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81–658 PDF 2013

S. Hrg. 113–68 

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT AND 

CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT: 380 

RECOMMENDATIONS TO REDUCE OVERLAP 

AND DUPLICATION TO MAKE 

WASHINGTON MORE EFFICIENT 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

MAY 22, 2013 

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

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

( 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

MARK BEGICH, Alaska 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

RAND PAUL, Kentucky 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming 

KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire 

RICHARD J. KESSLER, Staff Director 

JOHN P. KILVINGTON, Deputy Staff Director 

JONATHAN M. KRADEN, Senior Counsel 

KRISTINE V. LAM, Professional Staff Member 

GARTH A. SPENCER, Professional Staff Member 

KEITH B. ASHDOWN, Minority Staff Director 

CHRISTOPHER J. BARKLEY, Minority Deputy Staff Director 

CATHARINE A. BAILEY, Minority Director of Governmental Affairs 

PATRICK J. BAILEY, Minority Associate Counsel 

TRINA D. SHIFFMAN, Chief Clerk 

LAURA W. KILBRIDE, Hearing Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 1 

Senator Coburn ................................................................................................. 1 

Senator Begich .................................................................................................. 16 

Prepared statements: 

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 37 

Senator Coburn ................................................................................................. 41 

WITNESSES 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 22, 2013 

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

Government Accountability Office; accompanied by Cathleen A. Berrick, 

Managing Director, Homeland Security and Justice, U.S. Government Accountability Office 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 7 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 45 

Response to post-hearing questions for the Record ....................................... 82 

Chart referenced by Senator Carper ...................................................................... 40 

(1) 

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT AND 

CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT: 380 

RECOMMENDATIONS TO REDUCE OVERLAP 

AND DUPLICATION TO MAKE 

WASHINGTON MORE EFFICIENT 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 22, 2012 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

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

342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Thomas R. Carper, presiding. 

Present: Senators Carper, Begich, and Coburn. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN CARPER 

Chairman CARPER. Good morning, everyone. The hearing will 

come to order. 

I am going to depart from our script. I just got a brief update 

from Senator Coburn, who just returned late last night from Oklahoma where they have gone through a very tough time, still going 

through a very tough time, and I am just going to ask that we 

begin this morning with just a moment of silence and thinking of 

the folks who have lost their lives and the families who are struggling through a very bad situation. So if we could just start that 

way. [Pause.] 

Thanks very much. Dr. Coburn, would you like to lead off. 

Senator COBURN. I would be happy to. 

Chairman CARPER. And if you want to give us a little update on 

Oklahoma, that would be good, as well. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COBURN 

Senator COBURN. Oklahomans are going to do fine. We had a 

tragic loss of life. The material things can be replaced, and we will. 

We are a hearty folk and we know how to deal with situations like 

this. We have done it before. 

The greatest thing I saw yesterday were about $25 million in 

contributions from Oklahoma companies and other people throughout the country, which is the way it should work. We have neighbor helping neighbor, not just in Moore, Oklahoma, but across the 

country. It actually is more effective. It works better. It benefits 

those giving as well as those receiving. So I am thankful. It makes 
2 

me proud to be an American when I see that kind of stuff and even 

prouder to be an Oklahoman. 

Let me just welcome Gene Dodaro. I cannot say enough for the 

staff at the Government Accountability Office (GAO). 

In 1909, the Washington Post wrote a story that the government 

was spending thousands of dollars unnecessarily, that work was 

being duplicated in various departments, and the introduction of 

some system was badly needed. The only problem now is it is tens 

of billions and we have not effectively changed it. GAO has outlined some $250 billion worth of duplications that 

occur annually that the Congress has truly not acted on. We have 

done, actually, one thing significant, and that is we have eliminated $6 billion a year in Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit 

(VEETC) blending. That is the only thing that we have done. You 

are gracious to say that we have done some things based on your 

recommendations, but as far as eliminating duplication, consolidating programs, and actually making a difference for the American people, the Congress is reticent to approach those things. 

And if you look at your own report, we have addressed 12 percent of the areas. We have completed action on 22 percent. The Executive Branch has completed action on 22 percent. The Office of 

Management and Budget (OMB) has worked on 24 percent. Congress has done 20 percent of the things that you have recommended. But that does not include eliminating any duplication. 

And if I have any criticism of all of GAO, it is that the law 

states—the law that I authored and we passed—states that you are 

to make recommendations for eliminations, which you have never 

done. You have identified where the duplication is, but that is a 

powerful tool in the hands of Tom Carper and myself. When GAO 

says, here are some things that ought to be eliminated, and if we 

can take that, then we can actually make stronger the argument 

that we have the scholarship behind the great efforts at GAO. 

Our country is waiting and primed to burst into the greatest 

amount of growth our country has ever seen. There are a lot of reasons why we are not—the debt, the deficit. But the real reason is 

leadership. And I am thankful to have a Chairman of Tom Carper’s 

status and capability to help us lead on these areas, and I am 

thankful that we have the leadership at GAO that has done the 

hard work over the last 31⁄2 years, and I know it has been hard. 

I mean, we still do not know all the programs. We actually do 

not know what the definition of a program is, which is one of the 

problems. The other problem is, the agencies do not know how 

much they spend on programs. They cannot tell you. 

And so it is a management mess and to fix it requires good scholarship, but the most important thing it requires is great leadership. And my hope is that in my conversations with the President 

and with others in the Administration and with the facts that GAO 

arms us with, that we can actually make some great headway in 

terms of righting our ship. 

My colleagues always talk about fixing Medicare, which is a big 

problem, saving Medicare, saving Social Security, saving Medicaid, 

and we know that is where the big dollars in the out-years are for 

the Baby Boomers, like myself and Tom Carper. But there is a lot 

in the rest of the government that is not efficient, that is wasted, 
3 

that does not accomplish its end points, that has no metric, and we 

have no idea. 

One of the areas where we found one wind firm got the same 

grant from seven different grant programs within the department 

and nobody in any of the grant programs knew they were giving 

the same money to the same firm for the same purpose. So the 

right hand does not know what the left hand is doing. 

I would just sum up by saying, there is not a problem in front 

of us that we cannot fix. What we need is dedicated Members of 

Congress to get busy fixing it. My hope is that Tom Carper and I 

can have the influence in the Senate to try to approach and accomplish some of the waste. It is all good intentioned. There is no malignant thought behind what we are doing. But the point is, a lot 

of it is associated with stupidity and incompetence and no common 

sense. 

So, I, again, would praise the work of the GAO, and I know, 

Gene, it is not you. It is all those wonderful people that work for 

you. And I am truly appreciative of the efforts. We cannot do what 

we do without your expertise and we are very appreciative of that. 

Mr. Chairman, I would ask that my full statement be made a 

part of the record. 

Chairman CARPER. Without objection. Thank you. And thank you 

for what you just said. 

Senator COBURN. And the other thing we ought to do is have this 

hearing again tomorrow, since we are so good at duplication. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman CARPER. OK. I just would say, I feel fortunate that 

Tom and I have been given this opportunity to lead this Committee 

at this point in time. I feel fortunate that you are serving not a 2- 

year, 4-year, or 6-year term, but how long is your term? What is 

it, 10? 

Mr. DODARO. Fifteen years. 

Chairman CARPER. Fifteen years. We very much look forward to 

continuing to work with you and your team. 

We have an opportunity to provide some really strong leadership 

here, bipartisan. I say to Dr. Coburn, if he and I can agree on 

something—and we agree on a lot—we can get a whole lot done, 

especially if we leverage our effectiveness by partnering with you 

and your team. 

So, we welcome you. We welcome all of our guests this morning. 

Our focus, as Dr. Coburn has indicated, is to examine GAO’s latest overlap, duplication, fragmentation report and the Administration’s implementation of the Government Performance and Results 

Modernization Act (GPRA). My thanks, as well, to Dr. Coburn and 

to his staff and to my own staff, for their help in putting this hearing together and for his 2010 amendment that originally tasked 

GAO with this important work. 

Before we turn to the topic of today’s hearing, I want to welcome 

to the hearing a group of participants in, I believe, the Acquisition 

Career Development Program at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). I am told this is a terrific program that is training 

the next generation of acquisition specialists at the Department 

and I want them to know—we want them to know that this Committee will be very supportive of the job they will be doing to make 
4 

DHS a good steward of taxpayers’ dollars. If you are here in the 

audience today and you are part of this program, would you just 

raise your hand. [Show of hands.] 

All right. Thanks. Welcome. It is good to see you all. 

I am also pleased to welcome members of GAO’s International 

Auditor Fellowship Program to today’s hearing. I believe there are 

15 countries represented among this year’s fellows. The program 

provides training to officials from other countries’ auditing organizations and contributes to government accountability across the 

globe. I would just ask, are there folks here from that program 

today, as well? Would you raise your hand. [Show of hands.] 

It is great to see you all. Welcome. 

Particularly for our visitors, but for everyone else, as well, last 

month, the GAO released its latest report identifying some 17 

areas where agencies may have overlapping objectives, are providing potentially duplicative services, or where government missions are so fragmented across multiple agencies or programs. The 

report also identified some 14 areas where opportunities exist to either reduce the cost of government operations or increase revenues. 

The issuance of this report completes GAO’s 3-year examination 

of the Federal Government to identify major instances of overlap, 

duplication, and fragmentation. In the three reports, GAO has provided hundreds of recommendations for Congress and the Executive Branch that, if implemented, have the potential to reduce 

waste significantly and to make our government more efficient and 

provide better service. 

Some issues identified by GAO are relatively easy to fix. For example, in last month’s report, GAO found that when the Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service began its 

catfish inspection program as mandated in the Food, Conservation, 

and Energy Act of 2008, the program will be performing the same 

work already conducted by the Food and Drug Administration 

(FDA) and by the National Marine Fisheries Service. The President’s Fiscal Year 2014 budget, as well as legislation introduced in 

both the House and Senate, would eliminate the duplicative programs and could potentially save taxpayers millions of dollars annually. 

Unfortunately, most of the issues discussed in GAO’s three reports are much more complex and much more difficult to resolve. 

The issues cut across various departments and longstanding Federal programs that have entrenched constituencies and, in many 

cases, provide the public with much-needed services. Addressing 

these issues will require sustained leadership and congressional 

oversight. It is time, then, for Congress and the Executive Branch 

to roll up our sleeves and get to work addressing these issues. 

Each Committee in the House and Senate should be using these 

reports as a roadmap to help plan their oversight of this session. 

I can tell you, that is what we are doing in this Committee. To help 

us in this task, GAO has also created an action tracker to monitor 

the progress that has been made by the Executive Branch and by 

Congress to address these issues that GAO examined in its first 

two duplication reports. 

