Date: 2000-04-05
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. I thank the gentleman from Ohio for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker. several Members have come to the floor to tout the findings of the General Accounting Office as necessary proof of the proposed reforms in this legislation. In most instances. I believe that GAO provides an important and impartial perspective to enable the Congress to assess the circumstances underlying any policy issue. I believe we all share. this view. But I have had time to reassess the information provided last year by the GAO. Frankly. Mr. Speaker. the more I have read and learned. the more concerned I have become about GAOs performance during the conduct of this investigation. Contrary to the assertions made by the majority. I am sure that many Members of this House would be surprised to learn that GAO never filed a final report for their investigation. In fact. all of the assertions attributed to GAO were based upon preliminary findings. findings that in many instances were partial and failed to include im. portant information. Rarely have I seen such an example of cut and run analysis. I want to take just a few minutes to share some examples for the benefit of Members unfamiliar with this investigation. For example. the Committee on Resources heard from GAO that the Fish and Wildlife Service had lost roughly $85 million in Federal aid funds. But upon closer inspection of the Fish and Wildlife Services own internal account reconciliation process. it was revealed that only about $7 million was unreconciled at the time that GAO made that claim. GAO did not provide any reason for this oversight in their analysis. To clarify this matter further. I am pleased to report to my colleagues that it is my understanding that the Services reconciliation process has now reduced the outstanding total to around $700.000. A full accounting for all funds is expected soon. More importantly. it appears that these funds were never lost in the first place. Had GAOs investigators gone to the Services own Division of Finance. they would have found corresponding account information to fill in the gaps between the incomplete financial records kept in the Federal Aid Office. But GAO investigators never bothered to make a trip to Denver to look into this matter. We also heard from GAO that the Fish and Wildlife Service was negligent in implementing GAOs recommendations after GAOs 1993 investigation into the Sports Fish Restoration Program. But in fact. the Fish and Wildlife Service has implemented almost all of GAOs previous recommendations. However. again. GAO failed to include in its preliminary findings any recognition that the Service had. in fact. implemented its recommendations. of the Federal agency under scrutiny. But because the GAO declined to file a final report. these errors were allowed to stand uncontested. Mr. Speaker. I would like to submit for the RECORD this table of reforms that have been initiated by the Fish and Wildlife Service to address concerns raised by the GAO and by other critics of the financial management practices of the Office of Federal Aid. They speak for themselves. These are just a few of the glaring examples of the flaws in the GAOs analysis. and I am left to wonder whether GAO really has. in fact. provided an objective analysis has in fact provided an objective analysis or has been more motivated to justify the preconceptions jraised by the majority or the GAO itself. The gentleman from Alaska has repeatedly referred to the statement made by the GAO asserting that the Office of Federal Aid was one of the worstmanaged programs GAO has ever investigated. While I make absolutely no apologies for the shoddy past financial management at the Office of Federal Aid. I find GAOs performance lacking and disappointing. The Congress relies on GAO to make these kinds of objective analyses. and they should be beyond reproach: In this case. I do not think that is the case. I will get into more detail in general debate about some of the corrective actions that the committee has taken. some of which are justified and others that I think are going to keep this agency from doing the type of proper job it should do in administering these programs. Mr. Speaker. I submit for the RECORD the table of reforms I referred to earlier.