[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
ACHIEVING TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN FEDERAL SPENDING
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JUNE 14, 2011
__________
Serial No. 112-63
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov
http://www.house.gov/reform
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
DARRELL E. ISSA, California, Chairman
DAN BURTON, Indiana ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland,
JOHN L. MICA, Florida Ranking Minority Member
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
JIM JORDAN, Ohio Columbia
JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
CONNIE MACK, Florida JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
TIM WALBERG, Michigan WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan JIM COOPER, Tennessee
ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
RAUL R. LABRADOR, Idaho DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee PETER WELCH, Vermont
JOE WALSH, Illinois JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky
TREY GOWDY, South Carolina CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
DENNIS A. ROSS, Florida JACKIE SPEIER, California
FRANK C. GUINTA, New Hampshire
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas
MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania
Lawrence J. Brady, Staff Director
John D. Cuaderes, Deputy Staff Director
Robert Borden, General Counsel
Linda A. Good, Chief Clerk
David Rapallo, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on June 14, 2011.................................... 1
Statement of:
Devaney, Earl, chairman, Recovery Accountability and
Transparency Board......................................... 5
Miller, Ellen, executive director, Sunlight Foundation;
Patrick Quinlan, chief executive officer, Rivet Software;
Kim Wallin, controller, State of Nevada; and Craig
Jennings, director of Federal fiscal policy, OMB Watch..... 32
Jennings, Craig.......................................... 53
Miller, Ellen............................................ 32
Quinlan, Patrick......................................... 41
Wallin, Kim.............................................. 48
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Maryland, letter dated June 13, 2011.......... 79
Devaney, Earl, chairman, Recovery Accountability and
Transparency Board, prepared statement of.................. 8
Jennings, Craig, director of Federal fiscal policy, OMB
Watch, prepared statement of............................... 55
Miller, Ellen, executive director, Sunlight Foundation,
prepared statement of...................................... 34
Quinlan, Patrick, chief executive officer, Rivet Software,
prepared statement of...................................... 43
Towns, Hon. Edolphus, a Representative in Congress from the
State of New York, prepared statement of................... 17
Wallin, Kim, controller, State of Nevada, prepared statement
of......................................................... 50
ACHIEVING TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN FEDERAL SPENDING
----------
TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2011
House of Representatives,
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:35 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Darrell E. Issa
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Issa, Jordan, Chaffetz, Lankford,
Amash, Labrador, Meehan, DesJarlais, Gowdy, Farenthold, Kelly,
Cummings, Towns, Tierney, Connolly, and Quigley.
Staff present: Ali Ahmad, communications advisor; Robert
Borden, general counsel; Will L. Boyington and Drew Colliatie,
staff assistants; Molly Boyl, parliamentarian; Lawrence J.
Brady, staff director; Benjamin Stroud Cole, policy advisor and
investigative analyst; John Cuaderes, deputy staff director;
Adam P. Fromm, director of Member services and committee
operations; Linda Good, chief clerk; Christopher Hixon, deputy
chief counsel, oversight; Hudson T. Hollister, counsel; Justin
LoFranco, deputy director of digital strategy; Mark D. Marin,
senior professional staff member; Tegan Millspaw, research
analyst; Peter Warren, legislative policy director; Krista
Boyd, minority counsel; Ashley Etienne, minority director of
communications; Jennifer Hoffman, minority press secretary;
Lucinda Lessley, minority policy director; Amy Miller, minority
professional staff member; Dave Rapallo, minority staff
director; Mark Stephenson, minority senior policy advisor/
legislative director; and Cecelia Thomas, minority counsel/
deputy clerk.
Chairman Issa. The committee will come to order.
The oversight committee exists to secure two fundamental
principles. First, Americans have a right to know that the
money Washington takes from them is well spent. And second,
Americans deserve an efficient, effective government that works
for them. Our duty on the Oversight and Government Reform
committee is to protect these rights. Our solemn responsibility
is to hold government accountable to taxpayers, because
taxpayers have a right to know what they get from their
government. We will work tirelessly in partnership with citizen
watchdogs to deliver the facts to the American people and bring
genuine reform to the Federal bureaucracy.
And today's hearing, more than any other hearing of this
year, is, in fact, about delivering on that promise, something
that both parties and the American people know needs to happen.
We need to create more transparency, more accountability in
government.
This week there is a bipartisan consensus forming over a
new way forward in spending transparency. In recent months I
have had numerous conversations with Republicans and Democrats,
with Senate and White House officials about how we can fix this
broken program: data transparency and the bill that I
introduced yesterday, the DATA Act, to establish an independent
body to track Federal spending, including grants, contracts,
loans and agencies' internal expenses on a single platform with
a consistent reporting standard.
Vice President Biden also announced the administration's
intent to support bipartisan reform efforts to achieve digital
accountability. Let me make something clear: There is no
difference in what the Vice President wants to accomplish and
what I want to accomplish and, I believe we'll hear today, what
Chairman Devaney wants to accomplish. There are differences in
how we get from where we are with a labyrinth of failed or
partially successful programs to one single accountability that
is less burdensome and more effective for all the participants
and for the American people.
In a Gallup poll released last month, the vast majority of
Americans blamed the problems in government on too much
spending for unneeded or wasteful Federal programs. Seventy-
three percent of American adults are convinced that spending is
the problem in Washington, and I'm part of that 73 percent. In
fact, if American taxpayers knew the whole truth about Federal
spending, the number would be much higher than 73 percent.
Let us rest assured that when we get full accountability,
when we reduce waste in government, we still will have a
spending problem. However, currently the data that is
established on Federal worksites--Web sites is unreliable,
inaccurate, and, most importantly, incompatible and often
opaque to those who need it most.
Recent analysis by industry experts reveal that
USASpending.gov has only 35--was only 35 percent accurate in
fiscal year 2009, and that is only one Federal spending data
base among many others.
To manage multiple data bases and hope each of them gets
better is to assume that the tried and true failures of the
past will be the tried and true successes of the future. And
while I oppose the President's trillion-dollar stimulus both in
my vote and in my rhetoric, I continue to believe that Chairman
Devaney and the efforts he has put into affordable trial
technology is, in fact, the way forward, and revolutionary
accountability and transparency can be achieved on building on
top of a model that this committee asked for as part of our
role in that stimulus and, in fact, the RAT Board has
implemented.
Let us not make any mistakes, there have been errors, and
there have been failures that had to be corrected. And yes, of
course, often the figures were figures no one wanted to hear.
The cost of retaining a job might be artificially higher than
we thought it was going to be. But the facts are the facts, and
many of those high costs were real, while many needed
adjustment, and Chairman Devaney got right on that, and we have
a record of mistakes that were made being corrected. But
ultimately a single reporting system over time can become more
reliable than States and localities having to report to
multiple agencies in different ways.
Today we will hear from Chairman Devaney and other
advocates of transparency through technology. And although our
first and most important witness today will be Chairman
Devaney, I want to know note that on the second panel we will
have individuals who will talk about the burden that reporting
gives them. And they will talk about it because ultimately our
goal of a single transparent system is to reduce the burden.
One system throughout government means you only have to learn
it once. Multiple systems today mean that anyone who is
accountable for more than one report, and most entities are,
have to learn multiple systems. We want to end that today on a
bipartisan, bicameral and, in this case, bi-branches of
government.
And with that I yield to the ranking member.
Mr. Cummings. I want to thank the chairman for calling this
hearing, and I want to thank and welcome our distinguished
witnesses today.
I want to begin by congratulating you, Mr. Devaney, 41
years of service to our Nation, and very distinguished years.
You said something when you first appeared before us when you
got this new assignment, and I will never forget it as long as
I live. You said, you know, I want to make sure the mechanisms
are put in place so that people--so that we prevent them from
doing the wrong things. And I thought that that was such--I
said to myself that makes sense, and thank you for doing that.
Democrats in Congress created the Board as part of the
Recovery Act in 2009 to put in place some of the strongest
transparency and accountability measures ever enacted. As a
result, the ability to track Federal spending has improved by
leaps and bounds. In addition to promoting job creation,
economic activity and long-term growth, the Recovery Act
fostered unprecedented accountability and transparency in
government spending.
Under the administration's implementation and Chairman
Devaney's oversight, the Recovery Act has had historically low
levels of waste, fraud and abuse. Today more than 80 percent of
recovery funds have been awarded, and less than half of 1
percent currently have open investigations. I look forward to
hearing more from him on the Board's successes, lessons learned
and best practices that could be applied elsewhere in
government.
I would also like to commend President Obama for his
unprecedented efforts to increase transparency and
accountability in government spending. Yesterday the President
signed an Executive order that takes the model work of the
Board and extends it across the Federal Government. The
President's Executive order establishes a new Government
Accountability and Transparency Board to provide strategic
direction for enhancing Federal spending transparency and
eliminating waste, fraud and abuse in Federal programs.
The President directed the Board to report on guidelines to
integrate systems that collect government spending data,
improve reliability, and capitalize on the proven success of
fraud-detection technologies. The Executive order also directed
the Vice President to convene Cabinet-level meetings on agency
efforts to make government work better, faster and more
efficiently under the White House Accountable Government
Initiative.
We have also seen remarkable improvements in other Federal
transparency efforts over the past several years. Web sites
like USASpending.gov, Recovery.gov and the IT Dashboard have
put more information on line than ever before about how Federal
dollars are being spent.
I applaud the President for continuing to advance the goals
of transparency and accountability in government. Unfortunately
budget cuts may force the White House to scale back plans for
several open government initiatives. The recently passed fiscal
year 2011 continuing funding resolution slashed the Electronic
Government Fund from a proposed $35 million down to $8 million,
putting some of those very Web sites I just mentioned at risk.
I noted a number of transparency advocates and good
government groups have criticized these cuts, including some of
our witnesses here today. I look forward to hearing more from
them on the potential of these cuts on open government and
initiatives and efforts to root out waste, fraud and abuse.
Mr. Chairman, I have said it many times already this year,
and I will say it again: Transparency and open government
should not be a partisan issue, and I know you agree with that.
But protecting taxpayers' hard-earned money from waste, fraud
and abuse is one of the most important issues that we deal with
on this committee. I want to acknowledge the legislation you've
introduced, and I applaud you for it, which would do many of
the same things directed by the President's Executive order. I
understand the Democratic staff of the committee had worked
cooperatively with your staff in the last Congress on
legislative efforts to improve Federal financial data
standards, and I supported those efforts.
In addition to your bill, every Member on this side of the
aisle joined together in March to introduce H.R. 1144, the
Transparency and Openness in Government Act, a comprehensive
compilation of five component pieces of legislation that passed
the House last Congress with broad bipartisan support,
including your own. Since we introduced this legislation, 17
organizations supporting transparency and openness in
government, including some testifying here today, have endorsed
the bill and called for swift bipartisan action by our
committee.
Finally, Mr. Devaney, it is quite a compliment to you to
know that the work you've done will serve as a model perhaps
not only for tomorrow, but for generations yet unborn. I look
forward to reviewing your proposal and to working together on
these issues, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
Chairman Issa. I thank the gentleman.
Members will have 7 days to submit opening statements and
extraneous material for the record.
We now recognize our first panel, it says, of witnesses;
I'll say of witness. The Honorable Earl Devaney is chairman of
the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board. And to get
your title fully, are you still, in fact, an IG on loan to that
position?
Mr. Devaney. I am an IG on loan.
Chairman Issa. An IG on loan and one of our favorite IGs
from his previous work at Interior.
Pursuant to the committee rules, all witnesses will be
sworn in. Mr. Devaney, will you please rise to take the oath.
[Witness sworn.]
Chairman Issa. Let the record indicate Mr. Devaney answered
in the affirmative.
Chairman, I won't even give you the introduction. You know
the drill as well as anyone. You've been her many times. If you
go over, no one is going to call the whistle on you, because,
in fact, we're here to hear what you have to say.
With that, you're recognized.
STATEMENT OF EARL DEVANEY, CHAIRMAN, RECOVERY ACCOUNTABILITY
AND TRANSPARENCY BOARD
Mr. Devaney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Cummings, for those kind remarks, and members of the committee.
I want to thank for the opportunity to appear before you today
to share with you some of the Recovery Board's lessons learned.
I will be glad to answer any questions you have after I finish
my opening remarks.
Mr. Chairman, I have given considerable thought to lessons
learned from what I sincerely hope will be my last government
assignment. What I would like to do today is to share with the
committee 10 very specifics lessons learned that I feel could
be incorporated into the way our government does business going
forward.