Unfortunately, as Dr. Coburn has indicated, results have been 

mixed. For example, the Executive Branch partially or fully ad-
5 

dressed approximately 80 percent of GAO’s recommendations while 

Congress partially or fully addressed only 32 percent. I would just 

say to my colleagues here in Congress and our friends in the Executive Branch that we can and must do better if we are to walk the 

walk and not just talk the talk. 

At a time when we are fighting to create jobs and grow our economy while also grappling with historic budget deficits, the American people deserve a government that is smarter and more effective and efficient with its tax dollars that they entrust us with. 

In addition to examining the issues identified in the new report, 

another goal of today’s hearing is to examine how the Government 

Performance and Results Modernization Act, signed into law in 

2011, can help Congress and the Executive Branch address inefficiencies, poor performance, and overlap, duplication, and fragmentation across the Federal Government. In all three of its reports, GAO highlighted how effective implementation of the Government Performance Act could help Congress and Federal agencies do that. 

And I want to say, when we passed this legislation, I was not 

fully aware of the potential here, and we just have to make sure 

we do not waste that potential. 

The Performance Act established a framework for performance 

management, for goal setting, and transparency. This improved 

transparency is something Dr. Coburn has pushed for since he 

came here. This improved transparency is desperately needed in 

the Federal Government where in so many areas neither Congress 

nor the general public know everything that Federal agencies are 

doing or how much programs cost. Let me just give you an example. 

I think in GAO’s 2011 report, you identified some 44 Federal employment and training programs that potentially overlap. GAO 

then examined the three largest programs and found that it was 

impossible to determine the extent to which individuals receive the 

same services from these programs. GAO was unable to do its work 

because the agencies lacked good information about their programs 

themselves, including basic funding and performance information. 

As a recovering Governor, I know that you cannot manage what 

you cannot measure, and that is why the successful implementation of the Performance Act is so important. The Act requires agencies to set short-term priority goals, to continuously evaluate 

whether these goals are being met, and to address any problems 

that arise. This should help agency leadership identify low-performing programs and come up with solutions. 

A few weeks ago, this Committee held a hearing on improper 

payments, something that Dr. Coburn and I have worked on for 

years with your help. The reason I bring it up today is that what 

we have done with improper payments, working with the Administration and a lot of others in the Executive Branch, is really similar 

to what I think our Committee needs to do with the Performance 

Act. On improper payments, we have been like a dog with a bone. 

And while improper payments are still high, they have come down 

a lot and we need to keep the pressure on, to keep the spotlight 

on. Improper payments are heading in the right direction, and that 

is down, but this has not happened by accident, and if we are going 
6 

to continue to make progress, it is going to be because of our continued collective vigilance. 

Agencies have done an adequate job in implementing certain 

parts of the Performance Act, such as setting attainable short-term 

goals, giving quarterly progress reports on whether they are moving toward achieving those goals. However, there is a lot of work 

that still needs to be done to realize the full potential of the Act 

and we plan on using this Committee to fulfill our part of Congress’ 

role in that shared effort. 

And finally, while this report is often referred to as the Duplication Report from GAO, there are some significant savings that 

GAO has identified in the second part of each of these three reports, including several areas under this Committee’s jurisdiction. 

These saving opportunities touch on areas such as contracting, 

cloud computing, and ways of improving agency management, like 

information systems. I am interested in hearing from the GAO 

about what oversight this Committee should be doing in these 

areas, as well. 

And with that having been said, I am going to again welcome 

Gene Dodaro before us today, someone we have worked with for 

years, and just to say it is a joy to do that. I always look forward 

to your appearance and your testimony and to the opportunity to 

have just a real good conversation with you today. 

I note that the guy who was supposed to be your sidekick, Danny 

Werfel, if we had to pay these guys by the appearance, we would 

run the Federal Government debt even higher, but you all have 

been terrific. Danny has a new job. He has been tapped by the 

President to be the Acting Commissioner of the Internal Revenue 

Service (IRS). I do not know what he did to deserve that, but it 

must have been something really bad. 

But we appreciate your willingness today to speak out of both 

sides of your mouth, once for you and then once for Danny, and see 

if we cannot make some more progress here. Welcome. Your whole 

statement will be made a part of the record and then we will have 

the opportunity to ask questions. Dr. Coburn. 

Senator COBURN. Yes. I just was going to comment that the reason Danny Werfel, I think, was chosen is because he has demonstrated integrity in everything he has done in the Federal Government. My hope is that he is there for a short period of time and 

back where we can use him in a better way. So I hope that is not 

a temporary permanent transfer and that he comes back, because 

he really has a base of knowledge that very few people have and 

has a common sense approach. So I am glad he is there for a short 

period of time, but I yearn for the day that he returns. 

Chairman CARPER. I am Tom Carper and I approve this message. 

[Laughter.] 

Gene Dodaro, please proceed. 
7 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Dodaro appears in the Appendix on page 45. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. EUGENE L. DODARO,1 COMPTROLLER 

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

BERRICK, MANAGING DIRECTOR, HOMELAND SECURITY 

AND JUSTICE, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Mr. DODARO. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Dr. Coburn. 

Before I start my statement, Dr. Coburn, I first want to express 

my condolences and best wishes on behalf of myself and all of our 

colleagues in GAO on the recent tragic events in Oklahoma to you 

and the people of Oklahoma. So, best wishes. 

With regard to our most recent report, as has been noted, we 

identified 31 new areas. Seventeen dealt with overlap, duplication, 

and fragmentation. I will mention three examples quickly. 

First, at the Department of Defense (DOD), we noted camouflage 

uniforms for ground combat. Before, the Department had only two, 

one for desert and one for woodland. Now, they have seven additional uniforms, service-specific. They are missing opportunities, we 

estimate, to save up to $82 million by joint purchases and going to 

common agreements, but an important aspect of this, also, in addition to the savings, is they are not ensuring equivalent level of protection for joint operations for the service members. So this has potential. We have made recommendations to save money and ensure 

equivalent protection. 

Second, in the Medicaid Integrity Program we noted they had 

two contractors, one to review the contracts or the State payments 

to identify targets for audits, and then another contractor to go in 

and do the audits. We said, you do not need two. One will do. So 

in this case, I am happy to report, too, they recently decided not 

to extend the contracts for the auditors to do the review work, and 

that will save at least $15 million. So that is one area that has 

been eliminated since our report has been issued. 

The other area is geospatial investments. There are 31 different 

departments and agencies that purchase geospatial data. This is 

one where we did not even have to do a lot of digging. They admitted on their own they are making duplicative purchases in a number of areas, and this is an area where there is an agency group 

already, an interagency group, focused on trying to do this. But 

they are not implementing the policies and recommendations of the 

group and OMB does not have enough visibility through the budget 

process and proper reporting to spot the duplicative investments. 

So we have made recommendations to OMB and also to this interagency group to improve that coordination. 

Now, in the 14 areas where we identified cost savings and opportunities, there are two examples I will give. First is the Medicare 

Advantage Quality Demonstration Program. This program is rewarding average performers. It does not have a good basis of comparison to know whether things are being improved. We have even 

questioned the legal basis on which they have implemented this 

program, which is different than the demonstration program that 

was approved by the Congress in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Now, when we first made this recommendation to 

cancel the program—and this is an area where we said, this ought 
8 

to be canceled—there were opportunities to save $8.3 billion. So 

far, action has not been taken, but the Congress still has the ability to stop the program for 2014. That would save $2 billion, according to our estimates. 

The other example I would give is strategic sourcing. We have 

done a lot of work for this Committee, most recently a report released on the fact that commercial enterprises save from 4 to 15 

percent annually by leveraging their purchasing power. We found 

the Federal Government is not taking opportunities to do this more 

extensively. They have done some, but it is not the bulk of their 

purchasing. So there are billions of dollars that could be saved 

here. If you apply the 4-percent to the amount spent on goods and 

services, that is a $12 billion savings just for starters, but I think 

there is more to be done in this area. 

Now, with regard to the areas we had recommended in 2011 and 

2012, there were 131 areas. As Dr. Coburn noted, 12 percent have 

been acted on, 66 percent partially, and 21 percent not. A couple 

notable examples. Dr. Coburn mentioned the elimination of the 

Ethanol Tax Credit that duplicated the Renewable Fuel Standard. 

That prevented multi-billion dollars in revenue losses. 

I would also point out the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st 

Century legislation that the Congress approved, which did consolidate the Surface Transportation programs. We had pointed out 

there were over 100, so that has consolidated them and put more 

performance metrics in place. We have said for years, we were not 

measuring the performance of those activities. So I thought that 

was good, as well. 

Regarding the Administration, one of the things we had suggested—they had planned to extend the tours of military personnel 

in South Korea and send their dependents with them. We said, we 

do not think that is going to be a sustainable model for you. You 

need to do a business case. So they did the business case and they 

decided not to do that, avoided over $3 billion in additional costs 

going forward. 

But there is much that remains to be done. We have recommended the elimination of the Catfish Office that you mentioned 

in the Department of Agriculture. They have estimated they would 

spend about $14 million to operate that program. So money could 

be saved, but importantly, people would not be subject to multiple 

inspections, either, in that case. And Congress has also given FDA 

additional authorities now to use risk-based approaches for doing 

those examinations. 

We have recommended the elimination of the Auto Recovery Office, which was set up to provide support for the communities affected by the problems with the three automakers. That is still 

going. We do not see any reason for that. They have not justified 

what the communities are gaining as a result of their activity, so 

we have recommended elimination of that office, as well. 

Now, since we have issued the report, there have been some 

other notable areas of progress. First, the House Oversight and 

Government Reform Committee has reported out this month a Federal Acquisition IT Reform Act, and part of that legislation would 

require an inventory of all the IT investments across the Executive 
9 

Branch, and to spot duplicative investments there, as well. So we 

think that is good. 

Also, I would note that both of the bills marked up out of Committee so far for the reauthorization of the farm bill, both by the 

Senate Committee and the House Committee within the last couple 

weeks, have implemented elimination of the Direct Payment Program to farmers, which is one of the options that we recommended. 

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that would 

save $4.5 billion, starting in 2015. 

So we think there is some traction that we are continuing to get 

on this, but there is a long way to go, as both you, Senators Carper 

and Coburn, have pointed out. We are committed to continue to 

work with the Congress. 

Now, I would say a word about the GPRA Modernization Act in 

closing my opening statement. First, the Act does provide, I believe, 

a lot of opportunities. The original Act in 1993 focused on individual departments and agencies, and it was needed because they 

were not developing strategic plans. They were not setting performance measures. But more and more activities need to be addressed 

across departments and agencies, and the Modernization Act of 

2010 focuses on these cross-cutting efforts. 

The Administration has identified 14 areas of cross-cutting importance. The Data Centers consolidation effort is one of them. The 

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) is another one where we identified over 200 programs. The employment 

and training programs, veterans’ programs, all these programs 

really need oversight, and I think the Act could provide a platform 

for this Committee to conduct hearings on those cross-cutting goals. 

