    [House Hearing, 114 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                         OVERSIGHT OF FEDERAL VEHICLES

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                                SUBCOMMITTEE ON
                        TRANSPORTATION AND PUBLIC ASSETS

                                     OF THE

                             COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
                             AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                        ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION

                                   __________

                               FEBRUARY 26, 2016

                                   __________

                               Serial No. 114-106

                                   __________

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                  COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

                         JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah, Chairman
    JOHN L. MICA, Florida                ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland,
    MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio                  Ranking Minority Member
    JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee       CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
    JIM JORDAN, Ohio                     ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
    TIM WALBERG, Michigan                    Columbia
    JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan               WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
    PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona               STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
    SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee          JIM COOPER, Tennessee
    TREY GOWDY, South Carolina           GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
    BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas              MATT CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania
    CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming           TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
    THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky              ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
    MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina         BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan
    RON DeSANTIS, Florida                TED LIEU, California
    MICK, MULVANEY, South Carolina       BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey
    KEN BUCK, Colorado                   STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands
    MARK WALKER, North Carolina          MARK DeSAULNIER, California
    ROD BLUM, Massachusetts              BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
    JODY B. HICE, Georgia                PETER WELCH, Vermont
    STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma              MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico
    EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia
    GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin
    WILL HURD, Texas
    GARY J. PALMER, Alabama

                       Jennifer Hemingway, Staff Director
                     David Rapallo, Minority Staff Director
     Michael Kiko, Subcommittee on Transportation and Public Assets Staff
                                    Director
                          Betty Ward Zukerman, Counsel
                               Willie Marx, Clerk

                                     ------

                Subcommittee on Transportation and Public Assets

                         JOHN L. MICA Florida, Chairman
    MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio              TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois, Ranking
    JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR. Tennessee            Member
    JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan               BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey
    THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky              MARK DESAULNIER, California
    GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin, Vice      BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
        Chair

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------
                                                                       Page
    Hearing held on February 26, 2016................................     1

                                   WITNESSES

    Ms. Lori Rectanus, Director, Physical Infrastructure Issues,
      Government Accountability Office
        Oral Statement...............................................     6
        Written Statement............................................     9
    Mr. Bill Toth, Director, Office of Fleet Management, General
      Services Administration
        Oral Statement...............................................    19
        Written Statement............................................    21
    Mr. Tom Howard, Inspector General, Amtrak
        Oral Statement...............................................    25
        Written Statement............................................    27
    Mr. Joseph H. Boardman, President and Chief Executive Officer,
      Amtrak
        Oral Statement...............................................    39
        Written Statement............................................    41

                                    APPENDIX

    Amtrak's Answers to the Committee's Questions for the Record,
      Entered by Chairman Mica.......................................    62
    General Services Administration's Answers to the Committee's
      Questions for the Record.......................................    67

