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74–041 PDF 2012

HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH? EXAMINING 

DUPLICATIVE IT INVESTMENTS AT DOD AND DOE 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY, INFORMATION 

POLICY, INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS AND 

PROCUREMENT REFORM 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

SECOND SESSION 

FEBRUARY 17, 2012 

Serial No. 112–135 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

( 

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

http://www.house.gov/reform 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California, Chairman 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

RAU ́ L R. LABRADOR, Idaho 

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

JOE WALSH, Illinois 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

DENNIS A. ROSS, Florida 

FRANK C. GUINTA, New Hampshire 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking 

Minority Member 

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio 

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois 

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky 

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

LAWRENCE J. BRADY, Staff Director 

JOHN D. CUADERES, Deputy Staff Director 

ROBERT BORDEN, General Counsel 

LINDA A. GOOD, Chief Clerk 

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY, INFORMATION POLICY, INTERGOVERNMENTAL

RELATIONS AND PROCUREMENT REFORM

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma, Chairman 

MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania, Vice Chairman 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

RAU ́ L R. LABRADOR, Idaho 

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia, Ranking 

Minority Member 

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on February 17, 2012 ....................................................................... 1 

WITNESSES 

Mr. David A. Powner, Director, Information Technology Management Issues, 

Government Accountability Office 

Oral statement ........................................................................................... 2 

Written statement ..................................................................................... 5 

Ms. Teresa M. Takai, Chief Information Officer, Department of Defense 

Oral statement ........................................................................................... 22 

Written statement ..................................................................................... 24 

Mr. Michael W. Locatis, III., Chief Information Officer, Department of Energy 

Oral statement ........................................................................................... 31 

Written statement ..................................................................................... 33 

Mr. Richard Spires, Chief Information Officer, Department of Homeland Security 

Oral statement ........................................................................................... 39 

Written statement ..................................................................................... 41 

APPENDIX 

The Honorable James Lankford, A Member of Congress from the State of 

Oklahoma: Written statement ............................................................................ 68 

The Honorable Gerald E. Connolly, A Member of Congress from the State 

of Virginia: Written statement ............................................................................ 70 

Questions for the record for Teri Takai ................................................................. 71 

Questions for the record for Richard Spires .......................................................... 75 

(1) 

HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH? EXAMINING DUPLICATIVE IT INVESTMENTS AT DOD AND 

DOE 

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY, INFORMATION POLICY, 

INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS AND PROCUREMENT

REFORM, 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m., in room 

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. James Lankford (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Lankford, Chaffetz, Walberg, Meehan, 

and Connolly. 

Staff present: Ali Ahmad, Communications Advisor; Richard A. 

Beutel, Senior Counsel; Molly Boyl, Parliamentarian; Gwen 

D’Luzansky, Assistant Clerk; Laura L. Rush, Deputy Chief Clerk; 

Richard Burkard, Detailee; Jaron Bourke, Minority Director of Administration; Jennifer Hoffman, Minority Press Secretary; Carla 

Hultberg, Minority Chief Clerk; Paul Kinkaid, Minority Press Secretary; Chris Knauer, Minority Senior Investigator; Adam Koshkin, 

Minority Staff Assistant; and Suzanne Owen, Minority Health Policy Advisor. 

Mr. LANKFORD. The hearing on ‘‘How Much is Too Much? Examining the Duplicative IT Investments at DOD and DOE,’’ and, honestly, to get a chance to look at what the process that we can do 

in IT investments governmentwide, will come to order. 

Oversight Committee existed—let me start all over. 

Good morning. 

We exist to secure two fundamental principles: First, Americans 

have the right to know the money Washington takes from them is 

well spent; second, Americans deserve an efficient, effective government that works for them. Our duty on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee is to protect these rights. 

Our solemn responsibility is to hold government accountable to 

taxpayers, because taxpayers do have the right to know what they 

get from their government. We will work tirelessly, in partnership 

with citizens watchdogs, to deliver the facts to the American people 

and bring genuine reform to the Federal bureaucracy. 

This is the mission of Oversight and Government Reform. 

I am going to allow my opening statement to go in for the record, 

instead of doing it orally. 

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Mr. LANKFORD. And I have asked the ranking member to also do 

the same. 

Is that okay with you? 

Mr. CONNOLLY. It is. And it is one of the first in Congress, I 

think, Mr. Chairman. Yes. 

Mr. LANKFORD. Well, you know what? We can slide that in. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. So I can listen to them instead of ourselves. 

Mr. LANKFORD. That would be great for this, as far as the help 

on that. 

Mr. LANKFORD. So other Members will have 7 days to submit 

their opening statements. There may be some others that slip in 

on this and add extraneous material for the record itself. 

Mr. LANKFORD. I would like to welcome our panel. 

And let me tell you why we are rushing through the beginning 

of this. Votes have been called somewhere between 10 to 10:15. It 

is our goal to try to get in the statements of our witnesses and do 

additional questions with them. If we can keep close on time, we 

can get a chance to honor time and not have to break for votes and 

then come back. We can try to conclude before we head for votes, 

which will honor every else’s time. If we are not able to do that, 

we will have a nice 30- to 40-minute break in the middle of our 

hearing, and then we will come back and conclude at the end. 

So I would like to welcome this first panel of witnesses. 

Mr. David Powner is the director of the Government Accountability Office’s Information Technology Management Issues team. 

Ms. Teri Takai is the chief information officer at the Department 

of Defense. Mr. Michael Locatis is the chief information officer at 

the Department of Energy. Mr. Richard Spires is the chief information officer at the Department of Homeland Security. 

Thank you all for being here. 

Pursuant to committee rules, all witnesses are sworn in before 

they testify. If you would please stand and raise your right hands, 

please. 

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are 

about to give to this committee will be the truth, the whole truth, 

and nothing but the truth, so help you God? 

Thank you. 

Let the record reflect all the witnesses have answered in the affirmative. 

In order to allow time for discussion, I would ask you to limit 

your testimony to 5 minutes. Of course, your entire written statement will be made part of the permanent record, as well. 

With that, I would like to recognize Mr. Powner for his opening 

statement for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENTS OF WITNESSES 

STATEMENT OF DAVID A. POWNER 

Mr. POWNER. Chairman Lankford, Ranking Member Connolly, it 

is a pleasure to be here this morning to discuss our latest report 

that highlights duplicative IT investments. The Federal Government spends nearly $80 billion on IT, and it is imperative that 

these investments enable the government to better serve the American people. 

3 

The past several years have resulted in major improvements in 

transparency and focus on IT management. First, in June 2009, the 

IT Dashboard has been providing cost and schedule information on 

nearly 800 IT investments and has provided a level of transparency 

and CIO accountability that is unparalleled. Today, over 250 investments, totaling nearly $18 billion, are at 

risk, meaning that agencies are rating these investments in either 

a yellow or red status. Focusing on these at-risk investments has 

made a difference. OMB claims that they have saved nearly $3 billion through its TechStat reviews that have resulted in poorly performing projects being halted or canceled. However, we still have 

too many investments at risk. 