The first lessons learned is nothing motivates bureaucrats
to act faster than a law with concrete deadlines. The
longstanding culture of Federal agencies has been to take the
path of least resistance and to take the longest time allowed
to enact any change. I have found that agencies continually
underestimate their capacities to get things done pursuing
pilot after pilot with few long-lasting developments. In fact,
there are so many ongoing pilots that I sometimes think of our
government as a giant airline.
The Recovery Act addresses this problem head on, requiring
recipients to report the use of recovery funds within 180 days
of enactment. This suggests to me that any new law imposing
requirements on agencies should include firm and certain
deadlines for implementation.
Second that spending data can be collected directly from
recipients with a high degree of accuracy. In the past, data
entry about Federal spending was done solely by agency
employees. The Recovery Act in its mandated recipient reporting
changed that dynamic, proving that recipients of Federal
funding could report just as accurately. Any future legislation
should recognize this potential cost savings and call for the
migration of all spending reporting from agencies to
recipients.
The third lesson learned is that this spending data can be
quickly quality controlled, displayed and uniquely arrayed to
achieve unprecedented levels of transparency.
In the past, agencies in receipt of recipient-reported data
would have spent excessive amounts of time scrubbing that data
in the basements of buildings all over this town prior to
releasing it. By the time of its release, the information would
be outdated and meaningless. The Recovery Act required real-
time reporting with results made public within 30 days four
times a year. And in the end the data was not merely published
as a jumble of numbers in a hardbound catalogue that sits on a
shelf somewhere, but was arrayed geospatially on Recovery.gov,
making data available and understandable for all users.
The fourth lesson is that the Federal Government
desperately needs a uniform, governmentwide, alphanumeric
numbering system for all awards. Currently each agency uses its
own unique numbering system for contracts and grants. As we
found during the recovery transparency process, these disparate
award numbers make tracking Federal spending unnecessarily
arduous and complicated. Every quarter there are mismatches
when we try to align recipient reported award numbers on
FederalReporting.gov to what the agencies have reported to OMB
in our efforts to see who did and who did not report as
required.
The award ID numbering process must be simplified and
standardized, perhaps akin to the credit card numbering system
that we are all accustomed to.
Fifth lesson is that new technology, particularly cloud
computing, can play a critical role in the delivery and
effectiveness of transparency and accountability. In April
2010, the Board made the move to a cloud computing
infrastructure for Recovery.gov, a groundbreaking event that
allowed for more efficient computer operations and reduced
costs. Cloud computing is a pay-as-you-go approach to
information technology, permitting lower initial investments to
start operations. It is also flexible enough to allow IT staff
to add or subtract computing capacity as needs dictate. In an
era of rooting out redundancies and inefficiencies, this
condensing of systems could create an enormous savings to the
American taxpayer.
The sixth lesson learned is that transparency can cause
embarrassment, which in turn causes self-correcting behavior.
In February 2010, we began publishing on Recovery.gov a list of
noncompliers, a list of shame if you will. That states the
names of recipients who have failed to report as required.
Users can see who the repeat offenders are. I'm happy to report
that in the first quarter of 2011, the number of 2-time
nonreporters is down to 17, and the number of 3-time
nonreporters is down to 7. This is out of over 200,000 awards
reported for the quarter.
But perhaps the most important lesson learned is that
transparency is a force multiplier that drives accountability.
It has become abundantly clear to me that transparency is a
friend of the enforcer and the enemy of the fraudster. With
less--with more than 80 percent of the recovery moneys having
been awarded, less than half a percent of all reported recovery
contracts, grants and loans currently have open investigations.
After nearly 2\1/2\ years, there have been only 144
convictions, involving a little over $1.9 million. I am often
asked why there has been so little fraud. I have little
empirical evidence to prove it, but I believe that it is
largely due to the transparency embedded in the Recovery Act.
Number eight is that the goal--if the goal is prevention
instead of merely detection, agencies and IGs both have a high
degree of incentive to collaborate together. The Board strategy
was to focus our efforts heavily on preventing fraud from
occurring in the first place, not just detecting it after the
fact. That is why the IG community has provided training for
more than 130,000 people since February 2009.
My observation has been that when the goal is fraud
detection, IGs come to the table with a great deal of
enthusiasm, while agencies seem less motivated. In overseeing
these recovery funds, the Board has learned that when the
common goal is fraud prevention, agencies and IGs are equally
enthusiastic, and a remarkable collaborative effort takes place
between the two.
The ninth lesson learned is that the most valuable
accountability module is one that provides equal access to both
agencies and enforcers. The new analytical tools and
methodologies developed in our recovery operations center have
proven to be as valuable to the agencies as they have been to
the IGs. I believe that a single repository for this
accountability data, rather than mini recoverylike centers
sprinkled around the Federal Government, would be a better idea
and present a significant cost savings to the American
taxpayer.
Finally, there is the lesson that articulating success for
prevention is a lot harder to do than for detection. Forty-one
years ago I began my Federal career as a Secret Service agent
learning how to protect our Nation's leaders. How do you
measure success in that role? Certainly failure is easy enough
to see, but how does one measure the real effect on a potential
assassin that the Secret Service presence has?
Now, toward the end of my government career, I admit I am
still pondering the difficulties of measuring successes or
preventing fraud or waste. How can we know how much fraud has
been prevented by what the Board and IG community did during
the recovery program? High fraud losses accompanied by front-
page stories and nightly news segments would have clearly
signaled failure, but we may be left to wonder, as many of my
former colleagues in the Secret Service do every day, about
what success really looks like. All I can say for sure is that
to date in a government spending program of more than $800
billion, we have witnessed extremely low levels of fraud.
Mr. Chairman, I have recently written a white paper
reflecting the Board's successes and some of the lessons
learned I have talked about here today. More importantly, this
paper also lays out a template for how those lessons could
possibly be embedded in the government's business practices
going forward. I plan to put that paper up on Recovery.gov
today.
And this concludes my oral remarks, and I will now be glad
to answer any questions you have.
Chairman Issa. Thank you, Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Devaney follows:]
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Chairman Issa. In a perfect world the first person to ask
questions would probably be Mr. Towns, who, if not for his
chairmanship, the embedded role that you played wouldn't have
been in the law. So I want to take an opportunity to thank him,
because it was, in fact, his leadership that caused the kind of
accountability you have an opportunity to show us.
With that I'm going to waive going first and recognize the
gentleman from Tennessee Mr. DesJarlais, if you're prepared.
Mr. DesJarlais. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
Chairman Devaney, for sharing those thoughts and wisdoms with
us.
I would like to start and ask you what some of the key
differences between tracking spending using recipient
reporting, as you and the RAT Board have done for stimulus
money, and tracking spending using agencies reporting in the
way USASpending.gov does.
Mr. Devaney. Well, Congressman, I think we have discerned
that recipient reporting is as accurate or more accurate than
agency reporting. I think when recipients report directly, they
have a parochial interest in getting it right.
We built into our systems opportunities for checks and
balances for agencies and recipients to think about what
they've reported and change it if they had to. All those
changes are totally auditable so we know what was changed and
when it was changed. And we have a continuous open environment
for people to change things, sometimes quarters after they've
made a mistake. And our perspective is that citizens do come
back, recipients do come back and change things because they
simply don't want to be embarrassed. Everybody gets to see what
they put in. It has been--I don't think I would have imagined
that when we first started, but it's been a great lesson.
Mr. DesJarlais. Do you believe that a permanent universal
recipient reporting requirement is necessary to achieve
transparency in Federal spending?
Mr. Devaney. Well, I think given what I just said, I think
the migration from recipient reporting to agency reporting with
no loss in accuracy and potential savings costs would be a
smart thing to do.
Mr. DesJarlais. It would make it more accurate?
Mr. Devaney. More accurate and save money.
Mr. DesJarlais. Do you think that this would internally
lead to greater accountability then on the part of Federal
agencies?
Mr. Devaney. I do. The more accurate the data, the better
the opportunity for those of us who spend their time on
accountability to get it right.
Mr. DesJarlais. You're talking about some of the successes
earlier. Can you please address the number of recipients who
fail to report, and explain how the Board has managed to keep
it so small?
Mr. Devaney. Well, when we first--the first reporting
period there were a lot of people that failed the report, and I
take that to be a manifestation of a new system, a new idea,
and people just not understanding. Several quarters later those
numbers were down dramatically, and now, as I mentioned
earlier, the amount of recipients that actually haven't
reported two or more times is rather low, and three or more
times is down to seven, and that's out of hundreds of thousands
of awards. So, you know, it's 99.9 percent, which is, I think,
good.
Mr. DesJarlais. Do you believe that if Congress instituted
a board that tracks spending on a larger level and not just
stimulus spending that the rate of failure to report would
remain that favorable?
Mr. Devaney. I think it would. And I took note of the
chairman's legislation that it has enforcement teeth in it.
Unfortunately the Recovery Act, when it was created in a very
short time period, forgot to put the enforcement pieces in it,
and I think the chairman's legislation fixes that.
Mr. DesJarlais. The Recovery Board has recommended a
governmentwide system of award identifiers. Your testimony
mentions uniform award IDs for all Federal agencies. Can you
explain how this would simplify the tracking of Federal
spending?
Mr. Devaney. Well, it became very obvious to us early on
that that every single agency has their own unique numbering
system, probably some dating back to George Washington. So it
was almost impossible for us to collect data from all of those
various agencies, so we had to design our own data-
collectionsite. And then we have to--every time the reporting
takes place, we have to deal with what we call mismatches. The
numbers from what the recipients report to us differ from the
numbers that the agencies tell us that they gave the money out.
So it's a constant battle of trying to reduce those mismatches.
It is very labor intensive, and it doesn't have to be that way.
If we had a common single alphanumeric numbering system like a
credit card, the transparency would be enhanced tremendously.
Mr. DesJarlais. Thank you, Chairman Devaney.
And, Chairman Issa, I yield back the balance of my time.
Chairman Issa. The gentleman yields back.
We now recognize the gentleman from New York Mr. Towns for
5 minutes.
Mr. Towns. Thank very much.
Let me begin by saying to you, Mr. Devaney, thank you for
the outstanding job that you are doing. And, of course, I
remember you saying that transparency is harder to practice
than it is to talk about, and, of course, I recognize that.
You talked about the fact that embarrassing--you know,
sometimes it brings about change in behavior. What are the
complaints that you were getting from the ones that did not
cooperate? Are they saying they did not have the resources to
do what you're asking? What are they complaining about, those
few that did not comply?
Mr. Devaney. Well, the excuses were all over the board,
sir. They ranged from the ridiculous to those that, quite
frankly, probably involve some hardships. For instance, we had
early on some tribes and some other recipients who simply
didn't have Internet and couldn't comply that way, so we had to
devise a system so they could get their reports in as well.
I think the list of shame that we publish every quarter has
worked well in getting those numbers down. We're down to seven.
Some of those folks have filed lawsuits against the government
for the audacity of the government asking them to report about
what they did with the money that the government gave them. So
it ranges from the, you know, absurd to some legitimate
excuses.
Mr. Towns. Let me ask you this: The enforcement legislation
that is being put forth, do you think that's going to further
help?
Mr. Devaney. I do, I do. I think the enforcement piece
that's in the bill will be very helpful. I think that there are
some--as I read the bill last night, there are some civil
remedies. It doesn't preclude any criminal remedies. But that's
something that usually motivates people to comply with the law.
And lacking that enforcement mechanism in the Recovery Act, I
think some people took advantage of that.
Mr. Towns. All right. Let me just say to the chairman and
to the ranking member that, you know, I really appreciate your
leadership in keeping this alive, and to you, Mr. Devaney, for
your outstanding work.
I notice you made a comment, I don't think--maybe some
people didn't quite hear it, where you said this might be your
last government assignment. I heard that, you know, and I want
you to know that I hope that your next assignment will be
teaching those to do what you've done so well.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And on that note I would
be delighted to yield to the ranking member.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Edolphus Towns follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 71076.007
Chairman Issa. You second that?
Mr. Cummings. I second that.
Mr. Towns. On that note I yield back.
Mr. Cummings. Just two questions, Mr. Devaney. The
Democrats in Congress passed the American Recovery and
Investment Act of 2009 to promote job creation, encourage long-
term growth, foster unprecedented accountability and
transparency in government. The Recovery Act establishes and
granted broad authorities to the Recovery Accountability and
Transparency Board. Among them is the authority to issue
testimonial subpoenas. Section 1524 says, the Board may issue
subpoenas to compel the testimony of persons who are not
Federal officers or employees, and may enforce such subpoenas
in the same manner as provided for inspector general subpoenas
under section 6 of the Inspector General Act of 1978. You're
familiar with that; are you not?
Mr. Devaney. I am.
Mr. Cummings. And, Mr. Devaney, have you ever exercised
that authority?
Mr. Devaney. No, I haven't.