                         OVERSIGHT OF FEDERAL VEHICLES

                                  ----------

                           Friday, February 26, 2016

                      House of Representatives,
      Subcommittee on Transportation and Public Assets,
                  Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
                                                       Washington, D.C.
        The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:07 a.m., in
    Room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John L. Mica
    [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
        Present: Representatives Mica, Duncan, Amash, Massie,
    Grothman, Duckworth, DeSaulnier, and Cummings.
        Mr. Mica. Good morning. I'd like to welcome everyone to the
    Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and our
    Subcommittee on Transportation and Public Assets hearing this
    morning.
        First, let me say that we will have our ranking member join
    us in just a few minutes here. This is a get-away day, and
    everybody is consumed on the floor or in a series of hearings
    this morning. But we do have a member to proceed, and Ms.
    Duckworth will be joining us shortly.
        The topic of today's oversight hearing deals with oversight
    of our Federal vehicles, of our own fleet and also leased
    fleet.
        And the order of business is going to be as follows: I'll
    start with my opening it statement. I'll yield to others
    members for opening statements. Then we'll turn to our
    witnesses. We have four witnesses this morning, and we'll
    introduce them, get them sworn in and proceed, and then we'll
    go to questions. So that will be our order of business.
        And, with that being said, without objection, the chair is
    authorized to declare a recess at any time. And I'll start with
    my opening statement this morning.
        One of the great things about our committee is that we look
    at waste, fraud, and abuse in the Federal Government, and we
    have an opportunity to save the taxpayer money to make programs
    more efficient, to look at where we can do a better job with
    public assets, and we focus on a whole host of areas. And just
    a few of those areas that we've looked at in the past: public
    assets, such as vacant or empty buildings. We are on the verge
    of saving hundreds of millions, billions of dollars.
    Conferences that were abusively expensive, spending funds that
    were unnecessary, I know we've saved over $1 billion just in
    that area. Our committee has looked at duplications in IT
    equipment, data, et cetera, consolidation. We spend 50, 60
    billion dollars there and found half of that money wasted.
        So, today, we're focusing on another area, these are some,
    you might term them, meat-and-potato hearings, but I think it's
    one of the most important responsibilities at Congress: look at
    what we're doing and how we can save money or do it better for
    the taxpayers.
        Kind of interesting getting into Federal vehicle fleet and
    how it's managed and operated. It sounds look a small
    operation, but, in fact, the Federal Government's spent over
    $4.4 billion a year, and that is probably the biggest vehicle
    fleet in the world of 650,000 vehicles. Some of those are our
    own; some of those are leased. The Federal Government's fleet
    mileage exceeds 5 billion miles per year, and we consume and
    spend $400 million just on fuel in that fleet. So it's a pretty
    sizable operation, and almost every agency has either owned by
    the government or leased their vehicles. Roughly a third of the
    Federal fleet is leased, while the remainder is owned.
        You've seen some reports that indicate that between 2010
    and 2014, more than 2.5 million, 2.4 to 2.5 million, in fraud
    recoveries occurred from Federal credit, fuel credit card
    abuse. I have a picture of this Federal fuel credit card. I
    think that's being changed out as we meet today, but we issue
    those cards, and in that short period of time, we've detected
    about $2.5 million in fraud and recovered some of that.
        Fuel card waste and vehicle underutilization are part of
    the problem we've seen with the fleet, and we've got to pay
    attention to, again, all losses that the Federal Government
    occurs with this fleet.
        GAO recently found that two-thirds of the agency's leased
    vehicles did not meet annual mileage criteria. That means they
    weren't traveling or being used to a satisfactory level that is
    established by the government and under Federal property
    regulations that we set for like the minimum utilization that
    would justify leasing. In fact, we found--and we didn't conduct
    all the reports, but we have two reports we'll focus on today.
    First, we've got a GAO report, which is issued in January of
    this year, federally leased vehicles, agencies should
    strengthen assessment processes to reduce underutilized
    vehicles. So this is some of the investigation that was done by
    GAO. And then we have a document prepared by the inspector
    general of Amtrak, and this is titled ``Asset Management and
    Its Observations on Vehicle Fleet Management.'' And I'll quote
    from both of those. This is, again, their findings and part of
    what we're going to look at in this hearing.
        The GAO found that half the Federal vehicles that they
    examined in May of 2015 travelled less than 600 miles that
    month. While the management of Federal vehicles is highly
    decentralized across the individual agency, the fleets that GAO
    looked at and several inspector generals have identified, they
    all found problems with agency's performance of the management
    responsibility for these fleets.
        Agencies that GAO most recently reviewed have not--and
    we've looked at those--those agencies have not consistently
    followed best practices such as one of the most important
    things is conducting a cost-benefit analysis for the basis of
    determining whether to buy or whether to lease. I think we have
    a slide showing leased vehicles.
        In a sampling of just a handful of these agencies--again, I
    refer to the report; they looked at four agencies--GAO found
    that one in 10, or 1,500, of the leased vehicles really weren't
    justified in having any inventory, but the agency paid $5
    million for these vehicles in a single year.
        Now, this is just a sampling of four agencies, and you see
    them up there: National Park Service, Veterans Health, Air
    Force, Bureau of Indian Affairs.
        Now, in the sampling they took, if you apply that to the
    entire number of federally leased vehicles across the
    government, we have wasted in the neighborhood of $80 million
    annually through bad leased fleet management. So we've leased
    vehicles that we don't need. When we lease them, we don't drive
    them or utilize them to their maximum. So there's a lot of
    money being wasted, and GAO found that in their report.
        The owned fleet is another story, and the Government
    Accountability Office is currently conducting an audit for the
    committee on this topic. I'm sure we'll be following up on that
    with another hearing or at least an inquiry.
        Today, I'm pleased to announce that GSA will have a new
    management agreement with Amtrak to save taxpayer dollars on
    many of Amtrak's leased vehicles. This is significant news,
    because, unfortunately--and, again, this is not just something
    I'm saying, but if you look at the report that we have from
    Amtrak conducted by their inspector general, and we'll have him
    here to talk about it--but this report details some troubling
    history of Amtrak's management in leasing and operations of its
    fleet. In some instances, Amtrak was spending nearly $4,500
    more than what it could have been paying through GSA when they
    leased vehicles. We found, again, that Amtrak's--well, not we,
    but the inspector general found that Amtrak's fleet is also
    subject to severe underutilization and weak fuel card
    oversight. We have some pictures--also some slides that we can
    show. Many vehicles just sat idle not only for months but
    sometimes not driven for a year. In May of last year, there
    were 153 Amtrak vehicles that consumed less than 15 gallons of
    fuel for the month that was examined, 26 of which were Amtrak
    police vehicles; two were SWAT vans. I think one of the SWAT
    vans--if you look at it up there--it doesn't appear moved or
    was driven for a year. We know some of these assets are
    infrequently needed to deploy, but, again, we have a
    significant fleet. We have significant expenditures and losses.
        It appears that Amtrak has also--and this is from the
    automotive fleet report, from their engineering department,
    February 2, 2016, in that month, it showed vehicles showing no
    fuel purchase for the month, 138 vehicles. There's no fuel at
    all purchased for them, which means a lot of those vehicles
    were underutilized.
        It remains clear that proper fleet management practices at
    all agencies, big and small, can save significant amounts of
    money.
        Today, we'll hear both from GAO, and we'll also hear from
    the inspector and from Amtrak representatives and others on how
    improvements in Federal management of vehicles can move
    forward. Amtrak has taken some steps to correct some of their
    deficits that have been uncovered, and we'll hear about that
    too.
        We'll also hear how GSA and Amtrak have executed their
    management responsibilities and what they have done or will do
    to address some of the problems that have been uncovered by
    both GAO and the inspector general.
        I look forward to hearing the testimony from all of our
    witnesses.
        I'm pleased to now yield to the ranking member, Ms.
    Duckworth. Welcome.
        Ms. Duckworth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        And thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for being here.
        Mr. Chairman, I must apologize for my late arrival. I have
    simultaneous hearings this morning. The other one is on the
    Army's 2017 budget proposal. So, having just concluded that,
    I'm glad I made it here in time for the start of this and to
    hear the chairman's excellent opening remarks.
        Today's hearing is a chance to continue our subcommittee's
    oversight of Federal fleet management to ensure that taxpayer
    dollars are being used properly and efficiently. This is
    significant--in fiscal year 2014, the Federal fleet totaled
    just over 633,000 vehicles, nearly one-third of which were used
    by the United States Postal Service. Agencies spent more than
    $4 billion to buy and operate these vehicles, including more
    than $1 billion used to lease more than 186,000 vehicles from
    the GSA. This is a significant expenditure that is vulnerable
    to waste, fraud, and abuse. While the vast majority of civil
    servants serve our country honorably and are always mindful of
    the need to use taxpayer dollars responsibly, the unfortunate
    reality is that with more than half a million vehicles being
    used across the Federal Government, it is almost certain that
    bad apples would seek to take advantage of the system. The size
    of the Federal fleet has declined in recent years, and the
    administration has taken important steps to improve fleet
    management.
        In 2015, the President issued an executive order that set
    aggressive goals for reducing the Federal fleet emissions over
    the next decade and required each agency with more than 20
    vehicles to focus on eliminating unnecessary or nonessential
    vehicles from the agency's fleet inventory. However, much work
    remains to be done according to the GAO. Current fleet
    management policies may fragment responsibility and, in the
    process, weaken accountability and oversight.
        For example, although GSAsupplies agencies with a vast
    majority of leased vehicles and maintains the database that
    houses leased fleet information, GSA is not responsible for
    monitoring agencies' vehicle-use policies. GSA has developed
    and issued standards for optimizing fleet utilization, but
    agencies do not have to follow these recommendations or comply
    with their own internal guidelines. As GAO noted in its most
    recent review of five large agency fleets when justifying
    adding a vehicle to the agency's fleet, agencies appeared to be
    either disregarding GSA's recommended standards or not
    following their own. Specifically, GAO found four of the five
    agencies in our review could not readily provide justifications
    for vehicles that had not met utilization criteria defined in
    agency policy. This finding appears to be at odds with the
    administration's efforts to get agencies to regularly review
    the sizes of their fleets and eliminate any vehicle that is not
    meeting an essential agency need.
        I look forward to examining today what specific steps we
    can take to enhance the President's efforts to ensure the
    Federal fleet is as cost-effective and fuel-efficient as
    possible. In particular, since GSA has gone to the trouble of
    developing best practices standards for assessing fleet-use
    needs, one wonders whether Congress should mandate the adoption
    of a single, uniform standard at least as a default option.
        Before closing, I also want to note that today's hearing is
    an excellent opportunity to address fleet management problems
    within Amtrak highlighted by Amtrak's IG. According to the IG,
    deficiencies in cost-control systems and ineffective oversight
    has allowed waste, fraud, and abuse to infect Amtrak's fleet
    program. One of the most alarming incidents of fuel card fraud
    identified by the IG was when an individual, who was not an
    employee of Amtrak, obtained an Amtrak fuel card and proceeded
    to spend more than $57,000 on it. Every dollar Amtrak wastes
    through poor management of its vehicle fleet is a dollar that
    cannot go to meet urgent maintenance needs of the system or to
    support long overdue infrastructure improvements.
        Moving forward, I am pleased that Amtrak has announced an
    aggressive effort to review its vehicle management practices
    and the size and composition of its fleet. I urge Amtrak to
    complete these reviews quickly and, more importantly, take
    decisive steps to ensure that employees understand fraud will
    not be tolerated.
        I thank the chairman, and I yield back.
        Mr. Mica. I thank the gentlelady.
        Other members?
        Mr. Duncan.
        Mr. Duncan. Well, just very briefly.
        And, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for calling this
    hearing, the abuse of these vehicles and these fuel cards, this
    is something that could be very easily abused, and I think we
    would see much more abuse if it were not for you calling a
    hearing such as this. And it has been something that I'm
    interested in, because I remember, several years ago, I had a
    constituent in Tennessee who complained to me because the
    Forest Service was being very excessive in the number of
    vehicles that they had, and then this constituent told me that
    they were selling off these vehicles when they weren't very old
    at all and didn't have many miles on them at all.
        I can tell you, I generally have two cars. One of my cars
    right now has 149,000 miles on it; it is still doing just
    great. And I had two other vehicles before I bought a used car
    last year: one that had 194,000 miles on it and another one
    that had about 200,000 miles. So we can get much more use out
    of these vehicles, and I think that we need to ask how many
    miles these cars are being used or driven before they are sold
    off.
        And, also, I've heard that they have been selling to people
    who are connected to Federal employees, and they learn about
    these auctions when nobody else does. And so I think it would
    be interesting to see, what is the average number of miles
    driven before these cars are sold, and what steps are being
    taken, if any, to prevent these cars from just going to
    insiders, so to speak?
        So thank you very much for calling this hearing.
        Mr. Mica. Thank you, Mr. Duncan.
        Any other members?
        If not, we will leave the record open, with agreement from
    the ranking member, for a period of 10 days. Without objection,
    so ordered.
        We'll now turn to our witnesses and welcome them this
    morning. We have four witnesses, and let me introduce them.
        And what we'll do is we'll introduce you. We'll have you
    sworn in. We swear in all of our witnesses, because we're an
    investigative and oversight committee, and let you go through
    your statements.
        Several of you have been here before. We try to have you
    limit your statements to 5 minutes, summarize, and then you can
    ask through the chair or a member to include additional
    material with your testimony or for the record.
        So we'll go through all of the witness testimony, and then
    we'll go through questions. So that's going to be the order.
        So we have with us today: Ms. Lori Rectanus, and she is the
    director of physical infrastructure issues with GAO, Government
    Accountability Office, and I referred to their report. Mr. Bill
    Toth, he is the director of Fleet Management with the General
    Services Administration. Welcome. We have Mr. Tom Howard,
    inspector general--I referred to his report--of Amtrak. And
    then we have the chief executive officer and president, Joe
    Boardman, from Amtrak back with us.
        So welcome to all of you. If you will stand, please, and
    we'll swear you in.
        Raise your right hand.
        Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are
    about to give before this subcommittee of Congress is the whole
    truth and nothing but the truth?
        Let the record reflect that all of the witnesses answered
    in the affirmative, and we'll start right out.
        Welcome, again, the director of physical infrastructure
    issues at GAO, Ms. Lori Rectanus.
        Welcome, and you are recognized.