In addition to the Dashboard, in December 2010 the IT Reform 

Plan was initiated that lays out an excellent roadmap to strengthen IT acquisition, governance, and program management. It also, 

if implemented successfully, will result in more cost-effective IT operations by focusing on commodity IT, cloud-based solutions, and 

data center consolidation. Over 200 data centers have already been 

closed, and the goal is to close a thousand by 2015. OMB estimates 

that data center consolidation will result in another $3 billion in 

savings. 

The Reform Plan emphasizes IT governance. Reforming and 

strengthening IT investment review boards and executive-level governance can greatly help turn around underperforming projects, as 

our many reviews for the Congress have highlighted. 

These governance processes can also identify and eliminate duplicative spending. This is important because last fall we issued a 

report that highlighted hundreds of investments providing similar 

functions across the Federal Government. The numbers here are 

staggering. For example, last year alone, the Federal Government 

invested in 781 supply chain systems, totaling $3.3 billion; 661 

human resource systems, totaling $2.5 billion; and 580 financial 

management systems, totaling $2.7 billion. We recommended that 

Federal agencies ensure that their IT investments are not duplicative as part of their annual budget submissions. 

Mr. Chairman, at the committee’s request, we followed up this 

review with a deeper look into IT investments at the Departments 

of Defense, Homeland Security, and Energy. Specifically, we looked 

at over 800 investments at these 3 agencies associated with human 

resources, IT, and supply chain management. We found 37 investments in 12 categories that are potentially duplicative. For example, we found that the Air Force had five similar contract management systems, the Navy had four similar personnel assignment 

systems, and Energy had three similar back-end infrastructure investments. 

Addressing this duplication is important since DOD and Energy 

have spent $1.2 billion on these 37 investments over the past 5 

years. Our report highlights the details of these investments and 

makes recommendations to eliminate duplicative spending and to 

further report on efforts to rout out duplication. 

The good news, Mr. Chairman, is that each agency has actions 

under way to tackle this duplication. DHS is furthest along, having 

already identified and eliminated duplicative investments through 

various portfolio reviews. For example, DHS consolidated six perVerDate Aug 31 2005 12:20 Jun 21, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\74041.TXT APRIL
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sonnel-security-related systems into an enterprise system. At DOD, 

the Navy has implemented an executive oversight board, chaired 

by the Navy CIO, and all IT expenditures greater than $100,000 

are reviewed and approved by the Navy CIO to ensure that they 

are not duplicative. 

DOE has various working groups addressing the records management and back-end infrastructure areas we pointed out and, on a 

broader scale, is holding TechStat sessions that are aimed at troubled investments and consolidating commodity IT services. 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to commend the leadership of the individuals on this panel. We expect further results from each agency 

in the near future as their efforts get more traction, but to be clear, 

we need more tangible results that eliminate duplicative spending. 

In summary, Mr. Chairman, it is safe to say that there is much 

more IT duplication out there. It is important that the agencies 

represented here and others use their investment governance processes to identify and address duplicative spending so that billions 

of taxpayers’ dollars are not wasted. 

This concludes my statement. I look forward to your questions. 

Mr. LANKFORD. Thank you, Mr. Powner. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Powner follows:] 

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Mr. LANKFORD. Ms. Takai? 

STATEMENT OF TERESA M. TAKAI 

Ms. TAKAI. Good morning, Chairman Lankford and Ranking 

Member Connolly. Thank you so much for the opportunity to testify 

this morning on the findings of the GAO report that Mr. Powner 

just spoke of. 

The GAO report highlights 31 business-related DOD IT investments that cover a range of areas. And, as mentioned, it specifically examined contracts, personnel management, and logistics systems. The Department is taking action to address 27 of the investments reviewed by GAO. The Department has looked at the remaining four systems, and we are prepared to discuss why those 

particular areas are actually not duplicative but more complementary. And we can go into more detail as you desire. 

The Defense Department’s IT budget presents a unique challenge, not only in terms of its magnitude—it constitutes one-half of 

the Federal Government’s overall IT expenditure—but in scope and 

complexity, as well, as you know. The Department’s fiscal year 

1913 budget request of approximately $37 billion includes funding 

all the way from desktop computers, tactical radios, human resource systems, commercial satellite communications, financial 

management, and you name it. These investments support missioncritical operations both in our Pentagon and office environment and 

on the battlefield. Our IT environment is even more complex when 

one considers that we operate in 6,000 locations around the world. 

In this complex environment, the Department’s business IT systems are essential enablers of a much broader set of integrated 

business operations. For example, paying our servicemembers on 

time is a responsibility shared among various members in our organization; it includes both human resources and financial professionals. So the business systems challenges for us really require a 

reform not only of our technologies but of our processes and our 

governance and our policies. 

In my written statement, I have described for you the well-defined IT investment governance process that the Department uses. 

The Defense Business Systems Management Committee and our 

investment review boards, as well as our acquisition process, are 

major touch points for us to ensure that we are examining our IT 

investments. We use those processes to examine our new investments, but starting in fiscal year 1913 it will also include our existing IT capabilities and the dollars that we spend. 

These processes are important in helping the Department accelerate the transition away from our legacy environment into our 

target business systems environment, but there are other activities 

under way within the Department to further support this goal. 

But, first, I would like to provide you some specific examples of 

what the Department has done. 

The Army reduced the number of IT applications from 218 to 77, 

a 65 percent reduction, during their BRAC move from Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, to the Aberdeen Proving Grounds. The Army 

Acquisition Domain has reduced the number of IT systems within 

that portfolio by 41 percent from 2006. The Logistics Modernization 

Program has sunset all 42 instances of the Army’s Standard Depot 

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System. Additionally, they have sunset all but one instance of the 

Commodity Command Standard System, a system comprised of 460 

applications. 

The Navy has reduced by 50 percent the number of applications 

across 21 functional areas since 2003. And since 2008, the Navy 

has eliminated over 400 legacy networks. The Marine Corps has reduced its applications by approximately 30 percent just over the 

last year and a half. 

The Air Force has taken an aggressive action, as well, and has 

reduced its IT budget request by $100 million in 2012. Air Force 

Materiel Command headquarters has organized a Tiger Team committed to finding software application duplication and outdated 

systems that can be terminated with acceptable risk. 

These efforts, coupled with their ongoing work to reform acquisition of information capabilities and consolidating our infrastructure, are delivering better results for the business operations that 

our warfighters depend on. 

To continue our progress, an important part of moving forward 

is the infrastructure on which our business systems reside. We 

have developed an IT enterprise strategy and roadmap to optimize 

our DOD IT infrastructure. And we plan to continue reducing that 

infrastructure footprint, creating a joint enterprise, developing an 

enterprise identity management system, and reducing the number 

of data centers to drive our networks to enterprise solutions. With 

the roadmap, we are developing implementation plans to establish 

aggressive milestones to accomplish that goal. 

We are actively working with OMB on the data center consolidation. To date, we made significant progress in that regard. We are 

working with the military departments, DISA, and other components. In fiscal year 1911, DOD closed over 50 data centers, and 

we plan to eliminate more than 125 data centers in fiscal year 

1912. 

