current understanding of important underlying assumptions, including productivity. 

Finally, the redesign makes more urgent the need for the Bureau 

to address significant and longstanding weaknesses in managing 

information technology. Going forward, it will be important for the 

Bureau to aggressively manage its key information technology investments, and I will turn it over to Mr. Powner to expand on this. 

But before I do, let me thank you again for the opportunity to 

speak today, and as in the past, we look forward to supporting this 

Committee’s efforts to promote a timely, complete, accurate, and 

cost-effective census. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you, sir. Mr. Powner 

DAVID A. POWNER,1 DIRECTOR, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 

MANAGEMENT ISSUES, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY 

OFFICE 

Mr. POWNER. Chairman Carper, I would like to stress two key 

points about moving forward in managing the technology acquisitions associated with the redesign. 

First, a clear, integrated schedule with critical milestones of key 

deliverables and tests needs to be clearly articulated so that oversight can be performed by both the Department and the Congress. 

This should include key technology deployment and acceptance 

dates, as well as testing time frame. 

Second, a major concern is whether the Bureau has the capability to improve its program management and executive-level governance of the technology. Although we just heard from Dr. 

Murdock about this new management approach, history tells us 

that sound program management and executive-level principles is 

not something that can be just switched on overnight. Because of 

this, it will be important that the Bureau seek advice from the Department of Commerce in performing governance over the remaining technology acquisitions, utilizing the expertise of MITRE. We 

heard about this embedding with the contractor, and it probably 

would make sense to embed MITRE a bit, too. Sometimes a healthy 

tension there works. 

61 

In addition, they ought to still consider hiring an executive with 

a proven track record of rescuing these projects. One of the things 

we are doing within the Census Bureau is shuffling some chairs 

right now. Hopefully, the new management attention and focus, 

coupled with the governance, will fix things going forward. But 

that is also something that should be on the table. 

Thank you, and I look forward to your questions. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you, sir. What was that last point there 

about hiring an executive with a proven track record in rescuing 

these kinds of situations? 

Mr. POWNER. Well, if you look historically at some of these IT 

projects, large acquisitions that have not gone as expected, we do 

have certain projects that we can point to where we brought in expertise from other departments or other parts of the Department 

where folks have a history of rescuing some projects. One of them 

that I would point to within the Department of Commerce, there 

was a large environmental satellite acquisition where they sought 

the expertise of some Department of Defense (DOD) officials to 

come in and help them get their program management and governance processes on track. So that is one model to look at. 

Senator CARPER. Dr. Murdock, would you just respond to that 

point, please? 

Mr. MURDOCK. Certainly, we are looking at a number of options 

in terms of improving and increasing management intensity. We 

are open to a number of suggestions. We have been looking at this 

particular area, recognizing the limitations we have. We have some 

very good people in the IT area, but we have very small numbers, 

particularly compared to what we had, for example, in 2000. So we 

are open to looking at a variety of options to strengthen that area 

because we recognize our limitations there, and we recognize that 

we simply have to do this right. 

Senator CARPER. Dr. Murdock, would you just go back and not 

in its entirety, but truncate, if you will, the timeline that you were 

sharing with us in the latter part of your testimony? And then I 

am going to ask our two witnesses from GAO to comment on the 

reasonableness of that and any recommendations they have pertaining to it. 

Mr. MURDOCK. OK. What I had said is that within the next 30 

days we will produce a detailed operating plan for the FDCA replan effort with setting up key milestones that will allow us and 

others to assess how well we are doing, whether we are on schedule, etc. 

In 45 days, we will develop an integrated project schedule for 

this particular part of our program for FDCA, and in 60 days, we 

will produce a testing program for the automated Address Canvassing operations. That is the part that we had tested in terms 

of a dress rehearsal, the handheld computers where we found some 

difficulties, and we need to make sure now, with a thorough and 

end-to-end kind of testing program, that these are up and operating in the way that we need them in order to apply them in less 

than a year now. 