                           WITNESS STATEMENTS

                       STATEMENT OF LORI RECTANUS

        Ms. Rectanus. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        Good morning. Chairman Mica, Ranking Member Duckworth, and
    members of the subcommittee, I'm pleased to be here today to
    discuss the Federal fleet, a $4.4 billion activity that covers
    over 630,000 nontactical vehicles. My statement today
    highlights key fleet characteristics and provides information
    on how selected agencies are carrying out their fleet
    responsibilities.
        As a bit of context, the idea that there's a single Federal
    fleet is misleading. In reality, there are dozens, if not
    hundreds, of fleets that range in size from just a few vehicles
    to more than 200,000. Almost 80 percent of those vehicles are
    managed by seven agencies, but just about every agency has some
    vehicle, and about 70 percent of all Federal vehicles are
    owned, while about 30 percent are leased.
        Agencies have sole responsibility for managing their
    fleets. This means that they determine the number and types of
    vehicles they need, whether they want to lease or purchase
    those vehicles, whether a vehicle is sufficiently utilized, and
    whether a vehicle should be removed from the fleet. This
    decentralized approach gives agencies the flexibility to
    structure their fleets to reflect their diverse missions.
    However, the financial well-being of this approach depends on
    agencies managing their fleets in the most cost-effective
    manner possible.
        While GSA provides advice and guidance to agencies, it does
    not have formal oversight responsibility over agency actions.
    Each agency is responsible for collecting and reporting data on
    its vehicle fleet. Those agencies that lease vehicles from GSA
    can utilize the services provided by GSA for this, and we
    recently found those data were generally reliable. However,
    information on owned vehicles is less available, and its
    reliability is less clear. This is because each agency collects
    and maintains its own data and reports limited information. We
    have also found that agencies' fleet management information
    systems did not always have the elements recommended by GSA.
    Most often missing were direct and indirect costs, which are
    essential for conducting life-cycle analysis, which is needed
    to determine true vehicle costs and whether to buy, lease, or
    eliminate vehicles.
        Agencies should also identify their optimal fleet size and
    ensure that vehicles are fully utilized. In the past, we found
    selected agencies often lacked supporting documentation to
    explain how they identify their optimal sized targets, or they
    did not follow GSA's guidance on conducting this analysis.
    Regarding utilization, agencies are allowed to define their own
    utilization criteria so they may adopt the GSA suggested
    mileage criteria, or they may use other criteria, such as the
    number of vehicle trips per month. We recently found that 66
    percent of the selected leased vehicles from five agencies we
    reviewed did not travel the number of miles recommended by GSA,
    and 29 percent did not even meet the agencies' own utilization
    criteria.
        When vehicles do not meet the identified utilization
    criteria, agencies can subsequently justify vehicles using any
    additional criteria. We found that four of the five selected
    agencies could not readily provide the justifications for about
    1,500 leased vehicles that did not meet the original criteria.
        Finally, agencies should also eliminate unnecessary
    vehicles. In our recent review, we found that three of the five
    agencies studied retained 500 leased vehicles that did not meet
    the agencies' own utilization criteria and had no other
    justification. Altogether, we identified almost 2,500 vehicles
    from our sample of about 16,000 that either did not meet
    utilization criteria, did not have documentation, or were
    retained even when agencies determined that they were not
    justified. These vehicles cost the agencies about $9 million in
    fiscal year 2014. It would be an interesting exercise to see
    what this number might be for the 600,000 vehicles currently in
    use.
        In conclusion, while agencies need the appropriate number
    and type of vehicles to meet their missions, they also need to
    be good stewards of Federal resources. Agencies must have
    adequate data and appropriate procedures that provide assurance
    that they are using the provided flexibility to meet their
    missions in the most cost-effective way possible.
        Chairman Mica, Ranking Member Duckworth, and members of the
    subcommittee, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be
    pleased to respond to any questions.
        [Prepared statement of Ms. Rectanus follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Mica. Thank you.
        And we'll hear now from Bill Toth, and he's the director of
    the Office of Fleet Management of GSA.
        Welcome, and you're recognized, sir.

                         STATEMENT OF BILL TOTH

        Mr. Toth. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Mica, Ranking
    Member Duckworth, and members of the subcommittee. I appreciate
    the opportunity to speak with you today regarding General
    Services Administration's role in the Federal fleet. My name is
    Bill Toth, and I'm the director of GSA's Office of Fleet
    Management. I've been the director for over 8 years and with
    GSA for over 25 years.
        The mission of GSA's Office of Fleet Management is to
    deliver safe, reliable, and low-cost vehicle solutions that
    allow Federal agencies to effectively and efficiently meet
    their missions. The Federal fleet can be broken down into three
    categories of roughly equal size. One-third is owned by GSA,
    and it's leased to eligible entities. A second third is owned
    and maintained by the U.S. Postal Service. And the final third
    is owned and maintained by non-Postal Service Federal agencies.
        GSA's status as a mandatory source of vehicle purchasing
    guarantees that all Federal agencies benefit from the
    government's buying power inherent in having a single,
    strategically sourced point of purchase. In fact, in fiscal
    year 2015, GSA negotiated a discount on light-duty vehicles
    that average 19 percent below dealer invoice. Given GSA's FY
    2015 procurement of 47,409 vehicles, this discount saved the
    American taxpayer an estimated $306 million. As a full service
    leasing option for Federal agencies, GSA drives down costs for
    Federal customers by providing end-to-end fleet management
    services at an all-inclusive rate. The leasing program has
    demonstrated savings year after year by leveraging the
    government's buying power and consolidating redundant fleet
    management functions duplicated in many different agencies.
    GSA's motor vehicle program provides customers with a
    comprehensive fleet solution that includes vehicle acquisition,
    maintenance and accident management of fleet service cars with
    a dedicated waste, fraud, and abuse detection team, and many
    other solutions, as outlined in my written testimony.
        GSA fleet leasing supports over 15,000 unique customers,
    who collectively lease over 205,000 vehicles. To demonstrate
    our commitment to providing customers with the best possible
    value, GSA decreased its leasing rates for the past 2 fiscal
    years by 2 and 2.75 percent, respectively. In addition to the
    leveraged buying power and governmentwide administrative cost
    savings inherent in a centralized fleet management program, GSA
    prioritizes helping customers make smart decisions about the
    composition and size of their leased fleet. While GSA is proud
    of the progress it has helped customers make in optimizing
    their fleet size and composition, Federal agencies themselves
    are empowered to analyze their mission needs and, accordingly,
    make the final decision about how many vehicles they need to
    successfully fulfill the mission tasked to them by Congress.
        Ultimately, authority for vehicle purchasing and operating
    decisions remain with each Federal agency. GSA partners with
    its customer agencies to help them stretch limited resources
    and maximize their mission impact. Each year, GSA replaces
    eligible vehicles within its leased fleet with new, safe, fuel-
    efficient vehicles. Over the past 6 fiscal years, vehicles
    added to the fleet had an average of 19 percent higher miles
    per gallon rating than the corresponding vehicles they replace.
    In addition, two of GSA's unique solutions available to all
    Federal customers include the Short Term Rental program for
    vehicle and equipment rentals and the Dispatch Reservation
    Module, which is an electronic car-sharing program for
    scheduling vehicles and providing utilization reports.
        As a motor vehicle leasing provider, GSA assumes
    responsibility for providing solutions that save American
    taxpayer money. Our strategy for meeting these goals involve
    maintaining the vehicles in superior condition, thus decreasing
    the need for costly maintenance and repair and vehicle down
    time. GSA replaces vehicles on a schedule designed to maintain
    a safe, modern, dependable, and fuel-efficient fleet while
    taking advantage of manufacturer warranties to minimize
    maintenance costs. Used vehicles are actively remarketed to the
    general public to ensure the highest possible proceeds are
    captured upon the sale of each vehicle.
        Through these and the other solutions outlined in my
    written testimony, GSA is able to reduce the need for
    administrative overhead across the government by centralizing
    operational and administrative fleet support functions. We also
    offer the opportunity to consolidate agency-owned vehicles and
    commercially leased vehicle requirements into the GSA fleet to
    reduce governmentwide cost and redundancies. I appreciate your
    support for GSA's concerted efforts to drive continuous
    improvements in the Federal fleet and your partnership in
    delivering best value to the American taxpayer.
        Thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and I look
    forward to answering your questions.
        [Prepared statement of Mr. Toth follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Mica. Thank you, sir.
        And we'll now turn to Tom Howard, who is the inspector
    general of Amtrak.
        Welcome, sir, and you're recognized.