Our focus on improving and designing an enterprise architecture 

and infrastructure will not only help DOD with migrating to enterprise solutions, but, more importantly, it will provide the Department with an improved ability to secure our information networks 

and our information and data. These efforts are key to transforming how we operate, how we acquire, and how we manage our 

IT investment in order to ensure efficiency, effectiveness, and security while still providing capability. 

I welcome the support of the subcommittee and really look forward to working with you and other Members of Congress as we 

strive to meet the challenges of streamlining and improving our 

overall IT capability. Thank you for your interest in our efforts, 

and I would be glad to answer any questions as they come up. 

Mr. LANKFORD. Thank you, as well. 

[Prepared statement of Ms. Takai follows:] 

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Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Locatis? 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL W. LOCATIS, III 

Mr. LOCATIS. Good morning, Chairman Lankford, Ranking Member Connolly, and other members of the subcommittee. Thank you 

for this opportunity to testify today on GAO’s report on potentially 

duplicative IT investments. 

The Department of Energy appreciates the work being performed 

by the GAO to identify opportunities to improve mission effectiveness and fiscal efficiency. The DOE is dedicated to improving our 

overall IT portfolio management and to address areas identified in 

the GAO report. We are committed to ensuring DOE’s IT investments make efficient use of taxpayer dollars at all times. 

As chief information officer for the DOE, one of my roles is to enable science, energy, and nuclear security missions through technology that provides tangible, positive outcomes. DOE is actively 

supporting and executing OMB’s 25-point plan and other strategies 

championed by Vivek Kundra and now Steven VanRoekel. The 

Federal CIO community greatly appreciates their leadership and 

commitment to service. DOE is also supporting GSA by taking advantage of their sourcing and contract vehicles whenever we can 

and providing input to make them more usable wherever possible. 

Upon my arrival 16 months ago, I conducted a 45-day assessment and identified many opportunities to improve effectiveness 

and efficiencies of our IT. Many of these opportunities stemmed 

from fragmentation and duplication. As a result, I partnered with 

our program offices and moved forward to change the way we do 

business. DOE has implemented an Information Management Governance Council that solidifies accountability in our senior officials 

and has already delivered tangible outcomes that have enabled us 

to maximize the return of our IT investments and reduce duplication. 

In the areas of duplication, let me highlight three examples for 

you. 

First is our Joint Cybersecurity Coordination Center, or JC3. 

There is nothing more important than our national security, and 

DOE needed to connect its cybersecurity resources more efficiently 

across the complex. We established the JC3 to take a collaborative 

approach to cyber information-sharing and analysis and instant response across DOE enterprise and more effectively leverage the 

technical expertise of our national laboratories. This has made our 

cyber programs stronger and consolidated a number of duplicative 

functions. 

The second is our new virtual desktop infrastructure which consolidates applications deployed across thousands of desktop computers into a small number of servers that deliver productivity to 

virtually any end-user device, including thin clients, smart phones, 

and tablets. The virtual desktop infrastructure creates an environment that is energy-efficient, inherently more secure, and costs 

much less to maintain. 

The third is unified communications and desktop 

videoconferencing. We are consolidating into a low-cost, common 

desktop videoconferencing solution that better connects our employees. By enabling employees through instant messaging, Web conferVerDate Aug 31 2005 12:20 Jun 21, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00035 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\74041.TXT APRIL
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encing, and desktop videoconferencing, we are targeting millions of 

dollars in travel savings and creating new efficiencies through enhanced collaboration and productivity, even where travel would not 

have been previously required. 

In conclusion, the GAO report has identified IT investment efficiency improvement opportunities for the DOE. I have just mentioned other areas in which we are aggressively breaking down 

silos and enabling the mission through technology across the Department. 

Thank you for this opportunity to discuss the report’s findings. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement, and I look forward to 

answering your questions. 

Mr. LANKFORD. Thank you. 

[prepared statement of Mr. Locatis follows:] 

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Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Spires? 

STATEMENT OF RICHARD SPIRES 

Mr. SPIRES. Chairman Lankford, Ranking Member Connolly, 

thank you, and good morning. Today I will discuss efforts at the 

Department of Homeland Security to reduce duplicative IT investments. 

The key for an agency to eliminate system duplication is to develop an environment at the senior executive level that: one, enables a group of executives representing all appropriate organizations to work collaboratively to understand agency needs in a particular mission of business area; two, completes a comprehensive 

analysis in the mission or business area to identify ways to improve both effectiveness and efficiency across the enterprise; and, 

three, has a decisionmaking process in which those same executives can effectively drive change based on the analysis. 

I have found both in government and the private sector that if 

you can create these conditions, over time executives will be able 

to make the hard decisions on the tradeoffs and compromises necessary for the good of the enterprise. I use the term ‘‘strategic 

alignment’’ to reflect what is necessary for success. In my experience, the best way to achieve such alignment is through strong enterprise and portfolio governance buttressed by segment enterprise 

architecture. 

Enterprise governance provides large organizations with the ability to effectively make informed decisions that involve stakeholders 

across the enterprise. In smaller organizations, it is possible to execute enterprise governance with one governance body that represents top leadership. But in larger and more complex organizations, we need to break the challenge down into what we call portfolios, or logical partitions, that can support various elements of an 

organization’s mission and business outcomes. 

Portfolios should typically represent functional groupings that 

can drive improvements to mission and business effectiveness. At 

DHS, we are working to implement 13 functionally oriented portfolios, to include mission support functions such as include screening and incident response, along with business functions such as finance. 

So how does this work? Each portfolio has a governance board of 

appropriate senior executives that look over a multiyear planning 

horizon and define a set of measurable stretch objectives that 

would significantly improve mission or business effectiveness. To 

achieve those objectives, the portfolio governance board must establish capabilities that are required to meet such objectives. 

For instance, in a human resource portfolio, a capability may be 

to have an automated end-to-end tracking of all steps in a hiring 

process, with the objective to reduce the average time to hire by 50 

percent. Once the objectives and capabilities are set, the board 

works with subject-matter experts to define the business process 

changes, IT system changes, elimination of redundant systems, and 

other appropriate program changes to achieve a goal end state. 

Once that goal end state is defined, the board sets a transition 

strategy that defines the step-by-step process to go from the current or as-is state to the goal or desired state. 

40 

The approach outlined above applies the generally accepted Federal Segment and applies Architecture methodology to a portfolio. 

At DHS, we are working to implement portfolios to drive and improve mission effectiveness while eliminating duplication. For instance, a comprehensive HR system inventory revealed 124 systems, including many duplicative systems. We established an HR 

IT portfolio governance board and recently completed our Human 

Capital Segment Architecture, which will effectively shift a large 

number of these component-based systems and services to enterprise or Federal Government solutions. 

Likewise, we identified more than 20 separate common operating 

picture systems supporting the situational awareness needs of the 

Homeland Security mission. Leveraging a portfolio approach, this 

month our National Operations Center will stand up an upgraded 

version of the DHS common operating picture that incorporates all 

components requirements. The plan is then to roll out the new 

common operating picture to DHS operations centers across the enterprise over the next year, eliminating numerous duplicative common operating picture investments. 