Mr. Cummings. Given the fact that you never issued a
subpoena for testimony and that you clearly have been very
successful in identifying and eliminating and preventing fraud,
waste and abuse, did you ever feel as though you needed that
authority to appropriately achieve your mission?
Mr. Devaney. I never personally have felt that way. I've
been very fortunate to have in my Federal career rather sizable
numbers of investigators, and we work very closely with the
Department of Justice and always use the grand jury subpoena
power. So I've never felt that way. I think there are some IGs
who do feel that way, that it is needed, and I respect their
views. I have stated before publicly that I've never used it
and don't feel like I would.
Mr. Cummings. Would you support legislative efforts to
establish a permanent board modeled on the RAT Board to lead
governmentwide efforts to improve Federal spending transparency
and accountability that does not include testimonial subpoena
authority?
Mr. Devaney. I would probably support it either way. I
think it really doesn't matter to me. I've never used it. It's
in the Recovery Act. So I'm very anxious to see legislation
creating a board that would do this very thing. And it would be
up to the members of the board to use it or not use it.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much. I yield back.
Chairman Issa. I thank the gentleman.
We now recognize the gentleman from Utah for 5 minutes.
Would the gentleman yield for just a second?
Mr. Chaffetz. Yes.
Chairman Issa. Mr. Devaney, do you know whether or not the
having that has ever been threatened or used? In other words,
have any of your people working for you ever said, you know, we
could compel testimony if you're not willing to give it
voluntarily? Do you know whether that's ever occurred on your
watch now or in the past when you have had it?
Mr. Devaney. I don't think so. I think that there are other
ways to get to that goal.
Chairman Issa. Okay, thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Chaffetz. Thank you for your service. I appreciate your
coming to the committee a number of times and being so
available.
Let's go back for a moment to the award numbering system.
Maybe it's just my simple way, but things like that just drive
me crazy. That seems like something that could happen within an
hour or two, okay, maybe a week. What is holding back--whose
responsibility is this to do that?
Mr. Devaney. Well, of course, each agency, as I mentioned
earlier, has developed these systems over numbers of years, 30,
40 years, so they have their own unique numbering systems. It
means a lot to them. They are very reluctant to give it up.
They would argue--the agencies would argue that it might cost a
lot of money to retrofit their systems to adapt to a new
numbering system.
I think going forward we would like to do a feasibility
study to see exactly what that problem is, whether it's as big
as they think it is, and try and convince the agencies and OMB
that this is an issue that's way past its time.
Mr. Chaffetz. So the core responsibility for executing that
and putting that in place would be the OMB?
Mr. Devaney. OMB in conjunction with the agencies.
Mr. Chaffetz. Do you have any--how massive a problem is
this?
Mr. Devaney. I don't underestimate the fact that some
agencies are going to be outliers and are going to have to
retrofit their systems to adapt to a new numbering system. I
just don't think this is as big a problem as people try to make
it out to be.
Mr. Chaffetz. The Sunlight Foundation's been very good at
clarifying and bringing some things out. This statistic they
threw out, though, is quite stunning. Sunlight--325 programs
had no reported information for all of fiscal year 2008, also
stating that USASpending.gov reported accurate information for
only 35 percent of Federal programs. Do you find that to be
true, and how do we solve that?
Mr. Devaney. Well, I can only speak for our site, and I
think our site is extraordinarily accurate. I know that
USASpending has had problems from the very beginning. I think
the day they launched, they were talking about 50 percent error
rate. So they make a good effort, and I think they've improved,
but I think as long as they depend on the agencies to send them
information that's been scrubbed, and changed, and not coming
directly from recipients causes some of that inaccuracy.
Mr. Chaffetz. So how do we solve that? Should it be more
penalties for noncompliance? How do we solve that?
Mr. Devaney. I think enforcement penalties are very
helpful. I think the single alphanumeric numbering system would
be helpful. I think migration from recipient reporting to
agency reporting would be extraordinarily helpful. And I think
that the reporting under the recovery program can be replicated
in other spending.
Mr. Chaffetz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Issa. I thank the gentleman.
We now recognize the gentleman from Virginia for 5 minutes.
Mr. Connolly.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome, Mr.
Devaney.
Mr. Devaney, the chairman's introduced some legislation
sort of creating a new layer of oversight. What's your
understanding of what that would do and how it would relate to
the current structure you head up?
Mr. Devaney. Well, my impression of the legislation is it
is meant to replace--as you probably know, the Recovery Board
sunsets in 2013, so I'm assuming that if the legislation were
to pass earlier than that, it would replace the Board that I
chair. But it certainly continues the work of the Recovery
Board and makes a board a permanent--or as of 2018 a permanent
board that will carry on the work that we've done.
Mr. Connolly. How well do you think the work you've done
has gone?
Mr. Devaney. I think it has gone very well. There have
been, as noted earlier, some mistakes along the way, but I
think we've been able to correct those right away. And I think
we've brought transparency and accountability to this money.
It's a huge amount of money. There are low levels of fraud. I
happen to think the transparency is the principal cause of
that. And I think when you put transparency and accountability
together, you get a great combination.
We've also used new tools. We've created what we call a
recovery operations center, which has used sophisticated
analytical tools that heretofore have been used principally in
the intelligence and law enforcement sectors. And the novelty
of what we've done is that those tools are now being used on
government spending, and the result has been quite, quite
remarkable. It turns out that when you use those tools, and
when you put together a good, competent analyst, you can
actually interrupt fraud and prevent fraud from happening in
the first instance.
Mr. Connolly. The model--I mean, this model is unique; is
it not? I mean, you were in the sense an experimental model, a
new paradigm for transparency and oversight.
Mr. Devaney. I think that's true, I think we were an
experiment. I think if you talk about proof of concept, I think
we've done it. And that's why I think this legislation makes an
awful lot of sense. I also think that Vice President's--the
President's Executive order yesterday makes sense as well.
Mr. Connolly. Does your group also--you're tracking to make
sure money is not misspent and there isn't fraud or waste. But
do you also look at the other side of the equation,
effectiveness, efficacy?
Mr. Devaney. Well, we're certainly trying to make sure that
waste doesn't occur as well fraud. I mean, we don't concentrate
solely on fraud. A lot of the information that we develop in
the recovery operations center, for instance, makes for good
audits.
Mr. Connolly. But do you also look at milestones in terms
of achievement? So, in other words, if X number of dollars are
meant to buy three locomotives in some kind of timeframe, that
as a matter of fact that goal is met?
Mr. Devaney. No, but my sense is that the individual IGs in
those agencies do that job, but we don't as a board take that
on.
Mr. Connolly. You talked a little bit in your testimony I
think about cloud computing and how it could actually lead to
some savings for the Federal Government, including, I think,
rental space and other kinds of savings and more efficiencies.
Could you just expand a little bit on that and how cloud
computing could help the government be more effective and to
enhance transparency?
Mr. Devaney. Well, there is obvious money savings to be
had. I think when we first looked at it, we thought our little
operation could save about three-fourths of a million dollars
right away, and we could repurpose some of that equipment that
we had into other areas. So there is a savings.
The other thing I would say about cloud computing is it
allows you to be more flexible and to expand almost like an
accordion. If you need to do more, you can do more readily; you
don't have to go out and buy more equipment, rent space and
hire more people. So it's a technology that I think its time
has come, and I think the government ought to move there. We
were the first government enterprise to actually move to the
cloud. That was heralded by the folks at OMB, and I think other
agencies have followed.
Mr. Connolly. And real quickly in the 10 seconds I've got,
do you believe the private sector can do this more efficiently
maybe than we can in the public sector?
Mr. Devaney. Oh, I don't know. I think they certainly have
been a leader there, but I think the government is slowly
recognizing that we ought to be there.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Issa. You're most welcome.
The gentleman from Pennsylvania Mr. Kelly.
Mr. Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'm only going to take a minute, Mr. Devaney. I wanted to
thank you. I've only been here 5 months--I'm over here, by the
way. I'm the guy with the sunburn. It's really refreshing. And
I look at your background. I love the fact that you're in a
leadership coaching program. For someone who has only been here
5 months, it is really a pleasure to sit and listen to somebody
who has used great common sense and understands what a
stewardship truly is.
In our business there is an old saying, you have to inspect
what you expect. And what you've been able to shed light on
today in both your written testimony and your verbal, I just
want to thank you. This is great value to the American
taxpayers, which is why we're all here. So I want to thank you
for that. And I just want to tell you it is really one of the
most refreshing testimonies I've had since I've been here. I
thank you for your service.
And I heard what you said earlier the other gentleman had
mentioned, that hopefully this is your last tour. I understand
that. There is something to be said for that. But thank you so
much for your leadership.
And having said that I want to yield back my time to the
chairman. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Devaney. Thank you.
Chairman Issa. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Chairman, I think to make the record straight I want to go
through a line of thought. You said that what the Vice
President is proposing--and you and I have both had meetings
with the Vice President--you approve of. The President's
Executive order you approve of. I appreciate that you like all
or most of what's in our draft--or our legislation now.
How do you envision that we get from the President's
Executive order, which, if I understand it correctly, is a
study to do X over the next 6 months; our legislation, which is
intended to be pushed toward a particular set of goals with
some specificity; Vice President Biden's history and oversight
of your role; how do we bring that all together so that we get
a permanent--Executive orders are not permanent--and well-
defined and bipartisan solution in that, let's say, 6 months
time that the President has put out there----
Mr. Devaney. I think both efforts move the ball down the
field, and that's what I'm really excited about. I think the
goal is common between the two. I think we're talking about
eliminating redundancy, saving money, and doing it in the most
transparent and accountable way we possibly can. So as I look
at both things, I came away thinking they're both good.
I think the--as I mentioned earlier today, I think that
nothing works better than legislation with very firm dates in
it. I really truly believe that. That's an observation not just
from my time at the Recovery Board, but throughout my Federal
career. I've seen bureaucrats change their mind about change
and agree to do it once there's a law and they had firm dates.
So I'm very excited about your legislation. I think the
Vice President is trying to get the ball moving. And I think in
large part the President's Executive order establishing this
board is so we can do some things now, so we can take some
lessons learned, so we can adopt some of the ideas I have and
others have about trying to export what we've done throughout
government, because it really would make things more efficient,
and it really would save money, and I think the country needs
that right now.
Chairman Issa. Thank you.
I was at Sears this past weekend, and, like you, I'm old
enough--not that you're old--but I'm old enough to remember how
Sears used to work, how Macy's, all of them, used to work. You
used to have a tag either pinned or hanging from every piece of
clothing and everything else you bought, and it had a now
nomenclature, it said something, and sometimes it had a number.
And every department had tags. And when you bought something,
you had to put it--take it to a department where the person was
knowledgeable of how to add that item up and price it. And you
couldn't check out in one place, because ultimately each
department had the expertise, they knew when was on special and
so on.
Last weekend I went through, and like we all have come to
expect, there's a standard bar code on every product, you can
go to any checkout, you scan that bar code, they know what the
price is, they know what the discount is, they know all the
aspects, it relieves it from inventory, and you leave the store
with one credit card receipt. Isn't that really what you're
asking for all of us who are ultimately customers and vendors
of the government is that we get to that level of uniformity so
that, in fact, everything gets to be easier to do with the
government, whether you are, if you will, a vendor or a
customer?
Mr. Devaney. Yes.
Chairman Issa. I'll take that as a yes.
And with that I go to the ranking member for 5 minutes.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
You know, Mr. Devaney, I've told my staff at some point we
move from student to teacher. And in listening to your
testimony, I find it interesting that you didn't go where I
thought you were going to go, but I saw you going there, when
you talked about the Secret Service and prevention, making sure
that the President, the others are safe. It is one thing to
read a headline the day after and talk about what happened if
harm came. It's another thing--and you don't get a headline for
this--to make sure the same.
And I was thinking--I was wondering how did you get there?
In other words--I also tell my staff that there comes a point
in time when you begin to face your own mortality--not you,
just talking in general--and you begin to ask yourself, how do
I make sure that I'm most effective and efficient in what I do?
And I guess what I'm trying to figure out is how do we--it
sounds like you have arrived at a point of effectiveness and
efficiency. And I think you said it seems as if--I don't know
what you were referring to, accountability in agencies, you
said sometimes it's like a big plane or something like that.
And it seems like so often we don't think we can get our arms
around this because there are so many moving parts.
So I'm trying to figure out with the Executive order, with
the chairman's legislation, how do we get folks actually moving
in that direction of effectiveness and efficiency and getting
away from ``it-can't-be-doneness'' attitude or cultural
mediocrity. I know that's kind of a broad question, but can you
help us with it? How did you get there?
Mr. Devaney. Well, I don't know if I'm there.
Mr. Cummings. Oh, you're there.