                        STATEMENT OF TOM HOWARD

        Mr. Howard. Good morning, Chairman Mica, Ranking Member
    Duckworth, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the
    opportunity to discuss our work on Amtrak's vehicle fleet.
        Within the last year, three of our reports have addressed
    recurring issues with Amtrak's management and oversight of its
    fleet of vehicles. The issues include unexplained growth in the
    size of the fleet, potential underutilization of some vehicles,
    and unnecessarily costly leasing practices. We also found that
    ineffective oversight of fuel card use has led to fraud and
    abuse. The root cause of the specific issues with the fleet are
    weaknesses in Amtrak's management controls, an issue we have
    identified as the cause of operational and programmatic
    problems throughout the company. Amtrak management has been
    responsive to our observations and recommendations and is
    taking or plans corrective action.
        In that regard, we believe that Amtrak has opportunities to
    improve controls and reduce expenses by enhancing the
    management and oversight of the vehicle fleet. I will briefly
    summarize some of our work on the areas where we think there
    are opportunities.
        Since 2008, Amtrak's fleet grew by 28 percent, and it now
    maintains over 2,500 vehicles. While we are aware that Amtrak
    has added some vehicles in support of discretely funded
    projects, it is unclear why the fleet has grown as much as it
    has. In addition, the number of vehicles that employees can
    take home when off duty increased by 20 percent over the last 3
    years. Those vehicles now account for 23 percent of Amtrak's
    fleet. As GAO noted, some Federal agencies have reduced the
    size of their fleets to save money, and we believe that this is
    an opportunity where Amtrak may be able to reduce expenses.
        Even as the fleet is expanding, some vehicles appear to be
    underutilized. As you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, in one month
    last year, the company identified 153 vehicles that used less
    than 15 gallons of fuel, an indicator of potential
    underutilization. Evaluating the cause of the low fuel usage
    and redeploying or disposing of vehicles where possible, could
    reduce the need for additional vehicles and help decrease
    expenses for Amtrak.
        Another opportunity for improvement is reducing Amtrak's
    overall leasing costs by taking better advantage of GSA leases.
    Amtrak currently obtains 73 percent of its vehicles from GSA;
    however, it also has some relatively high-cost commercial
    leased vehicles that may be available from GSA at lower cost.
    For example, on one project, we estimate that Amtrak could have
    saved as much as $212,000 a year by obtaining GSA vehicles
    instead of leasing 26 vehicles from commercial vendors.
        Also, Amtrak doesn't require a lease purchase comparison
    before obtaining additional vehicles. As a result, it has
    entered into commercial leases that have cost more money than
    it would have if they had bought the vehicles outright. For
    example, the company could have saved more than $127,000 by
    purchasing eight utility trucks rather than leasing them from
    commercial vendors.
        The third area for improvement is fuel card oversight. Our
    investigations have identified employees who were making
    fraudulent purchases with Amtrak- and GSA-issued fuel cards. In
    most cases, those employees have been prosecuted and convicted
    of criminal charges. We found that the employees were able to
    use the cards for personal expenses because of systemic
    weaknesses in internal controls. For example, supervisors were
    not tracking who was using the cards. They were not monitoring
    fuel and vehicle usage logs, and they were not retrieving cards
    when employees left the company. Our reports have addressed the
    issues I just summarized, and Amtrak management has included
    corrective actions in its plan for improving the management and
    oversight of the vehicle fleet. We are encouraged by
    management's responsiveness to our observations and
    recommendations as well as the development of its plan. We
    note, however, that Amtrak's work on the plan is in the very
    early stages and that effective implementation will require
    sustained management attention and a long-term commitment to
    changing the status quo.
        This concludes my remarks, and I'm happy to answer any
    questions you might have.
        [Prepared statement of Mr. Howard follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Mica. Well, thank you.
        And we'll hear from everyone after we've heard from Mr.
    Boardman.
        Welcome, president, CEO of Amtrak, Mr. Boardman. Thank you.

