[Senate Hearing 117-425]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]




                                                        S. Hrg. 117-425
    THE 2020 CENSUS AND CURRENT ACTIVITIES OF THE U.S. CENSUS BUREAU

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                                HEARING

                               before the

                              COMMITTEE ON
               HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                     ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS


                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                             MARCH 23, 2021

                               __________

        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov

                       Printed for the use of the
        Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
        
        
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		     U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
	
44-786 			    WASHINGTON : 2022
        
        
        

        COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS

                   GARY C. PETERS, Michigan, Chairman
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware           ROB PORTMAN, Ohio
MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire         RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona              RAND PAUL, Kentucky
JACKY ROSEN, Nevada                  JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
ALEX PADILLA, California             MITT ROMNEY, Utah
JON OSSOFF, Georgia                  RICK SCOTT, Florida
                                     JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri

                   David M. Weinberg, Staff Director
                    Zachary I. Schram, Chief Counsel
            Lena C. Chang, Director of Governmental Affairs
            Annika W. Christensen, Professional Staff Member
                Pamela Thiessen, Minority Staff Director
    Andrew Dockham, Minority Chief Counsel and Deputy Staff Director
       Amanda H. Neely, Minority Director of Governmental Affairs
        Jeff A. Post, Minority Senior Professional Staff Member
                     Laura W. Kilbride, Chief Clerk
                     Thomas J. Spino, Hearing Clerk

                            C O N T E N T S

                                 ------                                
Opening statements:
                                                                   Page
    Senator Peters...............................................     1
    Senator Lankford.............................................     2
    Senator Rosen................................................    17
    Senator Carper...............................................    19
    Senator Padilla..............................................    21
    Senator Hassan...............................................    22
    Senator Ossoff...............................................    25
Prepared statements:
    Senator Peters...............................................    27
    Senator Lankford.............................................    29

                               WITNESSES
                        Tuesday, March 23, 2021

Ron S. Jarmin, Ph.D., Acting Director, U.S. Census Bureau........     4
J. Christopher Mihm, Managing Director, Strategic Issues, U.S. 
  Government Accountability Office...............................     7
Nick Marinos, Director, Information Technology and Cybersecurity, 
  U.S. Government Accountability Office..........................     8

                     Alphabetical List of Witnesses

Jarmin, Ron. S.:
    Testimony....................................................     4
    Prepared statement...........................................    32
Marinos,, Nick:
    Testimony....................................................     8
    Joint prepared statement.....................................    43
Mihm, J. Christopher:
    Testimony....................................................     7
    Joint prepared statement.....................................    43

                                APPENDIX

Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record:
    Mr. Jarmin...................................................    62

 
    THE 2020 CENSUS AND CURRENT ACTIVITIES OF THE U.S. CENSUS BUREAU

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                        TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 2021

                                     U.S. Senate,  
                           Committee on Homeland Security  
                                  and Governmental Affairs,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:30 p.m., via 
Webex and in room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. 
Gary C. Peters, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
    Present: Senators Peters, Carper, Hassan, Rosen, Padilla, 
Ossoff, Portman, Lankford, Romney, Scott, and Hawley.

            OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN PETERS\1\

    Chairman Peters. The Committee will come to order.
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    \1\ The prepared statement of Senator Peters appears in the 
Appendix on page 27.
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    I would like to thank our witnesses for joining us here 
today to discuss the 2020 census and the U.S. Census Bureau's 
(USCB) ongoing work on that effort. The 2020 census is a 
national road map for the next 10 years. This official count of 
our population directly impacts communities in Michigan as well 
as all across the United States. It determines everything from 
representation in Congress to the amount of Federal funds each 
State receives for critical health care programs, 
infrastructure projects, schools, and much more.
    Ensuring an accurate 2020 census was especially challenging 
due to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, as 
well as interference from the Trump administration. The 
pandemic forced the Bureau to delay its in-person data 
collection by 3 months and delay data delivery by at least 4 
months to ensure accuracy. The Bureau requested an extension of 
its statutory data delivery deadlines to provide additional 
certainty, and I fought for this legislation, but the 
leadership, unfortunate, of the previous Senate majority 
opposed it. Nonetheless, the Bureau's nonpartisan career staff 
adapted, moved ahead with their delayed operations, and made 
good progress counting people.
    But the previous administration threw the census into 
question when the Commerce Department demanded the Bureau 
deliver data to the President by December. This move would have 
cut short data processing by 2\1/2\ months and would have 
resulted in harmful consequences and inaccurate census results 
for communities in Michigan and across the Nation. Of course, 
there was a climate of uncertainty and fear, created earlier by 
President Trump's untested citizenship question, and followed 
by his Executive Orders (EOs) on citizenship data.
    Fortunately, these misguided efforts to rush the census for 
political gain fell short. It is critical that lawmakers now 
work on a bipartisan basis, recognize the need for accurate 
census data, and respect the Census Bureau's career experts, 
who are committed to data accuracy, as they like to say: 
``counting every person once, only once, and in the right 
place.''
    There is no question that as the Census Bureau continues to 
process the data they have collected and conduct robust data 
quality checks, their hardworking and dedicated employees not 
only deserve our gratitude, but the resources and time to get 
it right.
    To put this into perspective, in my home State of Michigan, 
at least $1,800 in Federal funding per person relies on an 
accurate census count.
    This provides for critical programs that help hardworking 
Americans pay their bills, receive health care, send their 
children to school, and much more. Michigan is also home to 
more than 800,000 ``hard to count'' residents.
    These folks, who include rural residents, students, 
children, low-income households, and the homeless, often 
receive much needed Federal support, and it is absolutely 
essential that they are included in an accurate census.
    An accurate census not only helps folks across our Nation, 
but also our Nation's businesses, who use the data to determine 
where to create jobs by building facilities, offices, and 
stores. They also use the data to market their services and 
products so they can grow their businesses and the American 
economy.
    The 2020 census will be a road map for every State and 
community for the next 10 years. We must ensure that every 
American is counted regardless of economic or social 
circumstance. The Bureau faced incredible challenges to this 
mission in 2020, and now we must work together to finish the 
2020 Census and ensure that it is a success.
    I would like to take a moment to recognize our Federal data 
experts, who are working diligently to finish the census while 
ensuring that it is accurate. I look forward to discussing 
their work here at today's hearing.
    With that, I now turn it over to Senator Lankford for an 
opening statement.

            OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANKFORD\1\

    Senator Lankford. Thank you. Good afternoon to all of you. 
Thanks for being here. To Chair Peters and Ranking Member 
Portman, thanks for holding this hearing. This is exceptionally 
important. It is one of the issues that we do not just deal 
with 5 minutes every 10 years, as a lot of households do, but 
we deal with it consistently, and we continue to be able to 
work through this process.
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    \1\ The prepared statement of Senator Lankford appears in the 
Appendix on page 29.
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    As the Ranking Member of the newly formed Government 
Operations and Border Management (GovOps) Subcommittee, I am 
also working with Chair Sinema to monitor the progress the 
Census Bureau makes over the next couple of months, and there 
is a lot to still be done.
    Despite the exceptional challenges faced by the Census 
Bureau in the last year, I am pleased to see that 99.9 percent 
of the country was enumerated. That is a remarkable 
achievement.
    Even more remarkable is the self-response rate increased in 
2020 compared to 2010. This is crucial because self-responses 
provide the most accurate and quality data. But we now face a 
massive dilemma. The first set of data released by the Bureau, 
the apportionment count, which is a tally of all individuals in 
the country, has not been delivered, and it was due on December 
31. This has a detrimental snowball effect on the delivery of 
the second round of data, the redistricting data that States 
use to draw their districts. That data was due by March 31st. 
We were told one month ago that this data will not be delivered 
until September 30th, a 5-month delay.
    The issue: September 30th is past the deadline in some 
States for drawing their districts. In my State of Oklahoma, 
the legislative session will be over in September, as it will 
for most legislatures in the country. In addition, my State has 
a constitutionally mandated deadline to redraw our districts by 
90 days after the start of the legislative session, which was 
February 1st. Clearly, our State will not be able to make our 
constitutional responsibility to be able to redraw districts, 
which will create an enormous litigation nightmare within our 
State for redrawing districts, what has been a very consistent 
system for us for a very long time. This is obviously the 
latest the data has ever come out, and it will create untold 
issues because we do not know all the secondary effects.
    This 5-month delay will limit public engagement in 
redistricting efforts and will change that normal rhythm. 
Oklahoma, my State, is just one example of what is going to 
happen across the country. We do understand there were unique 
challenges in 2020. All of us know that. But we have to be able 
to figure out now what. What are the deadlines? Where did we go 
sideways on those deadlines? How do we manage costs? What does 
this look like for maintaining basic quality control?
    Counting every single person in this country is obviously 
costly, but this is something constitutionally we are going to 
do every single time. Estimated costs for the 2020 census was 
$15.6 billion. We do not know if we have made those deadlines 
yet for that certain amount, and we will be interested to be 
able to see what is the final cost.
    The average cost for counting has gone up every single 10 
years for quite a while. Former Census Director Robert Groves 
told Congress that the rising cost of the census is 
unsustainable and untenable, and I would agree. Census 
expenditures per household were 37 percent higher in 2010 than 
they were in 2000. They were 76 percent higher in 2000 than in 
1990. Since 1970, the average cost to count each house has 
moved from $16 a household to $94 a household in 2010, and we 
do not know what the cost will be yet for 2020.
    High costs, challenging logistics creates opportunities for 
innovation. We get that. Part of the dialog I would like to 
have today is not only what went sideways in the past year, but 
also where are we going for the 2030 census. There is an entity 
within the Federal Government that actually touches almost 
every household in America every single year, not just every 
year. That would be the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The IRS 
touches almost every household every single year. And though 
they had significant struggles in 2020 as well, anyone who has 
tried to pick up the phone and call an IRS helpline could tell 
you that for the last several months because they cannot get a 
live person. There is a responsibility to be able to maintain 
that data, and I have asked the question for years: Can we 
every 10 years merge some of the operations within IRS and 
Census to be able to make sure that Americans can file one form 
in April of that year that does both their census and the IRS? 
That is an issue I have brought up. I will continue to bring it 
up. When we are passing $16 billion just to be able to do the 
census count, we should be looking for efficiencies, and we 
should be looking for ways to be able to make sure that we are 
getting it on time. I want us to be able to walk through that 
process, and we will start that again today on that.
    I really do thank the panel for your work. This is not a 
simple task. Counting the homeless, making sure that people 
that are moving are not being double counted, counting 
individuals across the country is very difficult challenge. I 
am grateful for the work that you are doing, but we are 
interested in some questions and some answers today. I look 
forward to that.
    Chair, thank you very much for the time.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Lankford.
    It is the practice of the Homeland Security and 
Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) to swear in witnesses, 
so if each of you will stand and raise your right hand, please. 
Do you swear the testimony you will give before this Committee 
will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, 
so help you, God?
    Mr. Jarmin. I do.
    Mr. Mihm. I do.
    Mr. Marinos. I do.
    Chairman Peters. You may be seated.
    Our first witness today is Dr. Ron Jarmin, Acting Director 
of the United States Census Bureau. Dr. Jarmin is also 
currently the Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer (COO) 
of the Census Bureau and has been since January 2019. He 
stepped up as Acting Director in January 2021 after the 
retirement of Director Steven Dillingham. Dr. Jarmin has also 
served as Acting Director from July 2017 to January 2019. He 
began his career at the Census Bureau in 1992 and has also 
played leading roles in the Bureau's economic programs and 
research and methodology.
    Welcome, Dr. Jarmin. You are now recognized for your 5-
minute opening statement.

  TESTIMONY OF RON S. JARMIN, PH.D.,\1\ ACTING DIRECTOR, U.S. 
                         CENSUS BUREAU

    Dr. Jarmin. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Peters, 
Ranking Member Portman, and Members of the Committee. Thank you 
for inviting me today to talk about the successes and 
challenges of the 2020 census, how the pandemic spurred 
innovation in other work, and what lies ahead.
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    \1\ The prepared statement of Dr. Jarmin appears in the Appendix on 
page 32.
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    Before I begin, I want to acknowledge my fellow witness 
Chris Mihm, who is testifying at his last Census Bureau-related 
hearing before his retirement. His oversight has been 
instrumental in guiding us to a successful 2020 census, and 
everyone at the Census Bureau sends their congratulations to 
you, Chris.
    2020 was a challenging year for everyone, but we were 
fortunate to experience some successes at the Census Bureau. 
The 2020 census offered online response without any downtime or 
hacks. We ran the Nation's largest advertising campaign, making 
new commercials to reflect the new realities. We found new ways 
to support partners, including our congressional ones, who 
helped us encourage their constituents to respond. Your support 
was invaluable, and I thank you for your oversight and your 
recognition of our work's value.
    Throughout all of this, we kept our regular survey work 
going and developed new statistics to track the impact of the 
pandemic on households and businesses, while we mourned the 
loss of family members, friends, and colleagues, juggled child 
care and work, and watched the world change in numerous ways. I 
have never been prouder to work alongside the talented public 
servants at the Census Bureau, and I am privileged to showcase 
some of our work today.
    Stay-at-home orders implemented due to the pandemic started 
just after the 2020 census began. In response, we suspended all 
in-person work and hiring. Fortunately, innovations we 
introduced allowed the public to continue to respond to the 
2020 census and helped us to on-board and train staff 
virtually. We made daily data-driven decisions on when and 
where to resume or start operations safely. We adapted by 
adding new features to our original plans, including calling 
households that had not responded, sending emails to encourage 
response, and advertising in additional languages to reach even 
more people. Stakeholders and partners around the country 
dedicated themselves to finding news ways to educate and 
motivate the public to respond in fresh ways.
    Once we finished collecting the data, we began processing 
it. During this complex work that takes time and expertise, we 
discovered some anomalies, as we do every decade. To be clear, 
anomalies are not errors, but they can turn into errors if we 
do not resolve them. Finding and fixing anomalies shows that 
our quality checks are working. We are on track to produce the 
apportionment counts by April 30th, and we expect to deliver 
redistricting data no later than September 30th as a single 
national delivery to ensure that we can provide the data that 
meet the quality that States expect.
    We also will release an interim file in August that 
contains the same data as the September released; it just will 
not be as user-friendly as the September data, but we are 
continuing to do everything possible to get this critical 
information to the States as quickly as we can.
    We know that the pandemic-induced changes that we had to 
make raised questions about data quality, and we want to make 
sure that everyone is confident with the data we release. For 
the first time, we plan to release data quality metrics to 
provide the public even more transparency into our work.
    We are also enlisting three outside expert groups--the 
JASONs, the American Statistical Association (ASA), and the 
National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Committee on National 
Statistics (CNSTAT)--to examine our quality metrics and review 
our 2020 census processes, procedures, and decisions.
    We know that the information we produce matters to people 
every day, so we know that we must take the time to get it 
right. Getting it right for the decennial census meant delaying 
our original schedule so we could conduct it safely and taking 
the time needed to process the data so that we can produce 
high-quality statistics. Getting it right also means making 
sure we protect the data so that everyone feels safe responding 
and so that everyone is reflected in the statistics we produce.
    We are modernizing the method we use to protect people's 
information when we release the 2020 census results. Our 
challenge is to balance the accuracy and utility of the data we 
release with the risks to respondent privacy. The most accurate 
and useful data would be if we published every household's 
response with no protections. Clearly, that is unacceptable and 
against the law. Over the decades, the Census Bureau has 
continuously improved privacy protection using methods like 
aggregation, suppression, and swapping sensitive records.
    Ubiquitous data and technological advances have created 
more sophisticated tools that dramatically increase the risks 
to privacy and confidentiality and detailed data sets like 
those produced from the 2020 census. The tools we have used 
before are no longer sufficient. The method we are using, 
differential privacy, allows us to use specialized formulas to 
balance privacy and accuracy so that our information continues 
to be useful while also protecting individual information as 
required by law. We welcome conversations about where the ideal 
balance point exists.
    Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Dr. Jarmin.
    Our second witness is Christopher Mihm. Mr. Mihm is the 
Managing Director of the Strategic Issues team at the 
Government Accountability Office (GAO). His team led GAO's work 
on 2020 census operations, including preparedness, field work, 
data quality risk, and more. He also leads GAO's work on 
governmentwide strategy, performance, and resource issues, 
including the High-Risk List. He joined GAO in September 1983 
and since then has worked to support the Congress on a range of 
issues.
    Mr. Mihm, I understand you will be retiring at the end of 
March after 37 years of Federal service.
    Mr. Mihm. Yes.
    Chairman Peters. I certainly want to thank you for your 
many years of dedication to the American people. Thank you. 
Your work has been essential for helping Congress analyze and 
approve Government programs.
    Congratulations, Mr. Mihm, and thank you for being here 
today, and please proceed with your 5-minute opening statement.