Mr. Devaney. I've made observations over the years that
change in government is a difficult proposition. People don't
normally embrace change in government. I've never been afraid
of change. I don't believe in change just for change sake, but
when it makes sense, when you can save money or eliminate
redundancy, it strikes me that you have to change, and
particularly in the circumstances we currently live in.
So I think that both the Executive order and the
legislation are going to cause people to understand the changes
at hand, and we are moving in this direction smartly. So I'm
encouraged by that. I had wondered whether or not the lessons
learned in the Recovery Board would have been thought well
enough to have been embedded in legislation and also in the
Executive order, and I think I'm pleased that they seemingly
have been. And I'm excited about the opportunity to see some of
those things spread out in all government spending.
Mr. Cummings. The issues of lesson learned, you talked
about concrete deadlines, and I want you to tell us how
significant that is, because I agree with you on that.
The other thing that you talked about was technology. Do
you think that we--do you think there's a technology that can
even go further and be even more effective than what we now
have? And what suggestions would you have to us for improving--
I mean, if you had to make some suggestions for improving the
bill or improving the Executive order?
Mr. Devaney. I don't think I'm ready to start making
suggestions about improving either one of them just yet. I
probably will have some thoughts later on.
I think the technology opportunities are profound right
now, and taking advantage of things like cloud computing or the
geospatial technologies that we are using in Recovery.gov opens
opportunities for the American public to actually, for
instance, in the recovery program to drill down into their own
ZIP codes or their own congressional districts and see exactly
how that money is being used. I don't think that's ever been
possible before for the American public.
As an IG, if I want to understand where the money went, for
instance, at the Department of Interior, I could have gone to
the CFO and asked, but I doubt very seriously whether that
person could have responded, certainly quickly.
So the new technologies have enabled the government to
begin to show the public of how their money's being spent. Now,
they may not like what they see, but they have a right to see
it.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Issa. Thank you.
The gentleman from Oklahoma Mr. Lankford.
Mr. Lankford. Mr. Devaney, welcome. Glad you're here, and
thank for your testimony and your wisdom that you bring and
your experience and background in this.
Talk with you about a couple things here. The differences
or the problems that you would see associated with trying to
transition this from a one-time specific set of events, that is
stimulus--as rapid as that was to ramp up, to learn quickly how
to do it, and figure out how to do it and do it, but it is
still a one-time event--and an ongoing, every year-type
program. What do you see as the differences between those two
in the reporting process?
Mr. Devaney. Well, I think maybe I'll answer it this way. I
think the--and it is a partial answer to the ranking member's
question as well. The fact that we had a deadline--the Recovery
Act called for these Web sites and the reporting all be done in
6 months. The fact that we had that deadline drove us to
accomplish it. Getting the agencies, OMB and the Recovery Board
to be marching toward that goal probably would have not been
accomplished had that deadline not been in the act. So I see
legislation with concrete deadlines as they are embedded in the
chairman's legislation as being a very good thing, because it
leaves the discussion about whether we want to change out of
the picture. Change is going to happen, and you only have a
certain amount of time to do it.
Mr. Lankford. Do you see an issue, though, with a one-time
event like a stimulus versus an ongoing, year-after-year-type
program; anything that you would be able to say to us, I think
it works well, and regardless if it's year-after-year programs
or one-time grant, it works the same?
Mr. Devaney. Well, I think, as I mentioned earlier, I think
the recovery program was a proof of concept. I think for those
that had doubted that it could be done, we've now shown that it
has been done, and it probably bodes well for future efforts.
Mr. Lankford. Okay. Burden on recipients. Obviously this is
a new layer of something that they have to be able to take on.
My--while I desperately want more transparency, I agree
completely with your statements about fraud, that the more you
allow people to be able to look in and be able to look over
someone else's shoulder and say, why exactly is that grant
funded that way and what is that, that helps tremendously.
I also don't want to reduce the number of people competing
for a competitive grant nor reduce the number of bidders in a
contract situation. Talking about the burden on those
recipients having to self-report, I do think that's going to
drive away competition. Is it a reasonable amount of burden?
Mr. Devaney. I think it is a reasonable amount of burden. I
think it was a giant question when we first started, when we
first were talking about recipient reporting versus agency
reporting. I think the burden on recipients was the number one
issue. It was an issue for the States. It was an issue for the
recipients. It certainly was an issue for the OMB and for the
Board, and we were very worried about that. As a result we
stood up a very robust help desk so that when recipients came
in to report for the very first time and several reporting
periods after that, they had a lot of help.
But after two or three reporting periods, we began to see
that our help desk wasn't being used anymore, and anecdotally
we hear from States and from recipients that they like
reporting on FederalReporting.gov. I think what they would like
best would only be to report to one place instead of multiple
places. So I think if we get down to one place where they can
report, and we use some of the technologies we used when we
built FederalReporting.gov, or use that infrastructure, we
won't have much of a burden on recipients.
Mr. Lankford. Terrific.
What other data would you suggest could be reported on
that? For instance, if you complete a grant, the final
research, the finished product, is that something that could be
reported there as well so they're not only tracking how much
was spent, but what the final product is that the Federal
taxpayers paid for? Or the progress, as is mentioned before, is
there a way to be able to track not only how much has been
allotted to this, but what's happened so far so people can see
this much has been allotted, this is what has been accomplished
so far?
Mr. Devaney. Absolutely. We do something like that right
now. We ask recipients to tell us what stage the project's in.
We could certainly collect almost any data you wanted to
collect.
You do get to a point where how much is too much, but on
the other hand, if that's an important feature, we can build it
in. We have the flexibility on the infrastructure we have right
now to scale up to almost any amount of data to be collected.
Mr. Lankford. So if we're doing a grant for a certain
project that denotes some research to something out there, at
the end of it we can also say, this was allotted, here is how
it was spent, and here's the final paper that was presented at
the end of it, and when the research was done, here it is. It
wouldn't be an issue to be able to collect it all together.
Mr. Devaney. Correct.
Mr. Lankford. Terrific. Thank you very much. And with that
I yield back.
Chairman Issa. As you compare the grant application process
with your reporting, which one's harder to do, the applications
for competitive grants that you've seen over the years or your
reporting?
Mr. Devaney. Application for grants.
Chairman Issa. Thank you. I kind of knew the answer to that
one.
We now recognize the gentleman from Pennsylvania Mr. Meehan
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Meehan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, Mr. Devaney, not just for your presence here
today and the great work you are doing for the Recovery Board
but for the great work you have done for a number of years as
inspector general. I had the good fortune to work as a U.S.
attorney and spent much time with some of your colleagues and
appreciate the significance of their efforts, but oftentimes,
as well, struggled with the reality that we would be oft just
touching the corners sometimes of what we believed was out
there.
And I have been intrigued by your testimony about some of
the tools you have been discussing that can greatly enhance our
ability to search not just where we have been but in realtime,
because your words, I think, to focus on preventing fraud from
occurring in the first time, rather than detecting it after the
fact.
So can you tell me a little bit about the recovery explorer
tool that you have been implementing and how that works?
Mr. Devaney. Well, the Recovery Operations Center, which we
established fairly early on, after about 6 months, utilizes
analytical tools that, as I mentioned earlier, have been used
heretofore in the intelligence world and in some law
enforcement settings and applying them to spending.
And if you think of fraud on a continuum where on one end
of the timeline the fraudster is thinking about stealing money
and the other end is sort of when he has it and he is running
down the street, what we are trying to do is we are trying to
push the ball further up toward the front end so that we are
either preventing fraud in the first instance or at least
interrupting it in the middle.
Countless times we have been able to detect a company or an
individual that has gotten money that probably shouldn't have
been. It doesn't mean that they have committed a crime; it just
means that we need to stop and look. So we have asked the
agencies to stop the flow of money so that it all doesn't go
out the door before we are able to prevent it.
Now, as I mentioned earlier, it is difficult to articulate
success in this area, how much you have prevented from
happening. It is a lot easier for me to stand here and talk
about the number of arrests or number of referrals to the
Department of Justice. And that is what I have done for most of
my career, played that, sort of, stat game. It is harder to
articulate success in the prevention business. I struggle with
it myself, but I know that--I know that I think we have
prevented fraud in this instance.
And I think transparency has a lot to do about it, but it
is also about sort of a mind shift that IGs and other
enforcement entities are having about not just detecting it but
preventing it from happening.
Mr. Meehan. What kind of data does it display when you are
talking about the broad spectrum of information that is out
there? Is there an intelligent aspect to this, in which it is
looking for particular indicators or it makes available data
that then somebody can mine with a specific purpose?
Mr. Devaney. Well, we do have formulas and algorithms that
we use to run against the data base, the 1512 data base, the
recovery data base, if you will, that identifies anomalies for
us. Once again, this doesn't mean necessarily that a crime has
been committed or even that fraud has happened. It might mean,
for instance, this would be a good candidate to audit, to have
an IG do an audit on--not an investigation, but an audit. On
the other hand, it might identify, as we do countless times,
money going to somebody who is on the excluded parties list,
because we have that data base in-house.
I happen to think that one of the issues that is under way
in government right now, being managed by OMB, is the do-not-
pay list. I happen to think that our platform could do the do-
not-pay list fairly soon. I think we have three of the data
bases, of the five, right now. If we got the other two, we
could probably stand that up maybe in a month or 2.
So there are great opportunities here to have it
centralized in one place so that both agency personnel can come
into the Recovery Operations Center before they give the money
out and that enforcers like IGs or the FBI or GAO can access
information. And maybe on top of some of the other data bases,
we have the law enforcement data bases that they would have
access to.
Mr. Meehan. And so you are talking right now about work
that is done within your data system and monitoring the dollars
that have been part of the Recovery Act. But my assumption here
is this has tremendous applicability across the various
agencies where we would be able to look at somebody that is on
a do-not-pay list that might be doing work with two different
kinds of agencies.
Mr. Devaney. I think it does have that application, and
that is what I am excited about, that we would take what we
have done here and apply it to all government spending. We will
be preventing billions of dollars of fraud, and we may be
putting investigative bodies and U.S. attorneys out of
business.
Mr. Meehan. Well, there is plenty of work for all of us to
do. When you talk billions of dollars, that makes a big
difference. Thank you for your service and your forward
thinking.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time. Thank you.
Chairman Issa. I thank the gentleman.
We now recognize the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Quigley,
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Quigley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for being here.
Let me raise the issue of tax expenditures as it applies to
these issues, if that is all right with you. Your thoughts on
whether tax expenditures should be incorporated into this sort
of executive order or into the new bill that the chairman is
proposing or perhaps a separate bill, such as a transparency in
government act? Your sense of the best way to move forward on
that?
Mr. Devaney. Well, I am reminded of a recent event where we
had an IG, I believe, or GAO came out with a report that
basically said that taxpayers who owed a lot of money were
actually getting some of these awards. And the first question
asked of us was, well, why didn't you detect that? And that is
because, you know, there are prohibitions from the IRS of
sharing with us taxpayer information.
So I think perhaps the time has come for some waivers from
that act. And I would love to see that, the ability for us to
have a data base that had the individuals that owed tax money.
We could keep that in a very secure environment, and we would
have prevented money from going to tax recipients that owed tax
money.
Mr. Quigley. And the best way to do that, in terms of your
sense of this bill or an executive order?
Mr. Devaney. Well, I think it could be--it probably would
be better done in legislation, because I think it is a law that
causes the IRS to be prevented from sharing it with law
enforcement.
There is a proviso that that kind of information can be
shared with GAO. And I, quite frankly, think, you know, even
GAO would say that the IGs are just as responsible enough to
have that kind of information.
Mr. Quigley. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Issa. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. Quigley. Yes.
Chairman Issa. Perhaps you can clear something up I am
unclear on. There are tax expenditures, and then there are tax
cheats, or detected tax cheats. If I understood correctly, the
data base that potentially legislation would give you would be
access to tax cheats, people who--not tax expenditures per se.
It is a more narrow definition?
Mr. Devaney. Right.
Chairman Issa. Thank you.
Mr. Quigley. Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Issa. Oh. The gentleman reclaims his time.
Mr. Quigley. Yes. And if I could yield to the ranking
member.
Mr. Cummings. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. Devaney, as part of the continuing resolution for
fiscal year 2011, budget negotiators slashed the Electronic
Government Fund from a proposed $35 million down to $8 million,
putting Web sites such as Data.gov, USAspending.gov,
Performance.gov, and the IT Dashboard at risk of being shut
down.
Are you aware of those cuts?
Mr. Devaney. I am.
Mr. Cummings. Just yesterday, a coalition of transparency
and open government groups wrote to the leadership of the House
Appropriations Committee's Financial Services Subcommittee
urging them to restore funding for the Electronic Government
Fund. Their letter said this, ``Cuts to the E-Government Fund
in fiscal year 2011 have already hurt successful projects.