                    STATEMENT OF JOSEPH H. BOARDMAN

        Mr. Boardman. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking
    Member, and the rest of the committee. At any given moment, an
    Amtrak train is on the move somewhere in the United States.
    Lots of things can happen, and we maintain a vehicle fleet for
    our transportation organization so that our managers can
    respond quickly to incidents out on the road. We also run a
    police department of more than 400 people with national
    responsibilities, and our engineering department that
    undertakes construction and maintenance work not only on 400
    miles of the Northeast Corridor but on more than 200 miles of
    railroad in Michigan. Our footprint can be quite substantial.
    For example, in northern Florida, we have several station
    facilities and the Auto Train facility in Sanford where we do
    maintenance work on contract for SunRail.
        Amtrak does have 2,568 vehicles: 1,800 of them come from
    GSA; Amtrak owns 531; and we lease commercially 237. GSA is
    always our first choice. The annual cost to operate this fleet
    is roughly $25 million. In the fall of last year, at the
    request of management, me to Tom Howard, OIG reviewed our
    vehicle fleet management program and noted some issues with the
    internal control and monitoring processes for our vehicle
    fleet. These were ultimately memorialized in the IG report
    published in October, which identified a set of weaknesses in
    the way in which our vehicle fleet is managed as well as
    specific control weaknesses and vulnerabilities to fraud,
    waste, and abuse.
        There was some underutilization of portions of the fleet.
    Not all required inspections were being completed, and leasing
    decisions needed improvement. Alternate garaging and fuel
    overfills were also identified as areas of concern.
        I'd like to stress a couple of important points. We have
    worked closely with the IG as they developed their findings,
    and this partnership has helped us to work collaboratively to
    develop the very specific response plan, which has been
    reviewed in detail with your staff and which I will outline for
    the committee.
        In a more global sense, this partnership is a key component
    of a much larger framework of control, audit, and risk-
    management functions that we work to implement at Amtrak over
    the past 4 years. This system of enterprise risk management has
    been a particular priority of mine, and it stems, in part, from
    a recommendation of our inspector general that Amtrak should
    have and develop an enterprise risk-management function.
        Our management-control framework provides the company with
    a formal process for ensuring that we identify risks to both
    the business and the enterprise within the context of our
    strategic objectives and our business process objectives. The
    foundation of our framework is a system of risk assessments
    undertaken by the controls organization that we have created to
    implement the management-control framework. The framework
    itself provides a consistent methodology for identifying
    control-improvement opportunities, documenting them, and
    managing the organizational response to ensure that we have a
    consistent and effective response and implementation across the
    organization.
        We've also sought to incorporate external review and audit
    processes into the framework, because I believe they bring a
    different perspective, and this helps us to identify and
    address potential risks.
        The IG report's recommendations are captured and tracked
    through this same process. Our plan to address the management
    challenges with our vehicle fleet should be understood within
    the context of the management-control framework. It's not just
    that we've created a plan to address and identify an issue;
    there is now a mechanism for facilitating plan development,
    monitoring progress, and ensuring that the identified risks are
    addressed and properly carried out.
        We've benchmarked BNSF railroad centralized vehicle fleet
    program and see many opportunities to improve our program.
    We've created an action plan to improve compliance oversight
    for drivers and vehicles, and we're in the process of updating
    our policies and procedures. We've implemented a pilot program,
    which supports our transportation department, and we're now in
    the process of implementing improved management programs for
    our police and engineering departments. We anticipate
    completion of a rollout for all three programs, all
    departments, by June. We're creating a governance council to
    oversee the vehicle management program and determine whether
    Amtrak should ultimately continue to administer the program or
    outsource some or all of the program to a third party through a
    competitive process.
        I think it's important to emphasize that this plan is not
    something that we pursue in isolation. There's a system of
    controls in place and an organization that's empowered to
    monitor and oversee the implementation of new processes. We
    also have a system of independent checks, including external
    audits and our inspector general, to provide effective
    oversight. Creation of a system of this type is, I think, the
    most important single action we could take to address
    weaknesses of the type addressed in the IG report. And I'm
    confident we will be able to use it to ensure that issues are
    properly addressed.
        Thank you very much.
        [Prepared statement of Mr. Boardman follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Mica. Thank you, Mr. Boardman.
        And thank all of our witnesses.
        And now we'll turn to some questions.
        First of all, I want to turn to GAO. Ms. Rectanus, your
    little study--you didn't study all of the agencies. As you
    said, we have a very diverse and scattered agency fleet
    operations and management, but you looked at five agencies, was
    it?
        Ms. Rectanus. Yes, sir. We looked--excuse me. We looked at
    four departments, and then, within Interior, we looked at
    National Park Service and----
        Mr. Mica. I said four or five----
        Ms. Rectanus. So five, yes.
        Mr. Mica. Okay. And you found that we could save
    approximately how much to--describe that again?
        Ms. Rectanus. Again, what we found in looking at the
    various steps along the way of what agencies should be doing to
    ensure they fully utilized their vehicles and justify, we found
    almost--about 2,500 vehicles that cost them about $9 million.
    How we calculated that is that's what they paid to GSA in
    fiscal year 2004 to maintain those vehicles.
        Mr. Mica. Didn't the President put out an order some years
    ago saying that all of the agencies had to set forth a plan for
    management of their fleets?
        Ms. Rectanus. There's been a number of those mandates that
    have come out. Yes, in 2011, there was a Presidential memo that
    talked about optimizing the fleets and eliminating unnecessary
    vehicles.
        Mr. Mica. I think the deadline was last year.
        Ms. Rectanus. December 2015, correct.
        Mr. Mica. And I think you're also doing another report for
    us, a review for us?
        Ms. Rectanus. Yes. You have given us a request to look at a
    number of issues with owned vehicles, not just vehicles but
    construction vehicles, aircraft. You're keeping us busy.
        Mr. Mica. Well, we extrapolated some of the savings, and I
    estimate, you know, you just take from your four samplings,
    it's somewhere between 80 and 100 million dollars is lost a
    year. It's fairly significant fleetwide.
        We've got some instances of purchases that got us down.
    We've got about a third of the fleet, I guess, is the post
    office, 600,000 vehicles, whatever we have. And the GAO
    reported the Postal Service had purchased about 43 alternative
    fuel vehicles and indicated the post office might not be able
    to operate vehicles using alternatives as fuel, because the
    fuel, one, wouldn't be available, or it would be more costly.
    That was your finding there?
        Ms. Rectanus. Yes. That work was from several years ago,
    where we looked at some of the challenges the Postal Service
    was having with its outdated fleet. It doesn't have the money
    to replace the fleet, but, yes, we found----
        Mr. Mica. When they bought replacements that had
    alternative fuel, some of the vehicles wouldn't have access to
    the fuel, or they turned out to be a much more costly exercise.
        Ms. Rectanus. Correct. They either had vehicles that were
    not within proximity of fuel availability, or just because they
    didn't want their carriers to have to go way out of the way to
    get alternative fuel in, they sought a waiver from DOE----
        Mr. Mica. The IG of Amtrak produced a very good report. And
    could we put up that chart 6? It shows a comparison of GSA and
    commercial leased costs for common vehicles in Amtrak's fleet,
    and it showed that the type of vehicle, if you look at the red
    there, that's what they paid. So--and GSA cost, they could
    acquire the same type of vehicle, in most instances, for less
    than half and sometimes they paid--Amtrak paid 10 times as
    much. If you look at the fuel and waste truck comparison, the
    dump truck, SUVs, three times as much. Is this what you found,
    Mr. Howard?
        Mr. Howard. Yes, that's correct.
        Mr. Mica. And you said just on one sale, it was like a
    quarter of a million, some $200,000----
        Mr. Howard. --212,000, yes, on commercial leases.
        Mr. Mica. I'm sorry. That was a lease, and then we looked
    at purchase. Where is the chart here on the purchase? Here's
    eight vehicles, just eight vehicles--and this is also yours--
    that they purchased. They could have purchased new for 295,000.
    They did a 44-month commercial lease and paid 422,000? Is that
    correct?
        Mr. Howard. That's correct.
        Mr. Mica. So a substantial saving both in leasing at lower
    costs and then lease versus purchase, which brings us back to,
    we haven't had the cost-benefit analysis of looking at whether
    it's better to lease than purchase. That seems to be ignored
    kind of agencywide. You found that at Amtrak, Mr. Howard?
        Mr. Howard. Yes, we did, sir.
        Mr. Mica. And you found that, Ms. Rectanus, governmentwide?
        Ms. Rectanus. We have not actually looked individually by
    vehicle that lease versus purchase.
        Mr. Mica. Well, maybe in your upcoming report we can----
        Ms. Rectanus. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Mica. --we can get more information on that.
        Then we had another issue, it's kind of interesting. I
    worked some on the railroad when I was going to college in the
    summer, and I know sometimes they have to buy more fuel than
    they put in the tank of the vehicle. But there were a number of
    instances, pretty extensive number of instances, in which the
    purchase of fuel exceeded the capacity of the vehicle tank.
        Did you find that, Mr. Howard?
        Mr. Howard. Yes. Yes, sir. We had several investigations of
    those issues. They were referred to our office by GSA's fraud
    unit. They monitor the fuel usage of vehicles on the GSA--that
    are leased with the GSA.
        Mr. Mica. And speaking of fraud, I mentioned the fuel
    credit card, and I just got, a day or two ago, a notice from
    you of a case, one case, I guess this employee was ripping off
    the credit card, and he, I guess, has been fired. But you had
    mentioned that you have gone after these folks. This is just
    one instance in the last 2 days. How many people have we had to
    go after on this, or have we successfully prosecuted?
        Mr. Howard. We have done nine cases that we've completed.
    We will still have a couple of cases that are under
    investigation.
        Mr. Mica. Well, that's a, again, unfortunate but, again,
    something we have to pay attention to.
        I know Amtrak has a lot of issues, and I've worked over the
    years with Mr. Boardman on food service, for one, and we
    reviewed accidents. They have a pretty tough safety record of
    accidents with their trains, but this was quite interesting,
    this operational data. And I believe this is from your report
    too, Mr. Howard. These are accidents with vehicles, and it
    showed accidents percentage of times the government--or a