Senator CARPER. Gentlemen, any comments as to what you like 

about it, don’t like, or any questions you might have of the schedule that has been laid out by Dr. Murdock? 

62 

Mr. SCIRE`. A few points, I guess. The FDCA, the Field Data Collection Automation—— 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. 

Mr. SCIRE` [continuing]. Operating plan, obviously that is something that would be needed immediately, and that coming to terms 

with what the final requirements are going to be with the contractor is something that is needed immediately. So this talk about 

30 days or less would be desirable. I understand that there will be 

an integrated project schedule and plan. I am assuming that part 

of that would address issues with the re-planning of the non-response follow-up operation. 

So I think I would like to see more specifics as to what might 

comprise these. We mentioned there are major implications to 

going to paper for this non-response follow-up operation, and there 

we would expect to see specifics in their plans and dates and 

benchmarks for when they will have a printing solution or a plan 

for a printing solution, when they will have in place plans that 

would describe how they are going to manage the workload for that 

particular operation, plans for the integration of that paper-based 

operation with other automated operations, for example, the one for 

collecting and integrating responses. 

So there are more specifics, I think, that we would like to see in 

terms of when the Bureau will have in place plans for these key 

implications that we lay out in our statement. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Dr. Murdock, any response to that? 

Mr. MURDOCK. The items that we were talking about will provide 

some of that information, but we can certainly lay out in greater 

detail for you and for GAO our plans in much more specific terms. 

We would be glad to do that. 

Senator CARPER. Mr. Powner, any reflections you have on what 

Dr. Murdock has laid out? 

Mr. POWNER. Well, clearly we want these sooner than later, but 

I do believe the 30-, 45-, and 60-day time frames are reasonable, 

because we want a good plan going forward. I think what is more 

important is that we want to stick to those time frames and that 

they get done and then that we hold folks accountable from that 

point going forward. I mean, we talked about this comprehensive 

testing program. A high-level testing program should be part of 

that integrated schedule that is delivered in 45 days. But we need 

to have those dates set in stone, and then we need to march to 

make sure we are hitting those very timely. 

Senator CARPER. Earlier in the testimony, Dr. Murdock, I don’t 

know if it was you or if it was Secretary Gutierrez, one of you was 

talking about why this effort to automate more of the census operation in 2010 failed. And one of you said that part of the problem 

was the failure of communication between the Census Bureau and 

Harris, the provider of the technology. 

Actually, it occurred to me that in part there had been a failure 

to communicate maybe between GAO and the Bureau because they 

were raising questions and raising caution flags for many months 

before we ended up in this predicament, and also a failure to communicate with MITRE and the Bureau itself. 

How is that changing now under your watch, not just improving 

communications with Harris, making clear what you expect them 

63 

to do, what your needs are, without changing or adding to that, but 

also what is going on here to improve communications with GAO? 

What is going on to improve communications with MITRE? Then 

I will ask our friends from GAO to comment on that as well. 

Mr. MURDOCK. Well, I am taking as one of my top priorities 

when I came in, before we discovered all of these issues that we 

are dealing with today, that we would improve our communication 

with GAO and other oversight groups. And I am trying in a very 

concerted manner to do this, having established a key person, one 

of our most effective people in terms of getting answers to people 

as a contact person for GAO. I have met with them to get their 

overview on a number of key issues. And what I can say is that, 

for whatever reason that we did not listen sufficiently well before, 

I am dedicated that we are going to listen and do our best to meet 

the kind of criticisms that we should have addressed before. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Gentlemen, any comment? 

Mr. SCIRE`. Yes, we did sit down and have the conversation about 

how we can improve the communication between the two agencies, 

and I think we have some ideas for how we can do that. I am looking forward to an improved relationship between the Census Bureau and the GAO, and I will wait and see how that plays out. 

Mr. POWNER. I agree that communication has improved, but I 

think the characterization that this was due to poor communication 

is an understatement. It was poor communication, it was poor program management, and it was poor executive-level oversight. The 

communication has improved, and were not too worried about that 

going forward, but we are worried about solidifying the program 

management and executive-level oversight that needs to occur. 