It takes about 3 years of hard work for a portfolio governance approach to mature to the point where the portfolio has a solid set 

of business objectives and measures, a defined goal end state, and 

a viable enterprise transition strategy. Despite the difficulties, the 

benefit of this work can be tremendous. 

These methods can and should support implementation of the 

Shared First initiative aimed at routing out waste and duplication 

across the Federal IT portfolio. 

Thank you, and I look forward to taking your questions. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Spires follows:] 

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Mr. LANKFORD. I thank all of our witnesses for testifying today. 

Let me recognize myself for 5 minutes, and let’s have some conversation on this as well. 

I have a couple thoughts here. One is, Mr. Powner, you mentioned the Dashboard at this point. What I would like to know, for 

all of you that have integrated with that as well, has that been 

helpful, and what is missing from that? Is there a next level for 

that use in the Dashboard, and is it a helpful tool? 

So anyone can jump in and be able to respond to that. 

Ms. TAKAI. Well, let me start, and I am sure my colleagues have 

the same view. 

We have found the Dashboard process to be very, very helpful. 

It does really—I think it really, in many ways, takes the OMB desire for transparency and really gives us the opportunity to be able 

to put priority on that Dashboard process. So it does give the kind 

of transparency that we all need, but it also gives it at a higher 

level, which I think is helpful. 

In terms of going forward, I think our major challenge is to make 

sure that we are taking the best advantage of that Dashboard process internally, to make sure that we are driving the kind of process 

change that is needed. 

Mr. LANKFORD. Not every agency is engaged in that; is that correct, Mr. Powner? 

Mr. POWNER. Yeah, I think—a couple things. I think the improved transparency is very important from an oversight perspective, whether you are at OMB, if you are an agency, or if you are 

in the Congress. The one thing that the Dashboard did is I think 

it greatly increased CIO accountability. What it says is, for all 

major investments—there are 800 of them across the major departments—is the CIO is ultimately accountable. So Ms. Takai has her 

pictures next to her 72 major investments. That actually was a 

good thing for some agencies where we needed more CIO accountability. It was very helpful moving forward. 

Mr. LANKFORD. The issue is, is the number right? Are there 

other projects that need to be there? Obviously, not every agency 

has not that large of an investment. Ms. Takai has very large, complicated, numerous projects on it. Should that work its way down 

to other agencies and say, okay, this is large for your agency, instead of setting a single standard for every agency? 

Mr. POWNER. Well, there are 7,200 investments, so there are 800 

major and the rest are non-major. I think over time, as the Dashboard matures, it would be helpful to get insights into those nonmajors. But, again, we probably ought to do that in a step-wise 

fashion to get the majors correct first. 

Mr. LANKFORD. Sure. But the question is, what is ‘‘major’’ to the 

Federal Government or what is ‘‘major’’ to your agency, if there a 

difference there. You can look at each agency and say, you know, 

I know you don’t reach this level, but give us your five largest, 

most significant projects that are on there, whatever dollar amount 

that is, and those are your majors. 

Mr. POWNER. No, that is an excellent point. It does differ. And, 

in fact, several non-majors at DOD would clearly be majors at 

other agencies. 

Mr. LANKFORD. Right. 

55 

Ms. Takai, where you going to mention something as well? 

Ms. TAKAI. I would like to add to Mr. Powner’s comments, that 

the visibility and transparency is important, not only for us as 

CIOs, but actually what we would view as more important is the 

visibility to the business process owners and the business process 

changes that really have to happen for any IT implementation to 

be successful. 

The success of these large-scale business systems are really more 

around, can we change the processes and can we actually make the 

business changes that we need, the necessarily just being dictated 

by the dynamics of the technology implementation. And the Dashboard really brings the opportunity for us to have the dialog at a 

much different level than if it were just delegated to being a technology discussion. 

Mr. LANKFORD. Okay. We may have some other time for other 

questions as we go from here. Let me address one thing with DHS, 

because I have a lot of very positive things and just ideas I want 

to get a chance to kick around. 

DHS had the Secure Border Initiative network. I know that is a 

long-term—that is not your favorite project to talk about because 

it was this long-term project that ended up spending a billion dollars and then getting folded down and saying, ‘‘This didn’t work,’’ 

on it. 

That is something every agency deals with, to experiment, to try. 

Technology is always going to be out on the leading edge of saying, 

how can we accomplish that. The issue is, how can you—how do 

we integrate—well, let me rephrase it a couple ways. One is, it is 

integrating off-the-shelf technology, commodity IT stuff, when it is 

appropriate. And the second one is, how do we anticipate through 

our process of going through contracting to try to find areas saying, 

‘‘This is outside of our expertise,’’ and so we don’t end up with a 

dead-end and a billion-dollar debt and we don’t have anything at 

the end. 

So, two separate projects: integrating the commodity IT stuff, 

where appropriate; and the second one is, how do head off a deadend before we get there? 

Mr. SPIRES. That is a great example, sir, to bring up, SBInet. 

There were a lot of things that DHS did wrong early on that program. 

I would like to say, in the follow-on of what we are doing—because the concept of fixed towers with the kinds of surveillance 

equipment on those towers to monitor the southwest border is still 

a concept that the Border Patrol within CBP really wants. And so 

we are actually moving forward with a new program, but we are 

using, as you say, commodity—just not IT, but commodity technologies. And, in fact, we are about ready to go out with a request 

for proposal to the industry based on market research we have 

done, okay, in order to procure what we are calling ‘‘non-developmental solutions,’’ meaning solutions that already exist somewhere 

in the world, to be able to do this kind of surveillance work. 

I think that is where the government really needs to look. How 

is it that we can leverage things that already exist within industry 

or within other governments or within other agencies rather than, 

56 

to your point, rather than going out and trying to build things custom? And I believe this is a good example. 

And I have worked closely with Mr. Mark Borkowski on this, 

who is the program manager of that new initiative. And we were 

both aligned, if we go with that RFP and we get something that 

is developmental in nature in any way, we are just not going to 

award. We are only going to award if it is truly non-developmental, 

that exists somewhere, and that you can just field this thing. All 

right? And that I think is more what we need to do as a government. 

And we need to have the discipline, though, to make sure that 

we have the requirements approach. When we work with the business owners, we have to work with them in such a way—and this 

is part of good governance—so that they understand it is much better for them to perhaps give a bit on their requirements, okay, get 

80 percent of the solution that is off the shelf, rather than requiring us to try to build that additional 20 percent custom. If you start 

with the 80 percent solution that is off the shelf and then work 

with the vendor community for existing products over time for 

them to upgrade their products to address more and more of our 

requirements, that is a much less costly and it is a much less risky 

approach to delivering IT. 

Mr. LANKFORD. Okay. Thank—— 

Mr. SPIRES. Hopefully I have gotten to—— 

Mr. LANKFORD. No, that is great. We are working on solutions 

on that. 

Let me recognize Mr. Connolly. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And immediately after this round of questioning, I am going to 

have to leave to go to the floor. We are going to be voting shortly. 

We have 1 hour of debate, and then we are going to vote. 

Welcome all, to the panel. 

