[Senate Hearing 117-564]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                        S. Hrg. 117-564

                 PANDEMIC RESPONSE AND ACCOUNTABILITY:
                  REDUCING FRAUD AND EXPANDING ACCESS
             TO COVID-19 RELIEF THROUGH EFFECTIVE OVERSIGHT

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

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                              COMMITTEE ON
               HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS


                             SECOND SESSION
                               __________

                             MARCH 17, 2022
                               __________

        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
                    
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        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
         Matthew T. Cornelius, Senior Professional Staff Member
                Pamela Thiessen, Minority Staff Director
       Amanda H. Neely, Minority Director of Governmental Affairs
                   Samantha Onofry, Minority Counsel
                    Ryan L. Giles, Minority Counsel
                     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 Portman..............................................     3
    Senator Johnson..............................................    17
    Senator Hassan...............................................    19
    Senator Carper...............................................    22
    Senator Hawley...............................................    24
    Senator Padilla..............................................    27
    Senator Scott................................................    30
    Senator Lankford.............................................    33
    Senator Rosen................................................    36
Prepared statements:
    Senator Peters...............................................    39
    Senator Portman..............................................    41

                               WITNESSES
                        Thursday, March 17, 2022

Hon. Jason S. Miller, Deputy Director for Management, Office of 
  Management and Budget..........................................     5
Hon. Gene L. Dodaro, Comptroller General of the United States, 
  U.S. Government Accountability Office..........................     7
Hon. Michael E. Horowitz, Chair, Pandemic Response Accountability 
  Committee, and Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice...     8
Hon. Larry D. Turner, Inspector General, U.S. Department of Labor    10

                     Alphabetical List of Witnesses

Dodaro, Hon., Gene L.:
    Testimony....................................................     7
    Prepared statement...........................................    51
Horowitz, Hon. Michael E.:
    Testimony....................................................     8
    Prepared statement...........................................    97
Miller, Hon. Jason S.:
    Testimony....................................................     5
    Prepared statement...........................................    45
Turner, Hon. Larry D:
    Testimony....................................................    10
    Prepared statement...........................................   111

                                APPENDIX

Drug Adverse Event Comparison Chart..............................   130
Matt Weidinger, American Enterprise Institute Statement for the 
  Record.........................................................   131
Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record:
    Mr. Miller...................................................   145
    Mr. Dodaro...................................................   163
    Mr. Horowitz.................................................   167
    Mr. Turner...................................................   171

 
                 PANDEMIC RESPONSE AND ACCOUNTABILITY:
                  REDUCING FRAUD AND EXPANDING ACCESS
           TO COVID-19 RELIEF THROUGH EFFECTIVE OVERSIGHT

                              ----------                              


                        THURSDAY, MARCH 17, 2022

                                     U.S. Senate,  
                           Committee on Homeland Security  
                                  and Governmental Affairs,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:20 a.m., in 
room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Gary Peters, 
Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
    Present: Senators Peters, Carper, Hassan, Rosen, Padilla, 
Ossoff, Portman, Johnson, Lankford, Romney, Scott, and Hawley.

            OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN PETERS\1\

    Chairman Peters. The Committee will come to order.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The prepared statement of Senator Peters appears in the 
Appendix on page 39.
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    Today we will examine the Federal Government's efforts to 
conduct oversight on vital pandemic relief spending. Over the 
past two years, Congress has authorized historic levels of 
emergency relief to address the public health and economic 
challenges caused by the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) 
pandemic. This important emergency relief helped ensure that 
families could make ends meet, and businesses could continue to 
pay their employees during lockdowns. It also helped ensure 
that much-needed personal protective equipment (PPE) could be 
secured, and that lifesaving vaccines could be developed, to 
help get our nation closer to bringing the pandemic under 
control.
    The Federal Government's efforts to tackle this pandemic 
have been a monumental task, and our Federal agencies have been 
working literally around the clock to help keep Americans safe, 
and make sure that this critical aid reached the families, 
small businesses and health care providers who needed it the 
most.
    There is no question that there were challenges in getting 
these programs off the ground, and that criminals wishing to 
take advantage of these resources made fraudulent attempts to 
access these funds.
    That is why I was proud to work with Senator Johnson to 
ensure that these important emergency relief bills included 
important oversight mechanisms, like the Pandemic Response 
Accountability Committee (PRAC), to ensure these funds were 
being used as Congress intended and to prevent waste, fraud and 
abuse.
    Along with the PRAC, each of the agencies represented here 
today have taken exhaustive efforts to ensure the effective use 
of the nearly $7 trillion in COVID-19 relief funding that was 
passed by Congress, that provided critical aid to Michiganders 
and Americans across the country.
    Over the last two years, these key oversight bodies and 
agency inspectors general (IGs), have issued more than 350 
reports and more than 500 recommendations to improve our 
nation's pandemic response. This included efforts to uncover 
inefficiencies, such as outdated systems and infrastructure, 
and develop innovative practices to detect and prevent fraud 
and identity theft, while improving transparency for all 
American people.
    The PRAC's Pandemic Analytics Center of Excellence (PACE) 
has facilitated access to more than 150 million records that 
would otherwise have not been available to inspectors general 
and law enforcement, and the broader inspectors general 
community has made nearly 1,300 indictments and 1,000 arrests 
for pandemic-related fraud.
    While I am very grateful for these successes and that our 
Federal Government got relief funds out the door as quickly as 
possible, the swift release of funding also exposed the 
potential for mismanagement and lack of internal controls that 
left many programs vulnerable, especially to fraud.
    For example, instead of a thorough examination of an 
applicant's eligibility, many programs substituted this 
requirement with quicker self-reported information, which 
contributed to funds mistakenly being sent to deceased 
individuals, ineligible applicants, or fraudulent criminal 
schemes.
    In fact, the unemployment insurance (UI) program has 
consistently ranked as one of the highest-risk Federal benefits 
programs for known or suspected fraud, and the Department of 
Labor Office of Inspector General (DOL OIG) estimates more than 
$87 billion may have been paid improperly.
    Most shockingly, even before the release of COVID-19 relief 
funding, some estimates note unemployment insurance often has 
an improper payment rate above 10 percent, including for 14 of 
the last 17 years.
    While some measures have been taken to remediate these very 
well-known problems, tracking down and recouping money that has 
already been improperly spent has proven to be a difficult and 
ineffective solution.
    Congress and the Administration must better understand the 
underlying causes that led to the fraud across these programs, 
and put the government on stronger financial footing for any 
future spending priorities.
    I look forward to hearing today from our panel of experts 
who are going to discuss their roles in preventing improper 
payments and reducing fraud across these Federal spending 
programs.
    Ranking Member Portman, you are recognized for your opening 
comments.

            OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PORTMAN\1\

    Senator Portman. Thank you, Chair Peters, and thanks to our 
witnesses. I look forward to hearing from you.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The prepared statement of Senator Portman appears in the 
Appendix on page 41.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    As Chairman Peters has said, we have spent an awful lot of 
money on COVID. In fact, over the past two years we have spent 
more than $5 trillion of taxpayer money to address the COVID-19 
crisis. It has gone for some necessary things--expanding 
unemployment benefits, supporting small businesses at a time 
they needed it, and other challenges. Five times we did this on 
a bipartisan basis, and I was proud to be part of that effort. 
In fact, the biggest of those bills I was one of the five 
Republicans, along with five Democrats who helped put it 
together.
    Unfortunately, as the new Administration came in, they 
decided to go it alone and not to take a bipartisan approach, 
and at the time I was very concerned about that, in part 
because it was not going to be something that we could do 
together, as we had previously, but also because most of the 
money that was spent had nothing to do with COVID.
    At the time some like Larry Summers, former Treasury 
Secretary, said this could ``set off inflation pressures of a 
kind we have not seen in a generation.'' Many of us echoed 
those concerns with the $1.9 trillion spending package, again 
that was done on a partisan basis, and unfortunately it looks 
like those warnings have largely come true. Inflation is at 7.9 
percent, a 40-year high. That is one issue. We are where we 
are.
    But against this backdrop, we have also learned that 
billions of dollars spent to help American families were 
stolen, stolen by individual criminals, stolen by transnational 
criminal organizations (TCOs), many of whom used fraudulent 
schemes to exploit the pandemic for their own financial gain. 
Many of these criminals, by the way, were, as I said, 
transnational, meaning overseas, from places like China, 
Nigeria, Russia, and elsewhere.
    It is hard to know exactly how much money was stolen. 
Perhaps we will learn more about today, as I know many of you 
have analyzed this situation. The estimates range from $87 
billion to $400 billion. To put this in context, the low 
estimate there, $87 billion, of course, is larger than the 
entire annual budget for the Department of Homeland Security 
(DHS), over which we have oversight.
    We could send almost six times the recently authorized 
amount of aid to Ukraine with this money that was stolen from 
the American people. We are talking about probably the biggest 
frauds ever committed against the American people, even though 
we do not know exactly how COVID relief funds were spent or 
exactly how much was stolen, we have, or course, a request to 
spend a lot more on COVID now. I am not suggesting we do not 
have additional needs, but it sure would be nice to know how we 
spent the money that the taxpayers sent us to protect and why 
so much of it did not get to the right place before we have 
billions more going out the door.
    One of the biggest sources of fraud involved the 
unemployment insurance programs. As you know, these benefits 
were designed to help Americans who lost their jobs because of 
the pandemic. I thought it was necessary to help those 
individuals, but billions of these dollars went to criminals, 
who used stolen identities and lacked safeguards to steal the 
money away from Americans who needed it. Unfortunately, we did 
not have the infrastructure set up to be able to protect those 
funds.
    Another major source of fraud involves the Paycheck 
Protection Program (PPP) and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan 
(EIDL) program. These are two programs that worked well for 
many small businesses to be able to survive the pandemic. Like 
the unemployment insurance funds, however, these small business 
loans became easy targets for criminals, both here and abroad. 
Money that was supposed to be used to employ American workers 
instead funded organized crime, and purchased luxury cars and 
mansions for criminals. We now know more about this from some 
of the fraud schemes that have been revealed, and again, we 
will probably hear more about this today.
    The purpose of this hearing, as I see it, is to examine the 
government's oversight of this massive spending. Specifically, 
we need to understand how this fraud occurred, what we can do 
to get the money back--some of it has been recovered, and I 
want to hear more about that--and, of course, most importantly, 
how we can prevent this from happening in the future? If we are 
going to spend billions more, let us figure out how to try to 
avoid this fraud being perpetrated on American taxpayers.
    At the beginning of the pandemic, Congress established the 
Pandemic Response Accountability Committee to provide oversight 
of the pandemic relief. This group of 21 inspectors general 
were appropriated $120 million and tasked with preventing fraud 
and mitigating risks associated with the pandemic-relief funds. 
The Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Office of 
Management and Budget (OMB), and the Department of Labor's 
(DOL) inspector general also had a role to play in overseeing 
these funds and these programs. Each of the witnesses today 
brings a unique perspective from these agencies, and I 
appreciate their work and appreciate them being here.
    I look forward to hearing what they have to say about their 
role in the oversight of these funds, and about their plans to 
help fix the structural problems that allowed this fraud to 
occur in the first place. Again, I thank them for their service 
and for testifying today, and I look forward to the discussion.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Ranking Member Portman.
    It is the practice of the Homeland Security and Government 
Affairs Committee (HSGAC) to swear in witnesses, so if each of 
you would please stand and raise your right hand.
    Do you swear that the testimony that you will give before 
this Committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 
but the truth, so help you, God?
    Mr. Miller. I do.
    Mr. Dodaro. I do.
    Mr. Horowitz. I do.
    Mr. Turner. I do.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you. You may be seated.
    Our first witness is Jason Miller. Mr. Miller serves as the 
Deputy Director for Management at OMB. In his role, he 
coordinates governmentwide management initiatives to empower 
the Federal workforce for a more equitable and effective 
Federal Government. Mr. Miller is also chair of the President's 
Management Council (PMC), where he leads the development and 
implementation of the President's management agenda.
    Previously, Mr. Miller served as the Deputy Assistant to 
the President and Deputy Director of the National Economic 
Council in the Obama Administration.
    Mr. Miller, welcome to the Committee. You may proceed with 
your opening comments.

