From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov

Transcript for: U.S. Comptroller General Testifies to House on GAO's
2023 High Risk List Update

Description: In his April 26, 2023, opening statement to the U.S. House
Committee on Oversight and Accountability, 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-23-106686, HIGH RISK: Efforts Made to Achieve
Progress Need to Be Maintained and Expanded to Fully Address All Areas 

Released: April 2023

 [ Gene Dodaro: ]

  Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Ranking Member Raskin, members of the
committee. I'm very pleased to be here today to talk about our latest
high risk update. The story of this update is progress, but many
pressing, serious, consequential problems still need to be addressed. 
  
  On the progress front, and I would commend the Congress for a number
of things that they did to contribute to this progress, first, was to
provide funding to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which is
coming off the list. Congress also provided funding for surface
transportation, dealt with some fiscal relief to the Postal Service over
this past year. Passed a number of provisions to build better climate
resilience up front. And this dealt with many of the issues and it
contributed greatly to the progress as well as efforts by the executive
branch.
  
  Now, there's progress in 16 areas, two of which we're going to take
off the list. One is the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. When we
were here last time, the multiemployer program was due to be insolvent
in 2026 and due to the action that the Congress has taken now and some
improvements that have helped in the single employer program, the PBGC
now rates the risk of insolvency very low for the next 15 years. So
we're going to take that off the list. Now just because it's off the
list doesn't mean it's out of sight. We're going to continue to monitor
it because it doesn't solve the long term problems in that program. 
  
  We're also taking the 2020 Census off the list because of improvements
made. This was the first census with an Internet response. They were
able to contain the cost growth and annual censuses from the pattern
that had emerged earlier. They delivered it during the pandemic. There's
still a lot of issues in terms of the quality of the count that need to
be worked on. Going forward, again, we'll keep an eye on this area as
planning for the 2030 Census ramps up going forward.        
  
  Now, there are a number of areas still on the list that I think are
very significant that I want to point out. Number one is cybersecurity.
And I first added that to the High Risk list across government in 1997.
I still don't think the federal government's operating at a pace
commensurate with the evolving grave threat in the cybersecurity area,
not only to protect its own assets, but critical infrastructure
protection throughout the United States. Administration has just put out
a national strategy that we've been calling for, but it does not yet
have a detailed implementation plan with milestones, resources, clear
roles and responsibilities, so we're going to need to continue to focus
on this area. We have 850 open recommendations yet in the cybersecurity
area that we've made. And so that area is very important, I believe, for
Congress to continue to focus on.
  
  The second is drug misuse. We added this area a while back, you know,
very concerned in the last 12 month period that the CDC has been
measuring there been over 107,000 overdose deaths. This is the most in
the history of the United States. It's been over 100,000 now for the
past two or three years. The trend is not good. We've called for a
national strategy of coordination, not only among federal agencies, but
between federal and state and local governments, the health care sector,
the law enforcement sector. 
  
  Just this month, earlier, the Office of National Drug Control Policy
put out an emerging threat alert because of the combination of fentanyl
with xylazine, which is a worse tranquilizer as becoming very
problematic in this area and leading to additional complications. So
they have to put out a report now within 90 days on how they're going to
deal with this next evolving issue in this area. 
  
  Lastly, I'll point out the area of oversight of medical products and
safety. Now, most of our products now come from foreign sources. We've
encouraged FDA to have more oversight over that area, and I think we
still are at risk of drug shortages. And the medical supply chain issue
needs to be dealt with much more effectively than it's been dealt with
before, and we have some suggestions on how that could be done. 
  
  And so I'm happy to talk about any of these high risk areas in the
question and answer section. I appreciate the opportunity to be here
today to discuss these very important issues with all of you and
hopefully help set the oversight table going forward.

[ End ]

For more info, check out our report GAO-23-106686 at: GAO.gov