And, Mr. Chairman, let me respectfully invite you again to consider H.R. 1713, the Federal Cost Reduction Act I introduced a 

number of months ago, to try to codify what Vivek Kundra started 

in terms of the data center consolidation and to ensure taxpayer 

savings with that consolidation. And I would love to have your cosponsorship, but certainly I think it might be timely after this 

hearing to hold a hearing on that, if you would. 

And, again, I want to thank you all for being here. 

Mr. Powner, how do you feel the data center consolidation, the 

closure and consolidation, is going? And what is your estimate of, 

in a sense, the utility savings—because I gather that is the lion’s 

share of the savings from these consolidations—what we might expect to achieve with it? 

Mr. POWNER. Well, we have had a good start on data center consolidation. And I know Mr. Spires chairs a committee that, governmentwide, that looks at this. 

A couple key things that our work has shown—and we have done 

several reviews of the data center inventories and plans. One, we 

need to ensure that we are capturing all the inventory out there 

and then have solid plans for consolidation. And the numbers are 

fine, Ranking Member Connolly, where we have X number of cenVerDate Aug 31 2005 12:20 Jun 21, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00060 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\74041.TXT APRIL
57 

ters that we closed to date, so that is good progress and we have 

good goal of a thousand centers by 2015. 

But, ultimately, it is about saving money. So we really need to 

look at those plans in terms of when can we start seeing the dollar 

savings through those consolidation efforts. And that is something 

that we are currently reviewing for the Congress when we are looking at those detailed consolidation plans. 

So, good start, but we still need to see—the ultimate measure is 

a reduction in costs associated with these centers and more efficiencies going forward. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Right, because the efficiency and the cost savings 

was sort of the name of the game. 

Mr. POWNER. That is right. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Do you believe we can build on that? The last 

time we had Vivek Kundra here, which was the swan song before 

this committee, he actually expressed some enthusiasm for this bill 

I referred to and actually agreed that we could do more as we move 

out to the future. Your sense of that? 

Mr. POWNER. Clearly, we need to do more. I think the IT Reform 

Plan, which data center consolidation is front and center, there 

were very clear deliverables 6, 12, and 18 months. But if you look 

at the data center consolidation initiative, that is a long-term initiative. That will go beyond 18 months, and we need to keep the 

momentum beyond 18 months. 

I commend the administration for the stretch goals on the 6, 12, 

and 18 months, but we need to have a plan that would go beyond 

18 to truly achieve those cost efficiencies. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Yeah. Which I think means more ambitious numbers in terms of consolidation than even originally envisioned in 

the 25-point plan, would you agree? 

Mr. POWNER. Yeah, I actually think if we would hit that 1,000 

center reduction mark we would see some great efficiencies with 

that. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And let me start with you, too, but invite your 

colleagues to comment. Cloud computing. It is estimated that— 

well, it is an inevitable part of the Federal future. The question is, 

how much, how fast, and how secure. And there are also some liability/legal questions depending on where the cloud is located, 

what company is registered, in what country, how our data and 

how other laws affect us. 

But assuming all of that, what is your sense of where we are 

headed in cloud computing for our Federal agencies? And what concerns might you have from a legislative point of view, cybersecurity 

for example, that ought to be on our plate? 

Mr. POWNER. So, a couple things with cloud computing. Similar 

to data center consolidation, I mean, their efforts—the IT Reform 

Plan calls for the major departments and agencies to consolidate 

three services to the cloud. That is a good start. Again, we want 

to consolidate those services. I think Mr. Locatis has a number of 

initiatives looking at commodity IT where he is looking at this. Ultimately, it is about cost savings, when it is all said and done. It 

is not about three. 

From a security perspective, a couple key things. If there are 

great security concerns, you can start with private clouds over pubVerDate Aug 31 2005 12:20 Jun 21, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00061 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\74041.TXT APRIL
58 

lic clouds. I know Mr. Spires has a number of initiatives where he 

is focused more on the private clouds, where you can put your security requirements in. Some of the initiatives at GSA with 

FedRAMP, that will clearly help. 

I do think security needs to be front and center when we move 

to the cloud, but between FedRAMP and some of those initiatives 

or considering the private clouds, you can address those security 

concerns and still move to the cloud. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Locatis? 

Mr. LOCATIS. Yes, we—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Could you speak up? 

Mr. LOCATIS. Oh, absolutely. 

We see this now as an opportunity for the data center consolidation effort to intersect the cloud offerings that are being offered by 

the private sector, private cloud offerings that can be FISMA-certified. And so, in our first round of data center consolidation, we 

closed three data centers. We will have another two data centers— 

we don’t have the size that the Department of Defense has, but we 

are aggressively approaching that. And we have saved approximately $7 million through those data center closures. 

But now in our next round of planning, this is where we are 

looking at infrastructure as a service and working with the private 

sector through the security issues that you discussed to break 

through, working very closely with GSA on their sourcing capabilities, contracts, procurements, the FedRAMP and FISMA processes. 

Mr. SPIRES. I might add, sir, that we at DHS are taking a very 

aggressive approach to the cloud. As Mr. Powner noted, we have 

private cloud capability within our two enterprise data centers, 

which is our target for all of our consolidation initiatives, so that 

ties to what Mr. Locatis said as well. 

The next is between data center consolidation and leveraging 

cloud services, particularly for commodity IT. We are rolling out 

nine different cloud offerings in our private cloud, including such 

things as email as a service, development and test as a service, infrastructure as a service—very aggressive. 

On the public cloud side, we are going more slowly because of the 

security concerns at this point. We are moving our public-facing 

Web sites to the public cloud, however, because it is non-sensitive 

data, and then we are going to assess. As FedRAMP matures and 

we see that the public cloud service providers begin to meet FISMA 

low and moderate capabilities, I think you are going to see a much 

more aggressive approach by ourselves and by other agencies over 

the next 2 to 3 years. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I am actually—Mr. Chairman, I know I am over 

my time—but I am glad to hear that. My own feeling is that, actually, though it may see counterintuitive to us in the public sector, 

frankly security may be better in the private sector, because they 

live or die on their reputation and on their protection of data and 

on taking care of clients. 

And sometimes in the public sector, you know, we may have a 

bad moment in terms of a compromise, a cybersecurity compromise. 

The consequences are—you know, perhaps it affects your promotion, but, I mean, it is—you know, whereas in the private sector, 

literally you can go out of business if you screw up. 

59 

And so I think there may be some advantages in the private sector, and I think the approach you have outlined makes a lot of 

sense. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. LANKFORD. Thank you. 

Mr. Walberg? 

Mr. WALBERG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I appreciate the ranking member’s questions on that area 

and you giving latitude to continue that process, because that was 

a concern that I wanted to hear about, as well. And I appreciate, 

Mr. Spires, your response specifically as we look at security issues 

across the spectrum. 

Let me ask Mr. Spires, specifically what distinguishes—you 

know, we have seen that you have the best record of not having 

redundancies and you have done a good effort there—what distinguishes DHS from the other agencies in terms of its identification 

and elimination of overlapping or duplicative IT investments? 

Mr. SPIRES. Sir, I would go back to the testimony. I put a tremendous effort on setting up what we call these functional portfolios. And so, as I am sure you are well aware, within DHS we 

have 22 separate components, some very large like the Coast 

Guard and CBP and some relatively small like our health affairs 

organization. But what is interesting is that a lot of the functions 

of DHS crosscut those components. 