Senator CARPER. It would seem to me that just based on what 

I have seen over the last couple of months with the arrival of Dr. 

Murdock in his position and with the attention that Secretary 

Gutierrez is paying to this dilemma, the executive oversight, at 

least executive attention to this problem, has certainly ratcheted 

up a couple of notches. Is that a fair statement? 

Mr. POWNER. Yes, I think that is fair, but I think we need to continue that going forward. 

Senator CARPER. OK. 

Mr. MURDOCK. I think one of the things we recognize is that this 

is not a few-month process. This is going to be an intensified management day after day after day to keep us moving forward and 

moving forward on schedule because there is no time to lose. Of all 

the issues facing us, time is our biggest enemy, and we recognize 

that to lose any more time is to threaten the very census itself. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Dr. Murdock, I will ask you this question, 

and then, gentlemen, if you would respond as well, I would appreciate it. But, Dr. Murdock, just take a minute or two, if you will, 

and talk with us about how your plans for 2010 have got to change 

in light of the decision that has been made to revert to paper for 

collecting data from those who do not response when they get their 

census forms in the mail. And give us some idea what you think 

you need to do as far as hiring more people, training those people, 

renting additional space, and so forth. Just look ahead for us. 

Mr. MURDOCK. Certainly, as we look forward with a paper-based 

NRFU, we are talking about an operation that has a number of 

64 

challenges. One is simply the relatively large number of additional 

people that we will have to hire. Our estimates are, for example, 

in terms of enumerators, probably 95,000 or so more enumerators 

will be needed because of the processes that are involved and the 

fact that we anticipate that not being able to use automation in the 

NRFU process, we will suffer some in terms of our ability to catch 

late returns and second mailings. 

In addition, it is going to take more space, and I do not have 

those figures off the top of my head. It is going to require more 

management in terms of field management and in our regional centers as you put that many more people into the field. It is certainly 

going to require that we print more forms, somewhere in the range, 

because of the number of ways we use it, of over 40 million more 

forms. So that the big part of this does occur in terms of what is 

happening with the non-response follow-up. 

But also, as part of the plan, we are taking back some of the 

work relative to the infrastructure for the regional census centers, 

and this, too, involves more technology. It involves re-merging what 

were two systems into one so that we have a single system. We 

were operating two systems that were not communicating very well 

at the regional center. We are going to have one integrated system 

for the regional centers, and that will require some additional 

work, certainly in terms of our information technology people. And 

as we look at this, one of our challenges that I think our GAO colleagues here pointed out is to get the types of people in IT that can 

ensure that we are able to pull that off, do it in a very thorough 

manner, and ensure that it operates smoothly with the rest of our 

systems. 

So there are a number of challenges relative to taking this back. 

We did not take it back lightly. What we recognized was that given 

the history we had at the point we had to make this decision, that 

if we had difficulties in the non-response follow-up dress rehearsal 

anywhere near the magnitude that we had in Address Canvassing, 

that there would be insufficient time by the time that process was 

over for us to take another alternative. So that we really tried to 

balance off the ultimate risk, that is, the risk of not getting a complete census on time or as accurate as we would like it, with reverting to processes that we know we can do, we have done repeatedly, 

and that, therefore, we can reduce the overall risk to the overall 

census. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Mr. Scire` and Mr. Powner, any reflection 

on what you just heard or in response to my question? 

Mr. SCIRE`. Yes, if I could add to that, I think what you just 

heard is a fairly daunting task to put in place a paper-based operation when one was planning up until a month ago to use automation. And there are a lot of plans that the Bureau needs to lay out 

specifically as to how it is going to get there. I think that is where 

you will get confidence that they will be able to execute this transition to a paper-based non-response follow-up. And so the testing becomes even more important. 