Needed upgrades to increase transparency and improve data
quality have been delayed or abandoned, and two projects have
already been terminated. These cuts are pennywise and pound-
foolish. The E-Gov Fund supports powerful tools for reducing
waste, fraud, and abuse and for creating private-sector jobs.
And given appropriate funding, these projects result in
benefits far in excess of their cost.''
Mr. Devaney, you have some practical experience with the
technological tools for routing out waste, fraud, and abuse.
You just talked about it, when you talk about the cloud system.
Recovery.gov is one of our best examples of transparency-
enabled accountability. Do you agree on the importance of these
Web sites for generating accountability?
Mr. Devaney. I do. I have become a very aggressive advocate
of transparency if you believe, as I do, that transparency
drives accountability. Ultimately, you save money, and that
money is far in excess of whatever we are talking about here.
Mr. Cummings. And how big of a role do you believe
resources should be? In other words, how important was it that
the RAT Board had the kind of resources it did to start from
scratch, build out a good system, and then continue to enhance
and improve it?
Mr. Devaney. Well, I think it was--I think it was a guess
as to how much money we would have needed, and I think it was a
very on-the-spot guess. And I think we are going to come in
under our budget for 2\1/2\ years. But having said that, I
think the pennywise, dollar-foolish might be apropos in this
particular instance.
Mr. Cummings. And looking back at the Recovery.gov, what
are the resource limitations, if any, in extending this kind of
system governmentwide, and how tall an order is that?
Mr. Devaney. Well, with respect to money, I don't think it
is actually much money. It is far below what people might
imagine it to be. I think with a little extra money, the board
would be able to use its existing infrastructure and sit some
of these other systems on top of that and create a one
platform, as the chairman mentioned earlier, that would do
essentially the same thing that countless Web sites, collection
display Web sites, across the government do now.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you.
Chairman Issa. Thank you.
I will recognize myself. I guess I am what is left.
Chairman Devaney, I am assuming that your--you will never
forget this chart, nor will I.
Mr. Devaney. It is memorable.
Chairman Issa. Well, as I look at this chart--and not to be
counter to the ranking member, because I share with him the
frustration that, in this basket of cuts, we seem to be cutting
before we, in fact, fill, if you will.
But your proposal and what is intended out of our
legislation and, quite frankly, what is intended out of the
President's Executive order will ultimately save money on two
fronts, won't it? One is, if you move to cloud computing, if
you tell essentially all the agencies that we are going to have
this single checkout place that is really good at checking out,
that sets it up, that relieves that burden, other than
transition costs, no matter what that cost is--and you are
right, we shouldn't sit here and try to say it is $51 million
or it is $5.1 million--isn't it inevitable that that cost,
post-transition, is less than we spend on this labyrinth of
information today?
Mr. Devaney. Absolutely.
Chairman Issa. Let me go through a couple of quick
questions just in closing, because I think we should make the
record clear on where we are today as government.
Oh, okay. We may have one more questioner.
Some years ago--and you have been in government for 40-plus
years. Well, this was about 30 of those years ago. If you
remember the scandal when they found out that the Federal
Government, the largest purchaser of IBM Selectric typewriters
in the world, paid more than the State of California paid for
IBM's Selectric's contract--Selectric II or Selectric I. And
there was no fraud. They simply bid two separate times, and
California apparently was just a little better in the bid and
IBM came in less. And the government didn't know about it until
a whistleblower found out that, in a combined agency, that the
State paid less for the same typewriter and that person tried
to buy through the State to save money.
It is now 30 years later. If we are paying for a Dell
computer, if we are paying 20 different amounts,
hypothetically, based on bids--and Dell computers would be a
bad example. But if we do have these discrepancies between
hundreds of different purchase prices on substantially or
identically the same thing, do you have the resources in
government or do you know of those resources that would call
that out so that we could get the best and lowest price?
Mr. Devaney. Well, offhand, I would say that, you know, the
buying power is enhanced when you do things--when you
centralize your buying. And so, if we take that map that you
have up there and we reduce it to a reasonable picture with one
platform, it would strike me that we could do it a lot cheaper,
because we would eliminate all of the myriad of buying
opportunities that are going on right now across the government
and centralize it in one place and achieve the leverage that we
would need over the vendors.
Chairman Issa. So even though that is not the first
generation of what you are doing, the idea that when people
roll up what they are paying, that you can look and say, where
are the anomalies and how much we are paying, where are the
best values, that is pretty easy to do over the entire
government but only if you collect it in one place?
Mr. Devaney. Right.
Chairman Issa. Well, let me ask one last question, and it
is--I want a long answer. I am not setting you up for the
``yes, sir.''
Mr. Devaney. Okay.
Chairman Issa. Historically, these reportings have been
done by essentially Cabinet positions and sub-Cabinet
positions. Both the President and we are talking about a single
point.
Are we talking in the best case about a single point that
is independent? Or is there any other conceivable way that
would be as good as an agency that did one and only one thing,
which was to run this collection, enforcement, and analysis?
Mr. Devaney. I think if you are referring to the membership
of the board or what that would look like, I think that one of
the observations I made as I look back on the 2\1/2\ years is,
the all-IG board clearly indicates the independence that we all
strive for and probably raises the public's perception
tremendously that they are getting, you know, an honest shot
here.
I think, however, that to make things work, to actually get
the job done, you have to have a synergy between a board and
the Federal agencies and OMB. And a board that has that kind of
mix on it I think would be a good idea. I think that if a
majority or at least half of the members are IGs, it presents
that, sort of, optics of independence that I think is
important, as well.
So I think the board that is contemplated in the law that
you have proffered and also my understanding is the Vice
President's--the President's Executive order, the Vice
President's intention is to try to achieve that balance on that
board, as well.
Chairman Issa. So what you are saying is, no matter how we
achieve the board, as long as it is independent and perceived
legitimately to be independent, it can work. If it becomes
captured by any one agency or entity, it loses its
effectiveness.
Mr. Devaney. I would be very careful about it being
captured by any particular interest group.
Chairman Issa. Thank you.
The gentleman from Idaho, Mr. Labrador.
Mr. Labrador. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the time.
Chairman Issa. Okay.
He meant to me.
I am going to use this because I have asked my questions--
and I appreciate the gentleman yielding.
This is not the last time you are coming before this
committee. You may be out of office, but we will use our
subpoena power to bring you back to get educated. You know,
there are just some things we can't live without, and one of
them is your advice and counsel. I know we would never have to
use that. You have been very generous with your time, both at
these hearings and anytime we have called on you for advice. So
I want to thank you publicly for that.
I want to pledge, on behalf of the ranking member and
myself both, you are one of the few people that we agree on. We
don't have arguments about the job you are doing. We want to
see you succeed, and we want to see you have a legacy. So on
behalf of the committee, thank you for your service, and we
look forward to continuing to work with you in the future.
And, with that, we stand adjourned--no, I am sorry--stand
in recess. I was really getting choked up. We stand in recess
as we set up for the second panel.
[Recess.]
Chairman Issa. We now recognize our second panel of
witnesses.
The Honorable Kim Wallin is the controller of the State of
Nevada. And Nevada is one that I always have to get right
because I want to say ``Nevada,'' and then I get yelled at.
Mr. Patrick Quinlan is the chief executive officer of Rivet
Software.
Ms. Ellen Miller, a returning guest, is the executive
director of the Sunlight Foundation.
And Craig Jennings is the director of Federal fiscal policy
but was not on my list here. But thank you, and welcome. And
thank you for your work on OMB Watch.
Pursuant to the committee rules, would all witnesses please
rise to take the oath and raise your right hands?
[Witnesses sworn.]
Chairman Issa. Let the record indicate all witnesses
answered in the affirmative.
This panel is every bit as important as the first panel,
but there are four of you, so we would ask that you very much
summarize your entire statement to keep it within 5 minutes and
allow time for questioning. Your entire written statement will
be entered into the record.
Ms. Miller.
STATEMENTS OF ELLEN MILLER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SUNLIGHT
FOUNDATION; PATRICK QUINLAN, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, RIVET
SOFTWARE; KIM WALLIN, CONTROLLER, STATE OF NEVADA; AND CRAIG
JENNINGS, DIRECTOR OF FEDERAL FISCAL POLICY, OMB WATCH
STATEMENT OF ELLEN MILLER
Ms. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for inviting
me to attend the hearing today. And I thank all the members of
the committee also.
My name is Ellen Miller, and I am co-founder and executive
director of the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan nonprofit
dedicated to using the power of the Internet to catalyze
greater government openness and transparency. We take our
inspiration from Justice Brandeis' famous adage that sunlight
is said to be the best of disinfectants.
The Sunlight Foundation focuses on transparency and
accountability for government by developing data bases, tools,
and policies that eliminate the influence behind
decisionmaking. We want citizens to understand the outcomes of
government decisions. We want them to be able to hold
government accountable for its work.
We have long been involved in improving Federal spending
transparency. We funded the first publicly available data base
of government spending, FedSpending.org, that was developed by
the nonprofit organization and my colleague on this panel's
organization, OMB Watch. We have followed earmarks, analyzed
grants and contracts, scraped the House disbursements,
identified Federal subsidies, and dug into tax expenditures.
Recently, we have spoken out against Congress' deep cuts in
funding for E-government programs.
Yesterday was quite the day for government transparency.
The chairman introduced a sweeping transparency bill, the DATA
Act, that would transform how we track Federal spending,
establishing an independent body to track it all on a single
Web site requiring the use of consistent, governmentwide
standards. This new Federal Accountability and Spending
Transparency Board would oversee a successor site to
USAspending.gov.
While the creation of the FAST Board will garner the lion's
share of attention, the effort to create governmentwide
financial data reporting standards should not be overlooked.
Indeed, the Sunlight Foundation supports another piece of
legislation, the Public Online Information Act, that promotes
the creation of governmentwide data standards and sets up an
entity with similar responsibilities.
And here is more good news. Apparently the White House
agrees with the President--agrees with the chairman--sorry--and
vice versa. Yesterday, the White House announced an Executive
order that appears to contain some of the same elements as the
chairman's legislation. Because of these recent developments,
we would like to submit additional written testimony on the
chairman's bill for the record, if that is agreeable.
Chairman Issa. Without objection, so ordered.
Ms. Miller. We all agree on a few basic principles:
Government spending must be transparent. As citizens engage
with government online, they must be met step by step with
tools that empower them to track every dollar the government
spends. We are cautiously optimistic that technology makes this
dream obtainable. And we all appear to agree that we need an
independent board to do that, one such as the DATA Act and the
White House Executive order have outlined.
We need this because of the structure of government. OMB,
for example, has multiple and sometimes conflicting
responsibilities. It has the nonpolitical task of enforcing
Federal financial reporting requirements, but it also must
strive to avoid creating political problems for the President.
And this is true whether we are talking about a Republican or a
Democratic administration. These responsibilities clash when it
comes to publicly criticizing agencies for their failings, such
as when they do not fully report their spending.
I have previously testified before this committee about our
analysis of grants reported in USAspending.gov. We had
identified almost $1.3 trillion in spending that failed to meet
one of the three basic metrics we use: timeliness,
completeness, and accuracy. But OMB has done little to correct
the problems that we uncovered. When we recently revisited this
analysis for 2010, the problems had not abated. And although
much of the fault lies with the agencies, it is OMB's
responsibility to publicly identify data quality problems and
work to resolve them.
In providing genuine accountability for government
spending, the government must keep in mind three principles:
First, transparency is government's responsibility. Second,
public information must be online. Third, data quality and
presentation matter. Data should be made available online in a
timely fashion so that it can be easily found and reused by
anyone, subject only to commonsense limitations.
I applaud the committee's attention to these matters and
thank you for the opportunity to discuss them with you today.
And I am looking forward to your questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Miller follows:]
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Chairman Issa. Thank you.
Mr. Quinlan.
STATEMENT OF PATRICK QUINLAN
Mr. Quinlan. Chairman Issa, Ranking Member Cummings, and
distinguished members of the committee, my name is Patrick
Quinlan. I am the CEO of Rivet Software in Denver, Colorado. To
date, our company has helped over 1,300 of the top public
companies in the United States transform the way they
communicate their financial information to the public via the
SEC. Thank you for the opportunity to give testimony today on
how to better leverage technology to achieve transparency and
accountability in Federal spending.
The legislation that Chairman Issa has introduced and has
been supported by the Vice President and the President in their
own Executive order requires the board to designate consistent
data standards for Federal spending information. Data standards
are nonproprietary and a way of creating efficiency across data
bases for true transparency, similar to the barcodes that you
mentioned earlier.