And what I have tried to really do as the CIO is make sure that 

we look functionally at DHS, not just vertically from the organizational standpoint. Because when you look functionally, whether we 

are doing screening or incident response if you were on the mission 

side or whether we are doing the business functions like finance 

and HR, you see a tremendous amount of duplication when you 

look at it from that functional perspective. 

So I am just a big believer, if you bring the right executives together in a functional area and get a dialog going, or a structured 

dialog, over time they see the commonality, okay, they start to recognize it, they start to see the advantages of working together rather than continuing in their stovepipes. 

Mr. WALBERG. That gets them beyond the turf mentality—— 

Mr. SPIRES. Well, I mean, this is not easy. As I said, it takes 3 

years or so, in my experience both in the private sector at IRS and 

now at DHS, to get this to really work well, but it does work. And 

we have seen tremendous improvements. 

We are right now—in fact, screening is a great example, passenger screening or people screening. You know, we have six different components doing this screening. Okay? And we have systems in each of these components, all right, that are essentially duplicative. And now even the Deputy Secretary is taking this on. We 

are working together. We have the right type of governance model 

set up with this portfolio around screening to really look at, where 

can we consolidate, where can we standardize in order to eliminate 

this kind of duplication? 

It is a very different way of looking at an agency’s functions. And 

I think in any federated kind of agency—and, certainly, my colleagues here are also at federated agencies—this kind of process 

can work to help eliminate duplication. 

60 

Mr. WALBERG. Well, I applaud that, and may it continue and expand. 

And I would then move to Ms. Takai and Mr. Locatis. On the reverse side, with much duplication or concerns of duplication in your 

agencies, what are the causes that you have come to ascertain at 

this point in time for the duplication? 

Mr. LOCATIS. Well, as Richard said, he has 3 years, so we have 

really studied the Department of Homeland Security governance 

model and, in fact, implemented many of the same work groups 

and governance capabilities, including our Information Management Governance Council, which has accountability at the Under 

Secretary level of our three primary programs. 

The other thing we have done is looked at it from an interagency 

sharing perspective, where can we leverage capabilities in other 

agencies and not duplicate or reinvent the wheel. And it is not just 

in the technology areas; it is the investment in people, process, and 

technology for running operations. So one of those examples is, the 

Department of Energy did not create its own payroll system. It 

leverages the Defense Finance and Accounting Services’ capability 

and buys those services directly from DOD versus creating our own 

capability. 

So another important piece of this is working across the departments to leverage shared services and not making the investment 

at all but simply subscribe to it where you have a center of excellence, like DFAS within DOD. 

Mr. WALBERG. Ms. Takai, again, what causes for duplication 

have you addressed? 

Ms. TAKAI. Well, historically at DOD, our information technology 

spend was very decentralized and very focused on mission capability in our services and then, clearly, what was necessary in our 

forward deployed areas. And the business systems were also distributed from the standpoint of the funding and the decisionmaking 

process. 

So, in answer to your question in terms of what happened in the 

past to get us to this point, I think that that particular model really caused a sense of uniqueness in different organizations and then 

the funding to actually look at that. 

I think to the point that, you know, both Mr. Locatis and Mr. 

Spires have made, those are the things that we are working to 

really change. You know, we recognize that spending in a decentralized fashion, not taking a view of what our overall portfolio 

management should be, has led to the duplication that we have 

today. 

But our larger challenge is actually getting past the process 

piece, which says that we don’t need to have specific systems that 

do personnel processing differently, because each of the services actually does do personnel processing a little bit differently. And so 

our challenge is to really be able to address those process issues, 

as well. 

The other challenge that we have is always the demand from— 

we need to have capability at the tactical edge. And I think back 

to the question, Mr. Chairman, that you asked about, that really 

then gets us into not only looking at the business systems piece of 

it but some of the forward technologies that you talked about and 

61 

our ability to really look at different processes in order to be able 

to introduce commercial technology, as well as the challenges there. 

The last item I would point to is that, to the discussion on our 

ability to move forward on some of these areas and the way that 

we are addressing the cloud strategies, it is a challenge for us particularly across all of our networks—classified, secret, and top-secret—to really understand the way forward in terms of working 

with our commercial partners from a security perspective. The 

ramifications for us from a national security perspective and making sure that our data are secure are significant. 

And so we are moving forward in that direction. We are looking 

to take advantage of the same things that DHS is from the standpoint of FISMA and then the recent FedRAMP process. But we are 

walking through that methodically, because we do have to be very 

concerned about the protection of our information, you know, as a 

national asset. 

Mr. WALBERG. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. LANKFORD. Thank you. 

Mr. Meehan? 

Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I am grateful for the opportunity to be here this morning to listen to your testimony and to speak with you. I think you are some 

of the most powerful people in Washington because you are the 

folks that understand these systems, or purportedly do, and any institution I have ever been associated with always comes down to 

somebody saying, who understands how to get information out this 

and move it efficiently? And I appreciate the challenge that you 

have, as well. 

I know it is easy to pontificate up here, but I often struggled 

when I would have authority in the Department of Justice or otherwise over numerous agencies. There seemed to be a lot of discussion about systems, that it often went back to situations in which 

individuals had their own little turf to protect. And I don’t know 

how we get beyond turf protection and get to the real issue of evaluating what is working. 

Mr. Spires, I particularly appreciate the work that you and your 

folks are doing. I just sat through—in my capacity not in Oversight 

but in my capacity on Homeland Security, we had the occasion to 

listen to testimony from the director. We were looking at budget 

issues. I know there are a lot of good efforts that are being made 

to create efficiencies at DHS. 

I also have the fortune of visiting within my district numerous 

businesses from time to time, and I am very pleased to have an industry leader, SAP, in my district. And we were talking, I asked 

him, you know, what are you really doing? And one of the things 

we spent some time talking about was some of the systems they 

have been using effectively in DHS. In particular, I think they are 

working for the Customs and Border Patrol. They were very proud 

to have had the one group that had a clean audit, based on going 

back and using that. 

Now FEMA is coming out and looking at a system. If one system 

is working, why are we looking at a new approach to try and have 

62 

FEMA—why aren’t we just taking what is working at CBP and 

using it with FEMA? 

Mr. SPIRES. Sir, that is a very good question. We are in a situation of evaluating for FEMA right now what is the best way forward for them for financial management. I believe the system you 

referred to at Customs and Border Patrol is their financial system; 

that is a SAP system. 

Mr. MEEHAN. Yeah. Yeah. 

Mr. SPIRES. Because of the contractual relationships that we 

have, we cannot take, for instance, the system we have at CBP and 

leverage it for enterprise use. That is a contractual issue, the way 

it was set up, sir. So we can’t just use—— 

Mr. MEEHAN. You mean we are dealing with a legacy issue, so 

to speak? 

Mr. SPIRES. It is a legacy—yes. The way these contracts were 

originally set up, we just cannot do that. We have wanted to do 

that, and we have not been able to. 