I would point out that ordinarily this would be rehearsed, and 

during a rehearsal, you would see all the interconnections between 

all the various aspects of a non-response paper operation. And 

without doing that dress rehearsal, you do not get that opportunity 

65 

to see all the linkages executed at once. And so it is going to be 

important for the Bureau to simulate some of those interfaces and 

linkages to get as close as you can to that sort of a real system test, 

a dress rehearsal-style test, and so we would expect that any sort 

of plan for testing of the non-response follow-up operation would include descriptions of those kinds of mini-tests, if you will. 

And the other part of this is there is integration between automation and paper. There will be an Operating Control System, 

which will control the workload for the paper-based operation, and 

there will also be a system for integrating responses that are coming through this operation. So those interfaces also would need to 

be tested and simulated in as close to a census-like condition as 

you can. 

Senator CARPER. Mr. Powner, anything else? 

Mr. POWNER. Nothing further, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator CARPER. Maybe one more question for GAO. It is a great 

benefit. But it is clear to me that there is a significant amount of 

work that the Census Bureau needs to do before we can have some 

confidence that the plans for 2010 are sound. 

What do you need to see them do in the coming weeks and 

months to gain your confidence? And feel free to repeat some of 

what Dr. Murdock and Secretary Gutierrez have said, but add to 

that, if you will. 

Mr. SCIRE`. Well, I think the immediate need is the establishment 

of the final requirements for the Field Data Collection Automation, 

and I think what we are looking for are plans, milestones, and 

benchmarks that lay out specifically when some of these things will 

be occurring, but at a sufficiently specific level that you can see 

that they are laying out the plans for how to operationalize a 

paper-based non-response follow-up, that they are setting dates for 

when they will finalize their decisions on a printing solution, finalize their decisions on how they will be managing the workload from 

the paper-based operation, what their plans are for the late mail 

returned, and with the absence of the handheld computer, this 

complicates the ability of the Bureau to pull late mail returns from 

the non-response follow-up workload. And I know that the Director 

is contemplating ways that can be done without the handhelds. But 

one would expect to see a description of how that will be accomplished. 

In the Address Canvassing operation, there still is a need here 

for some realistic testing of the automation, including testing of the 

automation under a workload that you might expect during the actual Address Canvassing operation, sort of the stress testing, if you 

will. Part of the Address Canvassing will not use the handheld 

computers, and there is some uncertainty there as to what the Bureau’s plans are. 

So we would expect to see a date that would say by this date we 

will have in place a plan that describes what the plans are for 

operationalizing a non-handheld computer Address Canvassing operation. And part of that, you would also want to see some specification of how this handheld operation and one that could be a 

paper-based operation for Address Canvassing will be integrated. 

So those are some of the things that I would expect to see in a 

plan that describes where they are going from here. 

66 

Senator CARPER. Mr. Powner, do you want to add to that? 

Mr. POWNER. Just two points. I would like to reinforce the importance of that integrated schedule so that we get that sooner than 

later and that it is comprehensive. And the other point is that the 

Census Bureau needs to be prepared to scrub the numbers that are 

coming in, and I will give you an example. 

We already heard that the FDCA contract is going to go up 

roughly $700 million, from $600 million to $1.3 billion. Those numbers are very rough. There is no preliminary design behind that. 

If you look at the set of requirements, the 400 requirements, about 

250 of those requirements are clarifications. 

Now, it has been described that they are all new requirements. 

They are not all new. Some of them are clarifications, so supposedly the contractor was working on some of those. We just need 

to really look closely. I understand the MITRE Corporation might 

be taking a look at this, but I think scrubbing those numbers that 

come in on what that final contract cost is is very important because there potentially could be some savings there. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

Dr. Murdock, one last question for you. Talk to us about MITRE 

Corporation, about your interaction with them and their involvement. 