    government employee was at fault versus the employees in all
    the agencies. And in accidents in which an Amtrak employee was
    involved, they were at fault 97 percent, 96.8 percent, versus,
    in other accidents across the government, 65 percent.
        Is that pretty accurate--is this accurate? This is your
    production, sir?
        Mr. Howard. No, sir, that's not mine. That's the----
        Mr. Mica. I'm sorry, this is the GSA.
        Mr. Howard. Oh.
        Mr. Mica. Mr. GSA, Mr. Toth, this was a document we got
    from you, then?
        Mr. Toth. I don't believe we submitted that document. We do
    provide that information to all of our leasing customers, so
    Amtrak would have that.
        Mr. Mica. But, again, this is information that we have from
    one of the investigative agencies showing, in fact, 97--that's
    Amtrak's leased fleet I'm told. But, again, 97 percent of the
    time, we have an Amtrak employee--sounds like we need to do a
    little bit better job of driver training at Amtrak.
        Just a couple of quick questions for Mr. Boardman, and then
    I'll yield to the ranking member.
        Where are we on the use of charge card for food service
    with Amtrak?
        Mr. Boardman. Charge card for food service?
        Mr. Mica. Yes.
        Mr. Boardman. I'll have to get back to you on that. I do
    not----
        Mr. Mica. Are we at 100 percent?
        Mr. Boardman. I do not know, sir. I will get you----
        Mr. Mica. We are going to leave the record open----
        Mr. Boardman. --a written response to that.
        Mr. Mica. I said even people who do lawn maintenance now,
    you can charge on--and we've not had that on Amtrak either for
    purchase of tickets onboard or for food, and we've lost a
    billion dollars in 12 years in food--Amtrak food service.
        What was Congress' contribution to Amtrak in this current
    fiscal year? I think it's $1.9 billion?
        Mr. Boardman. It has been 1.390 for the last 3 years, sir.
        Mr. Mica. But it's a significant underwriting, and if you
    have 31 million passengers, you divide that, that's a cost of
    about $40 million per ticket we're underwriting, and some of
    those we're not sure on the sale.
        Mr. Boardman. That does include the capital cost, sir.
        Mr. Mica. Yes. But, again, it's a cost that the Federal
    Government is paying. I would love to operate any company and
    have the government subsidize my capital cost.
        You were moving forward on purchasing passenger vehicles,
    and I thought that was in the $2-plus billion range to replace
    Acela, is it?
        Mr. Boardman. Passenger rail vehicle, sir?
        Mr. Mica. Yes.
        Mr. Boardman. Yes.
        Mr. Mica. Is that still underway?
        Mr. Boardman. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Mica. Have you done a cost-benefit analysis to see if
    they can be leased?
        Mr. Boardman. Yes, they are a business plan. I don't think
    we've done a leasing cost, but almost all of our trains wind up
    being leased in the end through a financial institution of some
    sort.
        Mr. Mica. Well, I think it would be interesting to see some
    of what's being considered in that regard. I know across the
    world, in some instances, State supported rail and then private
    rail are leasing their vehicles as opposed to purchasing them,
    and that's pretty significant purchase; $2 plus billion is the
    estimate, I believe.
        Ms. Boardman. You're talking, sir, excuse me, just about
    the high-speed rail trains?
        Mr. Mica. Yes. Well, Acela trains.
        Mr. Boardman. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Mica. Okay. Maybe you can get back to us on the record
    with that. So, with that--and I'll have additional questions
    we'll either ask or submit--I'd like to yield to our ranking
    member.
        I see, also, we have the member--the ranking member of the
    full committee has joined us. But we will take go to Ms.
    Duckworth first.
        Ms. Duckworth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I am of the opinion that Amtrak is a public good, and it's
    worth the investment from the government. And, with that said,
    I understand that Amtrak has initiated a significant
    restructuring of its fleet management program focused on
    centralizing the decisionmaking and oversight process.
        Mr. Boardman, can you describe the specific steps your
    company is taking to improve the management of its fleet, and
    what's your timeline for full implementation of the planned
    changes?
        Mr. Boardman. Our planned changes for the three areas that
    we're concentrating on right now would be June of this year,
    which is the operations, the engineering, and the police
    department, where we saw the need most at first.
        We have worked hand in hand--maybe the initial kinds of
    issues that were really raised by the Office of the Inspector
    General really defined for me the need to get in a much deeper
    view of what was happening with our vehicle fleet. So one of
    the early things that we did was we went out and benchmarked
    against what we considered a well-managed vehicle fleet on a
    railroad, being Burlington Northern Santa Fe. And at the same
    time, we began to look at what the real problems were, and it
    was something that Amtrak suffers with, and the chairman has
    pointed this out as well as the IG for a while now, and that is
    internal controls.
        And, in 2012, the IG provided for us an evaluation of our
    risk and risk management, enterprise risk management. And when
    they did that, we created a management-control framework. And
    that management-control framework included looking at business
    risks and also the objectives that we were trying to get done
    with projects.
        And so coming together from all of that, one of the things
    that was important in looking at vehicle fleet management was
    having consistent regulations, consistent controls that would
    maintain. Amtrak existed, really, with all these independent
    sort of organizations, and they set their own criteria for what
    they were going to provide vehicles for. So what we're pulling
    together is a centralized look at how we do that with a
    governance program that identifies and evaluates what needs to
    be done for the future and that those independent decisions
    won't be made like that in the future, and that's what's being
    done.
        Ms. Duckworth. Are you doing that also in terms of fraud,
    waste, and abuse when it comes to the fuel card program as
    well?
        Mr. Boardman. We're looking at the fuel card program to try
    to find a way that we can find quicker that there was--there is
    waste fraud and abuse. We would like to have a better system to
    do that, so it's included in that particular part of it. We've
    had discussions with GSA about how we might be able to get that
    quicker. We're a very small part of what GSA really does, but
    we think--we look to GSA first, and for example, in the
    testimony that I heard, over two-thirds of our fleet comes from
    GSA, and it's two-thirds of other fleets that are actually
    owned. So we really do look for GSA to help us with that.
        Ms. Duckworth. Mr. Howard, do you believe that the steps
    that Amtrak is proposing would address your findings and ensure
    that Amtrak can effectively and efficiently both manage its
    fleet and prevent waste, fraud, and abuse, both in the fleet
    program and in the charge card program?
        Mr. Howard. Yes. I think that there's steps in the right
    direction that they have taken. As I mentioned in my remarks, I
    think that there needs to be a sustained commitment to that and
    senior management attention on changing the status quo.
        Ms. Duckworth. So, Mr. Boardman, how are you going to
    ensure that sustainment through the effort occurs? Is there a
    periodic review? How are you holding people responsible? Or is
    there an actual timeline? How are you going to make sure that
    that sustainment, that commitment to a real culture shift is
    going to happen along with the programmatic changes that must
    happen also?
        Mr. Boardman. Well, the Governor's group, for one. But,
    more importantly, in the overall and--overall element of what
    we're trying to make happen is this management-control
    framework. We're tracking IG recommendations. We're tracking
    our business risks. We call them control-improvement
    opportunities. And we're looking for ways that we reduce the
    risk on the company for these kinds of incidents.
        And as long as this company continues in that fashion, then
    we're going to see that sustained commitment for the future.
    And I believe--and the way that it's currently structured--and
    every month, I sit across from Mr. Howard at the board
    meetings, and we go through all the elements of what he's
    providing as recommendations.
        For example, since 2014, I think we looked at, in 2014, we
    had 174 open recommendations from the IG, and that was just too
    many. So we began right away really looking at, how do we
    control this and the management-control process? And in that
    period of time until the end of this last year, we closed 158
    of these recommendations while 49 were being added, so we wound
    up with 65 recommendations.
        And those kinds of things really indicate to me that our
    system works so that we can keep control of it.
        Ms. Duckworth. Mr. Chairman, I am out of time, but I wanted
    to follow up with the GSA.
        Mr. Mica. Go ahead.
        Ms. Duckworth. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for your
    indulgence.
        Mr. Toth, speaking to what Mr. Boardman said that, you
    know, going to rely on GSA for help, you provide many tools and
    services to help with management of these vehicles, such as the
    Federal Automotive Statistical Tool. Does Amtrak participate in
    FAST or take advantage of fleet information-management services
    you offer?
        Mr. Toth. So the FAST tool was actually administered by the
    Department of Energy on behalf of GSA and our office of
    governmentwide policy. I believe, as a quasi-government entity,
    they are not required to.
        And I actually would defer to them. I'm not sure whether
    you participate in the FAST process or not.
        Mr. Boardman. I do not know the proper answer to that. We
    may or may not, but I will respond to you.
        Ms. Duckworth. Great. Thank you.
        Mr. Toth, it does not appear that Amtrak is included in the
    Federal Fleet Report. Is that accurate? And can you explain why
    this would be the case.
        Mr. Toth. It's my understanding they are not in the Federal
    Fleet Report. And, again, that data is compiled through the
    FAST process, so depending on what they're submitting into the
    FAST process. Therefore, it's not compiled into the Federal
    Fleet Report.
        Ms. Duckworth. Okay.
        Mr. Boardman, what percentage of your corporation's
    vehicles meet the use criteria recommended by GSA--or either
    the ones developed by GSA or by Amtrak itself?
        Mr. Boardman. One of the issues that the IG identified was
    that each one of these independent organizations creates their
    own criteria for the selection of a vehicle and the use of the
    vehicle. And so we don't have that. That's something we're
    centralizing as a part of this process.
        Ms. Duckworth. Okay. Thank you.
        I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Mica. I thank the gentlelady.
        Vice chair of the subcommittee, Mr. Grothman.
        Mr. Grothman. Sure. I just want to go over some numbers
    that were previously stated. You said there were 153 cars
    with--I think it was Mr. Howard--153 cars using less than 15
    gallons of fuel.
        Mr. Howard. Yes, that was in 1 month last year. The company
    had identified that. They track fuel usage, and they've set the
    standard of less than 15 a month to identify potential
    underutilization.
        Mr. Grothman. Okay. Just a general question for Mr. Toth:
    About how many miles or years on a car before you turn them
    over?
        Mr. Toth. So there's standard requirements for the entire
    Federal fleet in the fleet management regulations. All agencies
    are bound to abide by those. Then, on top of that, in our
    leasing program, we have more stringent requirements. And they
    vary by the class and the type of the vehicle, you know, from a