In essence, a demand for transparency is also a demand for
accountability. To accomplish this goal, we must start with a
data standardization, as was discussed by the honorable Mr.
Devaney and by you, Congressman Issa, such as XBRL, which is
eXtensible Business Reporting Language. It is governed by an
international nonprofit consortium and similar to HTML. XBRL
makes documents' content machine-readable and instantly
available for research. It is an open standard owned by no one
but used by over 44 countries to manage data efficiently and
accurately.
Our government operates one of the largest data warehouses
in the world but fails to turn that data into real information.
In effect, we are constraining innovation, wasting funds, and
obscuring information, all in the name of data transparency.
Noble initiatives such as Data.gov and USAspending.gov look
good but are nonfunctional. They claim data is available and
accessible, but if you cannot get an accurate answer, then it
is not real information. On the other hand, Recovery.org's data
is incredibly powerful once converted into XBRL.
At Rivet, we have developed a taxonomy creator to impose a
new data structure on the Recovery.gov data set. We can
instantly determine, as an example, grant spending as distinct
from loans and contracts by quarter and disbursed from the
Department of the Interior to my State of Colorado, a search
that would have required multiple manual steps using the
current XML format. The point being, we must find more
opportunities to mandate data standards, and XBRL is the data
standard to help us get there.
So what can this committee do to create true transparency
in Federal spending? First, look at the SEC for best practices.
They have set and enforced the data standard using XBRL, which
has developed a self-funded industry. The SEC's 2008 visionary
mandate for XBRL has created at least 15 companies and roughly
1,500 jobs.
Finally, here is an extra bonus. By passing this
legislation, you will be creating jobs. With access to this
tagged, accurate data, entrepreneurs will create tools with
uses we cannot even imagine today. You will form a new, self-
funded industry, creating thousands of high-tech jobs, and
achieve true transparency and accountability. XBRL has the
potential to become a tool as effective as the military's GPS
technology. Now look at the myriad of applications, businesses,
jobs, and tax dollars generated that have been created by
leveraging this data.
The benefits of this new technology are lower costs,
increased sharing, and enhanced communication. Federal fund
recipients already spend too much time and money on compliance
and reporting. Early XBRL adopters know that standardization
makes compliance easier and reduces work. Many public companies
have already saved money in both their internal and external
reporting systems thanks to this technology.
In conclusion, for us to move forward as a country, grow
high-tech, and reduce the massive deficit, we must stop dealing
with fuzzy numbers and start tracking where and how our money
is spent. We stand ready to use the public government data to
help people make better decisions as soon as the data is using
the right technologies. But I hope it will not be just us doing
that; the field will be wide open for new tech companies to
make this data and make this more valuable.
On behalf of my company in Denver, the thousands employed
by our industry, and the millions of Americans we serve, I
thank you for the opportunity to be a part of this discussion.
We wholeheartedly endorse Chairman Issa's bill, and I will be
happy to answer questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Quinlan follows:]
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Chairman Issa. Thank you, although you can go longer. As
long as you are talking like that, it is okay.
Ms. Wallin.
STATEMENT OF KIM WALLIN
Ms. Wallin. Good morning, Mr. Chair, ranking member,
members of the committee. For the record, I am Kim Wallin,
Nevada's State controller. I am also the former global chair of
the Institute of Management Accountants, who was one of the
early adopters and founders of XBRL.
This morning, I want to talk to you about how grant
reporting can be improved through standardization and using a
widely used, freely available, interactive data standard.
Standardization is an important piece for improving
transparency and accountability. In order to be able to compare
apples to apples, the Federal Government needs to standardize
what is being reported from agency to agency. To give you an
example, the Department of Agriculture classifies fuel in
lawnmowers as a ``supply'' and fuel in trucks as ``fuel'' or
``travel.'' Other agencies call fuel ``fuel'' or ``supplies.''
In 2004, there was a document that started the framework
for standardization across agencies. It is called, ``Uniform
Data Elements and Definitions for Grant Budgeting and Financial
Reporting, Version 1.'' So we won't be starting from scratch.
XBRL is a standard that I recommend for using for grant and
contract reporting and other reporting requirements under the
proposed bill. XBRL is nonproprietary and widely accepted. It
complies with accounting principles and can be easily updated
as new requirements come along. XBRL is about using good
business best practices.
XBRL is not a software or a product; it is a format for
data that gives it structure and meaning. It is a standard that
can be incorporated into software tools, much like how the HTML
standard is used for building Web pages.
Let me share with you Nevada's experience with XBRL. A few
years ago, the Department of Agriculture in our State was
testifying and asked if they could have standardized reporting.
Immediately I looked at XBRL because it is about standardized
reporting. We conducted a case study where we took their two
larger EPA grants and used XBRL to do the grant reporting.
Before XBRL, it was taking 2 weeks to prepare the report. Under
XBRL, the report preparation was reduced to a day or even an
hour. XBRL helped meet the goals of the Department of
Agriculture, which were timely and accurate data, stronger
internal controls, reduced costs, standardization, and seamless
data exchange. Additional benefits were that it was scalable
and adaptable.
A big concern from the State's perspective to implement
this new proposed legislation is the cost of compliance. I
haven't had an opportunity to talk to my peers in NASACT on
what they think the additional cost would be.
Besides asking for money to help the States comply with the
additional reporting and oversight, we need to find a way to
streamline and eliminate redundant reporting and standardize
the grant reporting requirements between all agencies. One way
we could reduce the cost of compliance, the reporting burden,
at the same time improve transparency and accountability, would
be to have a single repository where States would report.
I envision this being similar to a white paper I wrote on
using XBRL for the Nevada Business Portal. With the Business
Portal, businesses only have to register in one place, and all
their business registrations and tax reporting requirements can
be fulfilled at that one site.
Many countries around the world are going to these very
efficient portals. Australia now has a governmentwide portal,
and they estimate filers are saving an estimated $800 million
annually on compliance costs. If States could report through a
similar single repository, the Federal agencies could go to
that repository and generate the reports that they need. This
would eliminate the redundant reporting and multiple formats
that States are currently required to do. This will save
millions of dollars in compliance costs for the States, as well
as freeing up resources to allow for more time to do analytics
and reduce improper payments.
By using XBRL, the Federal agencies would be able to
generate the reports that they need and not have to spend
millions of dollars buying rigid proprietary systems. They
would have more time to spend on analytics, to look for fraud,
waste, and abuse.
Had XBRL been used for ARRA reporting, it would have
reduced compliance costs for the States, improved data
integrity, and provided for more transparency. When States
began reporting under the ARRA requirements, the Recovery Board
was still making changes to the template an hour after the
reporting site opened. This caused errors to be made on the
State side. Had they been using XBRL, they could have made
changes behind the scenes, which would not have impacted the
States.
To give you an example of what I mean, the FDIC has been
using XBRL for their bank call reports for many years. When the
FDIC decides to change what they want to see in the call
report, they change it on their reporting site. Banks don't
have to go in and change their systems, and oftentimes they
don't know anything has even been changed. The FDIC saw the
error rate go from having 30 percent errors to zero and data
quality improving from a low of 66 percent to now 95 percent,
and reporting time decreased from weeks to a day.
XBRL goes beyond reporting and provides the mechanism to
sort through mountains of information and to help governments
to make informed decisions. Using XBRL will improve
transparency, accountability, and give citizens and government
officials alike better access to how we are spending taxpayer
dollars and what we are doing with it.
Thank you very much for the opportunity.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Wallin follows:]
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Chairman Issa. Thank you.
Mr. Jennings.
STATEMENT OF CRAIG JENNINGS
Mr. Jennings. Chairman Issa, Ranking Member Cummings,
members of the committee, my name is Craig Jennings, and I am
the director of Federal fiscal policy at OMB Watch, an
independent, nonpartisan watchdog organization. Thank you for
inviting me to testify today on this important topic on
spending transparency and ways to improve it. We want to
commend this committee for holding today's hearing and for
efforts to increase access to accurate spending data.
In general, we are very supportive of proposals to
strengthen public access to government spending information.
And such transparency is a nonpartisan issue, as demonstrated
by the bipartisan co-sponsorship of the Federal Funding
Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, the unfortunately
acronymed ``FFATA,'' where two Senators with different
ideological backgrounds worked closely together to draft and
advocate for the bill. We hope a similar approach is taken with
the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act [DATA Act].
On June 9th, we were given a summary and section-by-section
of the DATA Act, along with a briefing by committee staff.
However, we did not receive a copy of the legislative language
during that briefing and, therefore, cannot comment about the
DATA Act with any specificity. As with all legislation, the
devil is in the details. Accordingly, we look forward to
reviewing the legislative language and working with Chairman
Issa as the bill moves through the House.
Since it was formed in 1983, OMB Watch has focused on
bringing greater accountability to our Nation's spending. We
played a leadership role in the passage of FFATA. We also
developed FedSpending.org, a Web site that implemented many of
the goals of FFATA by providing online searchable and
downloadable tools to monitor much of the Federal Government's
spending. Because of its success, FedSpending was licensed to
the Federal Government and came USAspending.gov.
In other words, OMB Watch has nearly 30 years of policy and
practical experience with bringing greater accountability to
Federal spending. And based on our experience, OMB Watch can
recommend the following to drastically improve Federal spending
transparency.
First, improve data quality by publishing Treasury data.
Agency-reported obligation information is not the most accurate
when it comes to how much was actually spent--that is, outlays.
The best spending data comes from the Department of Treasury,
the Nation's checkbook. That data should be made available
online and compared to recipient reports.
I should also note that USAspending.gov per se does not
have data quality issues. Rather, the Federal Assistance Awards
Data System [FAADS], one of the two data sources that are
displayed on USAspending.gov, is what is at issue here.
Replacing USAspending.gov with something else will do nothing
to fix the Federal spending data quality unless the problems
inherent in FAADS are addressed.
Two, establish a unique entity identification system. Each
recipient of Federal funds should be uniquely identified across
all data systems in government. We need to know if the Acme,
Inc., that received a contract from the Pentagon is the same
Acme, Inc., that received a ``poor contractor'' review by
State, is the same Acme, Inc., that appears in EPA's Toxics
Release Inventory.
It seems obvious, but there is no unique identifier system
throughout government, and the current system used within
USAspending.gov is deeply flawed. Without a comprehensive,
universal unique identification system, Federal spending
transparency will be hamstrung. This unique ID must include, at
a minimum, the parent company ID, headquarters, and facility.
Third, shine a light on the shadow budget of tax
expenditures. In 2009, the Federal Government spent $556
billion in grants and $538 billion in contracts, as reflected
in USAspending.gov. By comparison, the government spent an
estimated $1 trillion in fiscal year 2009 through tax
expenditures, which is not monitored by USAspending.gov.
To see why tax expenditure transparency is necessary,
consider that the home mortgage interest deduction and Section
8 housing vouchers are both designed to help Americans afford
homes. From a housing policy standpoint, there is little
difference between these two policies. But from a reporting and
performance measurement standpoint, there is a world of
difference.
And, finally, with respect to the preliminary information
that we received on the DATA Act, I would say that the success
of the Recovery Board was largely related to the funding it
received from Congress. USAspending.gov has never received
dedicated funds. Congress needs to provide funds sufficient for
the Federal Accountability and Spending Transparency Board to
do its important work, and Congress should view this
appropriation as an investment.
We are generally supportive of the creation of a separate,
independent agency charged with supporting Federal spending
transparency. OMB Watch believes that the Recovery Board has
been exemplary in overseeing the Recovery Act transparency, and
we would be pleased if a successor to it carried on its powers
and its work for all of Federal spending.
We are concerned, however, that the FAST Board would be
sunset. Additionally, USAspending would, under the act, also--
or would go away. And we think that millions of dollars
shouldn't be used to reinvent the wheel.
Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Jennings follows:]
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Chairman Issa. Thank you.
I recognize myself for the first round of questioning.
You know, Mr. Jennings, hopefully, as we negotiate with the
administration on bringing together all these plans,
expenditures, particularly Treasury expenditures, will, in
fact, be part of a manager's amendment in a final bill. As you
can imagine--and I think this is not a surprise to any of you--
we can only go so far in proposing. We need to make sure that
we keep the President and his administration where they mostly
are now, which is on board in concept.
But having said that, Ms. Miller, I am going to ask you a
particular question. One of the conceptual differences that has
existed that we are trying to narrow is this whole question of
OMB and our belief--and I think you share this with us--that
they have an inherent conflict, that they will never, in fact,
be the bad guys in the room insisting on enforcement.
Do you want to elaborate any more on what the other--I
mean, if we don't get an independent board, what do you see
happening if OMB were to take this over under the present
structure of their multiple missions?