This Committee is well suited to be able to do that and I think 

there needs to be oversight. 

There is public reporting of the goals. GAO has a role in evaluating implementation of this Act. In fact, next month, we will issue 

our status report and what we are going to say is that the mechanics have been put in place. People have been given responsibilities. 

They are holding the quarterly meetings. But there is still little information to support the use of the performance measures for decisionmaking and there is room for improvement on the transparency in the public reporting of these results. 

And, also, there needs to be more consultation with the Congress. 

That was the other requirement in the Act, and we have seen little 

indication that there has been meaningful consultation so far. 

But we will be reporting in our final report on that. I would welcome the opportunity to come back and talk to you about the implementation of that Act in more detail, because I think unless there 

is serious congressional oversight, we are not going to see meaningful progress in the implementation of that legislation. 

So, thank you for the opportunity to be here today and I appreciate it and I will be pleased to answer questions. 

Chairman CARPER. Dr. Coburn, I am always amazed how this 

guy comes and testifies. There is a great movie, ‘‘Stand and Deliver.’’ This guy sits and delivers, and without a note. I have said 

before, the one other person I saw do this in the time that we have 

been here was our current Supreme Court Chief Justice when he 

testified for days before the Judiciary Committee without a note 
10 

and just did it all right off the top of his head. I admire the way 

you are able to explain stuff so that even the rest of us can generally understand what you are talking about. And again, I get all 

caught up in the jargon and it is just so refreshing. 

I want to talk about how we—first of all, just how we can maximize our effectiveness. You have the opportunity to look into the 

Executive Branch and, frankly, to look rather broadly across the 

Legislative Branch. Dr. Coburn and I hold hearings. Our Subcommittees hold hearings. Most of our Subcommittees just focus on 

investigations, and we do a lot at the full Committee level. But one 

of the things I almost always ask witnesses, whatever the issue is, 

if it focuses on inefficient spending, I always ask them to give us 

advice, like, what should we be doing more of, less of? We always, 

almost without exception, hear, do more oversight. Do more oversight. 

Just by sending out a letter, a rumor that we are going to have 

a hearing, we have asked GAO for a report, can lead to change. 

And the announcement of the release of the report, we key off of 

that in order to have hearings. We do oversight. The media provides some attention to it. It is effective. 

But just think about how we can be more effective. How can we 

be more effective, and just give us some good advice. You have 

done some, but just some more, particularly for this Committee, including the Senator from Alaska, who chairs one of our key Subcommittees who just joined us, as well. Give us some good advice. 

Mr. DODARO. Yes, I would be happy to. In the short term, what 

I would suggest is there are some specific areas that we pointed 

out that this Committee is perfectly suited to tackle by itself, and 

then I will have some other recommendations on how you can work 

with some other Committees to deal with some of these issues. 

First, strategic sourcing. I think it is a governmentwide issue. 

Chairman CARPER. You mentioned that. That is a good one. 

Mr. DODARO. That has huge potential. 

Chairman CARPER. Let me just ask you a question. I mean, I 

wrote that down. You said it has the potential for saving billions 

of dollars. We agree. And we are not doing that. And I would just 

ask, why? Why do you think we are not? 

Mr. DODARO. Well, there has not been—— 

Chairman CARPER. Maybe, how can we change the incentives so 

that—— 

Mr. DODARO. Right. 

Chairman CARPER [continuing]. The folks who are making these 

decisions are incentivized to do that. 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. First, I would focus on six departments and 

agencies that spend about 80 percent or maybe higher of Federal 

procurement. 

Chairman CARPER. OK. That is a good place to start. 

Mr. DODARO. So I would focus on those six agencies. 

Chairman CARPER. What would they be, DOD, Homeland Security—— 

Mr. DODARO. DOD, Homeland Security, Energy Department, 

NASA—— 

Chairman CARPER. Transportation? 
11 

Mr. DODARO [continuing]. Agriculture, and VA. I got them right. 

OK. So those six, I would focus on. I would have them set goals 

and I would have the Administration set a governmentwide goal. 

I would put it in law and have them report on those goals, and I 

would ratchet the goals up every year, and I would conduct oversight to make sure they are achieving those goals. 

This Committee and one of the Subcommittees did this in the 

personnel security clearance area. They held hearings. They forced 

goals. They put timeframes on it. And there were, I think, 12 hearings held. This was Senators Voinovich and Akaka. And, by gosh, 

they brought down the timeframes for clearances. There was toplevel involvement by the Administration, OPM, OMB, DOD, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), and they were able to get 

some results. So that is one example. 

Data Center consolidation is another area. We have pointed out 

the Administration has moved in that area and some of the centers 

have been consolidated, but it is not clear they are saving any 

money. They have to eliminate some of the legacy systems and the 

Administration is not measuring that. So that is another area that 

I think this Committee—— 

Chairman CARPER. Why do you think they are not? 

Mr. DODARO. Well, first of all, they do not have a lot of good information on baseline data which makes it difficult to measure incremental change. 

Second, their incentives are backwards—because they think they 

are going to lose their budget and if they identify the savings, the 

appropriators will just cull the money out of their budget. So part 

of the problem is there are two fundamental incentives that are exactly the opposite of the way they should be in the government. 

One is, if you save money, you should be rewarded, not the perception that you are penalized by having your budget reduced. 

That is a powerful one. 

The second is, in order to kill a program, you have to demonstrate it is not working. People do not have to demonstrate that 

programs for which they are seeking funding are making a meaningful difference, and having empirical information to say that, yes, 

I can demonstrate this program is effective. Today, it is exactly the 

opposite of the way it should be. And that is one of the things I 

think congressional oversight could do. 

Now, the other suggestion I have for you, the President has made 

a proposal in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Engineering area to consolidate some programs, to realign 

them within the Education Department (DOE), the National 

Science Foundation (NSF), and the Smithsonian Institution (SI), 

but they are also proposing some new programs and some additional funding. So I think this proposal has some potential but it 

is a governmentwide issue with significant reorganization aspects. 

The Administration is making the proposal and I think congressional oversight could be done with this Committee and perhaps in 

conjunction with other Committees. 

Now, the last comment I would make is that one of the real reasons, I believe, why you do not see more meaningful progress in 

this area is the Administration is not postured to look across departments and agencies as much as it has to do to really effectuate 
12 

changes. Congress has multiple jurisdictions. Most of these areas 

we have pointed out with a lot of programs, there are many Committees involved—different Committees that need to work together 

to find a way to do this. So there is no ready platform within the 

Executive Branch or the Congress to be able to do this. 

For example, we have recommended in the housing area they 

consolidate the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) housing 

program with the Agriculture lending programs. HUD is lending as 

much money in rural communities, more even, in some cases, than 

the Department of Agriculture. Agriculture is lending money in 

metropolitan areas. Those two programs could be combined, but 

there is no ready vehicle in either the Executive Branch or the Legislative Branch to make that happen. 

The same thing on teacher quality programs. Eighty-two programs, 10 different agencies. You just need to organize better in 

order to tackle those problems. 

And the other thing is that it is essential that this Committee 

provide oversight on the Government Performance and Results Act. 

One of our major handicapping items that we have had in making 

specific recommendations for elimination is you do not know in 

many cases which of these programs are working well and which 

are not because there is not enough objective performance information to be able to make those judgments. And so that is a major, 

major impediment to making greater progress in this area. 

And I just, after watching these programs be implemented over 

several decades now, without sustained congressional detailed oversight on these programs, I do not have high confidence that you 

will see tremendous results. 

Chairman CARPER. Before I yield to Dr. Coburn for his questions 

and then to Senator Begich, they have heard me quote former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Alan Blinder a number of times, and 

Tom may have been there when he testified a year or so ago before 

the Finance Committee, talking about the 800-pound gorilla in the 

room on deficits is health care costs. If we do not do something to 

rein them in, we are doomed. 

And I asked him, I said, what should we do about it? And his 

response was, ‘‘Find out what works and do more of that.’’ And my 

rejoinder was, you find out what does not work and do less of that? 

He said, ‘‘Yes.’’ But that was great advice. Great advice. 

But the point you just made, if we do not know what works and 

if we are not measuring what works, we do not have the ability to 

make those judgments, and it is pretty hard to do more of that—— 

Mr. DODARO. Well, what I would suggest is that there are at 

least three fundamental reasons, I believe, that we have right now, 

and Dr. Coburn mentioned some of them. 

One is that we have added programs over the years, over decades 

in some cases, to other programs. 

But the other reason that has occurred is that we establish programs, let us say an employment training program to give training 

to people that are unemployed. And then all of a sudden somebody 

says, well, there is not enough attention being given to veterans, 

there is not enough attention being given to youth, there is not 

enough attention to Native Americans, and we create these additional programs. 
13 

I think you can safely, even without a lot of information, consolidate the programs to eliminate the administrative overhead and 

set goals, now that you have better measures in GPRA, for the 

broad-based programs and make them operate effectively in those 

cases. 

So I think there are policy approaches and decisions that could 

be made even—I would not use the absence of performance information to not tackle the issues at this point. I think there are ways 

to do it and still protect the targeted groups that you are trying 

to help. 

Chairman CARPER. Well, I am way over my time. Let me just 

mention one other thing before I yield to Tom. We have, throughout our Federal Government Executive Branch, we have what I call 

Executive Branch Swiss cheese. We have so many departments 

where there is—Homeland Security, I think, has about six senior 

positions that are either unfilled or filled by folks who are in an 

acting status. We have about six Inspector Generals (IGs), department IGs, that those positions are vacant across the Federal Government. 

And even in OMB, where we share jurisdiction over OMB, we 

worked together to get Sylvia Burwell, an excellent nominee, confirmed as OMB Director. We are going to try to get Brian Deese 

reported out of Committee later today. His nomination still has to 

get reported out of the Budget Committee. But OMB, you have Sylvia Burwell leading it and we have an, I think, acting person as 

the Deputy OMB Director. We have an acting person as the head 

of the management side of OMB. We have an acting person as the 

head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), 

the regulatory side. And now Danny Werfel is being detailed over 

from his Comptroller job over to run the IRS. 

If we are interested in performance and actually for the Administration to do its job, there is nobody home. 

Mr. DODARO. Right. 

Chairman CARPER. And one of—well, there is somebody home. 

Sylvia is terrific. But we have to get a great team around her and 

find people to be IGs. It is not our job to find them to be IGs, although the Administration, I think, is willing to accept our ideas. 

The other thought I have, we have all these new people coming 

in as cabinet secretaries. Most of them cannot spell GPRA and a 

lot of them do not have any idea what it is. And one of the things 

we may want to consider doing is, I do not know if you would have 

hearings, roundtables, private meetings, just to say, this is important. You may not have focused on this, but we want you to. And 

the idea of actually inviting cabinet secretaries to come in, particularly maybe the six or so you mentioned where the dollar consequences are so great, to do really good oversight, not in a 

confrontational way, but just really good oversight, consistent oversight. 