Mr. MURDOCK. Well, MITRE Corporation has been very instrumental to our recognizing some of the difficulties that we were experiencing. I regret that we did not listen to them as well as GAO 

earlier in the process. We have them employed now in a number 

of ways helping us, and one of the things in my new management 

plan is that I am establishing them to be involved with our various 

processes and report to me weekly on issues that they see that may 

be occurring that we need to address. I am using them as, if you 

will, an inside-outside monitoring group to help keep us on track 

and to inform upper-level management if there are difficulties arising that we are not addressing in a timely manner. 

One of the things that we recognized in the process is that we 

had a difficulty coming to decisions in a timely manner. That is 

very problematic when you have a project like this where you have 

to meet deadlines so that everything else can be done. And, in fact, 

I would say relative to the issues that GAO has laid out today, I 

can tell you that we are desirous of having those deadlines and 

having them all planned out, and we are doing that now. 

But we recognize that you cannot know where you are in a process until you have those milestones laid out and you are holding 

yourself responsible for meeting those on an ongoing basis. So 

MITRE is in a continuous process with us and is helping us in 

some of our cost accounting processes, and in relationship to a comment that was made, we are still analyzing costs within many different parts of our process. And we are working with the contractor 

in terms of refining those costs, and that will be done over the next 

several weeks. 

Senator CARPER. Mr. Powner, I do not know if it was you or Mr. 

Scire` who mentioned embedding and tied that with MITRE. Do you 

recall which one of you said that? 

Mr. POWNER. I suggested that, Mr. Chairman. 

67 

Senator CARPER. And tell us why you think that might be a good 

idea, and then, Dr. Murdock, would you just share your thoughts? 

Mr. POWNER. Well, I think it is a good idea, whether it is MITRE 

or a similar organization. They offer some engineering expertise, 

program management expertise, that could help in various meetings and settings, having them right there rather than just getting 

minutes of meetings. And sometimes when you have a nonprofit, 

a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) that 

is coming in more on an independent basis and providing some 

verification of what is going on, having them there real time could 

help and could save us some time. 

Senator CARPER. Any thoughts on that? 

Mr. MURDOCK. Yes, we have thought of their involvement, and 

that could be very helpful to us in a number of ways. One is simply 

extending our resources in the area that we are very short of people, in IT. We have discussed this kind of arrangement with them. 

They are willing to provide some of that type of work, and we are 

working out details on that and other types of involvement. 

The one I just mentioned about in terms of the kind of monitoring process for upper-level management, we have already established that, but we are working at other ways that they can help 

us stay on track. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. 

And, finally, to Mr. Powner and Mr. Scire`, for almost every Subcommittee that I chair or Committee that I chair, I ask for advice. 

What should we be doing in the Legislative Branch as we try to 

do a good job with respect to our oversight responsibilities? What 

advice would you have for us? We have asked you to give advice 

to Mr. Murdock and the folks that he leads at the Census Bureau. 

Any advice that you might have for my colleagues and me going 

forward? 

Mr. SCIRE`. I think that continuing to provide the oversight that 

you are providing is very helpful and demanding that the Census 

Bureau produce these plans to establish a benchmark that will 

help with accountability and oversight in the future is very important. 

One thing that I am looking forward to seeing is the Census Bureau producing a final assessment of the Address Canvassing dress 

rehearsal so that might be available to you for your review and 

oversight. I know that it raises some issues about the Operating 

Control System, and so I think that is a subject that the Census 

Bureau needs to describe more as to what it found during its Address Canvassing dress rehearsal as well as its other dress rehearsal operations. 

Senator CARPER. Mr. Powner, anything else? 

Mr. POWNER. Just to highlight the importance of the 30-, 45-, 

and 60-day deliverables. It is important that those are delivered on 

time, and then once they are delivered, your oversight that indeed 

all the aspects of what needs to occur—key deployment drops, the 

technology being accepted, the operations being tested, the test 

plans being executed effectively, and results reported—all that 

from an oversight perspective will be very helpful. 

Senator CARPER. Good. Thank you. 

68 

Dr. Murdock, what else ought we to be doing or could we be 

doing that would be helpful to you and your team? 