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE JASON S. MILLER,\1\ DEPUTY DIRECTOR 
        FOR MANAGEMENT, OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET

    Mr. Miller. Thank you, Chairman Peters, Ranking Member 
Portman, and Members of the Committee. I appreciate the 
opportunity to speak to you alongside my colleagues from the 
oversight community. My testimony will focus on OMB's role 
overseeing relief spending in cooperation with the oversight 
community, actions taken, and importantly, considerations for 
the future.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Miller appears in the Appendix on 
page 45.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Implementation of the American Rescue Plan (ARP) and other 
pandemic relief efforts helped jumpstart our economic recovery. 
Moody's estimated that without ARP real gross domestic product 
(GDP) in 2021 would have grown by three percent. Instead, it 
grew by 5.7 percent, the fastest since 1984. Last month, the 
economy added 678,000 jobs, bringing total job growth since 
January 2021 to 7.4 million and the unemployment rate to 3.8 
percent.
    It is also true that the unparalleled scope and speed of 
pandemic relief have highlighted real challenges, including in 
program design and integrity, benefit systems, and equitable 
delivery. The speedy processing of benefits at the outset of 
the pandemic came with costs, affecting program design and 
internal controls.
    The pandemic revealed cracks in under-resourced benefits 
delivery systems. The 53 different unemployment insurance 
systems run by States and territories were overwhelmed by the 
historic surge of claims that jammed their underfunded and 
outdated information technology (IT) architecture, resulting in 
backlogs and a rise in improper payments, including fraud. As 
the pandemic disproportionately harmed underserved communities, 
early relief efforts often failed to reach those most in need.
    To tackle these challenges, the Administration is focused 
on delivering timely relief to the intended beneficiaries while 
strengthening government's ability to act as a trustworthy 
steward of taxpayer funds. The Administration's collaboration 
with the oversight community has proven essential. In December, 
OMB institutionalized the Administration's commitment to the 
role of inspectors general through governmentwide guidance, 
instructing agencies to restore and respect IGs' integrity and 
independence, to ensure IGs can exercise their vital role.
    Through ARP implementation we have focused on getting it 
right at the front end, working toward prevention to mitigate 
risk. New joint, gold-standard meetings offer a good example. 
OMB and the White House ARP implementation team convened agency 
officials, IGs, and leadership of the PRAC to jointly review 
new or expanded ARP programs before launch.
    The Administration has taken concrete steps to strengthen 
relief implementation. The Small Business Administration (SBA) 
quickly recalibrated the PPP program in early 2021 to better 
assist the smallest of small businesses and companies. OMB 
released governmentwide guidance for ARP, based on lessons 
learned from 2020, requiring robust controls and rigorous new 
reporting requirements.
    The Department of Labor used ARP funds to tackle immediate 
challenges, including grants to 50 States and territories to 
fight fraud and improve accessibility, tiger teams to work 
hand-in-hand with State UI officials to fix problems.
    DOL changed policy to require States to give Mr. Turner and 
his team access to State UI claim and wage data to help detect 
and prevent fraud. The Department of Justice (DOJ) and others 
in the enforcement community are undertaking an unprecedented 
effort to prosecute and recover stolen funds. DOJ reported last 
week they have filed criminal charges against over 1,000 
defendants, opened over 248 civil investigations into more than 
1,800 individuals and entities, together involving billions of 
dollars in suspected fraud.
    I want to call out four areas for further consideration.
    First, cross-cutting vulnerabilities require cross-cutting 
solutions. The rise of identity theft, targeting Federal 
benefits, is ongoing. The President launched the Initiative on 
Identity Theft Prevention and Public Benefits last year, and we 
are working toward additional steps through a forthcoming 
Executive Order (EO) to better prevent and detect identity 
theft, based upon lessons learned.
    Second, victims of identity theft deserve increased 
attention. They face a complex recovery process to resolve 
resulting harms.
    Third, Congress should consider heightening penalties for 
criminals who commit egregious pandemic-related fraud by 
amending the Emergency and Disaster Assistance Fraud Penalty 
Enhancement Act of 2007.
    Fourth, cross-cutting efforts and capabilities enabled by 
the PRAC warrant consideration for ongoing capabilities and it 
is a model for future oversight of major investment 
initiatives.
    Thank you for your attention to these issues. I look 
forward to working with the Committee and the oversight 
community to further strengthen implementation of Federal 
programs.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Mr. Miller.
    Our next witness is Gene Dodaro. Mr. Dodaro is the eighth 
Comptroller General of the United States and head of the U.S. 
Government Accountability Office. As Comptroller General, Mr. 
Dodaro helps oversee the development and issuance of hundreds 
of reports and testimonies each year to various committees and 
to individual Members of Congress. He has also personally 
testified before Congress several times on the long-term 
outlook for Federal spending as well as other important 
national issues.
    Mr. Dodaro, it is great to see you back again before this 
Committee. You may proceed with your opening comments.

   TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE GENE L. DODARO,\1\ COMPTROLLER 
 GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY 
                             OFFICE

    Mr. Dodaro. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Ranking 
Member Portman, and Members of the Committee. I am very pleased 
to be here to talk about our work on COVID-19 relief spending.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Dodaro appears in the Appendix on 
page 51.
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    As has been mentioned, great urgency was given to providing 
quick relief to deal with public health issues and economic 
repercussions of the pandemic. However, tradeoffs were made 
that limited progress in ensuring transparency and 
accountability over this money. Controls that should have been 
in place before payments were made were either reduced or 
eliminated. Also, monitoring efforts, post-payment reviews, and 
other efforts were not instituted as fast as possible after the 
payments were made, to try to assess the integrity of the 
programs and have recovery efforts underway.
    These shortcomings were exacerbated by already-existing 
problems in financial management in the Federal Government. 
Chief among these is a serious improper payment program--the 
government has a payment problem--and lack of focus on 
prevention of audits, not after-the-fact pay-and-chase.
    With regard to improper payments, since 2003, reported 
estimates total over $2.2 trillion. In fiscal year (FY) 2021 
alone it was $281 billion, a jump from $75 billion in the prior 
year. This involves 16 agencies, 86 Federal programs. Twenty-
six, or 30 percent of them, have over a 10 percent improper 
payment rate. This is not a complete estimate. Some of them are 
not reporting. Some of the estimates are not rigorous.
    With regard to the fraud prevention issue, we worked with 
the Congress in 2016 to help Congress pass the Fraud Prevention 
Act that was supposed to have agencies focus more on preventing 
fraud. This was slow to be implemented. Therefore, we were not 
in a good position when the emergency pandemic came around to 
prevent the fraud that occurred.
    We are recommending today 10 different legislative 
solutions that Congress could pursue to address both what we 
found during the pandemic and these underlying, persistent, 
serious, fundamental financial management issues that the 
government has.
    No. 1, chief financial officers (CFOs) ought to be given 
more responsibility for improper payments estimates to certify 
their accuracy. To monitor corrective actions right now it is 
the program people who administer the programs that are 
providing the estimates, so we need more rigor in the 
estimates, more transparency, and corrective action plans. They 
ought to be mandated to be reported in agency financial 
statements every year.
    Any new program, in my opinion, over $100 million, ought to 
automatically be determined to be susceptible to improper 
payments. There should have to be proved it is low risk, not 
proved that there is a problem, and this would ensure improper 
payment estimates are made in the first year of the program. 
Right now it is two or three years down the road before these 
estimates are made and problem are already entrenched into the 
program activities.
    Second, with regard to fraud, we need to reinstitute the 
reporting requirements that the agencies have to report on the 
status of their fraud prevention efforts. This would provide 
better visibility and more assertive congressional oversight 
over their efforts, because only if the agency officials can 
prevent fraud is the most meaningful way that this could be 
addressed. Also I believe that what is now called the PACE 
Committee ought to be permanently instituted and focused on all 
Federal spending, not just COVID spending. I recommended this 
back in 2015, after the Recovery Act. Unfortunately, Congress 
and the administration did not follow that. This effort that 
was put in place was too late. It was a year after the efforts. 
It was only limited to the pandemic, so that could be fixed.
    Also, internal control plans ought to be put in place 
immediately for emergencies, so they are already in place. We 
know what the problems are. They could be tailored later if 
there was a unique need for the emergency, but they ought to be 
put in place. Normal controls is not sufficient, as we have 
seen here, and OMB should do this. Congress should mandate that 
it be done.
    Also, we need to reinstitute the requirement for the 
inspectors general to audit periodically all Federal spending 
that is displayed through USAspending.gov.
    I have other suggestions but my time is up. I am happy to 
answer questions at the appropriate time. I appreciate the 
invitation to participate today. Thank you.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Mr. Dodaro.
    Our next witness is Michael Horowitz. Mr. Horowitz serves 
as the Inspector General of the Department of Justice and as 
the Acting Chair of the Pandemic Response Accountability 
Committee. In his IG role, Mr. Horowitz is responsible for 
combating waste, fraud, and abuse in DOJ programs, and he 
simultaneously leads the PRAC, a committee of 22 Federal 
inspectors general that oversee Federal pandemic-related 
emergency spending.
    Prior to his time at DOJ, Mr. Horowitz worked as a partner 
at a private law firm. His practice specialized in white-collar 
defense, internal investigations, and regulatory compliance.
    Mr. Horowitz, welcome back to the Committee. You may 
proceed with your opening comments.

   TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE MICHAEL E. HOROWITZ,\1\ CHAIR, 
   PANDEMIC RESPONSE ACCOUNTABILITY COMMITTEE, AND INSPECTOR 
              GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

    Mr. Horowitz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 
Portman, Members of the Committee. I appreciate the invitation 
to speak to you today.
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    \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Horowitz appears in the Appendix 
on page 97.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    This Committee played an instrumental role in creating the 
Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, in March 2020, to 
oversee what is now over $5 trillion in pandemic relief 
spending across 426 Federal programs at 40 agencies.
    Given the magnitude of these responsibilities and the 
amounts involved we have sought to develop, and I believe have 
developed, a new model for conducting oversight in a crisis at 
the inspector general community, and that has involved 
promoting transparency by providing the public with accessible 
and comprehensive data about spending, and that is on our 
website, PandemicOversight.gov.
    We have collaborated across the oversight community to 
identify cross-cutting issues and risks. We have been detecting 
and preventing fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement by using 
leading-edge data insights that we have been able to obtain 
through our data analytic tools, the PACE, as the Chairman 
referenced. We have been able to hold wrongdoers accountable by 
marshaling the investigative and analytical resources of the 
oversight community.
    One of our foundational responsibilities is transparency by 
providing information to the public about pandemic-related 
spending. Information is power, and that is what we are trying 
to do for the American public is to see how their money has 
been spent. Information also brings accountability. You cannot 
have accountability without transparency.
    Unfortunately, we have faced challenges in putting forward 
all of the information that we think should be out there. We 
have detailed that in two different reports, one in 2020, one 
in 2021, where we have identified significant agency weaknesses 
in providing complete data and gaps in reporting information 
from recipients.
    Our reports include recommendations on how to address that. 
We have had significant discussions with leadership at OMB and 
the Administration about how to address that. We appreciate 
OMB's release of a memorandum addressing some of these issues 
by outlining the need for detailed and accurate award 
descriptions, a problem we have seen; enhanced transparency of 
spending through the use of disaster and emergency funding 
codes, something that has been missing; and a commitment to 
work with PRACs and IGs to strengthen payment integrity, as the 
Comptroller General just indicated.
    We have also reported other lessons learned through our 
work. First, agencies cannot rely solely on self-certifications 
of individuals that they are eligible for benefits. Second, 
underserved communities should be prioritized for funding where 
that is needed, as we saw in many instances here. Additionally, 
agencies should use existing data to verify eligibility, like 
the Do Not Pay system. Further, relief guidance needs to be 
gotten out quickly for new programs. Finally, programs need to 
fully disclose where their money went and how it was spent.
    Briefly, let me turn to collaboration. It is something we 
recognized we need to do at the outset. We have done that in 
the past and continue to do it with GAO and their leadership. 
We have also moved forward in a very significant way in working 
with our State and local counterparts, something that, frankly, 
we had not done much of in the Federal IG community and 
something that has been very central to the work that we have 
done.
    We have also been able to develop a very strong working 
relationship with OMB leadership and the ARP implementation 
team. I have outlined that in my written statement, and we very 
much appreciate that working relationship and think, frankly, 
it is the model for how effective oversight should occur, going 
forward in the future.
    Finally, let me touch on the accountability efforts that we 
have undertaken, and that we have done through the use of data. 
You cannot oversee $5 trillion in spending with just people. 
You need the data. That is where our Pandemic Analytic Center 
of Excellence comes in. It is critical to our efforts. It is 
something that has led to our providing nearly 200 requests and 
addressing requests from law enforcement in looking at 
oversight issues and fraud issues.
    As has been mentioned, the oversight community, the Federal 
inspector general community, their work has resulted in over 
1,200 indictments and complaints, nearly 1,000 arrests, almost 
500 convictions. It is critical for the community to have these 
capabilities. I appreciate the Comptroller General's support 
for those efforts. As he noted, he supported it back in 2015. 
It went away. We had to spend a year and more taxpayer money 
recreating that database because it went away in 2015. We look 
forward to working with OMB and hopefully their support for 
that effort.
    We are going to use all of our tools--criminal, civil, 
administrative, suspension and debarment, forfeiture--to try 
and recover the funds that have been stolen that have been 
referenced, and we are doing that and we are making every 
effort.
    I look forward to continuing to work with the Committee on 
these efforts and appreciate your support for our work.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Mr. Horowitz.
    Our final witness is Larry Turner. Mr. Turner is the 
Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Labor, where he 
helps detect and deter waste, fraud, and abuse in DOL programs. 
Mr. Turner oversees critical programs on unemployment 
insurance, worker safety, pension and health care benefits, and 
other essential needs. Mr. Turner also leads investigations 
into organized crime influence and labor racketeering 
corruption in employee benefit plans, internal union affairs, 
and labor management relations.
    Mr. Turner, welcome to the Committee. You may proceed with 
your opening remarks.

   TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE LARRY D. TURNER,\1\ INSPECTOR 
               GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

    Mr. Turner. Thank you, Chairman Peters, Ranking Member 
Portman, and distinguished Members of the Committee. Thank you 
for the opportunity to testify today.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Turner appears in the Appendix on 
page 111.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Although the OIG is responsible for overseeing all DOL 
programs, my testimony today will focus on our oversight of 
unemployment insurance during the pandemic. The views expressed 
in my testimony are based on the independent work of the OIG 
and are not intended to reflect DOL's positions.
    Mr. Chairman, the OIG has remained committed to assisting 
DOL and Congress in improving the efficiency and integrity of 
the UI program. In our view, strengthening the program to 
prevent and detect fraud are key objectives to ensure that 
unemployed workers quickly receive needed benefits while 
safeguarding taxpayer dollars.
    For many years, the OIG has highlighted significant 
concerns with DOL's and States' ability to deploy UI benefits 
expeditiously and efficiently while ensuring integrity and 
adequate oversight. The pandemic exacerbated these challenges, 
creating the perfect storm. As the OIG report States, we were 
not prepared to process the historic volume of claims, 
resulting in significant delays in benefits. The Pandemic 
Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program initially relied on 
claimant self-certification without evidence of eligibility, 
and the unprecedented infusion of Federal funds gave forces a 
high-value target to exploit. That, combined with easily 
attainable stolen identities and weaknesses previously 
identified by the OIG, allowed criminals to defraud the 
program.
    Consistent with the OIG recommendation, UI reported an 
improper payment rate of 18.7 percent for 2021. Applying the 
rate to the $872 billion in estimated pandemic UI payments, at 
least $163 billion in benefits could have been paid improperly, 
with a significant portion attributed to fraud.
    Indeed, following the passage of the Coronavirus Aid, 
Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, fraud against the UI 
program exploded. The OIG has received more than 143,000 
complaints, and has independently opened more than 38 
investigative matters concerning UI fraud. That represents 
1,000 times increase in the volume of UI investigative matters.
    The OIG took immediate action to respond to this crisis. We 
hired additional investigators, deployed Federal and contract 
staff to audit the program, established a pandemic rapid 
response team, and strengthened our data analytics program. We 
also worked with DOJ to create a national UI task force, 
leveraged Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and 
Efficiency (CIGIE) and PRAC resources, and implemented outreach 
and education programs with the States.
    In addition, we collaborated with the PRAC, DOJ, and the 
U.S. Secret Service (USSS) to recover fraudulent funds, and we 
engage with international law enforcement partners to pursue 
transnational organized criminal groups targeting the UI 
program.
    To date, our efforts have resulted in the execution of more 
than 850 search warrants, 749 indictments, and $830 million in 
monetary results. From our oversight perspective, we issued an 
advisory report at the start of the pandemic, identifying six 
initial areas of concern for DOL and the States to consider 
when implementing the CARES Act. Since then, we have released 
nine reports and alerts. For example, we identified more than 3 
million claims, totaling nearly $17 billion in potential fraud, 
including payments to deceased individuals and Federal inmates.
    In response to our recommendations, DOL has instituted 
efforts to improve the UI program. However, several OIG 
recommendations remain unimplemented in the following areas: 
OIGs need to access UI date, States' need for adequate staffing 
and modernize IT systems timely and effective guidance to 
States, and controls for improper payments.
    Mr. Chairman, I would like to also highlight two challenges 
the OIG faced, the first being the lack of direct access to UI 
data. For many years, the OIG has requested access to data to 
proactively monitor the program for systemic weaknesses and 
potential fraud. Given the magnitude of the issues we saw in 
the beginning of the pandemic, we took the unprecedented step 
of using IG subpoenas to obtain UI data directly from the 
States. The data allowed the OIG to identify billions in 
potential UI fraud. However, the IG subpoena process took 
months and delayed our ability to detect fraud early in the 
pandemic.
    The second challenge we faced was resource limitations. The 
OIG received $38.5 million in much-needed supplemental funding 
to oversee DOL's pandemic responses. However, in light of the 
unexpected fiscal year 2022 appropriation, which held the OIG 
at its fiscal year 2021 levels, additional funding would allow 
the OIG to address the issues I have discussed today.
    Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to testify 
about our work overseeing the UI program. I also want to thank 
the dedicated OIG employees who continue to work tirelessly in 
support of our oversight mission. I look forward to answering 
any questions you or the Members of the Committee may have. 
Thank you.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Mr. Turner.
    Mr. Horowitz, the Pandemic Response Accountability 
Committee, as we are referring to it, without question had a 
Herculean effort over these last two years, as you mentioned in 
your testimony. I would like you to tell the Committee, in your 
opinion, has the PRAC been successful in its mission to date, 
and then if you let the Committee know what more can the PRAC 
and the rest of the oversight community do to stop fraud and 
identity theft and the bad actors out there? Be specific about 
that as well.
    Mr. Horowitz. Certainly. I do think we have been very 
effective in addressing this Herculean task. As you know, when 
we were created back in March 2020, we were only overseeing 
about $2 trillion of Federal funds. It grew to over $5 
trillion.
    The key to our ability to do that has been our ability, 
thanks to this Committee's support, the data analytics platform 
that we have built, the PACE. As I mentioned, nobody can 
oversee that kind of funding without the ability to get good 
data. It is what IG Turner just mentioned. You need access to 
information and you have to have the systems be able to run 
against it. Through doing that, we have identified, for 
example, multi-dipping across programs, because we have seen 
individuals applying with the same fraudulent information 
across programs. We have seen the use of payment to individuals 
on Do Not Pay lists and other lists. It has really enabled us 
to identify, find the fraud, as well as find weaknesses in 
department programs. It has been critical.
    There is one bill I would mention that I think would make a 
difference. It is the Administrative False Claims Act of 2021, 
which you are co-sponsoring along with Ranking Member Portman. 
Senator Hassan and Senator Lankford of this Committee are also 
co-sponsoring it. It would allow us to pursue administratively 
claims of up to $1 million, not have to go through the district 
court process. We think that is likely to be a substantial 
effort. We are hoping the Senate will pass that. The bill is on 
the floor.
    We have also considered and are thinking about questions 
related to the statutes of limitations. As you know, in prior 
crises Congress extended the statute of limitations with regard 
to bank frauds from five years to 10 years. It turns out that 
the fraud here, even though lenders were giving out the money, 
the fraud here is often, for example, with the Payment 
Protection Program really of the Small Business Administration, 
not the banks. There is a real question of whether that 
extended statute of limitations applies. Loans that were given 
out in March 2020 would have a statute of limitations, 
potentially, depending on the facts, to March 2025, and given 
the amount of fraud, that may be an area that is worth 
considering as well.
    Chairman Peters. Very good.
    Mr. Turner, as you well know, probably one of the most 
high-profile areas for the improper payments and pandemic fraud 
were in the 54 State and territorial unemployment insurance 
programs, and as you stated in your testimony today, as well as 
some of the reports your office has published, there were 
serious challenges for the DOL OIG to get data from these State 
workforce agencies to conduct the audits and investigations 
that you needed to do. I have heard similar concerns about 
timely and complete access to important data from other IGs as 
well.
    Could you please discuss for the Committee the impact on 
IGs when you are unable to get timely and complete access to 
this critical data?
    Mr. Turner. Yes, Chairman. I would be more than happy to do 
so. One of the challenges and one of our issues when we cannot 
get direct access to the information is that it slows the 
process. Even once you have identified problem areas, it just 
slows the process down when you actually have to go other ways 
to get the information.
    For us, one of the tools that we have to use was our IG 
subpoenas, because we did not have direct access to labor data 
coming from the States. There are 54, as you mentioned, States 
and territories we had to look at. By us not being able to get 
that information directly it meant months that the pay 
problems, fraud problems were able to exist. We tried to go 
through the DOL to expedite this problem, but DOL had a 
challenge with the CARES, the doctrine with the CARES in terms 
of some of the information. Part of that problem was that it 
did not allow them to provide us investigative audit 
information. We were able to get investigative information but 
not audit.
    We pushed back, because we wanted to get from the 
Department all the information right away, and the Department 
would not allow us to do that. We went to subpoenas, and when 
we went to the IG subpoenas we did two rounds of IG subpoenas, 
because that allowed us to get the information we needed in a 
more direct fashion. In being able to do that, we were able to 
identify $17 billion of problem areas that came from stolen 
identification, with Social Security numbers. Part of that was 
through multi-states, multi-claims, through deceased people, as 
well as through several other areas, to include cemeteries were 
some of the areas that were identified.
    Those are some of the challenges that we faced.
    Chairman Peters. Great. Thank you.
    Mr. Horowitz, although I know you can only speak on behalf 
of the PRAC and your role as the IG at DOJ, could you provide 
this Committee any perspective on how successful the DOJ and 
the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have been in 
obtaining arrests and convictions for pandemic-related fraud? 
Then on top of that, do you believe that the new chief 
prosecutor that was announced by the White House earlier this 
month can improve the government's efforts to address fraud, 
like we are hearing from UI and the Paycheck Protection 
Program?
    Mr. Horowitz. Yes, certainly, Mr. Chairman. The importance 
of coordination here cannot be overstated. For example, part of 
the Department's Fraud Task Force. We have separately created, 
at the PRAC, our own Fraud Task Force to bring together the IG 
community with our partners in law enforcement. We work very 
closely with the FBI to ensure that kind of coordination and to 
provide them with access to certain information that we have 
through the PACE, that they may actually not have access to. It 
has been a very important collaborative, strong working 
relationship.
    I think it is very important, having been an Assistant U.S. 
Attorney (AUSA) myself in my prior stint at the Justice 
Department, having that kind of coordination at the 
headquarters level is critical. These are issues that are not 
limited to one district in the country or one State in the 
country. They are cross-cutting. They are international, in 
many instances. It is very important to have that relationship, 
that connectivity. We have a very strong working relationship. 
I have already gotten a reach-out a couple of times by the new 
prosecutor that was named the other day. I was at a meeting 
with the Attorney General (AG) and the Deputy AG to talk about 
these issues last week.
    They are including us, me not just as the IG at Justice but 
as the chair of the PRAC.
    Chairman Peters. Great. Thank you.
    Ranking Member Portman, you are recognized for your 
questions.
    Senator Portman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and again, thanks 
for the work you all are doing in a very difficult situation.
    I want to start with Inspector General Turner and focus on 
the unemployment insurance fraud that you talked about. You 
said that we know that at least $163 billion in pandemic UI 
benefits were paid improperly, and a significant portion was 
attributable to fraud. You said that fraud cases have exploded 
by about 1,000 percent. Could you describe your efforts to date 
to try to recover some of those improper payments, 
approximately how much have we been able to recover so far, and 
what is our plan to try to recover more of that $163 billion-
plus in the future?
    Mr. Turner. Let me say that, I can start off by answering 
your second question first. We have $830 million in terms of 
the monetary gains that we have found so far that we have been 
able to recover. It is a challenge because I think we believe 
that it has to be a proactive effort initially to stop and 
prevent fraud before it actually happens.
    The concern, in terms of how we get it back, we go back to 
when we started the program. When we first started 20 years we 
have identified several problems within the program. A lot of 
it is lack of staffing and lack of modernization. That has 
allowed some of the fraud to occur. Athough we talk about 18.71 
percent as being the fraud rate, therefore of the $872 billion, 
that is what we believe--and that is just the IG figure of the 
$163 billion that you are talking about--we believe that it is 
going to be somewhat difficult to get that back.
    No. 1 is because a lot of the funds have been expended 
before we actually are able to get it back because so many of 
the fraudsters have already spent it in high-dollar-value 
items, whether it be homes, whether it be vehicles, or 
whatever. Some of that is hard to get back. A lot of it is also 
tied up in the courts in terms of restitution. Some of the ones 
that we have identified it is going to take years to actually 
see what that total amount of recovery will be.
    Senator Portman. Thank you for doing everything you can to 
get that taxpayer money back. Eight hundred thirty million 
bucks is a lot of money. On the other hand, it pales in 
comparison to the $163 billion, does it not?
    Mr. Turner. Yes, it does, and every dime of government 
money, we take that serious in trying to recoup all that we 
can.
    Senator Portman. Yes. Let us know how we can be more 
helpful, and part of the problem, you said, is it is converted 
to assets. Those assets can be seized, as well, and, it seems 
to me that, particularly with regard to some of the foreign 
nationals that we should have a governmentwide approach to 
this, getting more help from, in that case, the Department of 
Justice.
    Chairman Horowitz, PRAC has identified a lot of gaps in 
existing data sources--you talked about this a little bit--so 
the lack of transparency means less accountability. What are 
the key gaps in the existing data sources that you see? In your 
October 2020 report you identified 13 corrective actions, all 
Executive Branch it looks to me, to mitigate these gaps. Tell 
us how many of those 13 recommendations have been implemented.
    Mr. Horowitz. So on this issue, Senator Portman, the gaps 
are many, as you indicated. We have outlined them in our two 
reports. Let me highlight two of them.
    There is a significant issue with coding and putting 
sufficient information in about naming what the money went for. 
Our second report lays out thousands of grants that have either 
program names associated with it or things like codes of 
initials. Nobody looking at that, not us as oversight 
professionals, the public looking to see where money went, 
would have any idea where that money went from looking at that 
reporting data.
    That is not what I think Congress intended when they set up 
the Data Act and other mechanisms for reporting through 
USAspending.gov, to report out for the public to learn how 
their money was being spent. So that is one significant issue. 
Even when there are reports of where the money is spent, we are 
finding thousands of instances where, I have referred to it as 
``gibberish,'' is there. You cannot make heads or tails of what 
the money is for.
    Another major problem we found is going beyond the first 
level of spending, to figure out where the money actually went 
to and how it was actually being used. You can see, oftentimes, 
how agencies distributed the money in the first instance, but 
in many of these programs, as you know, through the grant 
programs the money goes even further downstream, and there is 
no information about that flow.
    Finally, the information reporting back from recipients. 
What did they do with the money? How did they spend it? One of 
the big questions we hear all the time is, so the PPP program, 
$800 billion in the Paycheck Protection Program. How did that 
impact employment? We do not know. The agency does not know 
because the information is not being collected.
    Senator Portman. Huge gaps, and understanding we needed to 
get money out the door quickly there is no reason not to have 
that kind of coding and to understand where the money is going 
and then to follow the money to see whether it is working.
    In terms of the amount stolen, $87 billion to $400 billion, 
that is a pretty big range. We just learned from the IG at the 
Department of Labor it is $163 billion there alone, at least, 
so it is more than $87 billion. Can you give us your best 
guess, as the PRAC chair and as someone who has been looking at 
this for a long time and has some perspective on it, how much 
was stolen?
    Mr. Horowitz. Senator, I wish I could answer that right 
now. A couple of reasons that is a challenge. First of all, we 
do not have all the data just yet. Second, we have lots of 
cases ongoing, and, of course, there is a difference between an 
improper payment, of which there are billions and hundreds of 
billions of dollars, and a fraud. We have to sort that out 
through the investigative process.
    I cannot give precision at all. I am not even sure I can 
give a wild guess yet at what the fraud number will be. It will 
be very large. The improper payment number, as the Comptroller 
General indicated, is disturbingly large. We know about, just 
for example, $3 billion went out the door right away to 
deceased payees through the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and 
the initial loan check distributions. Fifty thousand-plus PPP 
loans went to individual entities on the Do Not Pay list.
    Senator Portman. Chairman Horowitz, give me your best 
educated guess. Is it less than $400 billion or more than $400 
billion? That is the top of the range.
    Mr. Horowitz. Senator, I am going to be careful in giving a 
guess. It is certainly in the three-digit billion number. How 
big it is, I am just not prepared to----
    Senator Portman. You are prepared to say it is over $100 
billion but not prepared to say whether it is $400 billion or 
$300 billion?
    Mr. Horowitz. I think in light of, obviously, the UI 
numbers that IG Turner just mentioned, if you are talking $87 
billion-plus of potential fraud in that program----
    Senator Portman. 163.
    Mr. Horowitz [continuing]. $163, I am sorry, billion-plus 
in that program, you are obviously already north of that 
number. I know from SBA IG the Payment Protection Program, the 
EIDL program, is the other place where we are finding very 
substantial fraud.
    Senator Portman. Yes. When we get the Administrative False 
Claims Act done, and we are working to get that done in the 
Senate soon, and again with regard to these 13 corrective 
actions that you proposed, I would like to know if you would 
get back to us how many of those have been implemented and how 
many have not. These are all administrative Executive Branch 
functions, so we can help, perhaps, to put some focus on that.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Horowitz. Absolutely.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Ranking Member Portman.
    Senator Johnson, you are recognized for your questions.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHNSON

    Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think we are 
probably only looking at the tip of the iceberg here, and I 
think you are kind of indicating that as well. I think part of 
the big problem is the fact that Congress took a shotgun 
approach to COVID relief as opposed to targeting our relief. I 
personally think it was hundreds of billions of dollars that 
went to people that in the end did not need it.
    A lot of them did not commit fraud. We just set such a low 
hurdle rate. For example, in the PPP program, again, if you 
were concerned about the economic uncertainty, you qualified 
and we just forgave the loan. I thought it was madness. I spoke 
out about it at the time. But, a lot of this falls on Congress' 
shoulders here in terms of the amount of fraud that eventually 
will be uncovered, and we probably will not uncover the vast 
majority of it.
    I do not see how anybody can take a look at our response to 
COVID and call it a success. Nine hundred sixty-five thousand 
Americans dead. The human toll of the economic devastation from 
the widespread shutdowns, I argued against those at the time. 
What we have done to our children. I want that to sink in--what 
we have done to our children, the delayed learning.
    I will tell you. Whether you agree with masks or not, I 
will tell you where masks would not work--on a child--and yet 
we have subjected them to two years of wearing masks, delayed 
speech, could not see their teacher's face, the smiles of their 
classmates. We need to really do oversight on what our response 
was, what a miserable failure it was, so it never happens 
again.
    Mr. Horowitz, you have done a lot of investigations. I sent 
35 oversight letters, and I think one thing you have to 
recognize about me--and I think you would agree with this--I 
have never used the ``everything and the kitchen sink'' 
approach. I have tried to really target my response to get 
information that we would actually use. My oversight letters 
have been very focused on issues, asking for information that I 
believe the American people deserve.
    I want to ask you, if you would get the response I have 
been getting, which is basically we are not going to respond 
other than refer you to our website, does that happen to you in 
your investigations?
    Mr. Horowitz. Actually, on occasion, we have had problems, 
and I agree, we push back, and we push back hard, and 
oftentimes I have been in front of this Committee, on multiple 
times, including when you were Chair, to talk about those 
issues. I agree, you deserve and are entitled to answers. We 
are, as you know, very responsive to you and your staff as well 
as other Members here, because it is important for Congress to 
be able to get the information it needs to do the oversight it 
needs to do.
    Senator Johnson. A brief list of some of the things I have 
asked questions about. By the way, I think our biggest blunder 
was we did not put enormous time and effort and resources into 
exploring and researching early treatment. In fact, we 
sabotaged early treatment. But I have written letters. How much 
did we expend? What were our efforts? I do not get anything.
    We have requested the emails from Dr. Fauci, unredacted, 
4,000 pages. We do not get them. We have been given access to 
about 400, in dribs and drabs, 50 pages at a time. We do not 
actually get them. We have to review them on camera.
    I have asked questions, what did the Food and Drug 
Administration (FDA) do in August 2021, when they extended the 
emergency use authorization (EUA) for the vaccine that is 
available in the United States, and granted full licensure on 
one that is not available? What was that all about. It is 
confusing. I get no answer whatsoever.
    We have we not acknowledge and explore natural immunity? 
Why have we not factored that into these idiotic and pointless 
vaccine mandates?
    One of the more recent ones was information on the Defense 
Department's (DOD) DMED database, that showed a three-to 
tenfold increase in different diagnoses of cancers and things 
like myocarditis, and neurological problems.
    The DOD, by the way, did respond to a PolitiFact request, 
before they responded to me in a very inadequate way. But what 
they said is, ``Oh, we recognized a glitch in our system.''
    What we have is from whistleblowers, doctors, military 
doctors, who were seeing vaccine injuries. They did an 
analysis, the previous five years versus 2021. They saw a 
tenfold increase in these diagnoses.
    What the DOD told us is, ``Oh, we were wrong for the 
previous five years,'' and all of a sudden they have given us 
some data where those things shot up ten-fold. What is pulling 
off here? They are not showing us the data.
    But I think one of the more troubling ones--and why don't 
you put up my chart\1\ here--very early on in the process--
again, I was a big supporter of Operation Warp Speed (OWS). I 
am not anti-vax in any way, shape, or form, but I think you 
have to take a look at the data coming in. The data coming in 
was concerning to me. I was asking questions back in March, 
April, May 2021, when the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting 
System (VAERS) were showing 2, 3, 4, 5,000 deaths. Today we are 
up to over 25,000 deaths reported in the VAERS system, 1.168 
million adverse event.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The chart referenced by Senator Johnson appears in the Appendix 
on page 130.
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    What this chart shows is a comparison--for example, 
ivermectin. You are not supposed to say that word. By the way, 
in New Hampshire, I guess, their Assembly just approved over-
the-counter use of ivermectin, because it is pretty safe. 
Fifteen deaths, on average, over 26 years on the VAERS system. 
Hydroxychloroquine, 70 deaths. Annual flu vaccines, 78 deaths. 
Remdesivir now 721 deaths. COVID vaccines, 25,158 deaths.
    Again, now I realize VAERS does not prove causation. 
Twenty-nine percent of those deaths are occurring on days zero, 
one, or two following vaccination. It is something I would be 
concerned about.
    I write the FDA. I write the Center for Disease Control and 
Prevention (CDC). I write National Institute of Health (NIH). 
What is happening here? I asked them about their other 
surveillance systems. I get no information whatsoever. It is 
not that I do not get information, the American people do not 
get information.
    The reason the American people have lost faith in our 
health care agencies is because they have been completely non-
transparent. They have not provided the information that we are 
getting from other public health agencies from around the 
world. We have had to look to Israel. We have had to look to 
the United Kingdom (UK) to find out what is happening here.
    I guess the plea I am making to this Committee, the 
Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), 
in which I am Ranking Member, is this needs to be investigated. 
If the agencies do not respond to us, we need to issue 
subpoenas. Congressional oversight is almost a joke nowadays. 
You can do an investigation at the Department of Justice. You 
can do pretty good investigations in the IG's office. Congress? 
The agencies just thumb their nose at us, and doing so they are 
thumbing their nose at the American people.
    This is outrageous. It cannot continue. Mr. Chairman, I am 
calling on you, as Chair of this Committee, to start 
strengthening our ability to get information out of these 
agencies. It is outrageous what has been happening, our lack of 
information, our lack of transparency, the lack of honesty 
coming out of our health care agencies.
    This is a scandal. The fraud, the hundreds of billions of 
dollars probably sent to people that did not need it is a 
scandal. This impacted people's lives. We need answers, and we 
need answers now.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Johnson.
    Senator Hassan, you are recognized for your questions.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HASSAN