I have taken too much time. Let me yield. 

Senator COBURN. Well, Gene, thanks again for your testimony. 

What percentage of the programs that you all have looked at over 

the last 3 years actually have a metric performance unit on them? 

Mr. DODARO. It varies by area. For example, in the STEM area, 

over the 200-some programs, 66 percent of them have not had an 
14 

evaluation since 2005. I think of the 47 employment training programs, only five had an evaluation since 2004. For the teacher 

quality programs, we found, that the Department of Education felt 

some of them were even too small to measure, and they had multiple funding streams going to individual teachers, so they could 

not tell which of the programs were more effective. 

So it is a serious issue, Senator, as you know, and so I—— 

Senator COBURN. Why would we set it up to where you have to 

have an—why would we not design the—you know, here is the 

problem with Congress. Here is a program. We are going to put the 

metric on the program. You are going to have a continuous feedback loop on whether or not it is working. So you do not have to 

create a study to see if the program is working. You are going to 

know as you implement and run the program whether it is working 

because you have a metric as a part of it, which comes back to one 

of the biggest problems in Congress, is we leave way too much to 

the Administration. We do not get specific. And one of the reasons 

we do not get specific is we do not know enough about the issue, 

so we leave it up to those people who we think do. 

The other problem I have is there is no definition in the Federal 

Government of programs, and we need one. OMB cannot manage 

something if they do not know its—as a matter of fact, nobody in 

the country, nobody in this country knows all the government programs. Is that a true statement? 

Mr. DODARO. That is actually true. I mean, part of the Government Performance and Results Modernization Act was to have 

OMB create the inventory. Now, their approach so far, and it is 

supposed to be released the end of this month—— 

Senator COBURN. Right. 

Mr. DODARO [continuing]. Is to let the agencies define the programs, which—— 

Senator COBURN. Which is crazy. 

Mr. DODARO [continuing]. Which is not going to work long-term. 

And you are not going to be able to compare across departments 

and agencies. 

Senator COBURN. So how well is the GPRA Modernization Act, 

going to work if you do not have a definition of ‘‘program’’? 

Mr. DODARO. It is going to be problematic. 

Senator COBURN. That is right. So what we have to have is a definition of what a program is—— 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. 

Senator COBURN [continuing]. Correct? 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. 

Senator COBURN. All right. 

Mr. DODARO. We were planning to wait to see what comes out 

at the end of this month and then take a detailed look at it and 

see if we can make recommendations to make it more comparable 

across government, because if you do not have that, you are not advancing the ball very far. 

Senator COBURN. Would you disagree with the concept that I 

have tried to put forward—I have not been successful—that before 

Congress creates a new program, they ought to check to see if it 

is going to duplicate an existing program out there? 
15 

Mr. DODARO. No, I do not disagree with that. I think it would 

be a good idea. 

Senator COBURN. It is amazing. I cannot get that passed in the 

Senate. That is common sense. 

I would also—let me take time to compliment the Administration. I actually think the Administration pays attention to the work 

you do, and President Obama and his team have made lots of great 

recommendations in their budgets. I do not necessarily agree with 

their numbers in their budgets, but a lot of the detailed policy 

stuff, they are paying attention to you, Gene, and they are trying 

to change some of this stuff and we need to give them credit for 

that effort, even though a lot of it is not going to be effective. 

The other thing I would do is praise the House. They passed the 

SKILLS Act, which consolidated, I think, 36 of the job training programs into six, put metrics on every one of them and designed 

what they were, and we cannot even get that through the Health, 

Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee here. There is 

no effort. We have met the enemy and the enemy is us, because 

we will not do our work. 

The other problem with GPRA that I see is performance metrics 

only work if you know all the programs so you can make a comparison. And if you do not know all the programs, you have some 

out there being measured and some not. 

The other thing is, some say that the problem is breaking down 

silos. What you have demonstrated is that we need to eliminate 

some of the silos, not just break them down. 

So this is a massive problem. Nobody can put their hands on it 

completely and be all knowledgeable about it. 

You mentioned the job training programs. Here is the detail. We 

have 47 programs for non-disabled individuals. We have 50-some 

for disabled individuals. And only 5 of the 47 job training programs 

that you all surveyed had an impact study completed within the 

last 9 years. So only five do we know anything about, and the results were not very encouraging from the ones that we do know 

about. When you look at it, what your statement was, ‘‘Little is 

known about the effectiveness of most of the programs in this 

area.’’ 

So we are throwing $19 billion out there every year for job training programs and your statement is there is little known about the 

effectiveness of most of these programs. That would say to me that 

Congress ought to get busy on this one area to try to attack and 

tackle some performance metrics in terms of job training. 

We actually looked at—you have read our study on Oklahoma. 

We looked at all the Federal job training programs and then we 

looked at the ones run solely by the State with no Federal Government money. And what we found is the ones where Oklahoma is 

running them are actually highly effective at actually getting somebody a life skill to give them the capability to earn a living. And 

what we found on the Federal job training programs is they were 

highly ineffective, except we spend 20 times more money on Federal programs in Oklahoma than we do State money, and yet we 

have 20 times the performance on the State dollars. 

So the American people have to ask us, what are we doing? How 

are we doing it? So what we are trying to do is build a base of 
16 

knowledge, and too many times, we do not want to know the answer. That is my frustration with my colleagues in the Senate. 

Why would we not want to know before we put a new bill on the 

floor of the Senate whether or not it is going to duplicate something that is already running? I mean, that is just good old Oklahoma common sense. Before you spend another nickel on something, one is how is the nickel that you are spending already doing, 

and two 2, are you duplicating something? 

In this year’s duplication report, you devoted about nine pages to 

the GPRA Modernization Act, but you do not make a case that it 

is actually the solution for the problem of duplication. 

Mr. DODARO. It is not the sole solution. It is only a tool. 

Senator COBURN. Yes. We have to produce a list of programs. 

The programs have to have metrics on them. You would agree with 

that? 

Mr. DODARO. Oh, definitely. 

Senator COBURN. Is there any program in the Federal Government that should not have a metric on it? 

Mr. DODARO. I cannot think of one. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Quarterly reviews—if Congress was 

doing its job, we would say, well, how are you doing on this, and 

every quarter, we would ask, tell us what the performance is. 

One other thing I wanted to mention from your opening statement, we are going to have a new General Service Administration 

(GSA) Director, and when we looked at this in 2005 and 2006, Tom 

and I actually looked at it, what we found was—the Federal Government spends more money on everything than anybody in the 

world and we ought to get the best price. And you know what? We 

do not. Consolidating, looking at new ways of how you purchase 

things, I would love for you to have a sit-down with the new GSA 

Director, and hopefully he will invite you over, so that you can 

show, here is where you are not performing. 

Then we give the flexibility to buy the most expensive rather 

than the least expensive to anybody. You do not have to buy the 

best deal for the American public if you are a Federal employee 

purchasing something. You can buy top-of-the-line, if you want. It 

is an internal justification. 

The House of Representatives has a duplication rule they passed. 

You have to demonstrate you are not duplicating something before 

you put a bill on the floor in the House. Would you think that 

would be a good rule for the U.S. Senate? 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Where else—I guess I am over time. 

We will come back. I will yield to my colleague. I am sorry. 

Chairman CARPER. Senator Begich, good to see you. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BEGICH 

Senator BEGICH. Thank you very much. 

I want to add to what Senator Coburn just said there. Here is 

an example, even with the Senate. I found this so amazing. I am 

in the real estate business, have been for many years, so when it 

was time to get State office space, they tell me, yes, you can have 

some. You get 5,000 square feet. And I said, great. I will go figure 

that out through my Statewide situation. And then I say, how 
17 

much can I pay, or what is my limitation? There is not a limitation. 

The only limitation is how many square feet you get, which means 

you can get in an ‘‘A’’ quality building. 

It is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen from the real estate business for us as the U.S. Senate to have that as a policy. 

It is about square footage, not about the price. It goes contrary to 

exactly what Senator Coburn is trying—I mean, it is unbelievable. 

I mean, so, of course, you get space, and I spent 9 months trying 

to get an additional 100 square feet within my 5,000 square feet 

working through GSA. In the private sector, if I would have been 

negotiating a 100-square-foot lease and it took me 9 months, I 

would be fired. I would not even exist in the business, because you 

only make 3 percent on that after a 5-year deal. It is nothing. 

So I am—or, as I walk home every day and I walk past the 

House page building that is now empty—it is a beautiful building, 

It is right on E Street and First, a beautiful building. It is empty 

because they killed the page program 2 years ago and it sits there 

and we spend money maintaining this beautiful building. My personal view is it should just be opened up and rented out to the 

House members that cannot get space in this town for apartments. 

At least we make some money on it, is my personal view. 

But I digress only because you got me thinking about this in a 

longer issue. 

You mentioned the STEM, and I agree. I mean, I think it is 209 

programs—— 

Mr. DODARO. Right. 

Senator BEGICH [continuing]. Thirteen different agencies. The 

lack of measurement or metrics on the success of this is amazing 

to me when we are trying to compete in the world markets on 

STEM. So I want to thank you for kind of pointing out in your multiple reports, in your report with many different ideas. I mean, this 

was one example. 

I remember I tried to do an employment program, take all the 

veterans’ employment programs and put them in the VA. It seemed 

kind of logical. The minute I suggested that, I had more people 

come from the Department of Labor to my office than I ever imagined worked there to explain to me why it was such a bad idea. 

This may sound counterintuitive, but I want to get your 

thoughts. I am a former mayor. Would not a little more flexibility 

to the Administration help to make these decisions on consolidation 

and elimination? And we should do our job, which, what I have noticed here in 5 years, this Committee, actually, I am finding it very 

interesting and exciting. To be frank with you, it was not my request to be on the Committee a few years ago. It just was offered 

and I said, sure. But what Senator Carper is doing and Senator 

Coburn is doing is oversight, which is really the role of the U.S. 

Senate and U.S. House. 

Would it not seem logical to give more flexibility to the Administration to say, look, you want to consolidate these 209 programs? 

You want to do this? Then what we do is quarterly, or whatever 

the time table, we do oversight, not crisis oversight, which is what 

we do great around this place. When something bad happens, we 

are now going to try to over-correct and usually screw it up even 

more. 
18 

So, would that not seem to be logical? I know it is counterintuitive, because you are saying the Administration can have more 

flexibility, but then if you add in there that there is a regular process of oversight, that could make sure the correction is there and 

the checks and balance are there. Give me your thoughts on that. 

Mr. DODARO. Well, I think—there are a couple different approaches. The Executive Branch has not been given that authority 

since the Reagan Administration. 

Senator BEGICH. Right. 