Mr. MURDOCK. Certainly, I think two issues that were raised by 

the Secretary are very important; that is, the timing issue, that we 

get going with the process because the time is very short; and 

equally important is any assistance you can provide in helping us 

to stabilize funding over time so that we can move forward and 

have the resources necessary to get this job done. Recognizing all 

of the issues about the cost and what has happened to the cost, the 

reality is still that in order for us to move forward and for us to 

have a successful census, we need to have a dependable flow of 

funds so that we can continue our operations and those of the contractors we may have. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Fair enough. 

Well, I would just say in response, our thanks to each of you for 

being here. We do appreciate your testimony, and thank you for responding to our questions. 

And Dr. Murdock, to you and the team that you lead, and have 

led now for less than 4 months, just keep working hard and work 

smart, and let us know what we need to do to be helpful. 

And to our friends at GAO, stay on them, stay on the job, but 

in a constructive way, and I know that you will. And with a little 

bit of luck, we will get through this, and at the end we will be able 

to provide the kind of census that the people of this country need 

and deserve. 

With that having been said, this hearing is adjourned. Thanks 

very much. 

[Whereupon, at 4:48 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

(69) 

A P P E N D I X 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LIEBERMAN 

MARCH 5, 2008 

The purpose of today’s hearing is to examine problems that, if not corrected, will 

threaten the Census Bureau’s readiness for the 2010 survey. 

I want to thank Senator Carper and Sen. Coburn, the Chairman and Ranking 

Member of HSGAC’s Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, who have 

been closely monitoring this issue, for their steadfastness in pursuing the Committee’s oversight agenda. And I thank Commerce Secretary Guitierrez and Census Director Murdock for taking time from their very busy schedules to be here. 

The Bureau’s decennial population counts are not only the Census Bureau’s most 

important function, they are constitutionally required. The nation has been relying 

on them ever since 1790 when U.S. Marshals rode around on horseback to count 

our young nation’s population of 3.9 million that year. 

Every 10 years since, we have conducted the survey in order to divide states up 

into Congressional districts, to distribute billions of dollars in Federal aid, and to 

make basic decisions at every level of government. 

For most of the survey’s history, counters have used old fashioned methods to tabulate their numbers. As recently as 2000, Bureau employees were using paper and 

pencil. But a decision was made shortly after the completion of the 2000 census to 

move to an electronic system to ensure greater accuracy and to streamline the process. 

Now, two years before the 2010 Census, we learn that the development of 

handheld computers is in serious trouble and that they may not be functional by 

the time they are needed. The Census Bureau has recently indicated that development of the handheld computers had experienced several delays and cost overruns 

and that the handhelds may not meet the Bureau’s operational needs and quality 

controls. With just two years to go, this is extremely distressing news. 

So, how did it come to this? In March 2006, the Census Bureau awarded Harris 

Corporation a $600 million contract to develop and manufacture the handheld computers in time for the 2010 census. As late as December last year, Census Bureau 

officials reassured Congress that development of the electronic counters was on 

schedule and contingency plans were unnecessary. 

But the Government Accountability Office warned Census officials in an October 

5, 2007, report of the consequences of falling behind schedule and questioned the 

Bureau’s ability to manage the project’s risks. Then, last November, the Mitre Corporation, which Census hired to advise it on IT programs, told the Bureau that requirements for the handhelds may not be achieved in time for 2010—even if the Bureau received an influx of funding. Mitre recommended the Bureau immediately develop plans to use paper forms for the 2010 census. A January 2, 2008, story in the 

trade publication Government Executive reported that Census officials ‘‘have no 

plans to revert to paper.’’‘ 

The Bureau will very quickly need to decide if problems with the handheld computers can be fixed before a 2010 census dress rehearsal that starts on May 1, 2008. 

If the problems can be fixed, Census estimates it will need an additional $1 billion 

in the FY09 Budget to do so. If the problems cannot be fixed, the Bureau will need 

even more money to prepare for a paper system both for the 2008 dress rehearsal 

and the 2010 census. 