Mr. MEEHAN. Because, you know, in industries, there are liquidated damages for non-performance. Is there any kind of circumstance under which—if you are looking at a better system, do 

people go back and look at systems that aren’t working and, therefore, have the ability to break through previous contract provisions 

for non-performance? 

Mr. SPIRES. Well, I don’t think in this case it is an issue of nonperformance. Okay? FEMA is looking to upgrade its system. It is 

on a legacy system that is, frankly, outdated. It does not provide 

all the functionality they need. 

We are assessing our options. As you probably are aware, we 

have gone through a number of procurements that even predate my 

tenure on trying to look at an enterprise capability for financial 

management across DHS, and we have just never been able to even 

get to an award because of protests and some legal issues that we 

ran into. I hate to say that, but that is the truth. 

Mr. MEEHAN. Well, I would be interested to hear what we can 

do to help you in that regard. Because, Ms. Takai, I would be interested in your observation, again. It is incredible how we get little 

bits of information from time to time and you seize on things, but 

because of my work on this committee, I am aware of, you know, 

the Air Force circumstances right now, with the effort. 

My recollection was—I asked my staff to look into it, and they 

did give me a little information about the Expeditionary Combat 

Support System. We are talking about a system now that, to my 

information, is—you are billions of dollars into it, they are coming 

back to us for $90 million more. Why aren’t we looking across the 

board to see—there are other things working right here in other 

parts of the Department of Defense. 

And how is it that we continue to be locked into these silos? Is 

it because they are protecting their interests with the lawyers? 

Ms. TAKAI. Well, let me address the logistics question that you 

are asking, the question around logistics systems, and then come 

back to the broader question. 

First of all, the ECSS system, as it is—you know, they have to 

have an acronym or you can’t be from DOD—is one of the logistics 

systems that is under a review of a set of eight logistics systems 

63 

in the Department. And the acquisition technology and logistics organization is actually doing a review right now to look across that 

portfolio to say, where is there duplication and where can we actually look at a different way and a better way of doing it? 

I think, second, there are two answers to your question of how 

does this happen. One of them is that, in some cases, again, we do 

have unique requirements. So, for instance, in our operation, what 

Air Force has to do from a material logistics process is not necessarily the same in terms of doing maintenance in our man, train, 

and equip organizations, isn’t exactly the same as what a 

TRANSCOM operation has to do in terms of being able to make 

sure that there are supply lines to our forward deployed troops. 

So I do think there is some terminology that are differences, and 

they are legitimate differences. 

But there is also this situation, I think to the point that you are 

making, where there are processes embedded in terms of the way 

that we do things. It may not necessarily be a single individual, but 

it certainly is a single organization. And the question that has to 

be weighed is, what is the ability of a large organization to make 

a charge, even in some fairly what we would consider straightforward business processes, in order to be able to implement standard technology versus keeping the processes that we have today 

and actually being able to use a more standard solution? 

It is a challenge. You know, both Mr. Locatis and I were in State 

government in several States. We saw it from a State government 

perspective, just in terms of being able to draw departments and 

agencies together. Same kind of experience in the private sector. 

And it really is around that ability to change from the way we are 

used to doing things today, the way that we know works, to something that is even a little different that may yield the same result 

but makes organizations uneasy in terms of their ability to make 

that change. 

Mr. MEEHAN. Well, I know I probably share the sentiments of my 

colleagues on this committee. If you have suggestions about things 

that you think would make your job easier to do to get to these efficiencies, I am sure that we would entertain those suggestions and 

include them in our own deliberations. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. LANKFORD. Thank you. 

We are going to do a quick second round of some questions. As 

you have probably guessed, the votes have moved around again. 

They will be closer to 10:45 now. That will give us a little more 

buffer time to be able to pummel you with a few more questions 

and try to get some of this information on the record, as well. 

I want to follow up on a comment that Mr. Spires made about, 

we would like to take a system from over here and use it over here 

but the contract doesn’t allow it. It leads me into a couple issues 

that I have on keeping contracting officers engaged in what technology is needed. They cannot be specialists in every single area 

that they are dealing with all their different contracts on. 

What are you doing to keep those contracting officers engaged 

on—a couple of things. One is to say, watching for when it comes 

down, who has the expertise in this area? Is it actually accurate 

for what we are looking for, so we are not having to get a system 

64 

and then redo the system and go, no, that doesn’t work and let’s 

redo it again, and how to get through all that process. 

And then to be able to protect in the future in our contracts that 

if we are using it over here, we can also use it over here. Now, I 

understand these private vendors want to sell it in 15 different 

places. I get that. But within an agency, especially, there has to be 

some level of flexibility, even if it is to say, if we use it here and 

we use it over here, we pay you another fee but it is a smaller fee 

than it is over here, but we are not blocked out and have to start 

all over again when it is a very simple difference. 

You talked before about supply chains and financial management 

and managing human capital. Those are fairly consistent with 

minor adaptations on them. So how do we start developing contracts so that we can actually not reinvent the wheel time after 

time with the exact same vendor over and over again? 

Mr. POWNER. Within DHS, I partner very closely with our chief 

procurement officer—he is a peer of mine—Mr. Nick Nayak. And 

two things that he is really taking on to address your very points. 

One, he has created a special cadre of contracting officers who do 

nothing but work closely with us and specialize on IT. Okay? So 

that doesn’t make them technology specialists in IT, but over time 

they start to understand the complexities of helping us buy IT, 

right, and work closely with our programs. And I think that is a 

best practice that a number of other agencies are adopting, as well. 

So that is not an immediate fix, but over time it does make a big 

difference. And the individual that heads that organization works 

with us every day, okay, very, very closely. 

I would say to your other point, we are also working on standard 

contract language now that covers exactly what you suggested. I 

am amazed, I walk in here and there is a number of these issues 

where I say, we would to leverage this capability we have in one 

component in DHS in another and we can’t because the contract 

does not allow us. And so we are forced back into having to go out 

in full and open competition when, if it was set up right in the first 

place, we could do exactly what you suggested. 

So we are putting standard contract language in. When we go 

out with these procurements, it can be at least leveraged DHSwide. And, in fact, we are working in the Federal CIO Council with 

OMB, can we come up with standard language that allows us to 

even issue contracts that could be leveraged by other agencies as 

well. 

So we are taking that issue on. 

Mr. LANKFORD. Yeah. Long term, that is obviously what is going 

to help us the most. I mean, if companies are competing, they are 

going to give us a much lower bid at the beginning, thinking, if I 

can get this and do it well, and I can also multiply it out, if I can 

get this to five other agencies and it would be cheaper in all those 

and beat all those contracts as well, it is to their benefit, it is to 

the Federal Government’s benefit because we will get cheaper contracts all the way across the board as it is duplicated out. 

My concern is—and this is just interaction with some different 

guys that do programming and do some of the writing. Everyone 

who does that, especially for their own agency that has tapped for 

it, seems to have the perspective, ‘‘They didn’t do it as well as we 

65 

would do it, and so we are not going to take their stuff; we are 

going to start all over and do our stuff.’’ 

Now, I am not saying that is an arrogance. Quite frankly, they 

are tenacious about security, they are tenacious about the coding 

and to make sure everything is correct on that, which is great. We 

need those gifts. But it also seems to lock people into, ‘‘It needs to 

be done by me because I know us better than other things.’’ When 

it is a supply chain, it is fairly consistent, when you give them the 

whole lot. 