Mr. DODARO [continuing]. And the last approach, this Administration proposed was saying, if you give us the authority, then we 

will tell you what we are going to submit. In the STEM area now, 

they have at least put a proposal on the table that could be discussed and deliberated. 

Senator BEGICH. Right. 

Mr. DODARO. My experience has been over the years that while 

you might want to give some flexibility, Congress needs to be careful in ceding its constitutional authorities in this area, and so I 

would exercise a little bit of caution—— 

Senator BEGICH. Sure. Good point. 

Mr. DODARO [continuing]. In doing that, but there has to be more 

consultation. Part of the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 was a 

required consultation on performance goals. But the same thing on 

reorganization proposals, because if Congress is not brought in the 

development of the proposal and does not like it, even if the Administration has the flexibility to go forward, it will create other 

programs outside that structure over time. 

So I think in order for this to work well, there needs to be a consensus opinion on how to do it, Senator, it is a difficult issue, I 

grant you that, and it should be thought about, but it needs more 

dialogue. 

Senator BEGICH. Do you think—and I want to followup with the 

Chairman’s question, or not question, it was more of a comment on 

some of these positions that we have had vacant running these operations—do you think that has an impact in agencies in trying to 

make some moves and doing some things differently? 

Mr. DODARO. Oh, definitely. I mean, I think that—— 

Senator BEGICH. Is it costing us money, do you think? 

Mr. DODARO. Well, I do not know if it is costing money, but it 

is creating inaction in terms of trying to—— 

Senator BEGICH. Which, by definition, that is going to have a 

cost. 

Mr. DODARO. That is a cost. 

Senator BEGICH. I do not know if you can put a figure on it. 

Mr. DODARO. Sure. 

Senator BEGICH. But it has an impact on operations, delivery of 

services—— 

Mr. DODARO. There is no question about it. I think that is a big 

problem. 

Senator BEGICH. Do you think—and I guess this is the question 

in a broader, and maybe you cannot answer this—I mean, the politics of trying to resolve some of these—like I said, every time I 

have mentioned something, some group comes out of the woodwork 

that I never knew existed. They are somehow some advocacy group. 
19 

And part of it is this body has a problem saying no, right? Is that 

not what—I do not want to get you into politics here—— [Laughter.] 

I think that is what Senator Coburn was kind of saying. I mean, 

we have a problem saying no, even when we know we have to do 

something different here because it is not working well. Like, this 

whole idea you mentioned, which I agree with this whole idea of 

purchasing, is astonishing to me. 

The Municipality of Anchorage, where I was mayor, we teamed 

up with the State of Alaska to do joint purchasing. So they had an 

overall contract, open contract that we could get into, which we 

would get then the lowest price, because why? We are the platinum 

client. We actually write the checks and pay them. In the Federal 

Government, it is a little different. They write the checks and they 

print the money to pay them, but that is a different story. But the 

point is, we are platinum when it comes to any contractor. 

I guess I am struggling, and you have to, I guess, give me your 

thoughts, because you have been around a lot longer than I have, 

and that is if I had staff members, department heads, telling me 

they just cannot do this, I would fire them. I would say, no, this 

is the goal. Go do it. I do not need my local city council telling me. 

This just makes sense, to purchase things in—my simpler way to 

describe it, buying in bulk at the lowest costs per unit—— 

Mr. DODARO. Right. 

Senator BEGICH [continuing]. And using our purchasing power to 

do it. Am I missing something here? 

Mr. DODARO. No, you are not missing anything. That is what 

should be done. 

Senator BEGICH. Is there a lack of leadership, do you think? 

Mr. DODARO. Well, I think the problem starts even from the beginning in terms of how we budget in the Federal Government. A 

classic example is, unlike most entities, you would figure out how 

much you want to spend, how much revenue you are going to have, 

and then how much you would have to borrow. We do not do that 

up front. 

Senator BEGICH. You would have a capital budget. You would 

have an operating budget. 

Mr. DODARO. Right. 

Senator BEGICH. You would actually see—— 

Mr. DODARO. Right now, we bifurcate. The debt ceiling issue is 

outside that process. The debt ceiling does not have anything to do 

with limiting spending. 

Senator BEGICH. Right. 

Mr. DODARO. And it is an after-the-fact kind of decision made to 

pay bills, to borrow the money to pay the bills that have already 

been authorized. There is no up-front consequence of somebody saying, if we pass this set of appropriations, this budget for the Federal Government, we are going to have to borrow this amount of 

money. This is how much it is going to cost us. I mean, right now, 

debt held by the public is over 70 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). For a 40-year average, it is 39 percent. 

So I do not think people think about the consequences of the borrowing of the money and have that weigh into the decision on 

whether to fund a program. It is totally driven by whether there 
20 

is a need there, and I think that is, as Senator Coburn pointed out, 

that basically people are trying to do the right thing. There is a 

need. They want to fill the need. But nobody understands how 

much it is really going to cost in order to fill that need and what 

is the cumulative cost to the Federal Government. 

And until that, becomes more crystallized in the decisionmaking, 

I think you are going to continue to see repeats of what we have 

seen in the past. 

Senator BEGICH. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank 

you very much. 

Senator COBURN. [Presiding.] Thank you, Senator Begich. 

Let me answer the question for you bluntly. When the Senate 

was created, the whole thought of our founders is that the Senators 

would think long-term, not parochially. That is why they were appointed by their State legislatures. In other words, the goal was to 

have a balance of long-term thinking for the country, and what we 

are seeing now occur, and it has for some number of years in the 

Senate, is we have become just as parochial as the House is, and 

the House was meant to be parochial. And so we have lost the 

countervailing weights of slowing things down. Our Founders wanted it to be hard to change things, difficult to change things, because they realized—and we are seeing liberty diminish as the government grows, and that is the consequence. They spoke about it 

prophetically when they founded this country. 

And so, again, I will say, the problem is us, because just like you 

said, on the job training program, just to give you an example, you 

have very little demonstrated results in most of the job training 

programs, but they are defended harshly by the contractors that 

have the Job Corps programs and everything else, regardless of the 

fact that they have lousy outcomes. And it is because it is jobs. It 

is employment. It is votes. 

And so if we do not make that disconnect of real leadership in 

the Senate by each individual Senator doing what is the right thing 

for the country in the long term—not the short-term political careers of the Members of Congress, but the best long-term thing for 

the country—what we do is we actually defy our own oath to uphold the Constitution. 

Gene, I want to ask you about another question. It is something 

I have thought about a lot. And I actually agree with you in terms 

of changing this motivation for our agencies. We ought to give them 

the responsibility and authority to make great decisions, and we 

ought to be very specific how we do that. But when they have done 

a great job, we ought to let them keep some of the savings. In other 

words, we ought to allow a certain percentage of the savings to revert to the agency under the Secretary to actually use in areas they 

think are best for their areas of responsibility and to reverse that 

motivation. 

Let me tell you a story about a commander at Altus Air Force 

Base. Last year, he saved $16 million below his budget by performing things in-house rather than contracting them outside. 

Great job. It was not hard. He just said, ‘‘I know we are in a tight 

time. I am going to save the Air Force some money.’’ And so here 

is a guy that took his own troops, and what they could do, they did. 

What they absolutely had to contract outside, they did. But they 
21 

did it, and they did it for about a fifth of the cost of what their contracts would have cost. 

But he got no benefit out of that for Altus Air Force Base other 

than benefiting the country. What we should have said is, if you 

save $15 million, we are going to leave $5 million there for you to 

do other things and you create that kind of an incentive program 

that is within the math. 

That is all the more reason for us to have performance metrics, 

because if we are going to give increased flexibility, as Senator 

Begich suggests, and I think we should give some, you have to 

have a metric to show that it is actually—not one that can be 

gamed, not one that can be spun, where you actually have a metric 

where you can actually see what you are doing. 

I talk with a lot of business leaders and every year, their goal 

is to do more with less. I mean, that is how you widen margins. 

That is how you widen gross margins. That is how you widen net 

margins. That is how you get innovation. You set up a necessity 

to try to think things outside of the box to do it in a different way 

so you can actually accomplish something at a lower cost. 

We do not have much of that motivation in the Federal Government, and it is not that we do not have great employees, because 

we do. But we will not trust them with the ability to do that. 

Now, will there be bad actors? Yes. But the benefit of actually 

trusting Federal employees to do things right and then conducting 

the oversight to make sure it is happening and let them have the 

responsibility and some of the rewards that come with that. What 

would you think if we had a bill that allowed that? There is only 

one agency that gets to do that now, and I think that is the Treasury Department. They get to keep whatever money they do not 

spend and spend it wherever they want. But they get to keep it all. 

It does not go back to the Treasury. What are your thoughts on 

that? 

Mr. DODARO. I think that it would be a great thing to pilot in 

a number of areas and make sure that it works effectively and 

there is a demonstrated formula for success. I think if you try to 

do it too broadly, that there will not be enough followup and it will 

be difficult to manage it well to get the right outcome and it could 

have unintended consequences. 

Senator COBURN. Well, you have to have metrics first. 

Mr. DODARO. Right. 

Senator COBURN. You have to demand metrics everywhere first. 

Mr. DODARO. Right. 

Senator COBURN. I mean, do you know any organization that is 

successful that executes a strategy that does not put a metric on 

the execution of that strategy? 

Mr. DODARO. No. 

Senator COBURN. Yet, 95 percent of the Federal Government has 

no metric on its strategy. 

Mr. DODARO. We definitely need to do more in that area. There 

have been some efforts in the past to do what you are talking 

about, and it has been a number of years now. One model was Performance-Based Organizations, and we tried that experiment. 
22 

I will go back and look. We evaluated that and it did not really 

work effectively. I do not remember offhand what all the reasons 

were. 

Senator COBURN. Probably because you did not have a metric. 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. Well, I do not remember. I will have to go back 

and I will look at that. I will send you a summary of how we evaluated that, why it did not work, and then in designing any future 

efforts, maybe we can figure out a way, working together, to try to 

do what you want to do but structure it to achieve success. 

Senator COBURN. Can you think of a way we can motivate our 

colleagues to take your recommendations and act on them? That is 

our biggest problem, obviously, from the chart I put up. 

Mr. DODARO. Right. I have tried to meet with each of the Committees, and actually, our record is pretty good. About 80 percent 

of our recommendations get implemented over a 4-year period of 

time. That has been pretty constant. So I try to meet with all the 

Committee chairs. 

I think we can maybe think of ways to increase our dialogue with 

the Committees, but until they have oversight and they focus on 

those areas, it is going to be somewhat limited. But I think with 

most of them, we have had good dialogue and they act on a lot of 

the recommendations. 

It is just some of the areas that cross multiple Committees where 

it is difficult to try to conduct oversight and implement recommendations I have testified in the past on some joint hearings 

with different Committees. I think that could provide more motivation, Senator, and I think that is important in some of these areas. 