The situation is clearly troubling, and I am concerned that it could have deteriorated to this degree and without proper warning from the Bureau. I have noted with 

concern the failure of other government agencies to properly oversee high-priced 

technology contracts. Too much of the taxpayer’s hard earned dollars ride on these 

contracts not to manage them closely. Furthermore, 10 years into the 21st century, 

it is inexcusable that the Census Bureau must still rely on paper and pencils to perform its most important function. 

70 

I understand that the Bureau is working hard to correct these specific problems. 

A great deal is at stake, and the nation must be able to rely on the accuracy of the 

decennial. Thank you. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLLINS 

MARCH 5, 2008 

Since 1790, any American with faith in the Constitution could predict that a Census would occur in 2010. This constitutionally mandated function of the Federal 

Government is nearly as ironclad a certainty as death and taxes. 

As we approach the final stages of preparations for the 2010 census, however, we 

face a large and alarming uncertainty about whether our nation will be able to rely 

on the results on the 2010 census—whether for apportionment of representation in 

the U.S. House of Representatives, as required by the Constitution, or for the myriad other Federal programs that rely on accurate Census data in their operations. 

Given the importance of the Census, we must also examine the information-technology failures that have placed the 2010 census on such an uneasy foundation. Developing and deploying a customized technology against a fixed deadline demand 

extra diligence and energy in defining requirements, negotiating contracts, overseeing progress, and devising contingency plans. Here there is little to applaud and 

much to be concerned about the efforts of the Census Bureau. 

This Committee is unfortunately no stranger to tales of Federal projects and contracts that have gone awry, often at a heavy cost in taxpayer funds. Quite often, 

these failed projects have involved efforts to improve the government’s use of information technology. Far too often, the results of these projects seem to follow a similar pattern—inadequately defined initial requirements, an increase in requirements 

to address both old and new operational challenges, substantial cost increases that 

squeeze program budgets, inability or unwillingness of management to control ‘‘requirements creep’’ or cost overruns, and, finally, a decision to end an acquisition 

process with no deliverables or to accept a system that doesn’t meet expectations. 

The 2010 census is notable among projects that have drawn our attention, not 

only because of its great scope and expense, but because of its history of unheeded 

cautions. 

I won’t belabor the points made in our Committee’s recent hearings, news stories, 

and Government Accountability Office reports. The salient fact is that years before 

the 2010 census, warnings of potential dangers came from experts sought out by the 

Census Bureau itself and from the Commerce Department’s own Inspector General. 

In 2004, the National Research Council’s Panel on Future Census Methods cautioned that ‘‘unique risks and challenges’’ attended the plan to develop a new datacollection and transmission technology on the tight schedule for the next Census. 

Then in 2005, the Commerce Inspector General echoed the panel’s concerns and 

noted a ‘‘late start’’ on imposing effective project-management methods. 

It now appears that some combination of wishful thinking, lax management, and 

tunnel vision have brought us to a point at which the new Field Data Collection 

Acquisition or FDCA technology for hand-held devices may not be ready for full 

service in April 2010. 

The implications appear in the Census Bureau’s budget request for Fiscal Year 

2009. The Bureau has already requested more than a billion dollars above the FY 

2008 funding level, but has told Committee staff that because revisions to the FDCA 

contract with Harris Corporation are incomplete, they could not estimate the future 

costs of the 2010 census. And some estimates claim an additional billion dollars or 

more might be required to effectively complete this constitutional requirement. 

In other words, it appears that we cannot exclude the possibility of going into the 

2010 census with a hastily devised and obscenely expensive reversion to paperbased data collection to handle data from people who do not return the mailed forms 

or who otherwise require a follow-up visit. 

If the recent briefing summary prepared by MITRE Corporation—a Census Bureau consultant—is correct in saying that ‘‘immediate, significant changes are required to rescue the program’’ and that ‘‘money cannot trump time remaining,’’ then 

the Census Bureau and the country face a very serious problem. 