    sedan on up to, say, a coach bus, where a coach bus has to go
    10 years and a million miles. I can provide those standards for
    you all in the record.
        Mr. Grothman. Just a basic about, you know, like a basic--
    --
        Mr. Toth. The Federal standards for like a Sedan are 3
    years, 36,000 miles. GSA extends both the years and the miles
    on its fleet. A truck runs like 7 years, 60,000 miles. These
    are minimum replacement criteria, not shall be replaced.
        Mr. Grothman. What's the norm?
        Mr. Toth. It varies by agency and by use, as well as
    vehicle condition.
        Mr. Grothman. You'd sell a car after 36,000 miles?
        Mr. Toth. The regulations allow it. That's the minimum
    before it's allowed to be sold.
        Mr. Grothman. But what's the norm? Do you know? Do you have
    any just ballpark idea?
        Mr. Toth. Again, it varies all over the place, depending on
    the condition and the usage of the vehicle.
        Mr. Grothman. Okay.
        Question for Mr. Howard, and this goes back a little bit on
    the fuel cards. You uncovered criminal actions related to fuel
    cards following the 2013 review by the Amtrak Finance
    Department's Management Controls Group that identified
    weaknesses in internal controls. Is that right?
        Mr. Howard. Correct.
        Mr. Grothman. Okay. Mr. Boardman, why didn't Amtrak take
    action at that time to address the weak controls?
        Mr. Boardman. Actually, we have been taking those actions.
    That's part of the process that we're doing.
        Mr. Grothman. Okay. Up here--and maybe it's just a small
    amount. The chart was up here before, but when they say that 97
    percent of the accidents in these cars are the government
    driver's fault, or your guy's fault, is that----
        Mr. Boardman. I have never seen that chart. I don't know
    where it comes from. And if somebody can tell me where it comes
    from, we'll respond to it.
        Mr. Grothman. Okay. Kind of alarming. I guess GSA's fleet
    report.
        Maybe, Mr. Toth, do you know more about that chart?
        Mr. Toth. I don't know who provided it to the committee or
    directly what report it comes from. For our leased vehicle
    program, we do maintain statistics and provide that to our
    customer agencies, so it could have come from that information.
    I did not provide it or prepare for it today.
        Mr. Grothman. I guess Amtrak itself provided it to the
    committee, I'm told here. Is that possible? Maybe you don't----
        Mr. Boardman. I don't think that's--at least from the
    people that are here, I don't believe that. But----
        Mr. Grothman. We should track it down, because if that's
    true, that's just almost beyond belief.
        Mr. Boardman. I agree. The only thing--again, I just don't
    understand it. That's all.
        Mr. Grothman. Okay. Kind of amazing.
        Why don't you tell us a little more--Mr. Howard, we talked
    about the take-home policy on vehicles. Are there any problems
    about that? Could you maybe tell us a little bit more your
    opinion of that policy?
        Mr. Howard. We think that the policy needs to be improved.
    It requires that the take-home vehicle be justified, but
    there's no specific criteria for supervisors to use when
    they're approving the take-home of the vehicle, so there's no
    cost-benefit analysis. So it kind of boils down to employees
    just basically making a case that it's good for them to have a
    vehicle. We would like to see some very structured criteria
    that could be applied and audited.
        Mr. Grothman. Are there any standards? I mean, if I take
    home a vehicle at night, are there any standards to make sure
    I'm not using it to, you know, everywhere under the sun, or are
    there tight standards to just make sure I'm going home?
        Mr. Howard. No, sir.
        Mr. Grothman. So I could take it home on a Friday night and
    drive a million miles or whatever and use it to bomb around all
    weekend, just kind of a perk of the job?
        Mr. Howard. Right. You'd be driving something probably with
    a big Amtrak logo on it though, so hopefully that's a bit of a
    deterrent. But, no, sir, there's not. And we have some cases
    that we're investigating, looking at those abuses.
        Mr. Grothman. Okay. Thanks.
        My one final comment, Mr. Boardman, is it does look like we
    have problems here. And, obviously, your agency is always being
    scrutinized, you know, look at the subsidy and that sort of
    thing. And it's something I would be very--feel more contrite
    about. I mean, I know you understand that.
        Mr. Boardman. I understand that, sir, and that's part of
    the reason I asked the IG to help us with this.
        Mr. Grothman. Okay. Can I just say----
        Mr. Mica. Go right ahead.
        Mr. Grothman. Staff is handing me a binder here, which says
    on the front, ``GSA Department of Transportation Amtrak
    National Account Report, Third Quarter.'' And right under their
    contacts, Tom Moriarty, Stephen Olds. And right beside there,
    on page 8, it gives the percentage of government at fault in
    accidents and incidents. And that's where we get it from. If
    you don't have it, I suppose we can give you a copy of it.
        Mr. Boardman. I just got handed something here.
        Mr. Grothman. Yeah, you can see on page 8 there, it says:
    96.8 percent of the time, accidents and incidents, the Amtrak--
    the person driving the Amtrak car is at fault, or at least
    that's what it implies on here.
        Mr. Boardman. So I have got to understand what that means.
    Does it mean the vehicles that are out on the right-of-way that
    are engineering vehicles, operations vehicles that are single
    car, damaged by something along the right-of-way of the
    railroad? I don't understand the report. So we'll find out what
    the report means and respond.
        Mr. Grothman. Maybe there's statistical anomaly. It does
    compare to government agencies in general at 65 percent. So
    it's alarming on the face, but why don't you get back to us.
        Mr. Mica. I thank the gentleman.
        Mr. Boardman. Can I just ask a question? Would this be
    against the 644,000, our 65 percent, and this report would be
    against our 2,500?
        Mr. Toth. This report is an annual report we provide to
    Amtrak with all of the data on their vehicle usage, to include
    accidents and incidents. And it summarizes the number of
    accidents and incidents and those that are at Amtrak's fault
    and/or they are liable for.
        Mr. Mica. And it's comparable to it?
        Mr. Toth. It's not necessarily vehicle accidents, but it
    could be improper usage where a fender was dented, you know,
    operating off-road or something like that and where they bring
    the vehicle back an in unsatisfactory condition.
        Mr. Grothman. But this would just include--and I'm sorry.
    I'm over here--but would it include normal, over-the-road
    vehicles? Or is this some anomaly here where they're including
    like those vehicles they have that operate on the railroad
    itself where it would have to be----
        Mr. Boardman. It would be anything that would be leased
    from GSA. So, since nearly 80 percent of our fleet is leased,
    we probably have all of those conditions exist. And that's why
    I'm looking at it and say: That's just never hit me before, nor
    has it hit the IG. So we will find out what it really is,
    Congressman, and get back.
        Mr. Grothman. Okay. Well, thanks.
        Mr. Mica. I thank the gentleman.
        Let me yield now to the ranking member of the full
    committee, Mr. Cummings.
        Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for
    holding this hearing today and for your oversight and the
    ranking member's oversight over vehicle leases entered into by
    Federal agencies and by Amtrak.
        I'm deeply concerned by the inspector general's findings
    about Amtrak's fleet and management practices and urge Amtrak
    to expedite the implementation of the efforts it has underway
    to centralize and strengthen the management of its vehicles.
        However, I want to direct my time that I have available to
    an ongoing issue of great concern to me and to my district and
    to the entire Baltimore area congressional delegation, and that
    is the redevelopment of Baltimore's Penn Station. I want to
    acknowledge that some improvements have been made at the
    station, but they are generally improvements to the most basic
    amenities, like the bathrooms. And I note that it required
    significant persistence before these improvements were made.
        Penn Station is a central gateway into Baltimore, and we
    need that station to be an economic engine. For nearly a
    decade, there have been many fits around the station without
    any actual starts. Much of the building is still empty, and in
    no way does it serve as the anchor point for Baltimore that it
    could and should be.
        Obviously, today, we have both Mr. Boardman, the head of
    Amtrak, and Mr. Howard, the Amtrak inspector general here. You
    both received letters from the Baltimore delegation led by
    Senator Mikulski. So let's get to the central issue.
        Mr. Boardman, why do you believe that enlisting a master
    development team is the most effective and efficient way to
    develop the Penn Station?
        Mr. Boardman. We think that there is an ability to do a
    tremendous amount of improvement because you have people that
    have a larger view of what could be done. And just, for
    example, last week, we received almost--I think it was nine
    proposals to improve that. There's tremendous interest in
    developing Baltimore station.
        Mr. Cummings. Now, Mr. Howard, you wrote that you were,
    quote, ``skeptical of Amtrak's readiness to undertake and
    oversee a master development procurement approach of this scope
    in a timely manner.''
        Why are you skeptical, and what other options do you
    believe are available to Amtrak to redevelop the Penn Station,
    particularly given current budgetary constraints? And do you
    believe that any of those options would more efficiently and
    effectively lead to the redevelopment of the station?
        Mr. Howard. Sir, we're skeptical of Amtrak's ability to do
    this because of our past work, which has identified significant
    problems with program and project management. We've reported to
    those. The company has taken action to improve them, but given
    its track record, we're skeptical.
        We have not yet looked at other alternatives to the
    terminal development issue. Based on the last letter that we
    received from you and the other delegation, we have initiated
    some additional work to do that. And it's our hope that we
    can--out of this additional work--we can identify perhaps some
    alternatives that the company may be able to consider or at
    least offer it--some suggestions on how the terminal
    development initiative can be better implemented.
        Mr. Cummings. Now, Mr. Boardman, Amtrak has moved ahead
    with a two-pronged effort to redevelop Penn Station. One effort
    involves undertaking the work needed to bring Penn Station into
    a state of good repair. The other effort will move forward with
    the selection of a master developer. I want to understand both
    efforts in more detail.
        What is the specific work that will be undertaken to bring
    Penn Station into a state of good repair, and what is the
    status of that effort? Particularly, how much do you expect to
    spend in 2016 on the state of good repair work? What projects
    will be completed this year? How long will it take to complete
    all of the state-of-good-repair projects? And what do you have
    the funding--or do you have the funding that you need to
    complete all the work?
        Mr. Boardman. So I'd like to follow up with a written
    response to you, but let me give you kind of a thumbnail here.
    We're planning on spending about $3 million this year on the
    projects. Part of that has to do with this master development
    partnership, which is about $300,000; part of that has to do
    with a program development with a consultant to identify and
    prepare for the redevelopment activities. So a lot of those
    activities are not identified and fully completed in what needs
    to be done this next year.
        But there's a new generator going in; platform lighting and
    construction upgrades; station WiFi upgrades; Penn Station
    master plan planning activities, which I'm covering; and then a