So I would encourage that kind of dialogue with your Committee, 

which has broad jurisdiction—pick one area, whether it is STEM 

or teacher quality or something like that and work on it. 

Senator COBURN. Well, how many pieces of legislation have come 

out of the Congress in the last 3 years since you have been doing 

this review that we have asked for that have actually put a metric 

on the program? 

Mr. DODARO. This Moving Ahead for Progress Act does not put 

a metric. It puts in process more requirements for metrics. So we 

will have to see how that works. I would have to go back and think 

about it. I cannot think of anything off the top of my head. 

Senator COBURN. I cannot, either, which is the problem. 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. 

Senator COBURN. We continue to pass legislation. We continue to 

appropriate money. And every time you put real performance 

metrics on something, you get push-back. And so the real question 

is, we are not going to accomplish anything until we can actually 

measure what we are doing and assess what we are doing. And I 

would love your staff’s thoughts on how we could maybe get that 

accomplished, because until you get metrics, until you know what 

you are doing, knowing whether what you are doing is working or 

not, you are not going to make the changes. And, of course, that 

is part of it. We actually lend a blind eye. 

You talked about cross-jurisdictional. The Education Workforce 

Committee on the SKILLS Act could only address 36 of the 47 job 

training programs. So they have consolidated down to 6 those 36 

with metrics, but it has not come out of the Senate. So here is a 
23 

great answer to one of your recommendations, actually solving 

some problems, saving some money, and making a real difference 

in people’s lives, and the Senate has not worked on it. 

How do we motivate? Could this Committee say, as you suggested, hold joint hearings with other Committees on a multitude 

of areas, or—— 

Mr. DODARO. I would suggest that. I think the other thing that 

is really going to motivate people is going to be the caps on discretionary spending. I mean, I just do not think that we are going to 

be—the financial pressures are enormous. I mean, my view is—in 

the out-years, our simulation showed just tremendous problems, 

and that we are going to exceed—absent changes in current policy, 

we are going to exceed debt held by the public as a percentage of 

Gross Domestic Product to go over 100 percent. If you use current 

baselines, CBO’s estimates extended by us will be 2034. And if 

health care spending is not controlled, it could be 2028. 

I mean, I think the fiscal pressures—if people understood the fiscal pressures in the future, that, to me, is part of the motivation. 

The second part of the motivation has to be to have a catalyst Committee to pull some of these Committees together to work jointly 

on the problems. 

I think if there is a focused attention on some of these areas, 

that you could get consensus in a much quicker manner than will 

ever happen absent that, but—— 

Senator COBURN. Senator Begich described how we usually react 

in crisis rather than planning for the problems that are coming by 

doing affirmative things now rather than waiting until the fire is 

there. 

Do you know if he has additional questions? 

Mr. DODARO. One other thing, Senator. My staff just let me know 

that we have been—and your point about incentives, that we have 

been supportive of agencies keeping some of the proceeds from the 

real estate sales to encourage them to get rid of this excess real estate—— 

Senator COBURN. Right. 

Mr. DODARO [continuing]. And we are seeing some bipartisan 

bills in the House to implement our recommendations in this area. 

So that is one area that I think this Committee could address. We 

are also getting a lot more questions from members on our overlap 

and duplication report than we ever had before. This year, I think, 

it is at an all-time high. I met with a couple of groups that are 

meeting together—— 

Senator COBURN. Right. 

Mr. DODARO [continuing]. Bipartisan groups working on these 

issues. So I am encouraged that we are getting many more questions. The first one we issued, you had a press release. But this 

year, many more. I think people understand the fiscal pressures 

and are looking for solutions, and we are trying to work with whoever wants to work with us to implement these recommendations. 

Senator COBURN. Well, I will just tell you that Speaker Boehner 

in the House, they are going to have over 200 oversight hearings 

based on your stuff, and they are ongoing now. So they are listening. So the question is, will it come out of the House and die over 

here? 
24 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CARPER [Presiding.] And our job is to try to make 

sure, with your help, that it does not. 

Dr. Coburn and our staffs have heard me talk about the culture 

in Federal Government. It is more of a culture of spendthrift, not 

a culture of thrift. And I think a lot in terms of how do we change 

incentives. 

I just walked out of the meeting here to talk with the CEO of 

a major food company in America. We talked for 5, 10 minutes 

about obesity and how can we further incentivize people to take 

personal responsibility for their own health care so they do not end 

up weighing 350, 400, 500 pounds and basically bankrupting Medicare. 

But part of it is to try to change the culture, to try to make sure 

that people know that it is not good for them to weigh 300, 400 

pounds. It is not good for them. It is not good for our country. It 

is not good for Medicare. It is not good for our taxpayers. 

One of the things that we are trying to do is figure out how to 

change the culture, how to provide the changes in incentives so 

that our goals are aligned with the incentives that we are providing. 

I would like to, if I could use just a little humor here for a moment, I love to ask people who have been married a long time, 

Gene, I like to ask them, what is the secret? I was with a couple 

last night back in Delaware. They have been married 54 years. And 

I said to the husband and wife, what is the secret for being married 

54 years? And the wife said to me—she pointed to her husband and 

she said, ‘‘He would tell you that the secret for being married 54 

years is that he can be right or he can be happy, but he cannot 

be both.’’ [Laughter.] 

One of the best answers I have ever heard, though—serious answer—was the two ‘‘C’’s, the two ‘‘C’’s, and that is communicate 

and compromise. Communicate and compromise. That is pretty 

good advice. Whenever I know somebody who is getting married, I 

send them a note if they are a friend and I always put those words 

of advice in there. 

That is also good advice for a dynamic, durable democracy, to 

communicate and to compromise. There is another ‘‘C’’, though, and 

my next question actually involves another ‘‘C’’ and the word is collaboration, and just to focus for a little bit on cross-agency collaboration, if I could. 

GAO released a report a couple of months ago, I think it was in 

February, that found that agencies are doing a pretty good job in 

implementing data-driven performance reviews to drive performance improvement, one of the main goals of GPRA. However, GAO 

also found out and told us that agencies are not involving other relevant agencies in these reviews. And given the nature of crossagency priority goals, agencies clearly need to coordinate to make 

progress toward those goals. Interagency collaboration is also an 

important step toward achieving individual agency priority goals, 

breaking down government silos and trying to reduce some of the 

duplication we are talking about here today. 

Could you just take a minute or two and discuss with us how collaboration among agencies in performance reviews can help de-
25 

crease or prevent overlap or duplication or fragmentation? We have 

been talking here earlier today about how we can work, this Committee, OMB, GAO, the Inspector Generals, and so forth, nonprofit 

groups, how we can collaborate among ourselves, but would you 

just talk with us a bit about collaboration among agencies in performance reviews with respect to duplication oversight and overlap. 

Mr. DODARO. Well, first, it creates an awareness of the interrelationships. In many cases, like when we did the inventory of 

teacher quality programs at 10 agencies, nobody really knew what 

other agencies were doing. This is the issue of they know what they 

are doing, but they really are not aware. So the first thing is 

awareness that it is occurring in other agencies. 

Second is sharing of experiences and good techniques that have 

worked and could be effective. 

And third is getting joint metrics. I mean, part of the issue is 

that everybody, even if they have metrics, they are limited to output measures, not outcome. But there is no broad governmentwide 

goal that everybody is trying to achieve. Everybody is trying to 

achieve just little areas within their responsibility. 

But, you know, let me give you an example of how it does not 

happen and why it should happen more. In the High-Risk Areas. 

I agreed to have meetings with Jeff Zients and the deputies or the 

head of the agencies on the High-Risk List on a regular basis. I 

agreed to personally participate in those meetings as long as they 

got the top people in the agency to be there. It took us over 2 years 

to get a meeting with the disability community on all the programs 

across the Federal Government that do it. And when we finally had 

the meeting, it was the first time that there was ever a meeting 

of all the different agencies that were working on disability areas 

across the government. 

So, right now, in order for it to happen, agencies have to know 

about it in other agencies and then be able to work together and 

take the initiative. OMB really does not have the wherewithal and 

enough time and resources to make it happen and to ensure that 

it happens effectively. So, in my mind, you are relying on a lot of 

individual initiatives to be able to do this. There is really not an 

organizational structure to make sure it happens within the Executive Branch and that there is full accountability. So, I think many 

things get compromised out at the agency level rather than putting 

stretch goals in place and trying to reorganize things. 

So, it is a very important area to deal with, but there needs to 

be some leadership. And part of the problem we always see is when 

you have interagency groups working together, even if there is a 

chairperson of the group, they do not have any authority. They do 

not have good strategic plans. 

We have said this for this Food Safety Working Group, where we 

have identified that as being fragmented across the Federal Government. They meet. They have discussions. They share experiences. But they do not have—we have recommended that they put 

together a governmentwide performance plan to measure and have 

metrics and they have not done that yet. 

So you need a combination of encouraging collaboration at the 

agencies, but you need some mechanism to hold them accountable 

and to focus on it within the Executive Branch. 
26 

Chairman CARPER. A related question. You have already answered it to some degree, but I want to pose it anyway and see if 

you want to add anything further. But, staying with collaboration, 

what other benefits may an agency gain by involving other agencies in their performance reviews? 

Mr. DODARO. Well, I think you can make sure that you get everybody to the table that is appropriate there and then they could 

work on joint strategies and ensure some joint accountability and 

get some dialogue going and perhaps share resources, save money. 

But one of the issues you can also do is get clarity on greater roles 

and responsibilities that the people have for working together. So 

there are a lot of benefits to collaboration. But my sense is that you 

need to have more oversight and accountability to get more benefits 

out of it long-term, other than just getting people together to enhance awareness. 

Chairman CARPER. Just kind of sticking with the theme here, I 

am going to stay with it for just a little bit, but moving from collaboration to cross-agency priority goals. The GPRA Modernization 

Act requires, as you know, the establishment of Federal Government priority goals. OMB calls these cross-agency priority goals. 

But how can these efforts help improve coordination and collaboration of fragmented and overlapping programs? 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. Well, the first thing is it requires them to set 

governmentwide goals, so that is No. 1. In many cases, those did 

not exist before. So that is probably the most important element of 

the cross-cutting goals. And then there is accountability that could 

be achieved in that level, but there has to be more dialogue. And 

then there are requirements for continual reporting by the President to the Congress about the priority and I would encourage 

oversight over this. 

Right now, it is in the formative stages where we are trying this 

new model across government and the President has proposed 

some goals. But unless the Congress engages in those cross-cutting 

goals and provides feedback regarding the goals and metrics on a 

governmentwide basis, then each agency’s contribution could be 

there. So it has a lot of potential, but it has to be used—— 

Part of the problem is what we have found is there are a lot of 

efforts to try to set performance measures, but even when they are 

performance measures, they are not fully used within the Executive Branch or in the Congress. And so there needs to be more dialogue and the use of those that exist as well as, better measures. 