I look to all the witnesses today to describe with complete candor on what the 

outlook for the 2010 census really is, what steps you have taken or plan to take 

to improve that outlook, and what, in your judgment, should have been done differently. 

I commend Senator Carper and Senator Coburn for the leadership they have 

shown in aggressively monitoring the challenges facing the 2010 census and the 

close attention they have paid to ‘‘at risk’’ information technology procurements government-wide. Those Senators presided over a 2006 hearing that sounded a clear 

71 

alarm bell for Federal information-technology projects in general, citing a GAO finding that up to $12 billion of the $64 billion requested for more than 850 IT projects 

in FY 2007 might be wasted—including the Census Bureau’s FDCA project. The 

current problems with the 2010 census illustrate the pertinence of that warning. 

I sincerely hope that today’s hearing will produce some solid answers to the concerns that Chairman Lieberman, Senators Carper and Coburn, and I raised in our 

February 22 letter to the Secretary of Commerce. Time is too short for us to accept 

anything less. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLLINS 

APRIL 15, 2008 

The announcement by the Department of Commerce that plans for the 2010 census are undergoing drastic revision at this late stage and that its costs are expected 

to increase by as much as $3 billion is alarming. It is also at odds with previous 

assessments provided to this Committee. 

The fact that our best option is returning to a paper-based Census after working 

for years and obligating more than $200 million on a largely failed hand-held computer option indicates, at best, woefully inadequate procurement practices, and, at 

worst, gross mismanagement. 

The Census is too important—not only for its Constitutionally mandated use in 

apportioning the House of Representatives, but also for the role its data plays in 

a myriad of program and policy operations—for lax management practices to imperil 

its success. 

For now, the top priority for Congress must be a careful examination of the resources the Census Bureau needs—including adequate staff and robust project-management protocols—to execute an accurate enumeration two years from now. 

But I also believe that Congress must carefully reexamine this and other troubled 

Federal technology projects to identify the flaws, to ensure accountability, and to 

make better use of taxpayers’ money. 

As the GAO has stated, ‘‘Again and again, projects have run into serious trouble, 

despite hard work by dedicated staff. They are developed late, fail to work as 

planned, and cost millions—even hundreds of millions—more than expected. The results, in missed benefits and misspent money, can be found throughout government.’’ 

That observation was delivered more than 15 years ago. It appeared in a December 1992 GAO report to Congress on information-management and technology 

issues. The GAO’s judgment reminds us that these technology problems are neither 

isolated nor novel, but that does not in any way excuse the failures in the Census 

project. 

Unfortunately, the record indicates that the Census Bureau has not fully implemented GAO recommendations in vital areas like acquisition management, operational planning, cost estimation, and performance measurement. 

One troubling indicator of inadequate development practices appeared in Secretary Gutierrez’s testimony last week. Nearly two years after the initial contract 

award and a mere four months away from a full-blown test of the handhelds, and 

despite repeated third-party observations about the problems of ‘‘requirements 

creep,’’ the Secretary noted that ‘‘more than 400 new or clarified technical requirements’’ were delivered to contractor Harris Corporation on January 16, 2008. That 

was a remarkable load to pile on the back of a project already teetering at the precipice. 

Perhaps the most accurate comment on the recent disturbing news on the 2010 

census may be a short sentence by Dr. George T. Ligler, a technology consultant 

who has participated in the 2010 Decennial Census Expert Panel. In a March 18 

letter to Secretary Gutierrez, Dr. Ligler said, ‘‘It didn’t need to be this way.’’ 

Prominent among any list of lessons learned is the imperative to establish concrete requirements early in the development process, to take note of caution flags 

such as cost overruns and major requirement modifications, and to adopt effective 

risk-management strategies. 

I appreciate the difficulty of the task that Dr. Murdock assumed when he took 

the helm at the Census Bureau, and look forward to hearing his plans to put the 

Census back on track and keep it there. 

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