    TESTIMONY OF J. CHRISTOPHER MIHM,\1\ MANAGING DIRECTOR, 
    STRATEGIC ISSUES, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE

    Mr. Mihm. Thank you, Chair Peters, and thank you very much 
for your very gracious words. I appreciate that quite a bit.
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    \1\ The joint prepared statement of Mr. Mihm appears in the 
Appendix on page 43.
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    Mr. Chairman and Senator Lankford and Members of the 
Committee, my colleague Nick Marinos and I are pleased to be 
here to discuss the 2020 census. As you noted, Mr. Chairman, in 
your opening comments, census data are used by government at 
all levels, the private sector, researchers, citizens to 
provide a national 10-year road map for making decisions. It is 
absolutely vital that we get it right, and as you mentioned, 
get the right count in the right place and only once.
    In being here today, Nick and I have the great privilege of 
presenting the work of our GAO colleagues who have been 
supporting congressional oversight of the census for many 
years. As the Committee is well aware, even in the best of 
circumstances, completing the census is an enormous and complex 
undertaking. Yet, Mr. Chairman, as you and Senator Lankford 
noted, 2020 was by far from the best of circumstances, with 
COVID-19 pandemic making the census all the more challenging.
    Just over one year ago, as the Bureau had begun to mail out 
invitations to participate in the census, it was forced to 
suspend field operations because of COVID-19. The Census Bureau 
subsequently delayed field operations multiple times and made a 
series of late changes to the design of the census. Our 
prepared statement details those changes the Bureau made in 
response to the pandemic and related Executive Branch 
decisions.
    Overall, the changes affected the way the Bureau did its 
work, as well as the time it took to do the work. The changes 
also introduced risks of quality to the congressional 
apportionment and redistricting data.
    As you know and as you both mentioned, the Bureau's current 
plan is to deliver apportionment count data by April 30 and 
final redistricting data by September 30. As it prepares this 
data, I would underscore two points from our work.
    First, as Director Jarmin noted, the Bureau is responding 
to recommendations by the American Statistical Association and 
the Department of Commerce's Census Scientific Advisory 
Committee. We view these as very positive developments. These 
recommendations have called for the Bureau to document what it 
knows in near real time about the quality of the population 
counts that it provides to the President and to the Congress. 
We also reported in December on census quality indicators that 
the Bureau should consider providing when it releases 
apportionment counts. These quality indicators were consistent 
with the work of the ASA and the Advisory Committee.
    We firmly believe and agree with the Census Bureau that 
disclosing what is known and not yet known about census data in 
near real time will increase transparency and public confidence 
in the census.
    Second, in December, we also identified concerns about how 
late changes to the census design could affect data quality. 
These concerns range from how the altered timeframes affected 
population counts during field data collection, to what 
effects, if any, the compressed and streamlined processing of 
census data have on the Bureau's ability to detect and fully 
address processing or other areas. We recommended in December 
and in a report issued just yesterday that the Bureau ensure 
that its 2020 assessments, first, address how the late changes 
to the census design could affect data quality; and, second 
support planning for the 2030 census. The Department of 
Commerce and the Census Bureau agreed with both of those 
recommendations and described ongoing and planned activities to 
implement them. Notably, the Bureau's activities included 
planning to release the information, as I mentioned, and 
findings on data quality as it becomes available.
    One final point. As you know from the hearing that the 
Comptroller General held before this Committee earlier this 
month, the decennial census remains on our High-Risk List. 
Normally, it would come off in the year after the census is 
completed. However, he asked us to keep it on this time for two 
reasons, not just because we are not done with the 2020 census, 
but for precisely, Senator Lankford, as you were mentioning: we 
need to be thinking early and hard about what the 2030 census 
is going to be looking at. The Census Bureau made a number of 
important innovations and changes as it was preparing and 
planning for the 2020 census. We need to make sure that that 
energy and momentum and that force of innovation carries 
through into 2030 as well.
    Let me end there, and once again I want to thank the 
Committee and you, Mr. Chairman, for your very kind words and 
for the opportunity to appear before you today, and I will be 
pleased to answer any questions you may have.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Mr. Mihm.
    Our final witness today is Nick Marinos, Director of 
Information Technology (IT) and Cybersecurity at GAO. His team 
has led GAO's work to analyze the IT and cybersecurity 
components of the 2020 census, a crucial part of the operation, 
particularly as this last census was the first to have an 
online response option. His team also performs audits across 
all major Federal agencies in the areas of cybersecurity, 
critical infrastructure, privacy, and data protection. Mr. 
Marinos joined GAO in 2002.
    Welcome, Mr. Marinos. You may proceed with your 5 minute 
opening statement.

TESTIMONY OF NICK MARINOS,\1\ DIRECTOR, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 
    AND CYBERSECURITY, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE

    Mr. Marinos. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Lankford, and 
Members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting GAO to discuss 
the status of the 2020 census. Today I would like to provide 
you with an update on IT systems, cybersecurity, and the 
Bureau's efforts for protecting the data it collected from 
census respondents.
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    \1\ The joint prepared statement of Mr. Marinos appears in the 
Appendix on page 43.
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    Starting with IT systems, as the Chair noted, the Internet 
self-response system operated as intended during the 2020 
census, and most people who self-responded did so online. The 
Bureau reported that it did not experience any system downtime 
during the census.
    In addition, the Bureau's use of smartphones to conduct 
nonresponse follow-up (NRFU) work played a critical role in its 
ability to adapt to the pandemic and achieve a higher than 
expected rate of worker productivity. Nonetheless, the Bureau 
still has important system implementation work to do. 
Currently, the Bureau is processing census responses, which is 
a critical activity intended to help ensure that the data are 
complete and formatted correctly. In addition, system testing 
is still ongoing for important census operations. Among these 
is the Bureau's Post-Enumeration Survey which is intended to 
assess the quality of the 2020 census. Going forward, a 
continued focus on meeting testing milestones and scheduled 
deployments will be important for ensuring that the Bureau's 
systems operate as intended.
    With respect to cybersecurity, as Dr. Jarmin pointed out, 
the Bureau has reported no major cyber incidents that have 
impacted decennial operations. Throughout the past several 
years, the Bureau coordinated with officials at Department of 
Homeland Security (DHS') Cybersecurity and Infrastructure 
Security Agency (CISA), leveraging their expertise to conduct 
cybersecurity assessments and provide consultative support.
    The Bureau also implemented a trust and safety team to 
quickly respond to disinformation and misinformation events in 
order to protect the reputation of the Bureau and the integrity 
of the 2020 census. In light of recent high-profile cyber 
attacks impacting both public and private sectors, however, it 
is vital for the Bureau to continue its vigilance and to work 
with CISA to ensure that its remaining operations are 
adequately protected.
    Turning to the topic of data protection, now that the data 
collection has ended for the 2020 census, the Bureau's focus is 
shifting to the development and release of statistical 
products. When producing and distributing these products, it is 
important for the Bureau to maintain the confidentiality of 
individual respondent information as required by law. To do 
this, the Bureau plans to apply a data protection technique 
known as ``differential privacy.''
    In December, we noted that the operational delays that 
Chris mentioned created uncertainty in the plans and schedules 
for differential privacy. Last month the Bureau updated and 
finalized its schedule for implementing differential privacy on 
the redistricting data. We discuss these plans in more detail 
in our written statement, but the bottom line is that the next 
few months will be critical to implementing data protection. We 
are actively monitoring the Bureau's efforts in this area, and 
we will keep you updated.
    In summary, key technology innovations like the Internet 
self-response system and the use of smartphones in the field 
provided the Bureau with the ability to better perform its 
mission during the pandemic. But there is more work to be done. 
Ultimately, the success of the decennial census depends on the 
Bureau's ability to adequately protect the data it collected 
from millions of Americans.
    Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you.
    Dr. Jarmin, as you and your counterparts have testified, 
the 2020 census certainly faced unprecedented challenges, 
including delaying in-person counting by about 3 months, 
adapting your operations to the pandemic, facing interference 
as a result of directives from the previous administration that 
led to large-scale schedule changes. Any kind of change in 
long-established plans creates more risk and more error.
    My question to you is: Given all of the challenges and 
changes, how did the Bureau decide in 2021 that it needed more 
time for processing the data? Why do Bureau experts believe 
this total amount of time was necessary?
    Mr. Jarmin. Thank you, Chair. I think first and foremost, 
our objective is to release complete and accurate information, 
and so that drives many of our operational decisions last year 
and drives our decisions right now about how we are processing 
the data. When we looked at where we were in the schedule and 
what still needed to be done, I think that is what drives the 
dates that we have announced. The apportionment data will come 
out at the end of April--maybe we might beat that by a little 
bit--and then the final redistricting data by the end of 
September. But that includes a bunch of software updates that 
make the data easy to access and utilize. That is why we did 
make the decision to produce similar data that we produced in 
2010 and make that available in August, because, obviously, we 
are trying to get the data to the States as quickly as we can.
    Chairman Peters. Yes, absolutely, and they are eagerly 
awaiting the information, as you know.
    Mr. Jarmin. As you let us know. [Laughter.]
    Chairman Peters. Mr. Mihm, GAO studied the risk of a 
compressed data processing schedule last year. What are those 
risks? What can happen if the Bureau does not have enough time 
to run full quality checks on the data? Paint that picture for 
me.
    Mr. Mihm. Mr. Chairman, the challenge that the Bureau faces 
is that it is a once-a-decade operation with no opportunity for 
a do-over and very little opportunity for changes on the fly. 
In fact, one of the strengths of the census when it is done 
right is that it will be done consistently across the country 
in a uniform manner.
    What late design changes do is that, first, it runs the 
risk or it introduces untested approaches; and, second, it then 
requires that those untested approaches be cascaded down and 
uniformly implemented across the country. That is always a very 
difficult operation to do. Maintaining for the Census Bureau 
just control in a normal circumstance can be difficult to do. 
It gets exceedingly difficult when you are implementing changes 
on top of that. As you were mentioning, coming into the field, 
going out of the field, going back into the field can be very 
difficult.
    Chairman Peters. Some of the most spotty data which the 
Bureau still has to work through, as you know, is for the most 
vulnerable constituents: nursing home residents, homeless 
people, people impacted by natural disasters. How can the 
Census Bureau be particularly vigilant through the end of the 
census to make sure that vulnerable and hard-to-count 
individuals, which I mentioned in my opening comments are 
roughly 800,000 people in Michigan, how are these groups going 
to be properly accounted for during this difficult time?
    Mr. Mihm. Counting these individuals, the hard-to-enumerate 
population, is among the most difficult parts of the census, as 
you were saying. The Bureau did run into challenges in getting 
counts out of what they refer to as ``group quarters,'' which 
would be skilled nursing facilities, homeless shelters or 
shelters for persons experiencing homelessness, prisons. In 
fact, one of the innovations--and this is a positive 
development--is that when they had over 24,000 of these group 
quarters that were reporting zero data, they went back out in 
December to try and confirm that and try to get better data on 
this, because as you mentioned, this is a very vulnerable 
population. It is hard to count in the best of circumstances. 
When you had a number of these group quarters, especially those 
providing services that may have closed down or people that 
were not familiar with the technology used to report back to 
the Census Bureau, that is what led them to have to go back out 
and reach out to these in late December.
    Chairman Peters. Mr. Marinos, the 2020 census is a massive 
IT and cybersecurity operation; 52 different systems, in fact, 
are used to collect and protect the data. The Bureau has worked 
very closely, I know, with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure 
Security Agency, at DHS to strength its cybersecurity. But 
could you describe to the Committee how this relationship was 
unprecedented in many respects as we look across kind of the 
government cybersecurity ecosystem? What can we learn from this 
collaboration that will be helpful going forward?
    Mr. Marinos. Mr. Chairman, that is, I think, a good way to 
put it. It is certainly unprecedented and it is also lengthy in 
its history. The Bureau and CISA began coordinating several 
years ago, so in the lead-up to key 2020 operations, CISA had 
already been onsite to perform threat assessments and 
vulnerability assessments for the Bureau and provided 
recommendations, feedback to the Bureau so that they could take 
action to improve the protections of their systems.
    In addition to that, as key operations were starting up, 
CISA shifted to a more active relationship with the Bureau 
actually having dedicated staff within CISA available to 
provide assistance when needed to the Bureau as it was starting 
up things like the Internet self-response last March.
    I think what we have seen here is a really good model for 
how CISA could be leveraged for other key operations within the 
Federal Government, not only, during key operations but in the 
lead-up. Providing that feedback is important, and most 
importantly, what we have seen the Bureau do over the last 
couple of years in response also to a recommendation we made 
was take to heart that feedback that it got from CISA. It is 
not only about CISA providing the recommendations, but seeing 
the agencies take it and improve their systems, which is what 
we did see the Bureau do.
    Chairman Peters. That is good to hear. Very good to hear.
    A final question. Dr. Jarmin, is it correct that there have 
been no data breaches or significant cybersecurity incidents 
related to the 2020 census operations thus far?
    Mr. Jarmin. That is correct. We did work hard, as Mr. 
Marinos said, to work with all of the expert groups from CISA 
folks at the Department of Commerce, but also with private 
sector companies to make sure that we made sure that we had all 
of the bases covered to make sure that neither--either cyber 
threats or, misinformation/disinformation threats would pose a 
threat to the census.
    Chairman Peters. That is good to hear. Thank you, Dr. 
Jarmin.
    The Chair now recognizes Senator Lankford for your 
questions.
    Senator Lankford. Chairman, thank you very much.
    Gentlemen, thanks again for being here. Let me cut right to 
2030, and then I want to be able to work back to 2020 and be 
able to do some review from there. What would inhibit the IRS 
and Census from sharing some of their operations in 2030 to 
increase the efficiency--and I would tell you I started talking 
about this in about 2013, and the answer from that 
administration was, well, the IRS has a bad reputation, Census 
has a great reputation, and we do not want to commingle it. 
That was their public answer. So please do not give me that 
answer.
    What would inhibit us technically to be able to do that? My 
understanding is IRS and Census already share some information. 
Why can't we actually share the harvesting of data from 
Americans all over the country in that shared return?
    Mr. Jarmin. I will start with that. I think it is important 
to note that we have successfully used administrative records 
to enumerate I think about 6 million households in the 2020 
census. Much of that information is sourced from the IRS, but 
other organizations as well.
    I am not sure that the dual collection would make the most 
sense, but, we already have a close working relationship with 
the IRS and get records from them that we can use for this 
purpose. We have a project ongoing that just started this 
fiscal year. That will seek to integrate our sort of geospatial 
information with information on where people live using these 
administrative records that I think will lay the groundwork for 
just the type of more complete use of administrative records to 
try to reduce cost----
    Senator Lankford. So why wouldn't dual collection work? 
People are turning in online or in paper form--most of them 
online at this point with the IRS--to be able to add an 
additional ten questions----
    Mr. Jarmin. Yes, I would want to test that and see how that 
worked.
    Senator Lankford. You have 9\1/2\ years to test it at this 
point. I am not being facetious, but in some ways pushing to 
say this is one of those obvious issues, when I raise it and 