Ms. Miller. Well, I think proceeding without an independent
agency would be a waste of time.
And I think, also, the good news is, the administration
does appear to agree with you that these kinds of
responsibilities with respect to monitoring spending, putting
it online, making it accessible for everyone, must be created
in an independent agency.
And I would certainly agree with Chairman Devaney's comment
earlier this morning, that the most effective way to make this
happen is to pass a law to make it happen.
Chairman Issa. Yes, he was very supportive of the body he
was before, and I am glad to hear that. I need to be with him
with the President one time as he says that, too.
Mr. Quinlan, you mentioned fuel, or it was mentioned, the
multiple reporting of fuel. But with your software and
particularly using something like XBRL, wouldn't it be true
that people could report fuel for automotive use, truck use,
bus use, lawnmower use, and it could be aggregated so that one
report would say, I just want to look at all fuel; another one
could actually break it down? Isn't that one of the advantages
of that kind of strength the metadata gives you to build tools
so that you can look at, for example, fuel reported multiple
different ways but, ultimately, the user could determine what
they wanted to see in a way that was meaningful to them?
Mr. Quinlan. That is correct, Mr. Chairman. And it goes
back to the conversation that Chairman Devaney had, as well as
Ms. Wallin, that it all starts with a common taxonomy. You need
to create one accounting structure across the Federal
Government to ensure that fuel is fuel.
But this is where XBRL can be helpful in the transition
process. By going in and mapping against that initial common
taxonomy, we don't have to wait for everybody to make the
change. We can start by mapping each individual Cabinet's
accounting structure or reporting structure directly into the
newly created government structure, and we can start that
reporting immediately. So XBRL and mapping allow that
transition to happen seamlessly.
Chairman Issa. Now, Ms. Wallin, I agreed with everything
you said, but I was concerned at one part of your statement
where you talked in terms of increased costs of reporting. Is
it possible that if we do this right, other than transition
costs, that we are actually driving down costs for your State?
Don't you see your vendors, your customers, your constituents
reporting to you and reporting to us often?
And, additionally, don't you see yourself reporting as a
State to multiple agencies? If we could reduce your reporting
to one unified report or at least any given activity only being
reported one time, wouldn't that save you money?
Ms. Wallin. Mr. Chairman, yes, it definitely would save us
money. It would reduce the redundancy that we have. It would
reduce the confusion that you have. And it would give you the
transparency that we need because all the information would be
in one site. So I agree with that. So we just have the
incremental costs of the transition.
Chairman Issa. Now, I am going to ask a closing question to
all of you, and it is deliberately off of what we are all
talking about, government vendors and so on. But I am a
Californian. So, unlike Nevadans, I file a big income tax
return to the State of California. And I have always wondered
why I have to file two separate reports, why I don't report one
time and let the Feds and the State that have to, in fact,
verify each other's figures and deductions for us as
Californians, do their work. I understand separations.
If we were to have a common platform for Nevada, doesn't
that give you the ability in any aspect of your work to form
compacts with the other States and gain access to information
that might be proprietary to them but ultimately of interest to
you reciprocally? Isn't that one of the values of a single
reporting, is that, assuming you are given access, you can get
information that, today, you would have to go to your adjacent
States, go through disparate data bases to try to get
information that you both may need in common?
Ms. Wallin. Mr. Chairman, yes, I agree. If you take
Australia, with their governmentwide business portal, that is
what they have done. An individual goes to file their taxes
there, and it takes--actually, their software system has XBRL
built into it, and they go and file with their unique
identifier, and that takes care of all their filing: their
payroll reports, their local prefecture reports, everything.
And it is the sharing of data.
We are using XBRL in our debt collection area here in the
State, and we are actually going to start sharing the
information with cities and counties to collect.
So the more commonality we can get, the more powerful we
can be. And it reduces the cost of compliance. You would only
have to file one return one time.
Chairman Issa. Thank you.
Mr. Quigley.
Mr. Quigley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Jennings, you brought up the issue I did with the first
panelists, and that was tax expenditures. Obviously, you
support putting this information online. But I guess the bigger
issue is, I am not sure most of the American public understands
what tax expenditures are, their significance in policy, the
fact that they are not even within the budget.
So I am not sure just putting them online is enough. For
you and other panelists, including Ms. Miller, your
recommendations to elevate the awareness and understanding of
the tax policy issues that go with tax expenditures, the lack
of transparency, and how else can we let the world know about
them?
Mr. Jennings. Well, I think the first thing about tax
expenditures is just putting them alongside and making them
analogous, as they are, to Federal spending programs that are
often debated within Congress, that come up in news reports.
When they are put on equal footing in terms of reporting and by
considered by Congress as doing the same thing--one just
happens to be a check written to an individual, one just
happens to be done through the Tax Code--I think that would put
them on the same footing as spending and make them equally
well-known as spending.
And the way it is done right now is that the IRS is running
a massive subsidy program, and all the information stays within
IRS by law, some of it totally appropriate--personal
identifiable information, etc. But the vast majority of it
could be moved outside of the IRS and under the jurisdictions
of committees that are responsible for their analog spending
programs. And as we move that debate into broader budget
discussion, I think it will become equally well-known.
Mr. Quigley. Ms. Miller.
Ms. Miller. I would certainly agree with Mr. Jennings'
remarks. I mean, I think for the Sunlight Foundation,
transparency for tax expenditures is very important, for the
obvious reasons. We are focused on transparency for government
data across the--you know, beyond the spending arena, which is
the subject of this hearing. And we think the more information
that is put online, the more that Members themselves and,
certainly, members of the public can begin to understand the
very nature of what government looks like, what it costs to run
government, what government's priorities are, as shown through
tax expenditures. And so this is a general public education
effort.
But I also agree with Mr. Quinlan, that the more of this
information that is put online in parsable formats, also
creates new businesses, things that we cannot even imagine. So
there is a multiple purpose in moving all public information to
being made available online in parsable formats.
Mr. Quigley. But you don't just think it should be online.
You believe that information like this should be within the
Federal budget as well?
Ms. Miller. Yes, we do think it should also be available as
part of the Federal budget.
Mr. Quigley. Mr. Quinlan.
Mr. Quinlan. I agree with Ms. Miller. And you can't just
have reporting be the last mile. Reporting has to start at the
beginning of the process. So, again, by creating a common
taxonomy that all areas of government report against and
ensuring at the beginning of the budgeting process that that
process is available actually would allow the American taxpayer
to become a part of that discussion.
The importance of financial communication begins with who
understands the discussion that is happening. And I think right
now it is very much the American Government hears the
rhetoric--sorry--the American people hear the rhetoric that
comes out of it, but they are not able to go in and see for
themselves what the rhetoric is about. And, again, that is what
a common taxonomy and XBRL can do for the discussion and for
the outcome of that.
Mr. Quigley. How do you address this enormous quantity of
information, though? I mean, there is sometimes just too much.
How do you, given what you are trying to accomplish here as
panelists and in your everyday lives, bring that down to a
workable amount of information that folks can grasp and
understand?
Ms. Miller. Well, the Sunlight Foundation spends quite a
bit of time both advocating for data to be put online in raw,
machine-readable formats, but we also spend a huge amount of
our time and effort in creating tools for people to have access
together. And some of those tools actually mash data sets
together to make it more understandable for citizens.
And so that is the job, in many cases, of the private
sector. It happens to be the heart of Sunlight Foundation's
mission as well, which is to build tools to take different data
sets and to enable citizens or journalists to make sense of
them as well. But if you don't have the raw data, then you have
nothing to start with.
Ms. Wallin. Congressman, actually, with using XBRL, the
beauty of it is, Google just became a member of the XBRL
International consortium. And they are going to be putting
together tools so people can use it to parse the data how they
want to see it.
When the Recovery Board did their report and put it online,
they determined how they thought the U.S. citizens wanted to
see the data, and that is the only way you could see it. With
XBRL, people can go and extract that data and put it into any
type of format that makes sense for them. That is the true
power of it.
So it is put into a format that, there is lots of
information out there, but XBRL gets it into the format that
you want to see it in and how you want to look at it.
Mr. Quinlan. And if I could add one last comment to that?
Mr. Quigley. Of course.
Mr. Quinlan. I think to argue that it shouldn't be done
because it may be too big is I do not believe the correct
approach. When you look at what HTML has done for the searching
of words on the Internet--so all of the information, or a great
deal of the information that is in the Internet today was
available pre-1995. The difference is, HTML allowed you to come
in and tag a word and define what it is so people could search
on it. And the amount of information available on the Internet
is probably the one thing in the world that is actually larger
than the Federal budget.
Mr. Quinlan. Thank you.
Chairman Issa. Yeah, we are only talking trillions. You are
talking peta.
Mr. Quinlan. Huge.
Chairman Issa. Mr. Labrador.
Mr. Labrador. Good morning.
Ms. Wallin, can you please give us some detail about the
current burden of Federal reporting that State and local
governments are dealing with?
Ms. Wallin. Well, part of the thing when we started with
the stimulus, we had to go and report a lot of the same
information to the agencies as well as to the Recovery Board.
So you have the duplicative reporting. And then they started
asking us to do the sub-recipient monitoring. Some of the
smaller agencies, they didn't have the resources to try to do
that. And I will admit that, in our State, we are doing the
best we can. Could we do better? Yes.
And when we started out with the stimulus dollars with the
additional reporting, we were really not given any additional
resources to do that. The money to recover our costs for doing
the compliance was to be recovered through the SWCAP, the
Statewide Cost Allocation Plan. In many cases, a lot of the
agencies were already at their ceiling of the amount of money
that could be charged for overhead. And so you just have to try
to absorb it. Well, with States' budgets being--our State is
struggling. We really didn't have the money there, and it took
away money from other programs and what have you.
I think the biggest problem is the duplication, the
redundancy of the reporting. If we could just go into one site
and do it one time, I think it would make a lot more sense. And
then, also, the confusion--this agency wants this, this one
wants this--have that standardization. Because when you have
the laws and you have people changing from one place to
another, people are like, oh, they want this, they want that.
And sometimes we ask our questions, why do you even need this,
what do you do with it? Nothing. So----
Mr. Labrador. Okay. So do you think this will change under
a standardized system if the DATA Act were enacted?
Ms. Wallin. Congressman, yes, I do believe that it will
change if we have a single portal, a single repository where we
report, if we use standardization, if we use interactive data
standards such as XBRL.
The nice thing is, when the government, if you change the
laws on what you want to see or how you want to see things, the
States don't have to go in and reprogram their systems. You
guys just do it on your reporting site. And so that would be a
huge savings for the States.
Mr. Labrador. All right. Thank you.
Ms. Miller, as you know, President Obama signed an
Executive order establishing a government accountability and
transparency board. Do you think there are significant
differences between the proposed DATA Act, which would
establish the FAST Board, and President Obama's new Executive
order? And if you do, what are those differences?
Ms. Miller. We have not yet had a chance to review either
the chairman's legislation or the White House Executive order
in detail. But I had asked earlier if I could submit some
additional remarks, and we will include those comparisons in
those additional remarks.
Mr. Labrador. You said in your testimony that transparency
is the government's responsibility. How do you believe the
government has fulfilled this responsibility, especially with
such efforts as USAspending.gov?
Ms. Miller. I think there have been significant--really,
truly significant strides in this administration's efforts at
creating a transparent and open government. I believe it could
be done faster. I think it could be done better.
I think one of the reasons that Sunlight supports the
creation of an independent agency, the expansion of the RAT
Board is because we think it could be done better if you have
this independent entity, particularly on the spending side of
things.
You know, the new technology is really quite a marvel. The
number of people who are going online to receive information,
the numbers are increasing astronomically. So, while I think
the administration has taken significant steps, we need to go
much further much faster. And this legislation, of course,
would put many of the reporting responsibilities into law with
enforcement mechanisms that we think are very important.
Mr. Labrador. All right. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time.
Chairman Issa. If the gentleman would yield?
Mr. Labrador. Yes.
Chairman Issa. Going back, because we have an unusually
great amount of expertise on XBRL here, just a quick question.
If all the States--we will take Nevada for example. If all of
your data was in XBRL format, and multiple agencies wanted
multiple information, isn't it essentially true that if you had
all the information in a data base, even if you had extraneous
information, under XBRL if you did a complete dump, they are
still only going to get what they asked for because the rest of
it is simply not going to be--they are not going to see it
because they are not looking for it.
So isn't that one of the strengths of this kind of data
base, where you have the wealth of metadata, that as long as
you give them what they want, whether you give them a little
extra, or one agency is looking for only a part of what another
agency is looking for, isn't that what the beauty of it is,
that Mr. Quinlan and your State can easily get what they want
without having to--one dump does it all?