There is no question you need more measures and better measures. 

But if you do not use the ones you have right now or work to create 

new ones and set goals, nothing is going to happen. 

I gave the example a little bit earlier about the personnel security clearances, but Congress there put a hard metric in place, that 

we want these background investigations and clearances done 

within 60 days. It was taking months before. And they are beating 

the goals now in order to do that. But that worked in a collaborative fashion, where those goals got set. They got set in law. But 

they had a process in place to be able to do it. These areas that 

have been set in the 14 goals right now, provide an adequate opportunity for that kind of engagement by the Congress to really sit 

down and work with the agencies. 
27 

We were part of the process that Senators Akaka and Voinovich 

set up in order to help set the goals for security clearances, along 

with the Executive Branch agencies, and then we went in and evaluated whether they were meeting the goals. So you had a built-in 

accountability check. So I think that provides a lot of good lessons 

learned on how to tackle these cross-cutting goals. 

Chairman CARPER. OK. I am way over my time once again. I just 

want to mention this and then kick it back over to Dr. Coburn. But 

when I meet people who have done extraordinary things in their 

life, really successful people from this country and other places, I 

love to ask them, why have you been successful, and just to have 

them lay out why they think they are successful. The responses are 

illuminating and sometimes very helpful to me. 

Another question I like to ask is, how do you measure success, 

and that is a question I ask here and in other venues, as well. How 

do you measure success? Too often, and I have found in government, particularly the Federal Government, we measure the wrong 

thing. We measure process. We may measure inputs. We do not 

measure outcomes and we do not measure results. 

One of the things that we need to do a better job in our oversight 

role is to say, all right, how do we measure success? Let us talk 

about outputs. Let us talk about actually getting stuff done. And 

so you reminded me of that, and I would, having said that, yield 

back to Dr. Coburn. 

Senator COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I am through. I just wanted to 

make one comment. 

Your findings in your report this year talked about the National 

Technical Information Service (NTIS) selling reports to other agencies that are free on Google. She is going to put a little slide up. 

Seventy-five percent of everything they give to other agencies, you 

can get free on the Internet. 

Mr. DODARO. I agree. It does not make sense. 

Senator COBURN. Well, actually, the Department of Commerce—— 

Mr. DODARO. I am not going to defend it. 

Senator COBURN. The question is, is the Administration doing 

anything about it? 

Mr. DODARO. No, not that I am aware of. 

Senator COBURN. And so the answer is, Commerce ought to send 

a note to every one of these agencies saying, all these things that 

you have been getting from us, and paying money for, by the 

way—— 

Mr. DODARO. Right. 

Senator COBURN [continuing]. You can get free on the Internet, 

and here is where you get them. I do not know how many people 

we can save at NTIS, but the fact is, that is totally duplicative. It 

is kind of like the Death Master Files problem that we have. 

Mr. DODARO. Right. 

Senator COBURN. But here, all you have to do is search the Internet and you can get it instead of have your agency pay another 

agency—— 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. 

Senator COBURN [continuing]. For information that is free out 

there. 
28 

Mr. DODARO. But it is a classic case, Dr. Coburn, of when something was set up. At the time it was set up, it made sense that 

there was not access and availability, but now there is and things 

just will not change. They need to make the changes. So we have 

made the recommendations. We will try to continue to followup on 

them—— 

Senator COBURN. This is the typical Reagan quote. The closest 

thing to eternal life on this earth is a government program. 

Mr. DODARO. That is the case. And many of the ones we are 

pointing out—I do not want to say many, but some of the ones we 

point out were intended to be temporary programs, like the direct 

payments to farmers is one. They complete the task, even, in some 

cases, and then they try to add additional areas—— 

Senator COBURN. Well, it is like you mentioned on the assistance 

for the auto families. 

Mr. DODARO. Right. 

Senator COBURN. It does not need to be there anymore. 

Mr. DODARO. No, it does not, and it could be eliminated. I mean, 

it is not a lot of money. It is a million dollars a year, but a million 

dollars is a million dollars. 

Senator COBURN. A million dollars a year is how you get to a billion—— 

Mr. DODARO. Right. 

Senator COBURN [continuing]. And multiple billions is how you 

get to a trillion and—— 

Mr. DODARO. Right. Yes. We appropriate a million at a time. We 

ought to be able to eliminate a million at a time. I mean, that 

is—— 

Senator COBURN. Eliminating is a lot easier. 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. Right. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for—— 

Mr. DODARO. One thing, Mr. Chairman. On your question, Dr. 

Coburn—my staff let me know that OMB must consult with this 

Committee on new goals every year in the cross-cutting areas, and 

so they are supposed to establish new ones for next year so that 

the consultation process should really be beginning right now. And 

I am concerned about the leadership gaps over at OMB and what 

that means for the governmentwide efforts that are going to occur, 

whether it is the GPRA Modernization Act, Data Center Consolidation, Federal real property. I mean, OMB was actively involved in 

those areas. 

You do not have a Deputy for Management right now. You do not 

have a Comptroller right now. And so that area—and I am going 

to try to outreach to the OMB Director and try to work with her, 

and if the new Deputy for Budget gets put in place. But they are 

going to be focused a lot on the budget process, based on my experience. But I am going to try to do my best to try to work in that 

area, but I am concerned about it and I just wanted to underscore 

your concern about it and I think it is a valid concern. 

Chairman CARPER. When the President nominated Sylvia 

Burwell to be OMB Director, I found out that she worked in the 

White House in the late 1990s and she had been Bob Rubin’s Chief 

of Staff. She had been Erskine Bowles’ deputy when he was Chief 

of Staff to the President in the second term of President Clinton. 
29 

And I found out that she had, for a couple years, been Deputy 

OMB Director. 

And I called Erskine Bowles and I said, what can you tell me 

about Sylvia Burwell, and he said, ‘‘I have known people that 

have’’—she is from West Virginia. He said, ‘‘I have known people 

that are that nice and have interpersonal skills that are that good. 

And,’’ he said, ‘‘I have known other people who are just really 

smart, scary smart. And,’’ he said, ‘‘I have known other people who 

were just really good at getting things done, a lot of things done 

at once. But I have never known one person who does all those 

things as well as she does.’’ 

And I think she has great potential, but she has to get a really 

strong team around her and part of that is the Administration 

nominating good people. I think Brian Deese has been nominated 

as the Deputy. I think he is one of those. He just nominated a fellow who I just met with this week to be head of the regulatory side, 

the OIRA side. I do not know that they have anybody in mind yet 

for what President Obama initially called his Performance Officer, 

which would be the OMB Deputy for Management. 

But I think the Administration has a responsibility to find good 

people, convince good people to go through this nominating process. 

Unfortunately, it is not a pleasant process. When I was Governor 

of Delaware, I was nominated by President Clinton to become a 

member of the Amtrak Board. It was not fun. By the end of the 

process, I said to him, if I had known it was going to be this much 

headache, I would not have agreed to do it. And I love trains. I love 

passenger rail. 

But we do not make it easy. In some cases, when people are willing to accept these nominations and go through the process, we 

hold them up for ridicule. They take time away from their jobs, 

their families, and then they get ridiculed in the end. It is just almost a poisonous situation, and then we prolong these processes for 

months. No wonder we have these vacancies and a lot of acting directors. It is not good if it is a Democratic President or a Republican President. 

But there is an opportunity here at OMB for us to help the Administration to build a strong team, a team that we can work with, 

that you can work with, and we are determined to do that, and we 

take the next step later today by reporting out the name of Brian 

Deese out of Committee, and hopefully the Budget Committee will 

do the same thing very soon and we will get him in place and take 

it from there. 

If you have some names of people you think that would be good, 

really good for the Administration to consider for the management 

side of OMB, the deputy that deals with the management side— 

I have a couple of ideas, I am sure you do, too—please share those 

names with us and certainly share those names with Sylvia 

Burwell. I think the relationship between the two of you, with her 

and you and our relationship, this is—if we are going to actually 

change the culture, obviously, the leadership of the President is important. But these relationships are critically important, as well. 

GAO, next steps, and if you can bear with me for about another 

10 minutes, we will be about ready to wrap it up. 
30 

1The chart referenced by Senator Carper appears in the Appendix on page 40. 

But just looking ahead, I understand that your 2013 report basically completes this 3-year systematic examination across the Federal Government to try to identify fragmentation, overlap, and duplication. And let me just ask you if, looking ahead for GAO, what 

GAO’s plans for next steps and for future work on these topics that 

you have identified as you try to fulfill your statutory mandate 

going forward. 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. First, we will continue to look for opportunities 

and do individual reviews in targeted areas. We have completed, as 

you point out, our commitment to make the first 3 years, looking 

for all major areas across the Federal Government, but there are 

still areas that we think bear a little bit of scrutiny, so we will be 

targeting those areas over the next year and doing regular reviews. 

Second, we will be providing an annual report, which the law requires, that would both highlight new areas that we have identified 

as well as providing a report card or status report on all the previous areas that we have recommended. 

The other thing that we have not started yet, and I would like 

to, but it depends on how our resources end up in the appropriation 

process, is looking at overlap and duplication between FederalState levels and perhaps local levels. I have had some conversations with the State auditors and local auditors and they think that 

there are some possibilities there, too. So we would be looking at 

that. 

But, unfortunately, right now, our staffing level is the lowest it 

has been since 1935. We are down about 14 percent from 2010 levels. And so we just had our appropriation hearing yesterday on the 

Senate side and we have had it on the House side, so I have asked 

for some of that staffing to be restored because I think we provide 

a good return on the investment for the Congress and the country. 

So I am hopeful that will be the case. 

Chairman CARPER. Who held that hearing? 

Mr. DODARO. Senator Shaheen and Ranking Member Senator 

Hoeven was there, along with Senator Boozman is on that Committee. 

Chairman CARPER. OK. Thank you. 

Mr. DODARO. Senator Begich is also on that Committee, and I am 

going to be talking with him. 

Chairman CARPER. Actually, we have cloned him so he is filling 

in any number of places. [Laughter.] 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. So those are our next steps. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Good. Two more questions, if I 

could. The first deals with fragmentation versus overlap versus duplication. In your 2013 report, GAO created visual—here we go, 

you can see it on this chart1—visual representations—I like to say 

a picture is worth a thousand words, but this is a pretty good picture here to describe when programs are fragmented, when there 

is overlap, and where there is actually duplication. I find these 

visuals to be helpful. Fragmentation on the left, overlap in the middle, duplication on the right. 

But let us, if we could, just take a moment and look at fragmentation, which is on the left. In our Nation’s biodefense efforts, 
31 

numerous agencies have a unique stake, as you know, in biosurveillance. Specifically, the Agriculture Department monitors 

plant and animal disease and the Centers for Disease Control 

(CDC) monitors human disease. In this case, the appropriate solution is not for Congress to eliminate all the programs but one, but 

rather for these agencies to try to strive to achieve better coordination among the programs. 