    B&P Tunnel new lighting. And some of the $22 million that we've
    spent since 2010 in Penn Station, some of it you identified as
    restrooms and other facilities, basic stuff. We did have to
    start with basic stuff.
        And I know you know that, Congressman----
        Mr. Cummings. Yeah.
        Mr. Boardman. --because you've been involved with it.
        Mr. Cummings. Very much so.
        Mr. Boardman. But we will get back, even with an analysis
    of this program partnership, to the delegation just as soon as
    we've gotten through it. There's about nine proposals that are
    in there.
        Mr. Cummings. Just with the chairman's indulgence, I just
    have two more questions.
        If all went according to plan, when would the master
    development process be finished and a redeveloped Penn Station
    be ready to open its doors?
        Mr. Boardman. I don't have that final date.
        Mr. Cummings. Okay. And, finally, what opportunities will
    stakeholders in Baltimore have to weigh in with the master
    development process? And, as you know, many stakeholders in
    Baltimore have been working for years--for years--with Amtrak
    officials to jump start the redevelopment of Penn Station. And
    we want to make sure we have a say.
        Mr. Boardman. We have had--Congressman, I think you know--
    ongoing quarterly meetings with all the stakeholders. We could
    expect to continue doing that. I think we have the March, April
    meeting coming up here very shortly. So we're going to stay
    very tight with the stakeholders for Baltimore.
        Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
        I really appreciate your indulgence.
        Mr. Mica. Thank you so much, Mr. Cummings.
        The gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Duncan, you're
    recognized.
        Mr. Duncan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Ms. Rectanus, you said earlier that your agency had studied
    or looked at 16,000 and found 2,500 were underutilized or
    misused or whatever. And you said it would be an interesting
    exercise to expand that out to the vehicle, to the total fleet.
    And so it's, you know, pretty easy math. That comes out to
    about 100,000 of the 635,000 or 640,000 vehicles that would fit
    into that category. So it's quite a significant number.
        And you heard me mention that my wife and I have had
    several vehicles that we've driven 200,000 miles, and yet I
    mentioned that a constituent who, many years ago, met with me
    complaining about the Forest Service. And I don't remember if
    he said that their vehicles were being auctioned off either
    with less than 40,000 miles or with an average of 40,000 miles,
    but I remember the 40,000-mile figure.
        Do either you or Mr. Toth, in looking into this or studying
    this, can you tell me what is the average mileage when these
    vehicles are replaced?
        Ms. Rectanus. We did not look at that specifically vehicle
    by vehicle, again, because that would be asset-level
    information. I think what we did find, however, in our work is,
    in many cases, agencies are not doing the life-cycle cost
    analysis to really know when is the right time to replace a
    vehicle or eliminate a vehicle, because in some cases, it's the
    opposite; they keep a vehicle longer than they should. In some
    cases, they get rid of it before they should. So the work we've
    done has really supported having them have better data so that
    they make the right decisions.
        Mr. Duncan. Can either of you tell me how many new vehicles
    were purchased by the Federal Government last year?
        Mr. Toth. Yes. It was just under 50,000 vehicles.
        Mr. Duncan. 50,000 new vehicles were purchased. And how
    many new leases were entered into last year?
        Mr. Toth. The leased fleet has been about--been stable for
    the past several years. Some are turned in as agencies downsize
    the fleets, as other agencies either reduce their commercial
    leases and lease from GSA or have new mission requirements
    increase them. But the leased fleet has not grown or declined
    much over the past several years.
        Mr. Duncan. Well, how many new leases are entered into each
    year though, roughly?
        Mr. Toth. About 2,000. We've also had some consolidations,
    which has varied year over year, but we seem to have 2,000 come
    in and 2,000 go out roughly each year.
        Mr. Duncan. And what department has the largest number of
    vehicles? Would that be the Department of Defense or----
        Mr. Toth. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Duncan. And how many have--I understand that--I'm told
    that, in the Department of Defense, that some of the vehicles
    come under your control, and some do not. Is that correct?
        Mr. Toth. Yes, sir. We only lease nontactical vehicles or
    nonmilitary-type vehicles, if you will.
        Mr. Duncan. So how many vehicles would that be in the
    Department of Defense?
        Mr. Toth. Of our 200,000 vehicles that we lease, they are
    about 50 to 60 percent of all vehicles. So 100,000, 110,000
    vehicles total across the Department of Defense.
        Mr. Duncan. So 200,000 of your vehicles are leased, and the
    total fleet is 635,000 or 640,000. Is that correct?
        Mr. Toth. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Duncan. All right. Thank you very much.
        Mr. Mica. Thank you, Mr. Duncan, and other members, for
    participating.
        A couple of quick questions. Now, these hearings are nice,
    and I think this hearing has--and some of your review, both at
    GSA, also GAO, and Amtrak IG have resulted in some action being
    taken. Now, GSA, it's my understanding that you have a new
    agreement or pending agreement that you've done with Amtrak on
    your commercial leases. Is that----
        Mr. Toth. Yes, they are eliminating over 100 of their
    commercial-leased vehicles and going to acquire them from GSA
    through a lease.
        Mr. Mica. And that should result in substantial savings.
    And we have evidence of both from the IG and Amtrak and GAO
    about cost savings, correct?
        Mr. Toth. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Mica. Okay. Because you don't want to just do these
    hearings and not have anything.
        And, Mr. Boardman, you're cooperating. And I mean, you
    cited some of the steps you've been taking since some of these
    things that have been revealed here today, but you're going to
    cooperate on that basis.
        Are there any other major areas in purchases that were in
    fleet management that you can cite today, Mr. Boardman or Mr.
    Toth? Mr. Boardman.
        Mr. Boardman. No. I think we're moving--as I said, we had,
    to begin with, over 70 percent of our fleet was leased from
    GSA, and with this addition, it just goes up more. And I think
    that helps us save more.
        Mr. Toth. And we'll continue to partner with Amtrak to
    assist them in any way we can in managing their fleet.
        Mr. Mica. Well, this is--again, I said a meat-and-potato
    hearing. Let me just say, also, we solicited and received a
    somewhat troubling report from Amtrak. It's an automotive fleet
    report. And this is just for 1 month at the last--I guess we
    could get before the hearing. It's a monthly data information
    collected by Amtrak engineering department. This is December of
    2015.
        Now, you go down and you see at the bottom some of the
    problems with fuel cards. This is just for 1 month: purchases
    exceeding fuel tank capacity, 26; incorrect type of fuel
    purchased, 87 transactions; incorrect mileage entered at the
    pump, 28 vehicles; nonfuel purchases, 102 transactions.
        Then we go down to some of the compliance and safety review
    under Federal motor carrier roadside inspection affecting
    Amtrak's compliance here. Out of compliance vehicles: expired
    DOT inspections, 33; expired high-rail inspections, 35; expired
    crane inspections, 19; expired--looks like diesel--the electric
    inspections, 3.
        Then we look at the drivers, and you have, out of
    compliance drivers: expired medical cards, 52 drivers;
    expired--this is I'm not sure exactly how--but it's a violation
    list, I guess, for drivers--36 drivers. This is very troubling,
    and this also needs attention.
        So this is provided by Amtrak. It isn't from the
    investigations you've done, but this is just 1 month showing
    that it's not operating the way it should operate. So we'd like
    attention to that, maybe for the record, Mr. Boardman, if you
    want to respond. I don't want to put you on the spot here, but
    we would like a response.
        Mr. Boardman. Part of the response is this is a yearly
    total. This isn't 1 month. This is at the end of December.
        Mr. Mica. It says monthly data.
        Mr. Boardman. Right, it's the monthly data summarized at
    the end of December.
        Mr. Mica. Again, even if it is for the year, it's still
    troubling.
        Mr. Boardman. I understand. Just, it's a lot more troubling
    if it's for the month, in my view.
        Mr. Mica. Well, again, we'd like to see that. And we have
    the 1 month that we did review and that was provided for us. So
    this is the status. It's not acceptable. We need improvement.
    And if it was for the year, it's just as troubling.
        Mr. Boardman. Understand.
        Mr. Mica. But, again, we're leaving the record open for the
    next 10 days.
        Did you have any additional questions, Ms. Duckworth?
        Ms. Duckworth. Not at this time.
        Mr. Mica. Mr. Cummings?
        Mr. Cummings. No.
        Mr. Mica. And I thank the members for participating.
        We have some open recommendations from GAO that remain for
    GSA. And we will actually be submitting some questions to some
    of the witnesses today after this hearing. We'd like a response
    so it could be included in the record. And we will get you the
    specific questions after the hearing.
        There being no further business before the subcommittee, I
    want to thank our witnesses for their participation, the good
    work that they've been doing in helping with this important
    study. We look forward to having you back as you complete your
    study on some of our vehicle review of the Federal fleet. And,
    again, I thank everyone for their attention to that.
        I'm sorry. I don't want to preclude anyone. Our vice
    chairman of the committee would like to make a closing remark.
        Mr. Grothman. Right. I just will say, both as far as Amtrak
    and the government as a whole, what we've heard here today is
    alarming. I mean, this isn't the type of hearing that attracts,
    you know, 30 people from the press corps, and you're lucky we
    don't attract 30 people from the press corps, because it's--I
    mean, unless there are things that we're told on the followup
    answers or if we have another hearing that kind of explains
    some of these numbers, it's kind of alarming, kind of sloppy.
        I mean, you know, how quickly we're turning in the cars or
    not knowing how quickly we turn in the cars. I would think, you
    know, there are always some irresponsible people who turn over
    their cars really quickly, and if they want to be spendthrifts,
    that's with their own money. But the possible numbers out there
    are alarming. The number of accidents perhaps caused by
    government employees is alarming.
        I sometimes think--you know, I'm a new guy up here in
    Washington--that people here just think this is good enough.
    But, you know, people right now are very alarmed about what
    they feel is an out-of-control government. And I'll just say
    that I think the government collectively is lucky we don't have
    a lot of members of the press paying attention today because
    this is the type of thing if I talked back home to a Rotary
    Club or Kiwanis Club or something, they're like, holy cow.
        So I hope you leave here with a sense of urgency in
    changing the way we spend people's money. But I'd like to thank
    the subcommittee chairman for bringing the very interesting
    topic to our attention.
        Mr. Mica. Again, I thank the vice chairman, the ranking
    member of the subcommittee, full committee, and others for
    their participation, our witnesses. This hearing is adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 10:37 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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