say we turn in every 10 years in April to the census, we turn 
every single year to the IRS in April. Why couldn't ten 
questions be added to what we do with the IRS every 10 years, 
and so when they actually do those forms or when they are 
turning it in, they are also answering their census and 
checking that off?
    Mr. Jarmin. First of all, not everybody fills out a 
census----
    Senator Lankford. That is correct. Not everyone fills out 
their census information. We have to chase those as well.
    Mr. Jarmin. Unfortunately. But the IRS does not knock on 
your door, though. At least not yet. This would be something I 
think we would have to work with the IRS. I am not sure where 
they sit on this. I think the fact that Census and IRS can work 
more closely, and other administrative agencies--we get 
information from other Federal agencies, from States. All this 
information could be useful.
    Senator Lankford. Right.
    Mr. Jarmin. I think trying to find a way to make the best 
use of that information, to reduce costs and increase the 
quality of our data is what we are trying----
    Senator Lankford. I have to say most of the time when I get 
into this conversation, it is because they are in their side 
and you are in yours, and, again, not trying to be demeaning in 
that. It is just we have not done it before; they have their 
stuff and their timelines, we have our stuff and our timelines. 
But at $16 billion, we have to find a way to be able to find 
some efficiency between the two. If there is a way to be able 
to say let us work with the system that already works every 
single year gathering well over 100 million households, that 
can get us started that quickly. It is not that Americans are 
in the habit of self-filling out information from Census. They 
only do it every 10 years, and every 10 years it is a little 
bit different than it was in the past, and no telling how we 
will do that in 2030, depending on the technology. It is an 
area I think we need to explore and not just say how can we 
gather some of the administrative data, how can we actually 
gather the data at the beginning of it, and see if we cannot 
merge some of those operations and save the taxpayers 
significant dollars.
    Let me ask you about some of the deadlines early on this 
year. When is the first time that States were officially 
notified that the deadline would not be achieved?
    Mr. Jarmin. I am not sure I know, if--we have a staff that 
works with the States all the time, and I think we knew that 
making the deadline was going to be difficult. But I think the 
first official notification was earlier in February.
    Senator Lankford. OK. That is the challenge we have. For 
instance, in my State, in Oklahoma, we have to do all of our 
redistricting within 90 days of when our session begins 
February 1st. We were already in the process of doing 
redistricting meetings, doing all of those things, and then 
suddenly we get notification not that we are going to be a 
little late, that we are going to be 5 months late. Now, that 
really throws everything out. When did you know at first you 
were going to be 5 months late?
    Mr. Jarmin. It was right about that time. I think before 
last fall, coming up on the apportionment deadline, the focus 
was really on trying to meet the statutory deadline for 
apportionment.
    Senator Lankford. Right.
    Mr. Jarmin. It was all hands on deck to do that. Some of 
the work that we would have been doing then on redistricting 
was in order to crash the schedule for apportionment, we set 
that aside. It was not until after the start of the year that 
we started seeing what the real ramifications of that was.
    Senator Lankford. The apportionment deadline, as I am 
seeing, you are about 3 months behind on getting that 
collective from where your original targets are. Is that 
correct?
    Mr. Jarmin. Yes.
    Senator Lankford. So even in January----
    Mr. Jarmin. Almost 4 months.
    Senator Lankford. Yes, so even in January, you thought you 
could still make that up. It was not until late January or 
early February before you knew you were actually going to be 5 
months away.
    Mr. Jarmin. Before we knew with some certainty. I think it 
is fair to say that we knew that we were not going to make the 
March date, but----
    Senator Lankford. That is what I am trying to get at. When 
is your best guess of when you knew we are not going to make 
March, we could not just be late, we could be significantly 
late?
    Mr. Jarmin. I think, what we learned from last fall was to 
not be giving dates that we could not stand by. So we wanted to 
wait until we had a better sense of that, and that was early 
February.
    Senator Lankford. OK. Obviously, the challenge that we have 
with that is every State had already started the process of 
getting things together and had already started their 
redistricting meetings and their public meetings and all those 
things, and that will all have to be redone all over again, as 
well as all the litigation that is going to follow from that as 
well.
    You had mentioned before about if you do not do the 
software updates and the things to perfect the way that you are 
releasing it, if you release the redistricting data, the same 
way you did in 2010 you do for the 2020 time period, you could 
shave some time off of that September 30th date. How much time 
do you think that could be?
    Mr. Jarmin. Mid-to late August.
    Senator Lankford. OK.
    Mr. Jarmin. About a month, or maybe a little bit more.
    Senator Lankford. That would be helpful to be able to get. 
Thank you.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Lankford.
    We are in the middle of votes, so you will be seeing 
Committee Members kind of running in and out. In fact, I will 
be doing that. I am going to be running out to vote. We will 
turn it over to Ranking Member Portman for his questions, and 
he will preside over the hearing until I return. Ranking Member 
Portman.
    Senator Portman [presiding]. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I know that Senator Lankford has already asked you guys 
some pertinent questions because he has a strong interest in 
this given the situation in his State and also his expertise on 
this issue. Ohio is one of those States that is negatively 
impacted, as you know. We have constitutional requirements that 
may lead us to not be able to use your data, which is just 
unheard of. I guess, Dr. Jarmin, my first question would be: I 
know that due to COVID-19 you announced the 6-month delay. The 
apportionment data only needed a 4-month delay. My question for 
you I guess would be: By law, redistricting data should be 
available 3 months after the apportionment data, but this is 5 
months later. Why that delay?
    Mr. Jarmin. I think part of that, I was just explaining to 
Senator Lankford, was while we were making an effort to make 
the statutory deadline for the apportionment data, December 
31st, we crashed the schedule, put all hands on deck to 
accomplish that. That meant that some of the work that we would 
have started for the apportionment--or for the redistricting 
data was set aside until later. I think that has added some 
time.
    I think the other thing is we are trying to make sure that 
we have this all right and make sure that the timeline that we 
have specified is one that we can meet. I hope we can beat the 
timeline a little bit, but it is definitely, as you saw last 
fall, when we had said, timing on apportionment data was going 
to be this or going to be that, we want to give the public and 
the States a little more certainty about when we can actually 
deliver.
    Senator Portman. Certainly is nice, but having the data 
available is even nicer.
    Mr. Jarmin. Yes.
    Senator Portman. We have a September 1st deadline, as you 
know. Let me ask you this: Why can't you provide States like 
Ohio that have these constitutional deadlines data on a rolling 
basis? In other words, provide us our data. You do not need to 
provide it to every State because some States have more 
flexibility than we do.
    Mr. Jarmin. We understand that, and the original plan was 
to put it out on a rolling basis. But I think as we have gone 
back and tried to find the fastest way that we can deliver the 
data to the States, it is to produce it all at once, when the 
reviews are done, sort of across all the States. I think if we 
were to prioritize a small number of States, that would 
actually increase the amount of time that would take us to get 
the data out. We are trying to optimize and get it out as 
quickly as possible.
    Senator Portman. I hope you understand the negative 
consequences here, because we are in the middle of a 
redistricting change in Ohio, not just because of the 10-year 
data but also because we are looking at redistricting reform, 
and this is really putting us back and causing tremendous 
problems.
    GAO has indicated that September 17 is your target release 
date, with a 2-week security buffer. Will you commit to 
notifying this Committee as soon as you become aware of any 
issue that could delay the data past September 17th?
    Mr. Jarmin. Absolutely.
    Senator Portman. That is at a minimum what we really need 
to do.
    I am told that you do not want more money to be able to 
speed this up because you think that will not help. How could 
that be? Wouldn't more resources be able to give you the 
ability to put more people against this and to get this done 
more quickly?
    Mr. Jarmin. That is a great question, Senator, and so I 
think what you need to remember is that right now we are in a 
process where data are processed and then they are reviewed, 
and that review is done by experienced expert staff, and trying 
to increase the number of people looking at the data would 
require those expert staff to then train new folks, and I think 
that would just add time to this. This is one of the things, 
when we talk about looking ahead to 2030, if there is something 
that happens in data collection that puts us behind for data 
processing, the data processing was not a focus of a lot of the 
efforts for the 2020 census. It was all done with thinking 
there was 5 months to get this all done, or at least get the 
apportionment data out.
    I think thinking about what the back end looks like for 
2030 could help us in this, but, obviously, for 2020, with the 
pandemic, we did not have that luxury. It is a situation where 
the processing of these data is done by a relatively small--by 
``small,'' I mean, 100 or so--expert staff that process and 
review these data, and increasing that staff right now would 
actually slow us down.
    Senator Portman. That seems nonsensical to me, to be frank 
with you, that you cannot find some way to bolster your 
expertise and between now and August, which gives a few months 
to do it----
    Mr. Jarmin. We have already brought in some internal staff 
that, have similar types of skills, but if we were to bring in 
new people from outside, I would have to take people who are 
currently working on this and have them teach these new people, 
what do so.
    Senator Portman. Give me a commitment today that you will 
put your thinking cap on and see if there is any creative way 
that you could at least get us this data a couple weeks early. 
Literally, we are going to have no time in Ohio to look at the 
raw data, much less the final data. If we had another 2 weeks, 
it would make a huge difference.
    Mr. Jarmin. We are already looking for every way that we 
can speed this up, so we will continue to do so.
    Senator Portman. OK. I see Senator Romney is here, and I 
want to go to him next, but ask you a question that actually 
relates to some of his local communities. This most recent data 
set, I am told that some small towns in Utah saw a 20-to 30-
percent population change as a result of differential privacy. 
Do you expect similar results for small towns in the final 
data?
    Mr. Jarmin. I do not. Those test data were done with a 
higher privacy parameter, so that protected the data more than 
we will in the final data. Also, we have worked out many of the 
sort of other processing issues that cause some discrepancies, 
and so we will be releasing additional data in April that folks 
can look at. That will be a lot closer to but even probably 
still not quite as accurate as the final data that we put out.
    Senator Portman. Do you believe the final data will be 
accurate as to these small towns----
    Mr. Jarmin. Yes.
    Senator Portman [continuing]. Despite the use of this 
differential privacy?
    Mr. Jarmin. So accuracy and privacy are conflicting goals, 
and we are trying our best to balance the accuracy with 
protecting the respondent information.
    Senator Portman. Yes. we have to be sure the data is 
usable, one, and be sure that it can be held in a court because 
it is going to be likely subject to litigation.
    Thank you. I am informed that Senator Rosen is actually 
next. I am sure, Senator Romney, you are right up there. But I 
would like now to turn to Senator Rosen virtually.

               OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ROSEN

    Senator Rosen. Thank you, Senator Portman. I appreciate it. 
Thank you to the witnesses for being here today. Of course, 
this topic is extremely important to all of us across the 
country for so many reasons, and I appreciate your hard work 
and efforts always, but, of course, during the pandemic it made 
everything so much more challenging.
    But, honestly, during the 2020 census, Nevada saw the 
highest self-response growth rate of any State in the country. 
That is due in large part to our State's outreach strategies, 
the critical partnerships that we have developed with the 
Census Bureau, our State and local elected officials, and, of 
course, all of our community leaders. We have created inroads 
across the State from diverse communities to urban areas, 
including our hard-to-reach communities, our tribal 
communities, and we really were laser-focused on diversity and 
inclusion to ensure that every Nevadan was counted by meeting 
people where they were.
    As we look ahead at the next 10 years, greater emphasis on 
increased diversity of the census workforce I believe can 
create and really improve census accuracy and reach more 
people. Dr. Jarmin, understanding the pandemic added an extra 
challenge for the census workforce, for our recruitment, for 
our retention, how would you assess the Bureau's effort to 
recruit a diverse workforce during the last census? What can we 
do to improve that in each and every one of our communities? 
That is going to be key to a good count.
    Mr. Jarmin. That certainly was a focus, Senator. I have not 
yet seen the data from the demographic breakdown of the folks 
that we hired to see if we did better than in 2020. I will say, 
though, that it was a challenge to get folks on board during 
the pandemic. Even with the economy hurting as it was, I think 
there was a lot of resistance of folks, going out on the street 
and putting on a mask and knocking on doors. But, obviously, we 
want to recruit a workforce for the census that looks like the 
communities that they are engaged in. We do that because it is 
important, because that is what builds trust with folks whose 
doors we are knocking on. And so that will continue to be a 
focus of the 2030 census.
    Senator Rosen. I look forward to seeing that report when 
you have that. But speaking of diversity, another reason that 
this is so incredibly important is because we have to break 
down our language barriers and, of course, our technology 
barriers. So two key barriers, we know this, are the barriers 
to census participation. You have been, I know, working on 
language access and technological hurdles. To truly count every 
American, we have to ensure that the census materials are 
available in the languages diverse communities speak in their 
home.
    I applaud the Bureau for providing resources and material 
in 59 non-English languages. Currently, the questionnaire 
itself is only in 12 non-English languages, excluding a large 
number of South and Southeast Asian languages spoken by the 
Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities in Nevada 
and across the country.
    Another huge concern that my office had from my 
constituents throughout the year for us and particularly in our 
underserved and our rural communities was lack of access to 
broadband and the technological literacy among our senior 
citizens and underserved populations and they could not 
actually do the census. Between that and the fears of postal 
delays, slowdowns at the United States Postal Service (USPS), 
we had our work cut out for us.
    What do you think, Dr. Jarmin, the Census Bureau can do in 
the future to break down language barriers and ensure that more 
people have access through technology, maybe through an app on 
the phone or something? Everyone has a phone. They may not have 
a iPad or computer, but a lot of people have phones and phone 
service. How do we do that?
    Mr. Jarmin. That is a good question, Senator. So, you could 
respond to the 2020 census on your phone this time. The key 
issue with folks that have lack of access--and we mapped the 
country. We tended to know where those areas were, and we 
focused those areas for other collection activities. That is 
probably a lot of rural areas where we do update leave or they 
do not have city-style addresses where we actually send 
somebody out to leave a paper form that has the instructions to 
fill it out online also on the form.
    I think there are a number of ways that we addressed, and 
we will continue to sort of refine those over the next decade. 
But, obviously, broadband access is probably only going to 
increase, and so we hope to be able to build on that and to 
have more of the country sort of in the primary collection 
mechanism and have to rely on these other methods less. But 
that is something that we are going to have to track over the 
decade to make sure that whatever the technology is, whatever 
the service level that the Postal Service can provide, that we 
are ready to be able to utilize those resources in the best 
possible way to help us get the census done.
    Senator Rosen. Thank you. I appreciate that.
    In my remaining time, I want to ask a question of Mr. 
Marinos, something near and dear to my heart, IT modernization. 
You appeared recently at a hearing on the GAO High-Risk List 
report where we discussed the need to modernize IT systems and, 
of course, our cybersecurity in the Federal Government, and I 
appreciate you following up with my office on the topic. But 
how does the experience of the 2020 census taking place in the 
midst of the COVID-19 pandemic illustrate the need for Federal 
agencies to modernize their IT infrastructure? We have 10 years 
until we do this again. I do not want to see us on the same 
programs 10 years from now.
    Mr. Marinos. Senator Rosen, I think we saw successes in the 
Internet self-response system operating without any downtime 
and actually to greater expectations than what Census had said. 
I think about a 9-percent higher level of responses before 
census enumerators were out knocking on doors. That is a 
positive.
    But to get there, it took a lot of effort. It took a lot of 
integration across 52 systems that the Bureau had set forward 
to manage all of the operations that it had in place continuing 
to do so during the conclusions of the 2020 census.
    We also saw toward the later part of this past decade an 
increase in the IT spending by the Bureau. It had increased its 
estimate by $1.5 billion, in large part because of the need for 
technical integration between systems. Where that leaves us, it 
leaves us with 9\1/2\ years of opportunity to try to set 
forward a plan that is going to help to build off of the things 
that worked well, like the Internet self-response, and also 
start to think about what could be done to streamline the 
process moving forward for 2030.
    Senator Rosen. I look forward to working on that. I think 
there are things that can be standard amongst all 50 States and 
territories and then allow for some things on the back end that 
we may have to do different in our States. I appreciate that 
conversation.
    Thank you. I yield back.
    Senator Portman. Thank you, Senator Rosen. Senator Carper.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER

    Senator Carper. Thank you. For this question, if I could 
lead off with Dr. Jarmin, I understand that the Census Bureau 
made several late operational and design changes for the 2020 
decennial census in response to both COVID and to decisions 
made by the Department of Commerce. I think it was in December 
2020 that the GAO reported that the Bureau planned to assess 
these changes and agreed with GAO's recommendations that this 
assessment should address data quality concerns relating to 
data from nonresponse follow-up in group quarters' enumeration 
efforts.
    Would you take a moment to discuss the Bureau's response to 
date in conducting this assessment? Further, can you tell us 
how this assessment will help the Bureau as it begins planning 
for the 2030 count?
    Mr. Jarmin. Thank you, Senator Carper. We are in the midst 
of that assessment. Obviously, we are still trying to get the 
data out the door, and that is taking most of our priority 
right now. But I think one interesting point on this that we 
have already had some conversations about thinking and leading 
toward 2030 is exactly on the issue of group quarters. I think 
what the pandemic exposed was the way that our household 
surveys, not just the census but the American Community Survey 
and other household censuses, treat people living in a group 
quarter situation is maybe overly complex and does not lead to 
an efficient operation, especially when something changes like 
with the pandemic.
    We have another side of the Census Bureau, the business 
side, where these same group quarters are actually businesses 
in many cases, and they are very efficient at keeping track of 
these institutions and staying in contact with them. One of the 
things I think that we are going to be looking at over the next 
few years is how to integrate those two things and get both 
sides of the Census Bureau working together on these group 
quarters in a way that probably yields better information for 
both. That is sort of the win-win here, but I think there are 
definitely some lessons learned here that I think the pandemic 
exposed. If it was not for the pandemic, these operations 
probably would have gone along and worked as planned. But I 
think that there are some things that we can do that we 
recognize were problems all along, but the pandemic really sort 
of exposed them. Thank you.
    Senator Carper. Speaking of group quarters, I can think of 
some examples in the State of Delaware. We raise a lot of 
chickens in the State of Delaware. I think for every person who 
lives in Delaware, there are maybe 300 or 400 chickens. That is 
a lot of chickens per person. And some of the folks who work in 
our poultry processing plants are from Central America and 
other places south of our country, and they live, not always 
but not infrequently, in group quarters. We have several 
universities in our State, land grant colleges, and it is not 
uncommon, as you know, for students to live in group quarters. 
And there are other examples of that as well. It used to be 
Dover Air Force Base (AFB) was probably an example, and we have 
done a whole lot to provide better quarters for our enlisted 
personnel and officers, so that is maybe less the situation. 
Thank you.
    Now a second question, if I could, for Mr. Mihm. Mr. Mihm, 
are you ready to answer a question that I might ask?
    Mr. Mihm. Yes, sir.
    Senator Carper. This deals with avoiding political 
interference in future decennial planning and operations. The 
last administration, as we will recall, repeatedly tried to 
undermine the census through political interference, whether it 
was the attempted addition of a question on citizenship or in 
order to exclude undocumented immigrants from the 2020 census. 
The independence of the Census Bureau was under strain in 2020 
too often.
    Some have proposed that Congress consider separating the 
census from the heart of the campaign cycle by allowing the 
Bureau to begin data collection early and by giving the Census 
Director enhanced legal authority and support to ensure 
independence from inappropriate interference.
    Mr. Mihm, could you share some options we in Congress may 
want to consider to ensure the independence and the integrity 
of the Census Bureau and the decennial count, please?
    Mr. Mihm. Yes, sir, and thank you, Senator Carper, for the 
question. Just to first address the basic premise of the 
question about the importance of political independence of the 
professional staff at the Census Bureau, that is something on 
behalf of the Congress that we were very alert to and concerned 
with throughout this census cycle. I can tell you that all the 
evidence that we saw was that the professional staff at the 
Census Bureau, Dr. Jarmin and his colleagues, were in the 
driver's seat of the fundamental operational decisions that 
were being made. Obviously, there was some larger Executive 
Branch, Department of Commerce decisions as you have alluded to 
that were made above the Census Bureau, but we had unfettered 
access to Dr. Jarmin, to the head of the field operations, and, 
in fact, just unprecedented access to them and transparency 
into how the census operated.
    I think one thing to consider is that there were a number 
of political appointees that were brought in relatively late in 
the census cycle. By all evidence that we have been able to 
gather, it is that they did not undue influence into the 
operations of the census. But putting either limitations on 
those or, rather, you know, just making sure that there would 
be greater clarity on exactly what their roles and 
responsibilities for any political leadership, how this would 
be other than the Census Bureau Director, could certainly help 
in maintaining the confidence in the integrity and the 
independence of the census.
    Senator Carper. Good. Thanks so much. One last quick 
question for you and Mr. Marinos. Could you each take a moment 
to share some lessons learned from the 2020 census? And what 
are some of the areas where clearly we could do more, we should 
do more of the same, and others where we need to maybe go back 
to the drawing board? Thank you.
    Mr. Marinos. Sure, I will start, Senator Carper. I 
mentioned earlier in response to Senator Rosen's question the 
importance of thinking ahead when it comes to system 
implementation. We saw a lot of the increase in cost go to the 
integration of the dozens of systems that the Bureau had to put 
in place in order for operations to operate as intended. That 
is one area.
    The second area is ensuring that they have the appropriate 
staff onsite to be able to manage the contracted support that 
they are receiving. A lot of that funding, again, went to the 
integration, which was done in part by private companies, by 
vendors, and so it is important to have the appropriate 
expertise in house. What we found consistently is within the 
key contractor oversight office that they were often running 
rather thin, at times even only at half capacity in terms of 
the number of staff that were there to support it.
    Finally, the importance of schedule. There are very few 
operations within the Federal Government that have a date that 
is set within the Constitution. That is a very rare thing when 
it comes to an IT major modernization effort, and so it makes 
the importance of schedule even greater. Cost, schedule--two 
things that the Bureau can think about early in this decade, 
leveraging the successes like the Internet self-response to 
think about how we could tackle 2030 early and to get ahead of 
the curve.
    Senator Carper. My thanks to both of you.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks so much.
    Chairman Peters [presiding]. Thank you, Senator Carper.
    The Chair recognizes Senator Padilla for your questions.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PADILLA

    Senator Padilla. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank 
the witnesses for their tremendous work and testimony so far in 
today's hearing. I want to touch on a couple of areas that I do 
not think have been touched on already.
    The first question is for Mr. Mihm. In the GAO report 
titled ``Census Bureau Needs to Assess Data Quality Concerns 
Stemming from the Recent Design Changes,'' that was published 
in December 2020, it was mentioned that to save costs, the 
Bureau increased its reliance on solely using administrative 
records to count nonresponsive households. One of the examples 
constantly pointed to is including Medicare enrollment data as 
well as individual tax return data to improve the count.
    The report highlights some issues regarding the use of tax 
data, for example, individuals not having enough income to have 
to file tax returns or not listing dependents for tax purposes. 
However, I am also concerned with the reliance of other public 
benefits data. Soon after taking office, former President Trump 
announced that he would be expanding the definition of ``public 
charge,'' which meant that when immigrants use public benefits 
such as housing assistance, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance 
Program (SNAP), Medicaid, it could be considered a negative 
factor in a green card application. As a result of the public 
charge rule change, many immigrants disenrolled from benefits 
that they were eligible for or did not enroll in benefits for 
which their U.S. citizen children were eligible.
    Mr. Mihm, can you take a minute just to discuss how the 
public charge rule and using administrative data to count 
nonresponsive households might lead to inaccuracies?
    Mr. Mihm. Yes, thank you, Senator. We have not looked 
specifically at the public charge issue, but the larger thesis 
behind your question is exactly right, and that is, to the 
extent that residents are not captured in administrative data, 
the truism is, therefore, that administrative record would not 
be useful for helping to enumerate their household. In fact, 
what we also know is that the administrative records are most 
valuable for some of these hard-to-count populations, the last 
few percentage of the population that either did not respond on 
their own or did not respond to a census taker when they went 
and knocked on the door. That is why some of the records that 
they use are exactly what you were saying, the SNAP, the Women, 
Infants and Children (WIC), Medicaid records.
    Again, to the extent that someone is not in the system, the 
records will not be useful in terms of enumerating them, and 
you therefore increase the risk that they will be missed.
    Senator Padilla. Thank you. More to follow up on that, but 
for another topic that I believe is timely, this is for Dr. 
Jarmin. A program called the ``Count Question Resolution'' 
gives State, local, and tribal governments an opportunity to 
challenge their census results and seek revised counts for 
purposes other than redistricting and other than apportionment. 
However, those challenges must be based on a very limited set 
of criteria involving geographic or processing mistakes 
affecting living quarters. I think we have already discussed in 
this hearing the dynamic of living quarters housing units, 
group facilities, et cetera.
    In light of the many challenges to conducting a complete 
and accurate census last year, will the Census Bureau consider 
expanding the scope of the Count Question Resolution program to 
allow challenges based on a broader set of outcomes that 
indicate significant miscounts or undercounts in a 
jurisdiction?
    Mr. Jarmin. Senator, I am not familiar with any discussions 
to broaden those definitions, but we would certainly be willing 
to take a look at that and get the folks on my team that are 
responsible for that and talking to you or your staff or to 
whomever. But at this time I am not aware of any of those 
discussions right now.
    Senator Padilla. OK. Then, consider this a request for 
consideration, and we will have through our staffs follow-up to 
see how that can be explored. The next decennial census is only 
9 years away, so we are already starting to work on that.
    With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Padilla.
    Senator Hassan, you are recognized for your questions.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HASSAN