    Senator Hassan. Thank you so much Mr. Chair and Ranking 
Member Portman for this important hearing, and thank you to all 
the witnesses for your critically important work to prevent 
waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars and to improve 
management of pandemic relief programs.
    I want to start with a question to you, Inspector General 
Horowitz, and then to Comptroller General Dodaro. To date, the 
GAO and inspector general community have made hundreds of 
recommendations to Federal agencies on how to improve their 
response to the pandemic and ensure that relief funds have the 
maximum benefit. However, as of December 2021, agencies have 
implemented less than one in five GAO recommendations.
    Inspector General Horowitz, you talked a little bit about 
some of this with Senator Portman, but in your review as chair 
of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, what more 
can agencies do to address IG and GAO recommendations that 
could help them curb waste, fraud, and abuse of COVID-19 relief 
funds?
    Mr. Horowitz. Senator, as you indicated IGs have issued 
hundreds of reports now to date. They include hundreds of 
recommendations in them about how to improve programs, and you 
are right, the track record of agencies in implementing them 
has been uneven, I would say at best. Some perhaps do better 
than others.
    But one of the things we do now, in the IG community, is 
make that information public. On oversight.gov and on IG 
websites we are trying, through making the information public 
where agencies stand in implementing them, in an aging list. 
You can see how long it has taken them to do. Our strongest 
tool in that, to get that done, is not only speaking and 
elevating it within the agency but frankly talking now more 
frequently with OMB leadership, so that they can do, with the 
tools they have available to them, to try and push agencies to 
more promptly implement these recommendations.
    Senator Hassan. Thank you. Comptroller General Dodaro, what 
recommendations should agencies prioritize to maximize the 
effectiveness of their pandemic response in a cost-efficient 
way?
    Mr. Dodaro. I have sent letters to every head of every 
department and agency in the Federal Government with a priority 
list of recommendations. Those have been provided to the 
Congress. They are public on our website. I have met with all 
the new leadership of the departments and agencies, urged them 
to do that. In some agencies we have regular meetings to focus 
on the progress in implementing our recommendations, and other 
agencies, not so much, particularly the Department of Health 
and Human Services (HHS).
    I am disappointed at the pace. Like Mr. Horowitz said, we 
have been working with OMB, and I have regular meetings with 
the White House coordinator, Gene Sperling, on this, to try to 
enlist their support to get the agencies to move faster in 
implementing these recommendations.
    I do believe additional congressional attention to this 
matter would be very helpful. I have also used the high-risk 
list. When I was here last March I mentioned that I put the 
emergency loan programs of the Small Business Administration on 
the high-risk list, because it is not only our recommendations, 
they failed their audit the last two years. They have not been 
able to get a clean audit and show the proper accounting of 
this money. I have also added HHS's leadership and coordination 
in January as a high-risk issue. Clear roles and 
responsibilities are not there. There is not a lot of clear 
communication. These have been problems for decades.
    I am doing everything that I can, but I could always use 
extra help.
    Senator Hassan. Right. We can return to that priority list 
and see if we can focus on it to, because I think that is 
important for us all to be speaking with one voice, to 
prioritize the best ways to have the most efficient and most 
impactful results.
    Let me turn to you, Inspector General Turner. Single sign-
on technology allows users to create one username and password 
to securely access many different websites. This is not just 
convenient for consumers but it can also prevent fraud when 
single sign-on technology verifies users' identities.
    For example, during the pandemic some States managed access 
to pandemic relief applications through single sign-ons using 
identity verifications. States that used these tools 
experienced a significant decrease in fraudulent claims and 
were able to prevent billions in improper unemployment 
insurance payments.
    Inspector General Turner, how could the Department of Labor 
work with State partners to implement these identity 
verification tools across the country?
    Mr. Turner. Senator, that seems like something that the 
State workforce agencies would be able to share, in terms of 
best practices, and I think that is something that we could 
probably pass onto them as well as the Department could. The 
Department, part of reducing the possibility of fraud is also 
sharing best practices across the government. There are like 53 
different entities, so they have their own way of doing 
business, and sometimes you have some that do a better job than 
others. But I think if they could kind of share that 
information, and that is something I will pass on to the 
Department.
    Senator Hassan. Thank you. I want to turn to Mr. Miller on 
some of this same issue. Last September, the Technology 
Modernization Fund (TMF) awarded $187 million to the General 
Services Administration (GSA) to expand its single sign-on 
service, login.gov. Part of those funds are intended to shore 
up login.gov's identity verification capabilities.
    How could these identity verification tools help the 
Federal Government prevent improper payments, not just of 
COVID-19 relief funds but of payments that the government makes 
daily?
    Mr. Miller. Thank you, Senator, for that question, and 
login.gov is an important tool but it needs to be strengthened 
going forward. This is something that we are working on. 
Looking actively at, to Mr. Turner's point, when you looked at 
those 53 different systems some of them were not using identity 
verification for reasons like they could not afford identity 
verification tools. The end cost of that was substantially 
larger than the cost of identity verification on the front end.
    The second thing on this is right now we largely leave 
agencies and States to their own devices to determine how best 
to do these. We need stronger tools in place on identity 
verification. That is why we are investing in login as a 
potential option, and it is a topic that we are working hard on 
at OMB.
    Senator Hassan. Thank you. Mr. Chair, if I could, I want to 
follow up for one short bit on that, because some Federal 
agencies such as IRS, the Department of Veteran's Affairs (VA), 
and Social Security Administration (SSA) already partner with 
private single sign-on companies to verify customer identities 
and prevent fraud. How can OMB work with the GSA as well as GAO 
to ensure that its efforts to expand identity verification 
through login.gov does not overlap or duplicate the existing 
agency efforts here?
    Mr. Miller. One thing that we want to make sure that we are 
putting in place is clear standards and guidelines for agencies 
as they are moving forward, so that we have strong identity 
verification tools while also ensuring that those tools are 
allowing access and protecting individuals' privacy.
    Senator Hassan. Thank you very much. Thanks for the extra 
time, Mr. Chair.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Hassan.
    Senator Carper, you are recognized for your questions.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER

    Senator Carper. Thanks very much. Welcome. Some of you are 
not strangers to this Committee, and we are delighted to see 
those who might be here for the first time or those who have 
been before us many times. Thank you all for the great work 
that you do and for your leadership.
    I am just wondering, Mr. Turner, do you remember when you 
were sworn in as the Inspector General of the Department of 
Labor?
    Mr. Turner. That would have been December 7, 2021.
    Senator Carper. Does that date have any special meaning to 
you, when you think of it, besides for being sworn in that day? 
Any other special meaning?
    Mr. Turner. Not that I can think of.
    Senator Carper. It is Pearl Harbor Day, the anniversary of 
Pearl Harbor, when we lost so many. I am a retired Navy 
captain, so for my family it is something that is real.
    For the people in Delaware it is also real in another way. 
It is the day that Delaware ratified the Constitution. It 
became the first State to ratify the Constitution. For one 
whole week we were the entire United States of America (USA), 
and then we opened it up and let in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and 
the rest. I think it has turned out OK, for the most part, but 
it is still early.
    When you look at the Preamble of the Constitution--this is 
where I am going with this--it starts off, as you recall, ``We, 
the people of the United States, in order to form a more 
perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, 
provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, 
and secure the blessings of liberty.''
    We are talking about here the response of our country, our 
people over the last two years to really, in a way that is 
consistent with the Preamble of the Constitution, promote the 
general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to 
ourselves and our posterity.
    It is important work, and it is consistent with what our 
Founding Fathers, the framers of the Constitution, had in mind.
    I have a couple of questions. I probably will not have time 
to ask all of them, unless the Chairman wants to require 
everybody else to yield their time to me, which is probably not 
likely.
    But my first question would be of you, Mr. Miller. Over the 
last couple of years, through two administrations, Congress has 
approved about $4.5 trillion, I am told, to support COVID 
response and recovery efforts. So far, agencies have obligated 
$4.2 trillion. I am not sure how far back we have to go in our 
nation's history where that is actually more money than we 
would spend in a given year through the Federal Government. It 
is probably not all that far. It is a huge amount of money, and 
requires a lot of oversight. We want to thank all of you and 
the folks who work for you, with you, for leading the oversight 
effort and for testifying today.
    Mr. Miller, we learned a lot about Federal and State 
technology systems, staffing, resources, and communication 
processes during the pandemic. We are still learning. My 
constituents would tell me that we learned a lot about what did 
not work as well as what did. In your testimony you outlined a 
number of steps the Administration is taking to improve 
communications and access across the Federal Government, in 
execution across the Federal Government.
    With that said, State and local governments are responsible 
for implementing, as you know, many of these programs. How is 
the Administration ensuring they have the necessary support and 
sufficient communications with Federal agencies? That would be 
my question for you, Mr. Miller.
    Mr. Miller. Great. Thank you for that question, Senator. 
Yes, State, local, tribal, territorial (SLTT) governments are 
critical in successful implementation. Open communication 
channels, both at an agency level and an administration level 
and a program level are important. Certainly this is something 
that Treasury has done, and it is well underway, in terms of 
implementing the programs over the course of pandemic relief. 
We are also taking steps on this as we are implementing the 
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, where that specific set of 
investments is almost entirely reliant on States, localities, 
tribal, and territorial governments.
    One additional way, in partnership with the oversight 
community, that we are trying to make sure that we have strong 
collaboration and coordination, is not with those executing the 
programs but with those who are auditing and investing in the 
programs, so that they have the information that they need to 
protect program integrity and support States and localities in 
executing these programs.
    Senator Carper. All right. Thank you for that response. My 
second question would be, Mr. Turner, for you. The question 
deals with improving the unemployment insurance program, 
something that some of us on this Committee have given a lot of 
time and attention to.
    Mr. Turner, I have a wonderful constituent services team. 
They work hard every day to advocate for Delawareans seeking 
help, but including Federal assistance. The top issue we hear 
about is delays in processing unemployment insurance claims. 
That may be at the top of the charts in terms of complaints 
that we hear from our constituents. These delays predate the 
COVID pandemic, but the pandemic has certainly exacerbated this 
particular issue.
    You noted in your testimony ongoing challenges with States 
having sufficient staffing and systems resources to manage UI 
claims. You also noted an earlier, unsuccessful attempt by the 
Department of Labor to help States modernize their legacy IT 
systems through Federal funding. Why did this not work, and 
what lessons has the Department of Labor learned from this 
effort?
    Mr. Turner. Let me first say thanks for the question. 
First, we have been identifying, for the last 20 years, the 
Labor OIG, some of the problems that are existing now with 
COVID. These are problems with lack of IT modernization. As a 
matter of fact, around 2010, there was $7 billion that was 
dedicated and funded for States to modernize their systems, and 
in most cases they did not. In some cases, I think of the $7 
billion that was set aside for that only $4 billion was 
actually used. About $2 billion was used to pay benefits, which 
was allowed, but I think it should have gone toward the 
modernization. Those were some of the challenges.
    But when we look at the work we have done the last 20 
years, to include 10 years ago, we find some of those same 
problems, and those problems actually added to the explosion in 
terms of lack of support for claimants, during COVID.
    Those have been some of the challenges. Also, I think the 
biggest thing was that a lot of the States were not adjusting 
to the new UI care packages, in a sense, because some of them 
were different. I will give you an example. The gig from the 
PUA, that was different because this was talking about, in some 
cases, gig workers, self-employed workers. There were different 
requirements for those workers. In some cases there was not the 
safeguards that had been in the normal UI program.
    Senator Carper. OK. Mr. Chairman, if I could, for the 
record, I will state the question and then ask you to respond, 
Mr. Turner, for the record. How can Congress and the 
Administration work together to effectively help States address 
staffing and systems shortfalls moving forward? The last thing 
for the record, a question. There has been a good deal of 
conversation about data gaps that are challenging effective 
oversight. What steps is the Administration willing to take to 
address these gaps and how can Congress help?
    Again, our thanks to all of you. I hope you feel welcomed 
here. We very much welcome you, and I think you know that, and 
your teams, the folks that are sitting behind you and those 
that you represent. God bless you. Thank you. Happy St. 
Patrick's Day, even if you are not Irish.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Carper.
    Senator Carper. We are lucky to have you in our service.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Carper.
    Senator Hawley, you are recognized for your questions.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HAWLEY

