The federal government invests more than $80 billion annually in IT, but many of these investments fail to meet cost and schedule expectations or make significant contributions to mission-related outcomes. We have previously testified that the federal government has spent billions of dollars on failed IT investments, such as the Department of Defense’s (DOD) Expeditionary Combat Support System, which was canceled in December 2012, after spending more than a billion dollars and failing to deploy within 5 years of initially obligating funds; the Department of Homeland Security’s Secure Border Initiative Network program, which was ended in January 2011, after the department obligated more than $1 billion to the program, because it did not meet cost-effectiveness and viability standards; the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) Financial and Logistics Integrated Technology Enterprise program, which was intended to be delivered by 2014 at a total estimated cost of $609 million, but was terminated in October 2011 due to challenges in managing the program; the Office of Personnel Management’s Retirement Systems Modernization program, which was canceled in February 2011, after spending approximately $231 million on the agency’s third attempt to automate the processing of federal employee retirement claims; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, DOD, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s National Polar- orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System, which was a tri- agency weather satellite program that the White House Office of Science and Technology stopped in February 2010 after the program spent 16 years and almost $5 billion; and the VA Scheduling Replacement Project, which was terminated in September 2009 after spending an estimated $127 million over 9 years. These and other failed IT projects often suffered from a lack of disciplined and effective management, such as project planning, requirements definition, and program oversight and governance. In many instances, agencies have not consistently applied best practices that are critical to successfully acquiring IT investments. Federal IT projects have also failed due to a lack of oversight and governance. Executive-level governance and oversight across the government has often been ineffective, specifically from chief information officers (CIO). For example, we have reported that not all CIOs have the authority to review and approve the entire agency IT portfolio and that CIOs’ authority was limited. This has also been highlighted by Congress—the recently enacted law reforming federal IT acquisition is intended to, among other things, strengthen CIO authority and provide the oversight IT projects need. Although the executive branch has undertaken numerous initiatives to better manage the more than $80 billion that is annually invested in IT, federal IT investments too frequently fail or incur cost overruns and schedule slippages, while contributing little to mission-related outcomes. In light of these challenges, we recently introduced a new government- wide high-risk area, Improving the Management of IT Acquisitions and Operations. This area highlights several critical IT initiatives in need of additional congressional oversight, including reviews of troubled projects, an emphasis on incremental development, a key transparency website, reviews of agencies’ operational investments, and efforts to streamline agencies’ portfolios of IT investments. Implementation of these initiatives has been inconsistent, and more work remains to demonstrate progress in achieving IT acquisition outcomes. The recent IT reform legislation holds promise for improving agencies’ acquisition of IT, and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is developing guidance for agencies to implement its provisions. Implementing these provisions, along with our outstanding recommendations, is necessary for agencies to demonstrate progress in addressing this high-risk area. In January 2010, the Federal CIO began leading TechStat sessions— face-to-face meetings to terminate or turn around IT investments that are failing or are not producing results. These meetings involve OMB and agency leadership and are intended to increase accountability and transparency and improve performance. OMB reported that federal agencies achieved over $3 billion in cost savings or avoidances as a result of these sessions in 2010. Subsequently, OMB empowered agency CIOs to hold their own TechStat sessions within their respective agencies. We have since reported that OMB and selected agencies held multiple TechStats, but additional OMB oversight was needed to ensure that these meetings were having the appropriate impact on underperforming projects and that resulting cost savings were valid. Specifically, OMB reported conducting TechStats at 23 federal agencies covering 55 investments, 30 of which were considered medium or high risk at the time of the TechStat. However, these reviews accounted for less than 20 percent of medium- or high-risk investments government-wide. As of August 2012, there were 162 such at-risk investments across the government. Further, we reviewed four selected agencies and found they had held TechStats on 28 investments. While these reviews were generally conducted in accordance with OMB guidance, areas for improvement existed. We concluded that until OMB and agencies develop plans to address these investments, the investments would likely remain at risk. Among other