An example of what was potentially overlap is in job training. 

One program might help veterans. A different program might help 

disabled folks. And while these programs might have similar goals, 

separate programs might make sense—I think they probably do— 

given the different needs of each customer base. And, once again, 

I believe the solution to solving the problem of overlap is not necessarily to eliminate all but one program or to consolidate the different programs into one large program. Rather, we need to determine which programs are performing the best, where there is unnecessary duplication, and how best to allocate the resources. 

So with that as a context, let me just ask, to what extent would 

you say that the issues identified by GAO in these three reports 

fall into each of these different buckets, the fragmentation bucket, 

the overlap bucket, and the duplication? 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. I would say we find most of the areas in the 

overlap and fragmentation area as opposed to the exact duplication 

area, and that is because we have been limited in our ability to 

find the duplication. 

The way we look at this, Senator, is that we see fragmentation 

and overlap being harbingers of duplication if not addressed, and 

we do not put anything in the fragmentation area that we do not 

think has inefficiencies over time. But the overlap is where we 

have identified the most areas. Where we have identified duplication, say, in the Catfish Office and others, we have made recommendations to eliminate it. But I think there is probably more 

duplication than we were able to exactly hone in on because of limitations in performance information and cost information of the 

agencies. 

For example, we identified over 600 different programs in the energy area, energy efficiencies, and we could not—there was not 

enough information to find out how many of those programs were 

duplicative. They did not keep the information necessary for us to 

be able to do that. So we focused on the wind area, there are 82 

programs focused on using wind as an alternative energy source, 

and in 18 percent of those cases, we could not find anything out 

because they did not separate out the expenditures for wind versus 

other types of alternative energy. Then we did find seven of those 

programs, there was duplication. Now, the President has proposed 

to eliminate one of those seven programs in the budget submission. 

That is the way we have looked at it. 

So I think there is more potential in duplication than what we 

have showed, but we have not been able to have the data necessary 

to do that. 

Chairman CARPER. Good. Last question, and this one deals with 

coordination of research and development (R&D) at the Department of Homeland Security. In this year’s report, you looked at 

R&D investments at the Department of Homeland Security and 
32 

found a lack of guidance that apparently has led to potential overlap and fragmentation. One of the problems that GAO found was 

that the Department of Homeland Security and its Science and 

Technology (S&T) Directorate had not developed a policy defining 

who was responsible for coordinating research and development. 

I do not know if you could take a shot at this, but could you 

elaborate maybe on the root causes of the problems at the Department of Homeland Security and what the Department and this 

Committee ought to be doing to address these problems? 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. I will ask Cathleen Berrick, who is the Managing Director of our Homeland Security and Justice areas, to 

elaborate, but part of the problem is we found six different components within the Department were letting these contracts. So you 

had a diffusion of responsibilities within the Department. I think 

there was a lot of urgency in the sense after September 11 to get 

contracts let during that period of time. Part of the problem was 

the formulation and integration of the Department as a new entity 

over a period of years. These were some of the reasons that led to 

the problem, and having an integrated management structure, 

which was one of the reasons we had put them on the High-Risk 

List. 

But Cathy can elaborate more specifically. 

Chairman CARPER. Good. Ms. Berrick. 

Ms. BERRICK. Yes. I think one of the core causes relates back to 

the High-Risk designation that GAO has related to the management of the Department, and basically, we said that DHS needs to 

put more emphasis on strengthening its core management functions, including developing policies and procedures to strengthen 

those areas, and we are talking about acquisition management and 

financial management, information technology management, but 

also to coordinate those functions throughout the Department. 

In the R&D area, there are three offices within DHS that have 

statutory authorities related to R&D. That is the S&T Office, it is 

the Coast Guard, and it is the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office 

(DNDO). However, other components within DHS legally are allowed to engage in R&D as long as they coordinate that R&D 

through the S&T Office. 

The problem that has happened over the years is that R&D has 

not been coordinated, and so you have situations where multiple 

components are pursuing similar R&D efforts without coordinating 

those. One example is there were five separate contracts to explore 

R&D for advanced algorithms for explosive detection. Four were 

with S&T and one was with TSA. Those were not coordinated. 

Another negative effect of this lack of coordination is that DHS 

does not have visibility over how much they are spending related 

to R&D. We looked at expenditures for R&D for fiscal year 2011, 

where in that year DHS had about $750 million in outlays for 

R&D. We found another $255 million that DHS was not aware of 

that they had spent on R&D. 

So I think it gets back to this High-Risk Area of strengthening 

the management of the Department. Part of that is coordinating 

these management functions throughout the Department and making sure that the policies are being implemented consistently. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Good. Thanks. 
33 

I am going to—this will be my last point, my last question on 

this, but I just want to make sure I understand it. Who do you 

think—and Cathy, you can stay at the table, if you would—but who 

do you think should have this responsibility for coordinating R&D 

at the Department? I just want to make sure I understand it. Who 

do you think should be responsible for coordinating R&D at the Department? 

Ms. BERRICK. The S&T Office, has the legal responsibility to do 

that. They have not been doing that as effectively as they should. 

They have some efforts where they will have agreements with specific components for certain R&D efforts. They also have what is 

called integrated product teams, but we think more needs to be 

done. When you talk to the components within DHS, the majority 

of the components feel that it is not clear how they are supposed 

to coordinate related to R&D. 

So we think S&T needs to put out new policies that are very 

clear and explicit with the components on what the expectations 

are related to coordination, put some performance measures in 

place and follow through and make sure that these R&D efforts actually are being coordinated. S&T agreed with those recommendations. 

Chairman CARPER. OK. 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. In addition to that, I would suggest that the 

Under Secretary for Management, through the budget formulation 

process, make this crystal clear so it is visible. For example, Cathy and her team identified $225 million of 

spending in this area that was not visible to the Department. So 

while S&T has a responsibility for policies I think the Under Secretary for Management can create tools to reinforce that and create 

transparency and accountability for department-level management 

to support them. It is always difficult for these entities to deal with 

their peers across the department unless they have support from 

department leadership. 

Chairman CARPER. Would that be support from people like 

former Deputy Secretary Jane Holl Lute, who has just stepped 

down? 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. 

Chairman CARPER. She just stepped down. 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. It might—it will not help now. 

Chairman CARPER. Yes, I know. I think she—Tom Coburn and 

I are big admirers of her. 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. 

Chairman CARPER. And I think she took very seriously her responsibilities with respect to management of the Department, as 

does the Secretary, and we regret her departure. I think she has 

gone back to work in the United Nations for a while on cyber 

issues. 

But we are going to meet later today with Rand Beers, who is— 

on an interim basis, he is the Acting Deputy Secretary. And as I 

said earlier, it is like one of, I think, six, a half-dozen, senior positions that are in Homeland Security that are held by people that 

are in acting status. 

But my understanding is Jane Holl Lute, when she has testified 

before us as Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, she took very 
34 

seriously—I think the Department takes very seriously—the HighRisk List that GAO promulgates every other year. And my understanding is she has actually come and met with you and just gone 

through the list ‘to see where they are making progress, where 

they are not, maybe some areas they think that you all need to 

rethink what you are doing. Was that helpful to them and to you? 

Mr. DODARO. Oh, definitely. I mean, we had many discussions 

over the time she was there, and initially, they had questions about 

the specific things we thought they needed to do to be able to get 

off the list. So we sent a letter over—this was back in 2010, I believe—about a 29-page letter that spelled out everything that needed to be done. I think that was a breakthrough in our discussions 

and she reacted positively to that. They put a plan together. 

After that, Rafael Borras came on, and they have developed more 

detailed plans. And now, on a regular basis, Cathy meets with 

them, and I have met with Jane. I met with the Secretary. I met 

with Rand Beers when he was head of the transition team over 

there before. And so we have had an ongoing dialogue that I think 

has really been very helpful and they have made good progress as 

a result of that. 

I try to do that with every department and agency that is on the 

High-Risk List, and our team, to be able to do that. And then we 

also have had these joint meetings with OMB that I mentioned earlier, with the agencies on the list, and we had some of those with 

the Department of Homeland Security, as well. And Jeff Zients was 

very helpful in that regard, as well as Jane. 

Chairman CARPER. OK. Well, we have probably taken enough of 

your time today. I just want to conclude by giving you a chance to 

maybe offer a thought or two in closing, something that we talked 

about, something you would like to just underline, put an exclamation point after, reemphasize, and then I will give the benediction and we can think about going to have some lunch. 

Mr. DODARO. OK. I would just close with two things. One, I think 

that the congressional oversight in these areas is pivotal to making 

progress in addressing the overlap and duplication area. I would 

encourage you to think outside the box and working with other 

Committees to bring about positive change in this area, and also 

with the Budget and Appropriation Committees, who have broader 

jurisdiction over some of these areas. 

And then, second, I would say that the successful implementation of the GPRA Modernization Act, will not happen without this 

Committee’s sustained congressional oversight over the years. I 

think it is pivotal that begin now and occur on a sustained basis, 

particularly in a number of targeted areas, both on the cross-cutting governmentwide goals that are set in place and also having 

agencies identify fully who they should be dealing with over time. 

Also by making sure OMB is playing an appropriate role in assuring that this is implemented appropriately on a cross-cutting basis, 

not just by the Deputy for Management and the management team, 

but through the budget process. I think the budget process offers 

a powerful tool for dealing with these issues and OMB should use 

metrics and measures in deciding how to propose how resources be 

allocated to the Congress to begin with. 
35 

So if you get that process in place and you get congressional 

oversight, then I think we will have a fighting chance to make 

much more headway in these areas. 

Chairman CARPER. Good. All right. This has been illuminating 

and enjoyable, and again, we are just very grateful for everyone, 

including the people that are here with you—Cathy, thank you— 

and others who are not here at GAO. 

I have taken a note that I need to talk to Senator Shaheen and 

Senator Hoeven, and I will try to do that later today. 

Going back to the Department of Homeland Security, one of the, 

I think, areas maybe in the President’s budget, I think they may 

have actually trimmed back the money that the President is proposing for management in DHS, including at the under secretary 

level, and we do not think that is a smart decision. So, hopefully, 

we can take the invitation from Senator Landrieu, who chairs the 

Appropriations Subcommittee for Homeland Security, and try to 

get that number back to a better place. 

But this hearing record will remain open for 15 days—that is 

until June 6 at 5 p.m.—for the submission of statements and questions for the record. 

I want to thank our staffs for helping to prepare for this and for 

your willingness to sit in for yourself and Danny Werfel here today 

and do an admirable job. I guess you had Cathy’s help. But you did 

an admirable job pinch-hitting for him, as well. 

With that, this hearing is adjourned. Thanks so much. 

[Whereupon, at 11:53 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

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