    Senator Hawley. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thanks 
to everybody for being here, to the witnesses.
    Mr. Miller, if I could start with you. I want to try to 
understand what is happening with the special inspector general 
for pandemic recovery. This is, as you know, a position that 
this body, Congress, created when we passed the CARES Act 
several years ago now. The Senate confirmed a nominee to lead 
that office. Multiple Senators have referred complaints to that 
office. For example, on July 15, 2020, Senator Warren wrote to 
the Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery (SIGPR) 
calling for an investigation into a ``COVID lobbying 
palooza''--those are her words--and stating her understanding 
that SIGPR was created--I am quoting her again now--``to 
investigate any fraud, waste, and abuse of Coronavirus Aid 
Relief in the Economic Security Act funds.''
    On August 6th of that year, 2020, 28 other Senators--that 
includes me--wrote to SIGPR requesting an investigation into 43 
Planned Parenthood affiliates that applied for and received 
CARES Act funds through the Small Business Administration's 
Paycheck Protection Program, despite clear rules against that.
    My point is that multiple Senators have referred multiple 
things to SIGPR. It is in the legislation. However, the Biden 
administration and DOJ, in consultation with OMB, stripped 
SIGPR of almost all of its jurisdiction pretty much as soon as 
he came to office, in April 2021. I am trying to understand 
what is going on here. Why has SIGPR been stripped of its 
jurisdiction? Why is it not able to perform its mandated 
functions? What is happening here?
    Mr. Miller. Senator, thank you for the question to receive 
clarity on this issue. The dispute that you are referring to go 
back into the prior administration with regards to SIGPR's 
authorities. SIGPR went to the Office of Legislative Counsel 
(OLC), at DOJ, which makes determinations for the Executive 
Branch regarding authorities when they are disputes within the 
Executive Branch. OLC consulted with OMB informally, as it 
would on any matter, where it felt OMB's input would be useful. 
OLC determined that the legislation had specific authorities 
for SIGPR, and the Executive Branch follows what OLC 
determines.
    Senator Hawley. You are saying that OMB did not recommend 
that SIGPR be stripped of its jurisdiction? Is that your 
testimony?
    Mr. Miller. OMB answered questions and input from OLC and 
did not make a determination. OLC made a determination.
    Senator Hawley. Will you provide us with records of that 
communication?
    Mr. Miller. It occurred before my time. I would welcome 
follow-up discussion.
    Senator Hawley. Wait a minute. The OLC-OMB communication 
occurred before your time? It occurred under this 
Administration, though.
    Mr. Miller. I was sworn into office at the end of April.
    Senator Hawley. But it occurred during the Biden 
administration, right? I do not particularly care when you were 
there. I care when it happened. I care that you are there now 
and have some authority. It does not matter to me when you were 
in office or not. It matters to me that you are before this 
Committee, that presumably you have sworn an oath to answer to 
this Committee the questions. I am asking you a direct 
question, whether you will give us the communications. I do not 
care if you were there or not.
    Mr. Miller. I would welcome follow-up with you on this, 
Senator Hawley.
    Senator Hawley. Is that a yes or a no or a maybe?
    Here is the deal. I want to know why in the world this 
Administration has taken an act of Congress and gutted it, and 
that is what they have done with SIGPR. You have gutted it. 
There are trillions of dollars that have--let us just review. 
The CARES Act spent more money than we spent on World War II, 
and we have no effective oversight, in my view, of how that 
money is being spent when it comes to waste, fraud, and abuse, 
because this Administration has chosen to gut the IG system 
that was set up to oversee it. I want to know why, and I want 
to know if we can get the information from you. That is my 
question to you.
    Mr. Miller. This Administration has taken active steps to 
reassert the role of IGs in providing oversight.
    Senator Hawley. SIGPR?
    Mr. Miller. OLC made a determination with regards to 
SIGPR's authorities. In 2020, actions were taken to undermine 
the IG community. We believe that IG roles----
    Senator Hawley. Indeed actions were taken to undermine the 
IG. In April 2021, this Administration gutted this IG. They 
gutted the IG that we created, that Congress created, on a 
bipartisan basis, and that bipartisan groups of Senators have 
referred information to. Now this entity cannot carry on its 
work because your Administration gutted it.
    Let me come back to my question. Will you provide this 
Committee the communication between OLC and OMB regarding the 
decision to gut SIGPR?
    Mr. Miller. You are welcome to request----
    Senator Hawley. I am requesting it now. That is what I am 
doing.
    Mr. Miller. We will look into the specifics of the 
communication and absolutely get back to you on that.
    Senator Hawley. So is that a yes?
    Mr. Miller. I would like to look into the specifics of the 
communication.
    Senator Hawley. That sounds like, frankly, a non-answer to 
me, and unfortunately, that has been the case for a year now, 
since this Administration gutted SIGPR. I have introduced 
legislation that would restores SIGPR's jurisdiction and 
restore its funding. Frankly, I think it is being funded on a 
shoestring budget. It needs to be funded more than it is. It 
needs to have the full resources to carry out its mission to 
oversee waste, fraud, and abuse and get to the root of it in 
this huge amount of spending that we did for an unprecedented 
crisis. But to do that amount of spending, and to look at the 
fraud reports that we have been getting, and to not have SIGPR 
funded and with its jurisdiction fully intact to me is totally 
inexplicable. I continue to be amazed that the Administration 
is doing this.
    I will follow up with you, but frankly, I am disappointed 
in your answer.
    Let me ask about something else. Yesterday, The New York 
Times reported that the Biden administration is taking $377 
million in Federal emergency housing aid from States mostly 
controlled by Republicans--I am quoting from The New York 
Times--and redirected that cash to States that have already 
used their allotted money, including New York, California, and 
New Jersey.
    Is there statutory authority for this?
    Mr. Miller. I am not familiar with the specific decision 
that you are referring to, but I am happy to follow up with you 
on it.
    Senator Hawley. It is right here. ``Treasury shifts $377 
million among States as pandemic housing aid dries up,'' from 
The New York Times. It is about the $46 billion in emergency 
rental assistance that this program enacted back in 2020.
    Mr. Miller. It is a program that is critical to keeping 
people in their homes.
    Senator Hawley. My question to you is, is there statutory 
authority to shift around almost half a billion dollars from 
one State to another without the State's consents.
    Mr. Miller. I would expect the Treasury only take action 
consistent with statutory authority. If they did to, it would 
be inappropriate.
    Senator Hawley. OK. That is a yes, you think there is 
statutory authority? What would it be? Can you direct me to 
the----
    Mr. Miller. I would be happy to follow up with you on the 
specifics. Again, if Treasury took action that was inconsistent 
with statutory authority that would be inappropriate, and I 
would hope that Treasury's IG would say so as well.
    Senator Hawley. My time has expired here and there are 
other Senators who want to ask questions. I have a few 
questions for you, Mr. Turner, about some of the things that 
you have discovered in terms of delays and providing disaster 
relief, so I will get those to you for the record. Thanks for 
the work you are doing. Thanks to you all for being here.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Hawley.
    Senator Padilla, you are recognized for your questions.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PADILLA

    Senator Padilla. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the 
participation of all the witnesses here today.
    Let me begin by uplifting a dynamic of disparities. There 
has been a lot of talk in recent years, and not just relative 
to COVID but because of the impacts of COVID, responses to 
COVID. A lot of the preexisting inequities in our society have 
been exacerbated, frankly. Although underserved communities, in 
many ways, experience disproportionately the harms from the 
COVID pandemic, from a health perspective, from an economic 
perspective, and more, Federal relief programs often fail to 
reach those most in need.
    Federal legislation enhanced unemployment insurance 
benefits, for example, and expanded eligibility amid the severe 
economic shock caused by the pandemic. However, during the 
first year of the pandemic, Black and Latino applicants were 
less likely to receive unemployment insurance benefits than 
white applicants. We have the data that tells us that.
    Additionally, a University of California, Los Angeles 
(UCLA) report found that the first distribution of loans 
through the Paycheck Protection Program actually widened pre-
pandemic racial inequalities by supporting far fewer jobs per 
resident in Black and Latino neighborhoods than in white 
neighborhoods in California. I would be shocked to think that 
that was an isolated dynamic to California alone.
    These disparities are certainly not new, as I mentioned, 
but the COVID-19 pandemic certainly exacerbated them, and it is 
particularly disconcerting that Federal relief programs may 
have made disparities even worse. I am proud that the American 
Rescue Plan included language that helped put equity front and 
center as part of our recovery efforts, but we need to make 
sure that its implementation actually improves upon those 
underlying inequities.
    My first question is for Deputy Director Miller. How is the 
Biden administration using COVID relief efforts and other 
Federal funding to address these underlying inequities?
    Mr. Miller. Thank you, Senator. Thank you for the 
opportunity to talk about these efforts. As I noted in my 
opening remarks, the pandemic disproportionately harmed 
underserved communities, and too often relief did not reach 
those intended. One of the early actions of the Administration 
was making adjustments to the PPP program for the items that 
you noted that were widely and publicly reported in terms of 
access to PPP loans for some of the smallest, disadvantaged 
businesses, at a time where Black-owned businesses were closing 
at twice the rate of other types of businesses, making sure 
that they had access to PPP.
    Another thing that we have done with regards to 
implementation of ARP is on the front end of programs, bringing 
together, as noted, the gold-standard meetings with agency IGs, 
the PRAC, OMB, the ARP implementation team, and agencies so 
that we are taking steps in program design, ensuring that both 
relief is targeted where intended, and that we are putting in 
place reporting mechanisms that get the right balance between 
ensuring that we are getting the outcomes that we need while 
reducing burden for applicants.
    Senator Padilla. That definitely acknowledges the progress 
that has been made in thinking about this on the front end, and 
I certainly hope that it becomes institutionalized and baked 
into efforts going forward across the board.
    The next question is for Chair Horowitz. I would like to 
ask what recommendations you may have for how the Federal 
Government can better ensure that underserved populations are 
prioritized for funding and resources.
    Mr. Horowitz. Senator, thank you for the question. One of 
the challenges we found again is the data gaps here. What we 
have seen is we have looked to see how have underserved 
communities been advantaged by these programs, or disadvantaged 
by these programs. We are finding there is a lack of data. We 
are not sure what the backgrounds are of those who have gotten 
the loans. We are not sure about the economic status of 
individuals who have applied. It has been one of the things we 
have reported on, and we have actually held hearings on, about 
some of the challenges in us even trying to figure out how that 
came about. I think one of the first things is agencies making 
sure they get data.
    Another is what GAO found, in a report they did about PPP 
and the furtherance of the PPP program, by ensuring that 
Community Development Financial Institutions were available to 
distribute loans. That was an important step forward, a very 
important GAO report in that regard.
    Also, with regard to how programs were run, operated, and 
money was distributed, what we found is those who did not have 
internet service, those who did not have the ability to apply 
through the processes set up could not get it, and that harms 
mostly those in rural communities and in underserved 
communities, generally, because of broadband issues.
    Senator Padilla. That is a classic example, where it might 
have been well intentioned, not completely thought through. 
Efficiency is to be gained by being primarily digital, but 
without recognition of yes, a digital divide is still alive and 
well in America. We are only worsening those pre-existing gaps 
and inequities.
    Mr. Horowitz. Can I add one other----
    Senator Padilla. Please.
    Mr. Horowitz [continuing]. Which is the fraud we have 
talked about. It not only victimizes the program, but 
particularly for several of these programs it victimizes those 
who they were intended for, which often are those most in need. 
We actually had a meeting about this just the last couple of 
weeks, on the identity theft issue--we heard from 
representatives of underserved communities about how what 
happens when people in underserved communities seek to apply 
for those benefits, that they are the ones legitimately 
entitled to but their identities have been stolen. It turns out 
they are the ones being in question, as if they are the 
fraudsters. They are the ones that struggle to get their 
identities back.
    It is actually a very big issue. When we talk about 
identity theft we think about how the programs have been 
defrauded, but they harm the people whose identities were 
stolen.
    Senator Padilla. I would like to follow up with you on what 
we are doing after the fact to assist those who have been 
victims of identity theft, as opposed to, sorry, we are going 
to make this hard for you, and we leave them on their own to 
figure it out.
    I know my time is limited. I do want to put one more issue 
on the table here, and that is the use of facial recognition, 
and more specific to how it has been brought up earlier in the 
hearing.
    As we continue to combat fraud, to your point, in Federal 
programs, it is important that our efforts to provide program 
integrity do not come at the cost of privacy and accuracy. I 
recently joined Senator Menendez and other colleagues in 
sending a letter to the IRS, highlighting well-documented 
concerns about the use of facial recognition technology, 
especially for individuals who have poor internet service at 
home, who rely on computers in public libraries, for example, 
or who use older phones, or for whom English is not their first 
language.
    I am pleased that the IRS has taken initial steps to 
transition away from the use of facial recognition technology 
to verify identity. However, given the gravity of the threat to 
civil rights and civil liberties by this technology, especially 
against immigrants and people of color, and other vulnerable 
communities, I remain concerned about the continued use of this 
technology and the vast amount of biometric data that agencies 
and contractors are managing.
    Question for Comptroller Dodaro. How do you think agencies 
can best uphold the integrity of the programs without 
undermining the civil rights and civil liberties of program 
beneficiaries?
    Mr. Dodaro. They have to make sure that they first address 
those issues, they recognize what those issues are and properly 
address it. They need to go through the due process of hearing 
from different people. But you have to understand the 
technologies. Facial recognition, a lot of agencies are using 
it now, mostly in the law enforcement communities. We have made 
several recommendations about this, and some of the 
technologies have built-in limitations in them. You have to 
understand the limitations in the technology, particularly for 
people of color for facial recognition technologies and others.
    There are ways to do it, but it has to be a very thorough, 
deliberative, careful process that make sure that it is only 
used with proper understanding of not impinging on people's 
civil liberties.
    Senator Padilla. Obviously I have a lot to follow up on 
there, in a deeper dive on specifics. I would argue because it 
is not in more widespread use among other departments, other 
agencies, other sectors, not just the Federal Government, does 
not mean that it is not problematic in those areas as well. Let 
us not point to it is being used in law enforcement as to a 
reason to forge ahead without the thoughtfulness required.
    Mr. Dodaro. I understand, and that is what I am saying. I 
am saying that even in law enforcement it needs to be careful. 
We have made recommendations on making sure people understand 
the information that they are getting. But if you go outside 
that area you need to have due care. We are in agreement on 
that.
    Senator Padilla. Thank you.
    Mr. Dodaro. Can I add one thing on that, because there has 
been a lot, and there is a lot to be concerned about it. But it 
cannot also paralyze us and agencies from taking steps to 
prevent identity fraud and identity theft. There has to be that 
kept in mind. There are often times that we cannot use this 
tool so we will stop trying, and I just encourage, because it 
has such wide ramifications, the identity theft. We have seen 
it endemic in these programs over the last few years, and it is 
hurting those who the money should go to.
    Senator Padilla. Thank you.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Padilla.
    Senator Scott, you are recognized for your questions.

               OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR SCOTT

    Senator Scott. Thank you, Chair Peters. This is an 
important hearing and I want to thank everybody for being here, 
and I want to thank each of you. I have read your reports and 
they are very helpful, and thanks for working with my office to 
get us information.
    My first question is for Mr. Miller, and it might have been 
asked before. I was not here for the whole hearing.
    The Biden administration asked for another $30 billion in 
COVID relief and did not ask that it be taken out of unspent 
COVID dollars. If you look at the numbers I think it is 
hundreds of billions of dollars that is unspent. Can you 
explain why the Biden administration does not think we should 
use unspent dollars?
    Mr. Miller. Sure. So 90 percent of pandemic relief funds 
have been obligated. The Administration requested $22.5 billion 
in funds for additional action to support our needs going 
forward--vaccines, tests, treatments, supporting the uninsured. 
Like other emergency funding, we do not believe it needs to be 
offset. We think this is absolutely imperative, and we will 
work with Congress. OMB would be happy to provide technical 
assistance to you and Congress to move forward.
    Senator Scott. I have been up here three years and I have 
been talking about this excessive government spending is going 
to cause inflation, and I am concerned about the Federal debt. 
The Committee for Responsible Federal Budget recently found 
that ongoing COVID relief under the Biden administration is 
definitely contributing to inflation. They estimated these 
ongoing COVID programs will cost $160 billion this year and 
cause a rise in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation by 68 
basis points if these policies continue.
    Mr. Miller, could you talk about exactly where we are with 
CPI and PPI, and what the Biden administration is doing to 
bring inflation down?
    Mr. Miller. Sure. I think first, stepping back, when you 
look at GDP over the last year it is at 5.7 percent. 
Unemployment rate is down to 3.8 percent. It was the largest 
year of job growth on the record. We have strong overall 
economic performance but real challenges, absolutely, with 
rising prices. The President laid out three actions to deal 
with that: supply chains, which throughout the pandemic have 
continued to create challenges; the second, competition, making 
sure that we have appropriate competition in the market to 
drive down prices; and third, investing in things that matter, 
for families that are impacting their bottom lines, like 
prescription drugs, like childcare.
    Of course, the Fed plays an important role with its dual 
mandate, stable prices and full employment.
    Senator Scott. Do you know where CPI is now and PPI, what 
the numbers are now?
    Mr. Miller. Yes. The number was quoted earlier by Senator 
Portman, 7.9 percent.
    Senator Scott. What is it?
    Mr. Miller. 7.9 percent.
    Senator Scott. How about the Federal debt? Can you talk 
about where we are now and what do you think ought to be 
happening with the Federal debt?
    Mr. Miller. I think the President has been clear on this. 
We are putting forward budgets that are responsible, where 
increased spending proposals and tax cuts are paid for. That 
was true with the fiscal year 2022 budget. That will be true 
for the fiscal year 2023 budget.
    Senator Scott. What is our debt now?
    Mr. Miller. It is over $20 billion.
    Senator Scott. Also, can you talk about deficits? The Biden 
administration has run significant deficits. Can you talk about 
what the deficit was last year and what you anticipate, how you 
anticipate to reduce it?
    Mr. Miller. So deficit is on its way down. The most 
important thing is driving an economic recovery, putting 
forward budgets that are responsible, as this President is 
committed to doing. Those are going to be our steps.
    Senator Scott. The deficit was $2.8 trillion. I mean, that 
is the second-biggest deficit in the history of the country.
    Mr. Miller. Yes.
    Senator Scott. I mean, this is not sustainable.
    It is my understanding that the Biden administration made 
the decision to not require the States to go after individuals 
that committed fraud with regard to the unemployment under 
COVID. Is that accurate?
    Mr. Miller. That is not accurate. States should be going 
after individuals that committed fraud under the unemployment 
insurance program.
    Senator Scott. OK. There is nothing the Biden 
administration has put out to tell the States that they do not 
have to go after people for unemployment fraud?
    Mr. Miller. If somebody has committed fraud, someone should 
go after them, and we should put resources behind doing it.
    Senator Scott. If States did not do the right thing to 
watch how the money was spent, do they owe the money back to 
the Federal Government?
    Mr. Miller. These systems were overwhelmed. The systems 
were fully overwhelmed. They were underfunded. They were under-
resourced, period. We saw that. We saw huge claims backlogs. We 
saw people attacking these State systems. We put money into the 
unemployment insurance system, critical lifeline for millions 
of Americans.
    But clearly--and you saw this with the rise in improper 
payments--it showed that we need to fix these systems, and one 
thing that I hope that we can do together is really take a 
serious look at how are we going to fix these systems. I 
believe the Comptroller General talked about the number of 
years which we have had improper payment rates, at inflated 
levels in UI, and we need to fix it going forward.
    Senator Scott. Will the Biden administration go after 
States that violated the law?
    Mr. Miller. States that violate the law?
    Senator Scott. Yes. If States did not comply with the law, 
are you going to go after them?
    Mr. Miller. The President does not have any tolerance for 
fraudsters. He does not have any tolerance for not complying 
with the law.
    Senator Scott. If States decided to allow people to go on 
unemployment, even though they were employed, gainfully 
employed, would the Biden administration go after those States 
for allowing that to happen?
    Mr. Miller. You have a combination of actions that 
happened. During the early stage of 2020, where you had 
overwhelmed systems, you sometimes had undertrained employees 
making substantial numbers of mistakes, sometimes someone who 
is eligible making an overpayment or an underpayment, and other 
times an individual committing fraud on the system. We should 
go after the fraudsters, first and foremost, and dedicate our 
resources accordingly.
    Senator Scott. If anybody intentionally did not enforce the 
law, you will go after them also?
    Mr. Miller. If someone identified that there is fraud, they 
should go after those who are committing fraud.
    Senator Scott. But somebody intentionally did not enforce 
the law, will you go after them? If a State decided not to 
enforce the law?
    Mr. Miller. If the State decided not to enforce the law.
    Senator Scott. Right. If they decide to say, they are going 
to let people go on unemployment that did not have any right to 
go on unemployment, that is against the law.
    Mr. Miller. If that individual fraudulently obtained 
dollars through the unemployment insurance system then yes, 
they should be prosecuted accordingly.
    Senator Scott. Mr. Turner, I am thankful the OIG initiated 
an audit of the Department's oversight of unemployment 
insurance integrity activities, and your team does a great job. 
Is your ongoing investigations into the pandemic-related 
unemployment program, in your investigation what have you 
uncovered so far?
    Mr. Turner. What we have uncovered is that, again, to go 
with what Mr. Miller mentioned, there is a lack of training, a 
lack of modernization, and in some cases there has been uneven 
distribution of the rules and regulations when it comes to 
unemployment fraud by the States because there are obviously 
54, 53 entities.
    Senator Scott. So is it accurate that the Administration 
issued guidance to the States saying they are not required to 
recoup erroneously disbursed funds?
    Mr. Turner. No, I have not seen anything. I know they put 
out a waiver that the Department has recently sent out, and 
that waiver specifically stated that fraud would not be 
tolerated.
    Senator Scott. Do you believe the Administration is going 
to go after States, the people that erroneously collected 
unemployment?
    Mr. Turner. I would expect they would. We plan on putting 
that on our audit, in terms of looking at that area.
    Senator Scott. All right. I thank all of you. Thank you.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Scott.
    Votes have been called. I am going to proceed to vote. 
Senator Rosen will take the chair, and prior to her moving over 
here, Senator Lankford, you are recognized for your questions.

             OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANKFORD

    Senator Lankford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Thank 
you to the witnesses. Thanks for being here.
    Mr. Miller, I want to follow up as well. Senator Scott had 
mentioned before that there had been some questions just on 
spending and what has happened already with the spending that 
has occurred, what is left of different accounts. You had 
mentioned before you did not feel like some of the new spending 
for COVID needs an offset. We are still trying to get answers 
to questions of what has been spent, and what category.
    Some pretty basic things. Obviously, COVID vaccine 
acquisition, the distribution of the COVID vaccine, research 
and development (R&D) for COVID vaccine, test production, test 
acquisition, therapeutics production and acquisition, PPE 
purchased. I mean those are pretty standard questions to be 
able to go through on it, to be able to get total dollars, to 
be able to see what has been spent from each account and then 
what is unspent on it. How could we best get those totals?
    Mr. Miller. Sure. First, overall, over 90 percent of funds 
have been obligated over pandemic relief efforts. 
USAspending.gov as well as the PandemicOversight.gov captures 
spending by recipient, by State. In addition to that, at the 
request of Congress, OMB has been providing ARP balances, ARP 
obligations, to budget committees, both parties.
    Some specifics, $30.4 billion spent on COVID-19 vaccines; 
$13.5 billion spent in vaccine support, like distribution and 
tracking and promoting vaccine. I am happy to provide that 
information. Senator Romney also sent a letter to the White 
House, as you may be aware, along similar lines.
    Senator Lankford. Right. So we are trying to figure out, 
can we also get what has been spent versus what is obligated?
    Mr. Miller. We sent a response to him with regards to the 
specifics, going through some of the key categories. Those 
online, our USAspending.gov, has obligations as well as 
outlays, in terms of what has been spent.
    I would note, one of the things that is an important 
distinction in some of the funds that have been unobligated, 
they may have been allocated. For example, the biggest buckets 
within ARP is the State and local relief fund at the Treasury 
Department. Because it was tranched, a lot of States and 
counties know the amount of money they are expected to get, and 
those tranches and the dates are defined in the statute. That 
means in most cases they have actually budgeted for those 
resources, even though they have not yet been obligated.
    Senator Lankford. Do we have a listing of what has been 
reprogrammed?
    Mr. Miller. Do we have a listing of what has been 
reprogrammed? I would be happy to follow up with you on the 
specifics of the question around that.
    Senator Lankford. Beautiful. There are multiple different 
categories. We hear that monies are reprogrammed into other 
areas. For instance, HHS moved money over to Office of Refugee 
Resettlement (ORR), dealing with unaccompanied minors. We are 
trying to get details of what has been reprogrammed, where were 
those reprogrammed.
    DHS has been particularly difficult to be able to get 
reprogrammed dollar amounts and what has been moved from HHS 
down to the border. We understand quite a bit was moved to the 
border. Obviously there are pandemic issues related there as 
well, and they are still ongoing, but we are trying to be able 
to figure out what was actually reprogrammed and sent down 
there. Can we get a listing on that?
    Mr. Miller. I am happy to follow up with you on that.
    Senator Lankford. That would be helpful.
    Gene Dodaro, good to see you again.
    Mr. Dodaro. Good to see you, Senator.
    Senator Lankford. Thanks for your extended work for so many 
years and so many things. There are lessons to learn from this 
as we go through. One of them, it deals with a topic that you 
and I have talked about for years, and it is the taxpayer's 
right to know, that OMB has been very engaged in trying to be 
able to apply.
    OMB has been engaged in trying to be able to determine 
categories, to be able to list out for taxpayer's right to 
know. That is an ongoing work behind the scenes for them, that 
I think they are doing a really good job on trying to get done.
    There are a lot of challenges in that. Are there lessons we 
can learn from trying to categorize things through COVID relief 
to be able to develop buckets of money in categories that could 
be transitioned in lessons learned for the long term, for 
taxpayer's right to know obligation?
    Mr. Dodaro. Yes. There are always lessons to be learned out 
of these activities. I think the main thing, though, that I am 
concerned about, that I have been trying to deal with is 
getting more timely information, regardless of the categories. 
This could help on the categorization, particularly for 
emergency spending, and they could adjust the codes that they 
use to code with Treasury on the money.
    But part of the problem is that to get the information you 
requesting, to get it up to date, you have to get it from each 
individual agency. It is not on USAspending.gov, and it is 
delayed. You really do not have that information available. To 
me, the timeliness of this.
    Now in the Recovery Act, when that was passed, the lesson 
learned out of that is you had direct recipient reporting to a 
website. You did not have to go through the agencies. In this 
case that was not used, as the important part of this. We are 
still going to have trouble finding out what the States did 
with the two funds that they had, because they are going to 
distribute it to sub-recipients. There is no auditing done of 
sub-recipient data.
    One of the recommendations I make in today's testimony is 
to have the IGs--their requirement for auditing the data on 
USAspending.gov has expired, and unless Congress reinstates 
that requirement, very few IGs will audit the data. The quality 
and completeness of the data is still at risk. Of 57 or 56 
entities that the IGs looked at, 44 IGs found problems with 
completeness, accuracy of that information. That needs to be a 
requirement. Nobody is auditing the sub-recipient data. I am 
going to take a look at what we can do at GAO, working with the 
IG community or whatever.
    The basic lesson learned out of all this is better 
categorizations, as you suggest, and I think we have learned 
some things on that, not only coding the spending data but the 
procurement data in the systems. We have had some 
recommendations on that. But the main thing is the quality, the 
completeness, and timeliness are still major issues for all 
Federal spending.
    Senator Lankford. Because we can get a big category and say 
X amount of dollars has been allocated, but trying to be able 
to get what it was spent for or where it went, how it went, was 
it actually used for that purpose at the end of it, we are not 
able to see at this point.
    Mr. Dodaro. No. You need better systems. One of the other 
recommendations that I recommended today, statutorily, is that 
Congress reaffirm the requirement for OMB and the agencies to 
have 5-year system modernization plans. A lot of the systems, 
financial management systems, are not able to produce that type 
of timely information. They can do it once a year, to get an 
audited financial statement, but to get the type of data, real-
time data that you have, we need better systems. There needs to 
be better plans to get there.
    Senator Lankford. Yes, we cannot do oversight of what we 
cannot see. To go back to Mr. Turner's comment earlier, 
billions of dollars are allocated to States years ago to be 
able to improve their unemployment systems, and those dollars 
were not actually allocated in actually improving systems. Then 
every State was hammered in 2020, and trying to be able to 
figure out how to be able to deal with this. Secret Service and 
everyone else was engaged in trying to be able to chase down 
fraud by the billions of dollars in unemployment systems 
because the States did not actually allocate the dollars toward 
actually modernizing their system. Additional dollars were 
allocated to the States to be able to improve their system, but 
we do not know if that is really being done at this point, 
other than States putting pressure on individuals to say that 
cannot happen again.
    Mr. Turner, is that correct?
    Mr. Turner. That is correct, Senator.
    Senator Lankford. Yes. That is an area that we are going to 
have to be able to work on long-term in how we handle the 
oversight on it. Thank you to all of you. Mr. Horowitz, you got 
off clean with me, so I apologize for that. We will visit 
another day.
    Mr. Turner. Although I would like to make one 
clarification. Earlier we talked about improper payments as far 
as being $160 billion, and I think it was confusing as to 
whether that was improper payment or fraud. The $160 billion 
was improper payment, and there was a smaller subset that they 
have not figured out yet what the fraud rate is.
    Senator Lankford. Yes. It is still undetermined on how high 
the fraud rate. We know it is in the billions, but it is still 
undetermined what that number is.

               OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ROSEN

    Senator Rosen [presiding.] Thank you, Senator Lankford, for 
bringing up IT modernization, and the reason the real need for 
having systems that are nimble and flexible and work together, 
and I am all for that and will work with anyone on trying to 
improve that.
    Thank you all for being here today. This is really an 
important topic of accountability, how we spend our money, what 
the data is, what we learn from it, what we do with it for the 
next time we need to react to whether, God forbid it is not a 
pandemic, but react to whatever situation that we have to do. 
We have an oversight responsibility.
    We know when COVID-19 shut down our economy, almost exactly 
two years ago, Congress did act quickly to provide support for 
American workers and families in the form of enhanced 
unemployment assistance, direct tax credits, support for small 
businesses, and other programs. Of course, we made sure that 
these laws had unprecedented requirements around transparency, 
oversight, and auditing, that make this hearing possible today. 
I think we probably need to extend those timeframes as they are 
about to expire.
    But I want to talk a little bit about the SBA, because over 
the past two years Federal relief programs, such as the 
Paycheck Protection Program, EIDL program have helped so many 
businesses, so many small businesses in Nevada, across the 
Nation, keep their doors open, keep their workers on the 
payroll. In my State of Nevada, approximately 79,000 small 
businesses participated in the PPP program, and for you to know 
that 99 percent of businesses in the are small businesses. So 
it is particularly important to us.
    But the PPP program helped us keep the doors open, helped 
people pay their employees, and I really want to thank Nevada's 
SBA office, their employees, all our financial institutions. 
Everybody worked hard to be sure their friends, their community 
members, had all the proper tools to see it through, and we are 
not quite through yet.
    Mr. Dodaro, every program, every agency is different. We 
are legislating in a crisis. Of course, we just had to go out 
and do what we needed to do. We set up a number of new 
programs. How should agencies like the SBA, which never before 
has stood up such a large program in such a short amount of 
time, how can we help them better develop strategies to prevent 
fraud? Can GAO provide a general framework or assistance? 
Because I hope this is the last time we have to do something so 
quickly but it may not be. And so the lessons learned, how can 
we help the SBA help our small businesses?
    Mr. Dodaro. Yes, Senator Rosen. First, we have developed a 
framework for helping agencies prevent fraud and how they could 
follow that process. Congress legislated GAO's framework be 
implemented in 2016. Unfortunately, a lot of agencies, 
including SBA, did not implement that legislation as intended. 
They were supposed to designate an entity to focus full-time on 
anti-fraud activities, do fraud risk assessments.
    SBA, just in February 2022, designated their anti-fraud 
agency, after I recommended again during the pandemic. They 
have done their first risk assessments, but it is all done 
after all the money has been spent.
    There were expectations that these things be addressed 
before the pandemic occurred, but the agencies did not move. 
There needs to be more assertive encouragement, both from OMB 
and the Congress, to focus on this going forward.
    SBA also resisted overtures that I made early in the 
pandemic to help them. During the global financial crisis we 
worked with the Treasury Department to put in internal controls 
right in the beginning of the Troubled Asset Relief Program 
(TARP). They were able to get a clean audit opinion. We got 
most of the money back from the banks.
    SBA did not heed any of our recommendations. We even had 
difficulty getting information out of SBA on who was getting 
the loans initially. I had to go to the Congress and try to get 
support from the Congress to get basic information out of them. 
I have talked to every administrator that has been there. It is 
better now than it had been. But in the beginning they needed 
to accept some help, and they needed help but they rebuffed it.
    I think the lesson to me out of this thing is that it is 
better if Congress, in legislating future emergency spending, 
make it very clear about how the agency is to accept 
recommendations from the oversight community and get some help, 
because we all have, collectively, lots of experience. We could 
have helped them avoid a lot of these pitfalls, and they need 
to aggressively implement and deal with these fundamental 
management weaknesses ahead of time.
    Senator Rosen. I think you are exactly right. No time to 
waste. When there is a crisis we need to have an all-hands-on-
deck approach in order to do the right thing, particularly by 
taxpayer dollars.
    I know that all of my colleagues ahead of me talked a lot 
about unemployment, and so I am not going to belabor the point 
about that. But we know there was some fraud in unemployment. 
Of course, there are always people who try to game the system, 
whatever the system.
    Mr. Turner, could you talk about how fraud may have 
threatened not just the taxpayer dollars but how it could have 
slowed down legitimate applications? Because I know in Nevada 
we had people who legitimately were waiting for their 
unemployment, and the system, of course, was flooded with so 
many others. How does fraud impact people who really deserve to 
get it, like in my State of Nevada, and, of course, these 
outdated systems, maybe what role that had to play in it?
    Mr. Turner. What it did, it delays those claims, is 
actually what happens. I think the Department shoots for trying 
to get claims out at 87 percent by 14 to 21 days. And so that 
did not occur in the first couple of months, due to fraudulent 
attempts. That was part of the challenge. It slowed the actual 
people that needed those benefits from actually getting them.
    We did some work on that and we found out--and we actually 
put out an alert on that, to the Department, because we were 
concerned about, obviously the goal is to get those out very 
swiftly, and when that does not happen then you have people 
that are actually losing homes and other things like that.
    The Department also identified, a few months later, that 
out of 53 entities, only five had met that requirement of 
getting it out in 14 to 21 days. So that is a challenge the 
Department understood, and we did make them aware of through 
our audit reports.
    Senator Rosen. Thank you. As I said, as a former computer 
programmer systems analyst, I want to have nimble systems that 
collects the data and supplies the data to all of us to do the 
appropriate audits. Because data tells a story if you know how 
to analyze it correctly. This is case, again, for IT 
modernization, for us to be nimble, to help us all do our jobs 
better.
    I thank you all for being here today. It is a really 
important discussion. I thank you for your work and your 
insight, and ensuring the effective use of the nearly $7 
trillion in COVID-19 funds. It was no easy task. But we look 
forward to working with each of the witnesses here today on 
critical steps to ensuring that taxpayer dollars are spent 
efficiently and effectively, because they deliver critical 
services to the American people. The testimony we have heard 
today will help inform our legislative efforts and I appreciate 
it.
    The record for this hearing will remain open for 15 days, 
until 5 p.m. on April 1, 2022, for the submission of statements 
and questions for the record.
    This hearing is now adjourned. Thank you.
    [Whereupon, at 12:18 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

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