    Senator Hassan. Thank you, Chair Peters and Ranking Member 
Portman, and thank you to our witnesses for not only your 
testimony today but for your service.
    To Mr. Marinos, I want to start with a question to you. The 
2020 census was the first to feature an online response option. 
More than half of census respondents in New Hampshire and 
across the country used the online platform to be counted, and 
I commend the Census Bureau for its successful rollout of the 
online response platform and the broader IT infrastructure, 
which experienced no security breaches that we are aware of, 
nor any significant outages during the data collection period.
    You have heard questions around these issues from Senators 
Rosen and Carper, but I just wanted to give you an opportunity 
to add on to your previous answers. What steps did the Census 
Bureau take when setting up its IT infrastructure to ensure its 
security and functionality?
    Mr. Marinos. Senator Hassan, I think the importance of 
starting early in this decade cannot be overemphasized. There 
were many changes to the decisions that were being made by the 
Bureau around the mid-part of this past decade, in particular, 
taking, for example, the Internet self-response. One of the key 
systems supporting that effort was an in-house developed 
system. Later on in the decade, the Bureau determined that it 
made more sense to pursue a vendor-provided solution, and so it 
put effort into that area.
    We saw right before implementation of the Internet self-
response a flip from the contractor-provided software to the 
original planned effort. What that means is cost increases and 
additional constraints to schedules because there are going to 
be opportunities for risk to be injected when there are late 
design changes. I think that it is extremely important for the 
Bureau to reflect on the successes of the Internet self-
response system in terms of its implementation, in terms of its 
functionality, but to step back and think for the upcoming 
decade how can it do it in a more cost-effective and more 
schedule-conscious way.
    Senator Hassan. Let me follow up on that for a minute 
because the other piece of this is you all have now had this 
experience. What can other agencies learn from the Census 
Bureau's successful efforts to prepare and execute the 2020 
census on a digital platform, just any lessons learned you 
would share across government?
    Mr. Marinos. Yes, I would say, actually, as I mentioned in 
my opening statement, the trust and safety team that the Bureau 
put in place was an innovative one. It was an important one 
because, obviously, the census being one of the key government 
operations taking place just last year, it took a lot of 
lessons learned from its experiences in combating 
disinformation and misinformation, and now--and I can defer to 
Dr. Jarmin if he would like to add more details to this, but it 
is now actually using that information to provide assistance to 
organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention (CDC) to think about how it can combat the potential 
for disinformation and misinformation during this pandemic as 
well.
    I think we can commend the Bureau for not only taking the 
fight online to really ensure that the facts are straight, but 
to try to use those experiences to help in other parts of 
government as well.
    Senator Hassan. Thank you. I am going to turn to Dr. Jarmin 
now, and, Dr. Jarmin, if you want to follow up on that, I am 
going to ask a question first, and you might want to combine 
responses.
    Last week this Committee held a hearing on the SolarWinds 
cyber campaign that compromised Federal, State, and private 
data. As incidents like the SolarWinds campaign become more 
sophisticated and more difficult to apprehend, we have to take 
steps to proactively protect data, including the use of 
continuous diagnostics and mitigation programs at all civilian 
agencies.
    As it continues to organize and eventually disseminate the 
data collected from the 2020 census, how is the Census Bureau 
working to secure this valuable data against malicious 
activities?
    Mr. Jarmin. Thank you, Senator. That is a great question. 
We actually were one of the organizations using SolarWinds, and 
we have done a thorough review and have determined that our 
instance of it is safe. But we are on this all the time. We 
started developing a good working relationship a few years 
before the 2020 census with CISA at DHS, and we are going to 
continue to do that throughout the decade. That is now going to 
be a permanent feature of our stance.
    I will add that the Census Bureau has many valuable data 
assets. In addition to the data we collect from the 2020 
census, we have a host of other survey data that we collect, 
administrative records that we get from other government 
agencies and from the States, and, are looking to get access to 
even newer and more innovative data to produce better 
statistics for the American public.
    So keeping that information secure is one of our top 
priorities, and I think as we move forward in the decade, we 
are going to be looking at various architectural innovations to 
really keep our data in a secure but accessible to those who 
need it type of infrastructure so that we can ensure the public 
that the data are safe.
    I like to glibly say that the census is the data roach 
hotel, secure data come in, but only safe outputs go out. That 
is a commitment that we strongly believe in, and we cannot do 
our jobs without ensuring that the data that we have access to 
a processes is kept secure.
    Senator Hassan. Thank you for that. I want to very quickly 
ask Mr. Marinos if you think that the Census Bureau is taking 
all the necessary and appropriate steps to protect the 
information collected by the 2020 census. If you can be fairly 
brief, I have one more question to ask.
    Mr. Marinos. Sure. Yes, we have been encouraged with the 
approach that the Bureau has been taking. We still have some 
outstanding recommendations that we have made regarding how it 
actually remediates some of the weaknesses that the Bureau 
identifies. But we are going to continue to follow up on that.
    Senator Hassan. OK. Thank you.
    Last question for Dr. Jarmin again. The Census Bureau's 
transition to digital data gathering and the end-to-end 
operations of the 2020 census is estimated to cost $15.6 
billion, making it the most expensive decennial census ever 
conducted. The Bureau has passed deadlines for disseminating 
critical count information, and we have been talking about the 
related delays that could, in fact, increase expenditures.
    Does the Census Bureau anticipate any cost overruns as a 
result of the COVID-19 pandemic which disrupted data collection 
and has delayed disseminating the apportionment data?
    Mr. Jarmin. Senator, we do not. I think we are going to 
come in well under the $15.6 billion, and that even includes 
the billion in contingency expenditures that we had to 
introduce because of COVID. I think when it all comes out in 
the wash, we will show that we actually did sort of bend the 
needle a little bit on costs with the 2020 census, and I think 
that will be a good outcome that we can talk about.
    Senator Hassan. OK. Thank you very much. I will follow up 
with Mr. Mihm to see if you all agree with that assessment.
    Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Hassan.
    Senator Ossoff, you are recognized for your questions.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR OSSOFF

    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate that.
    Dr. Jarmin, I would like an update from you on the 
nonresponse follow-up survey, which I understand has resumed in 
the field after its work in the fall. Are you aware of any 
issues that might present the possibility of an undercount, 
particularly in rural or underserved communities, communities 
hit particularly hard by COVID-19? van you give us an update on 
the NRFU process this spring, please?
    Mr. Jarmin. The nonresponse follow-up operation is done. It 
ended in mid-October. The field operation relative to the 
decennial census that we are undergoing right now is the Post-
Enumeration Survey, and I just got an update the other day. Our 
response rates are well over 90 percent, and that is the survey 
that we use to measure the coverage of the survey. That is how 
we know the degree to which some households were undercounted 
and some households were overcounted. That work continues, and 
we will be done with field collection with that shortly and 
then begin to start processing that data so that we can then 
assess the accuracy of the 2020 census.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Dr. Jarmin. Can you explain for 
the benefit of the Committee as well as State officials who may 
be watching and anticipating the data they will be receiving 
how States might use the legacy format summary redistricting 
data files that would be sent in addition to the raw data to 
support States' redistricting processes? What concerns for a 
fair redistricting process might result from the presentation 
of the data using the legacy format?
    Mr. Jarmin. Thanks, Senator. The legacy format is much like 
what we produced in 2010, so many States will probably be 
familiar with it. I know that there are vendors out there that 
have used the data in this format, that have assisted the 
States in the past.
    The final format, the data that will be released in 
September, actually has more functionality. It will come with 
built-in software that allows folks to really drill down into 
the data in a much easier, user-friendly way. The data that 
will be released in August will be much like what was released 
in 2010, so folks that were familiar with that should find it 
familiar. But, still, the data we released in September is what 
we have worked with them over this decade to make improvements, 
and so that will not be available until September.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Dr. Jarmin. Am I correct that 
the Household Pulse Survey is still ongoing online?
    Mr. Jarmin. You are correct. It is ongoing.
    Senator Ossoff. One of the concerns is that communities 
that are on the wrong side of the digital divide, particularly 
during COVID-19 where there has been displacement, that 
communities without access to broadband, Internet without 
access to computer hardware, may have their needs, their voices 
underrepresented in a Household Pulse Survey that is conducted 
principally online. I want to commend the Census Bureau for 
using technology in this way to get what is vital data, but ask 
what efforts you are making to ensure that there is no 
underrepresentation of low-income, technologically 
disadvantaged communities when you are gathering the data in 
this way?
    Mr. Jarmin. Thanks, Senator. So like lots of our surveys, 
even if we were using a more traditional mail-based method, we 
often have survey nonresponse, and so we use statistical 
methods to weight the data so that it is representative of the 
population as a whole, and we are doing that with the Household 
Pulse Survey.
    But one of the considerations we had with the Household 
Pulse Survey was, we favored getting the data out in a very 
timely fashion, and I think that is what drove the decision, to 
go with a completely online type response option. We did the 
same thing with the Small Business Pulse Survey. These are both 
using sort of innovative contact strategies, either text 
messaging or emails, and trying to get information really 
quickly. I think it is a tradeoff between how much you try to 
make sure that you get the survey in front of various folks 
versus how quickly you can get the data out. I think with the 
Pulse Surveys, we really tried to push things toward getting 
the data out quickly.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Dr. Jarmin. I appreciate that. I 
do appreciate that you are using technology in innovative ways 
to gather data more efficiently and more swiftly. Would you be 
able to share with the Committee, if it is not already in the 
publicly available methodology, the process that you used to 
arrive at the weighting of that data, what the underlying 
statistical bases for it is, and the effect that it has taking 
the raw data and after weighting such data, converting it into 
the published data? Could you provide that to the Committee if 
it is not already public information?
    Mr. Jarmin. If it does not already exist, we will get that 
put together and make it available, not just to the Committee 
but to the public.
    Senator Ossoff. Brilliant. Thank you.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Ossoff.
    I would like to take this opportunity to thank each of you 
for being here today. Certainly your testimony is very 
important and an issue that we are going to continue to be 
focused on in the months ahead.
    The hearing record will remain open for 15 days, until 
April 7th at 5 p.m. for the submission of statements and 
questions for the record. And with that, this hearing is now 
adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 3:53 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

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