things, we recommended that OMB require agencies to address high-risk investments. OMB generally agreed with this recommendation. However, over the last 2 years, OMB has not conducted any TechStat reviews. In particular, as of March 2015, the last TechStat was held in March 2013 and OMB has not listed any savings from TechStats in any of its required quarterly reporting to Congress since June 2012. Highlighting the importance of focusing more oversight on high-risk initiatives, in our most recent high-risk report we identified a number of ongoing investments with significant issues requiring attention: The Department of Health and Human Services’ HealthCare.gov website and its supporting systems, which were to facilitate the establishment of a health insurance marketplace by January 2014, encountered significant cost increases, schedule slips, and delayed functionality. In a series of reports we identified numerous planning, oversight, security, and system development challenges faced by this program and made recommendations to address them. The Department of Agriculture’s Farm Program Modernization, which is intended to modernize the IT systems supporting the Farm Service Agency’s 37 farm programs, had not implemented a number of key management and oversight practices to ensure its successful completion. In July 2011, we reported on issues with the reliability of the program’s cost estimate, weaknesses in its management approach, and a lack of clarity in its governance structure. In our report, we recommended that the agency take action to address these issues. The Department of Commerce’s Census Enterprise Data Collection and Processing investment was initiated in fiscal year 2015 and is expected to be the backbone of the Census Bureau’s target IT architecture. Particular attention to this area is warranted in order to avoid repeating the mistakes of the 2010 Decennial Census, in which the bureau had to abandon its plans for the use of handheld data collection devices, due in part to fundamental weaknesses in its implementation of key IT management practices. DOD’s Defense Enterprise Accounting and Management System (DEAMS), which is the agency’s planned accounting system designed to provide accurate, reliable, and timely financial information, has experienced significant delays and cost increases. In March 2012, we reported that DEAMS faced a 2-year deployment delay and an estimated cost increase of about $500 million from its original life- cycle cost estimate of $1.1 billion, an increase of approximately 45 percent. Further, we reported that assessments by DOD users had identified operational problems with the system, such as data accuracy issues, an inability to generate auditable financial reports, and the need for manual workarounds. We recommended that DOD take actions to ensure the correction of system problems prior to further system deployment, including user training. DOD generally concurred with our recommendations and described its efforts to address them. DOD’s and VA’s initiatives to modernize their electronic health records systems are intended to address sharing data among the departments’ health information systems, but achieving this has been a challenge for these agencies over the last 15 years. In February 2013, the two departments’ Secretaries announced that instead of developing a new common, integrated electronic health record system, the departments would focus on achieving interoperability between separate DOD and VA systems. The departments’ change and history of challenges in improving their health information systems heighten concern about whether they will be successful. The Department of Homeland Security’s United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Transformation program is to transition USCIS from a fragmented, paper-based filing environment to a consolidated, paperless environment using electronic case management tools, but it is unclear whether the department is positioned to successfully deliver these capabilities. For example, it has not yet demonstrated the extent to which it can meet six key capability requirements using its new system architecture. Further, between July 2011 and September 2014, the program’s life-cycle cost estimate increased from approximately $2.1 billion to approximately $2.6 billion. The Department of Homeland Security’s Human Resources IT investment is to consolidate, integrate, and modernize the department’s human resources IT infrastructure, but it has experienced a long history of issues. As of May 2015, this investment was rated as “moderately high risk” by the department’s CIO. According to the CIO, this investment has experienced significant challenges that have inhibited delivered capabilities from being accepted by users, but the department is working to address them. The Department of Transportation’s Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) is an advanced technology air- traffic management system that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) anticipates will replace the current ground-radar-based system, at an expected cost of $15 billion to $22 billion through fiscal year 2025. However, NextGen has significantly increased the number, cost, and complexity of FAA’s acquisition programs. The interdependencies among these programs heighten the importance of remaining on time and within budget. Accordingly, we recommended that FAA, among other things, require cost and schedule risk analysis, independent cost estimates, and integrated master schedules.