From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov

Transcript for: U.S. Comptroller General Testifies to U.S. Senate on
GAO's 2023 High Risk List Update

Description: In his April 20, 2023, testimony to the U.S. Senate
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, U.S.
Comptroller General Gene L. Dodaro, head of the GAO, spoke about GAO's
2023 High Risk List update. The list highlights 37 areas across the
federal government that are vulnerable to waste, fraud, abuse, and
mismanagement, or that need broad reform.

Related GAO Works: GAO-23-106674, HIGH RISK: Efforts Made to Achieve
Progress Need to Be Maintained and Expanded to Fully Address All Areas

Released: April 2023

[ Gene Dodaro: ]

  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Paul, members of the
committee. It's a pleasure to be here. I appreciate all the kind words
about GAO. We enjoy working with this committee and other committees
across the Congress to make our government more accountable, efficient
and effective. The basic story with this High Risk update is that
there's been good progress in certain areas, due to congressional
executive branch actions, but there's still serious, very consequential
problems that need to be addressed, that need greater attention from the
congress and executive branch.

  On the progress side, Mr. Chairman, you pointed out 16 areas improved,
two to the point that we're removing them from the list. First is the
Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, multi-employer pension program.
Congress appropriated funds. That program was slated to be insolvent in
2026. Now, the insolvency dates have been pushed off until 2051. The
single employer program has improved, and so PBGC rates the risk very
low of insolvency for either program for the next 15 years. So we're
going to take them off the list. Now just because they come off the
list, they're not out of sight. So we'll still continue to monitor
what's going on with those programs.

  We're also removing the 2020 census. They were able to contain for the
first time the growth in spending, the cost of the census. They
successfully deployed an internet response rate this last time and they
took all our recommendations. And added DHS to bring down cybersecurity
risk to the census. So we're taking them off. Again, we'll continue to
watch that and whether or not the risks build up toward the 2030 census.
And if so, we'll add it back to the back to the list.

  Now, there's been progress in other areas. Congress provided stable
funding, at least for the next five years, to the surface transportation
area. It didn't solve the problem long term. So it's still on the list.
But there was good progress. Congress passed the Postal Service Reform
Act that eliminated some of the financial pressures on the Postal
Service. But the Postal Service business model is still not viable in
the future. They continue to lose money and that remains on the list as
well.

  There were efforts made to pass a number of programs to build in
climate resilience up front. So our high risk area of limiting the
federal government's fiscal exposure by better managing and building
resilience in up front was addressed. Congress has provided some
additional resources to the IRS, which deals with our high risk area of
tax administration on that area. So good progress. Congress is to be
commended for all the action that they've taken, as well as the
executive branch in implementing some of these reforms.

  Now, we added three new areas to the High Risk List. One is HHS's
leadership and coordination in responding to public health emergencies.
Over the last decade, we've seen the failure after failure to be
adequately prepared. Most recently during the pandemic, the roles and
responsibilities need to be better clarified, better data, better
communication, consistent and clear to the public. So and I fear we're
not any better off prepared now for the next emergency than we were for
the last one. So I want to put on the list the highlighted so that it
stays in the public eye and with the Congress and the administration.

  We also added the unemployment insurance program. Here we've estimated
that at a minimum there was $60 billion of fraud. We're working on a
higher end estimate now, but due to significant fraud and improper
payments, which it was occurring even before the pandemic at a much less
level and the need to reform the state systems, our systems at the state
level are very archaic. They're not well postured. The program's not
really designed to meet the modern needs of our economy and our
workforce recently.

  And we just are adding the management of the Bureau of Prisons.
There's been problems in staffing, which has led to some concerns about
inmate and staff safety and also their efforts to evaluate programs that
are intended to help deal with the recidivism issue, they haven't been
very well evaluated and and improved in those areas.

  Now with the other areas remaining on the list, I'd like to highlight
a few. One is cybersecurity. The federal government is still not
operating at a pace commensurate with the evolving great threat. This
has been something I've been focused on for many years now and the
national strategy just came out here recently, but there's not yet an
implementation plan to be able to implement that strategy so that they
promise to produce one. It needs to be who's responsible for what? How
much money do we need? How are we going to measure performance and
improvements in those areas? So cybersecurity remains a grave threat to
our economy and our national security. It needs to be better addressed.

  Second is drug misuse. We added that to the High Risk List a few years
ago. The latest 12 month statistics show over 107,000 people died from
overdoses. There's been problems now not only with fentanyl and opioids,
but with xylazine, which is a tranquilizer given to animals being mixed
with the fentanyl, which is causing even more severe problems that we
have. So we need a national strategy needs to be filled out. Needs to be
implemented successfully, we need more coordination with state and local
governments, law enforcement, health care providers to deal with this
issue.

  The last area I'll mention is drug oversight of medical products and
device safety, which FDA is still not in a good position to deal with
potential drug shortages in the economy and also to have oversight over
foreign production of medical products, whether it's pharmaceuticals or
medical devices. Most of what's consumed in the United States right now
is produced in other countries. And FDA has to have more of an effective
strategy for the global supply chain, not just domestic production in
the United States.

  So we're committed to continuing to work on these high risk areas to
make greater progress. They're all very important to public health and
safety or national security and could save billions of additional
dollars. So I thank you for the opportunity to be here, and I look
forward to your questions.

[ End ]

For more info, check out our report GAO-23-106674 at: GAO.gov