Mr. Quinlan. That is absolutely correct, Chairman Issa.
And, actually, there are two parts to that answer.
One is, if the data is all there, you are then able to ask
the question that you want of the data and be able to identify
what you are looking for.
And that also then goes to the private sector. What will
happen is, when that data is available, just like Google was
the window into all this HTML data that existed, there will be
entrepreneurs throughout this great country that will create
tools that will enable the media, will enable regulatory
agencies, will enable State agencies to go in and take the
questions that they have and ask it of that metadata.
Ms. Wallin. Mr. Chair, that is correct. And one of the
things that you have is you have your taxonomy, which defines
the definition of your data. So Agency X over here can have
their taxonomy for education, you can have a taxonomy for
Department of Agriculture, and they can pull what they need
from it.
Chairman Issa. Thank you.
Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Jennings and Ms. Miller, as you know, budget
negotiators recently slashed funding for the Electronic
Government Fund in the continuing resolution of fiscal year
2011 from a proposed $35 million down to $8 million. It's been
reported that these cuts are putting Web sites such as
Data.gov, USASpending.gov, Performance.gov and the IT Dashboard
at risk of being shut down.
I know that both of your organizations joined a coalition
of transparency and open government groups on a letter sent
just yesterday to the leadership of the House Appropriations
Committee Financial Services Subcommittee urging them to
restore funding for the Electronic Government Fund. The letter
said in part, ``The E-Government Fund has a proven track record
of successful transparency, projects that have delivered
efficiency improvements and increased government
accountability. For instance, USASpending.gov and the IT
Dashboard have helped to root out government waste and
inefficiency and recently led to the elimination of some $3
billion in failing technology projects.''
Your letter goes on to list several other Web sites aimed
at improving transparency and accountability and promoting
public participation and collaboration.
I ask unanimous consent, Mr. Chairman, that their letter be
placed in the record.
Chairman Issa. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information referred to follows:]
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Mr. Cummings. Mr. Jennings and Ms. Miller, can you
elaborate on the impact of the dramatic cuts to the E-Gov Fund
for fiscal year 2011 and talk about the impact of potentially
maintaining those cuts for fiscal year 2011?
Mr. Jennings. Certainly. I think one of the things that the
Nation's chief information officer highlighted in a letter to
Congress is the fact that needed improvements to data quality
are going to have to be foregone because they don't have the
money to do it. There is, again, also other Web sites that were
coming up that were intended to help employees within the
Federal Government share and exchange information and come up
with better ideas on how to do things, and that sort of
collaborative element with a pilot won't be continued.
So I think we are already kind of seeing as a reduction of
funds happens that these efforts are really hindering progress
that was being made, and now it has just stopped.
Mr. Cummings. And the two things that you just mentioned,
what are the significance of those? You just mentioned two
things there, that lack of money might cause two problems you
just mentioned. And how significant is that, those problems?
Mr. Jennings. Well, certainly the data quality issue is
hugely important, and I think it's one of the main reasons for
this hearing and for the DATA Act. It's really hard to
understate the importance of getting the right information to
the public. I mean, that's how we base our decisions on
multiple things, policy, who to fine for fraud, what kinds of
programs should be extended or ended, however that may be.
Mr. Cummings. Ms. Miller.
Ms. Miller. I want to remind everyone of one thing that
Chairman Devaney said about the establishment of his board. He
said you guessed at the right number, and having the resources
at hand enabled him to really lift that agency into being an
effective agency within 6 months. It was actually rather
remarkable.
Knowing what that right number is is a bit of a guess,
although we now have more experience with that. But there is no
question that the figure is somewhere between $8 million that
causes the administration to begin to reduce what it puts on
line or freeze what's on line and $32 million that they
proposed. I'm not--I don't know the answer to that, it's really
hard to estimate it, but I think the committee must dig deeply
into that to make sure that, if it is indeed serious about
creating this new board and be serious about government
transparency, that there is adequate money to make that happen.
Mr. Cummings. So in other words, we have to be careful,
because if you put too little money in it, you don't--you lose
your effectiveness and efficiency, and you spent money--I'm not
trying to put words in your mouth, but that sounds like what
you're trying to say. You spent money--in other words, you had
to spend enough to get--sort of like a bicycle. The old
bicycles, you have to catch the chain and priming the pump, but
if you don't prime it enough, you don't get anything, but
you've expended a lot of energy.
Ms. Miller. That's precisely correct. And again, we've all
heard the stories of the $3 billion that have been saved
because of the IT Dashboard. We know we don't have to spend
$2\1/2\ billion building these Web sites.
So again, figuring out--taking the time to figure out what
it does cost, recognizing the enormous potential for cost
savings on the other side once the information is standardized,
the Web sites are built, the citizen access is provided. And
lawmakers as well as citizens themselves will have access to
this and demand the accountability that's necessary.
Mr. Cummings. Well, certainly I'm sure we all, I think all
of us, want to make sure that we spend the appropriate amount
of money so that we can have the effectiveness and efficiency
that we want. We understand that there will be savings and
whatever. But we definitely don't want to spend too little and
at the same time don't want to spend too much. So I guess you
have a good point there. Some kind of way we've got to find the
right point.
Ms. Miller. Right. Well, we do have some experience now in
terms of the cost of building some of these Web sites from
which we can learn, and I think the estimates can be within a
reasonable range.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much.
Chairman Issa. I'm going to recognize myself for a quick
second round. Because the ranking member and I have agreed on a
great deal here today and probably would agree on almost
everything, but I want to ask a question that is not intended
to be confrontational, but just because I voted for an overall
package that did make those cuts. And it wasn't that I didn't--
that I wanted to make the cuts, to be honest. I would have
preferred we just leave those numbers where they were. But
everyone was having cuts made that they wanted to make as a
sacred cow, and that was one that we were very upset about on
our committee.
But, Ms. Miller, if I asked you to find enough Web sites
that you've seen over the years that look good, but provide no
real effective data, in other words they are mostly puff data
sites, wouldn't you be able to find more than enough that, in
your opinion, if you had to make a priority, you could shut
down to grab that money? That's asking you as someone who looks
for meaningful data and sometimes finds it and sometimes
doesn't.
Ms. Miller. Well, I think the problem with the data sites
that are out there that make your eyes hurt, and you arrive at
a Web site and you think, heavens, what am I supposed to do
with this, how do I search anything, those are Web sites from
the last century. Just because----
Chairman Issa. Last millennium perhaps.
Ms. Miller. The last millennium perhaps, the last century
not being so long ago.
But I wouldn't suggest shutting those down, I would suggest
improving them, because the data--there is a lot of data that
is available on line which is practically unusable. So the real
challenge, I think, for us is to figure out what is our
priority for fixing these, because this data set that took our
staff 4 days to find on mining safety--there was such a data
set, but it took us 2 or 3 days to find--what are the
priorities for fixing these sites so they're actually usable?
So I might actually end up actually going in the other
direction, spending more money to identify these data sites,
establishing some priorities, particularly with respect to
accountability data.
Chairman Issa. Sure.
Let me go one more, and I'm going to stay with Ms. Miller
if I could. You have the challenge that you have to work with
what we bring you. I have the challenge that I have to figure
out how not to start by simply saying, whatever it takes, I'll
pay. Chairman Devaney did not have whatever it took; he had a
very small budget, he had a very small amount of time. In 6
months, with less money than the other Web sites that we're
talking about, and with less time than they've had since they
knew that they were probably going to deal with budget cuts, he
was able to prove things could be done, including cost savings
that I personally watched and gone through with their people
how they found the particular wrongdoing and stealing of
Federal funds.
So in a sense wouldn't you agree that if we're going to get
the additional funding back to pay for the transition and the
ultimate better working sites that you want, wouldn't you say
that it has to be part of a grand bargain where you say, and,
oh, by the way, we want you to use best practices so we know
it's the minimum amount of dollars? That includes XBRL, cloud
computing and some of the other givens.
Ms. Miller. Yes, I would certainly agree with that. In
fact, if my memory serves me correctly, we were quite critical
of the contract that was let to build the RAT Board. It seemed
like an enormously expensive contract. In fact, maybe compared
to other government contracts it wasn't that expensive. But
there also has to be--I mean, there has to be a leader like
Chairman Devaney at the head of these agencies who understands
what it does cost and what the time implications are.
But we would certainly agree with you. There are cost
savings. We don't want to spend too much, but we have to figure
out how much is enough to stand these sites up and have the
data available that we think is most important.
Chairman Issa. Well, with that, Mr. Ranking Member, I'll
recognize you in a second, but I want to tell you that I agree
with you that we need to get that money back, and I would hope
that we both work on a strategy to get that money back by
having a plan that the President signs on to, the Vice
President endorses, you and I work on, we get a few Senators,
and we show where this transition money gets us where Chairman
Devaney wants us and where I know you want to be.
With that, you're recognized.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, in answering--in responding to what you just
said, I'm in total agreement. I'll join with you in trying to
make sure we get the funds to keep those funds. It is just so
very, very important. In our mission statement one of the major
lines is that we want to make sure that the people's money is
spent effectively and efficiently. And this just seems to be a
case that just cries out for striking the right balance so that
we have sufficient funds. So I'm in total agreement, and I
pledge today to work very closely with you to accomplish that.
I want to just pick up on something that--going back to
what the chairman was talking about, just all this technology
and how it all plays here. The Federal Government spends nearly
$80 billion annually on information technology, including
software, computer equipment and network devices that help the
government run more effectively and efficiently. Earlier this
year Federal Chief Information Officer Kundra, Administrator
for Federal Procurement Policy Daniel Gordon, U.S. Intellectual
Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel issued a
memorandum for chief information officers and senior
procurement executives on technology neutral. The memorandum
sought to remind agencies of the government's policy of
selecting and acquiring information technology that best fits
the needs of Federal Government, including being
technologically and vendor neutral. I think this is an
important principle not just for the Federal acquisition
community, but for Congress to keep in mind when crafting
legislation as well.
And this I'm getting to, this is what I want to ask. I ask
all the panelists if they agree and why or why not. And it's my
belief that in general the Federal Government lags far behind
the private sector in technological development and
advancement. I could imagine a scenario where we believe we're
on the cutting edge of something, and as much time as it
usually takes to thoughtfully craft legislation, negotiate with
colleagues and the administration, see the bill become law and
then be enacted over time, this is a long process, the cutting-
edge technology has already been surpassed by something newer
and better. Technology that we have today, this morning, is
outdated this evening. So I hope that any efforts to improve
Federal spending transparency and accountability through
governmentwide data standards keep that in mind. I would just
like for you to comment on that, Mr. Quinlan, and any others of
you, and how do we keep up?
Mr. Quinlan. So again, I'm going to use the HTML example
because it is one, and technology does change very rapidly.
HTML has been at the core of word search for over 20 years now.
XBRL does for numbers what HTML does for words and, most
importantly, is a completely open standard. Nobody owns it. Any
company, whether a small entrepreneurial organization like ours
or the largest technology companies in the world such as
Google, anybody can work on that. And so it is a standard that
will stand the test of time. It is a standard that, as Ms.
Wallin spoke to, has been used by 44 countries around the world
because it does allow for true transparency without ownership.
That is why our founder Mike Rohan chose that as the technology
10 years ago, and we very much agree about that, and I
appreciate your question.
Mr. Cummings. Anybody else?
Yes. Mr. Jennings.
Mr. Jennings. With respect to technology and the comparison
to the private sector, it's a little hard to deal with the
Federal Government. There's different things going on both in
terms of mission and the kind of information they deal with.
First off I would just say that some agencies are much
better than other agencies in the technology that they use, and
I think it would be good to look at those agencies to see why
it is they are able to harness such technology.
The second point is that technology is not the problem for
a lot of the issues when he talk about Federal spending
transparency. There are cultural issues that agencies have to
get around to being open.
The second thing is there are conceptual issues in terms of
when we talk about spending, what are we spending on. I know to
get a little philosophical for you, it's what is a program? A
program is different when it's appropriated than when an
obligation is made than when it appears in the Treasury
statements. There are different things that money gets attached
to, and that has to be wrestled with.
As I mentioned before, there's also the issue of the unique
identifier problem, that there isn't a unique identifier for
entities much less anything else in the Federal Government that
extends not just within the executive branch, although that is
a big problem, but also reaching back into the legislative
branch in which decisions are made on how to fund things. So do
we want to fund childhood nutrition? What are those programs
within childhood nutrition? We need to understand all of that
and how they relate and be able to see that within the data.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much.
Chairman Issa. I thank the gentleman, and I thank our
witnesses for being very helpful. It's always hard to follow
Chairman Devaney, but you showed very well that you were up to
the task. Once again, thank you.
We stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:56 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]