Mr. POWNER. I would just comment, and Ms. Takai really hit 

upon this issue of this idea of uniqueness, right, and how unique 

are my requirements. And I think we really need, through the CIO 

community and through the leadership of agencies—and this is 

where it gets difficult, to your point, particularly on these standard 

capabilities and what I would consider back-office—finance and HR 

and others—these are very similar. Right? And if we can get to the 

80 or 90 percent solution, we can get to the kind of environment 

you want where we are leveraging each other’s capabilities, we are 

not having to build new. And I think we really need to take that 

on as a government. 

Mr. LANKFORD. Okay. Thank you. 

Let me yield to Mr. Chaffetz. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

And thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. 

My apologizes for stepping in a few minutes late. If this is—I 

hope it is not redundant, but that is sort of the theme of what we 

are talking about today, so I won’t feel too bad about it. 

I want to start with the Department of Defense, a question about 

the Defense Finance Accounting System, or DFAS. Is there any 

progress being made with that? 

I mean, my understanding is there is a facility in Indiana, a lot 

of good people working there, a lot of good stuff, but it is still so 

manual. It really hasn’t come into the 21st century. 

Can you give me an update on what is happening there? 

Ms. TAKAI. One of the challenges for us is to continue to move 

DFAS forward. And we are making significant progress in terms of 

both the utilization of the system and the system itself. It is going 

to be very critically important to us as we move forward on our 

audit readiness requirements. And so it is a major part of the finance portfolio that the chief management information officer is 

looking at. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. And we don’t have time here, but I would appreciate it if somebody on the staff somewhere could update me on 

where it is at and where it is going and what the timeframe looks 

like. And I am looking forward to actually coming and visiting that 

facility at some point. 

I also want to ask the Department of Defense again, we have 

been looking in my subcommittee within Oversight at the duplication and the problems and challenges between the different agencies within our departments, within DOD, on the health care and 

the sharing of that information, so that when somebody is actually—you know, somebody has been serving in the military and 

they are going back into their private life, getting those records 

back to their doctor sometimes will take in excess of a year. And 

66 

I just don’t understand why it is so complicated and why it has 

been so tremendously expensive. 

Ms. TAKAI. Well, on that particular front, I think you are aware 

that we have made considerable progress in terms of looking at the 

way forward. In fact, there is an initiative now which has been 

signed out and actually has the visibility of both the Secretary of 

the Veterans Administration as well as the Secretary of Defense. 

And they have a joint project now to look at a combined electronic 

health records—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. What I can’t get is a commitment as to the timing, as to when this is actually going to get completed. Do you have 

any idea when this is going to get completed? 

Ms. TAKAI. Well, we can certainly come back. I know the group 

is today working on putting all of their plans together. So if you 

will let us, we will come back to you with the detail on DFAS and 

then also with the project plan for the electronic health records. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I would certainly appreciate it, because it is such 

a major problem. I had an opportunity to talk to then-Secretary 

Gates about this issue and the concern of the timing. And I was 

shocked at—A, I was pleased that he knew what the timing issue 

was. But to try to cut it to the timeline that he had talked about, 

which would still be over a year to get these records into the hands, 

is just unacceptable to me, and I do want to continue to follow up. 

Going now to the Department of Energy, there is evidently—I 

had an organization, group, Energy Enterprise Solutions. And I 

don’t suspect that you know about every contract, Mr. Locatis—is 

that how you pronounce it? 

Mr. LOCATIS. It is pronounced ‘‘Locatis.’’ 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. ‘‘Locatis.’’ My apologies. 

They had had a performance-based contract, and there is some 

sort of dispute there. I was just hoping that you could give us some 

assurance that you would look at that personally. If you are willing 

to make that commitment, I would appreciate it if you would look 

at that contract and get personally involved in that, if you would 

be so kind. 

Mr. LOCATIS. I am reviewing it now. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Okay. Thank you. I do appreciate you doing that. 

The last thing, Mr. Chairman, I wanted to ask about—and stop 

me or let me know if this has been talked about. OMB is having 

some challenges because there are different coding mechanisms for 

accounting. And when I talk to the outside interest groups, you 

know, the people that want good, open, transparent government, it 

is very difficult to compare the individual data because they use 

different coding within different departments, a certain number of 

digits. 

Where on the radar screen, between the four of you all, is this? 

And I am sorry I didn’t do a good job of articulating it, but where 

is this on your radar screens? 

Ms. TAKAI. Well, let me start. 

Certainly, as it relates to being able to report and work with 

OMB on the IT budget line items, we have been working very 

closely with them, because it is an issue in terms of our internal 

reporting and working with OMB. And certainly that is, you know, 

a major part. 

67 

I think the second piece is, for us within DOD, we are concerned 

about just the overall coding and reporting for our effort around 

being audit-ready. 

So those are two efforts, certainly, for us inside DOD and working with OMB that have escalated the importance. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Mr. Chairman, my time has expired. 

And I will do a better job of articulating or perhaps putting in 

a letter that I would love to share with you all about the concern 

from OMB, particularly—again, this is the genesis coming from 

outside the groups that want to be able to compare apples to apples 

on line items amongst the various departments. You obviously represent some of the largest departments in our Federal Government, 

so I would like to follow up with you on that, as well. 

But I appreciate your commitment and your service. It is a very 

difficult, fast-paced sector but vital to good government and to 

making sure that they operate. 

And so I appreciate you holding this hearing, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you. 

Mr. LANKFORD. Thank you. 

Ms. Takai, one last question, as well. You brought up the famous 

‘‘audit’’ word on DOD. Where are things on that? Give us a timeline 

and progress on when it will be auditable and tracking. 

Ms. TAKAI. The Secretary has tasked us to move up the prior 

plan, which was to be ready by 2017, to be ready by the beginning 

of 2015. And so the organization has put in place a number of different activities and a number of different measurements to get 

there. So we are all geared up, and we are ready to go. 

Mr. LANKFORD. Terrific. I appreciate that. 

And as I have mentioned at the very beginning, on the IT Dashboard as well, I appreciate all that you are doing there, but also 

keeping it up to date. It is one thing to report and it is another 

thing to keep those reports up to date. And that is always a wonderful, I am sure, extra thing on your desk, but try to continue to 

push. There are some elements that have been out there that have 

some lower scores but they are not being kept up to date, and so 

we don’t know how to be able to track that. And so that is important, to be able to keep that up as well. 

I appreciate the success stories that you are sharing. I hope that 

this also is indicative of a forum of sharing ideas across our Federal agencies. I am confident that you all get together as well, that 

you are establishing your own TechStat reviews within your own 

agencies and doing all those dynamics to try to identify some of 

these things. But as we identify this, please encourage your peers 

on ways of being able to share good ideas on how we can resolve 

this, as I am confident that you are. But as you solve some of the 

issues, share the solutions. And it is not bad to be able to brag 

when we are saving money and making things more efficient. 

So, with that, I adjourn this hearing, and we are concluded. 

[Whereupon, at 10:40 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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