[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                         A FOCUS ON MANAGEMENT:
                       OVERSIGHT OF THE OFFICE OF
                         MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET

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

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                              COMMITTEE ON
                      OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY
                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION
                               __________

                             APRIL 30, 2024
                               __________

                           Serial No. 118-105
                               __________

  Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability
  
  
                  [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]  


                       Available on: govinfo.gov,
                         oversight.house.gov or
                             docs.house.gov
                             
                               __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
                    
55-546 PDF                WASHINGTON : 2024   


               COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY

                    JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman

Jim Jordan, Ohio                     Jamie Raskin, Maryland, Ranking 
Mike Turner, Ohio                        Minority Member
Paul Gosar, Arizona                  Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of 
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina            Columbia
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin            Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Michael Cloud, Texas                 Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia
Gary Palmer, Alabama                 Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Clay Higgins, Louisiana              Ro Khanna, California
Pete Sessions, Texas                 Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
Andy Biggs, Arizona                  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York
Nancy Mace, South Carolina           Katie Porter, California
Jake LaTurner, Kansas                Cori Bush, Missouri
Pat Fallon, Texas                    Shontel Brown, Ohio
Byron Donalds, Florida               Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania            Robert Garcia, California
William Timmons, South Carolina      Maxwell Frost, Florida
Tim Burchett, Tennessee              Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia      Greg Casar, Texas
Lisa McClain, Michigan               Jasmine Crockett, Texas
Lauren Boebert, Colorado             Dan Goldman, New York
Russell Fry, South Carolina          Jared Moskowitz, Florida
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida           Rashida Tlaib, Michigan
Nick Langworthy, New York            Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Eric Burlison, Missouri
Mike Waltz, Florida

                                 ------                                
                       Mark Marin, Staff Director
       Jessica Donlon, Deputy Staff Director and General Counsel
                      Peter Warren, Senior Advisor
                      Bill Womack, Senior Advisor
                Sarah Feeney, Professional Staff Member
                 Alex Rankin, Professional Staff Member
      Mallory Cogar, Deputy Director of Operations and Chief Clerk

                      Contact Number: 202-225-5074

                  Julie Tagen, Minority Staff Director
                      Contact Number: 202-225-5051
                                 ------                                

                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              ----------                              

                                                                   Page

Hearing held on April 30, 2024...................................     1

                               WITNESSES

                              ----------                              
The Honorable Jason Miller, Deputy Director for Management, 
  Office of Management and Budget
    Oral Statement...............................................     6

 Opening statements and the prepared statements for the witnesses 
  are available in the U.S. House of Representatives Repository 
  at: docs.house.gov.

                           INDEX OF DOCUMENTS

                              ----------                              

  * Statement for the Record; submitted by Rep. Connolly.

  * Article, Axios, ``Ex Trump Aide to lead WH Office of 
  Personnel''; submitted by Rep. Crockett.

  * Article, Washington Business Journal, ``Benefits of PLAs 
  Along with the Myths''; submitted by Rep. Raskin.

  * Article, Center on American Progress, ``How PLAs and 
  Community Workforce Agreements are Good for Biden Agenda''; 
  submitted by Rep. Raskin.

  * Article, Economic Policy Institute, ``PLAs on Fed 
  Construction Projects Benefit 200k Workers''; submitted by Rep. 
  Raskin.

  * Questions for the Record: to Mr. Miller; submitted by 
  Chairman Comer.

  * Questions for the Record: to Mr. Miller; submitted by Rep. 
  Cloud.

  * Questions for the Record: to Mr. Miller; submitted by Rep. 
  Palmer.

  * Questions for the Record: to Mr. Miller; submitted by Rep. 
  Foxx.

  * Questions for the Record: to Mr. Miller; submitted by Rep. 
  Biggs.

  * Questions for the Record: to Mr. Miller; submitted by Rep. 
  Mace.

  * Questions for the Record: to Mr. Miller; submitted by Rep. 
  Perry.

  * Questions for the Record: to Mr. Miller; submitted by Rep. 
  Raskin.

  * Questions for the Record: to Mr. Miller; submitted by Rep. 
  Connolly.

The documents listed are available at: docs.house.gov.

 
                         A FOCUS ON MANAGEMENT:
            OVERSIGHT OF THE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET

                              ----------                              


                        Tuesday, April 30, 2024

                     U.S. House of Representatives

               Committee on Oversight and Accountability

                                           Washington, D.C.

    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:09 a.m., in 
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. James Comer 
[Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Comer, Foxx, Grothman, Cloud, 
Palmer, Higgins, Sessions, Biggs, Mace, Perry, Timmons, 
Burchett, Burlison, Raskin, Lynch, Connolly, Krishnamoorthi, 
Brown, Stansbury, Frost, Lee, Crockett, Goldman, Tlaib, and 
Pressley.
    Chairman Comer. This hearing of the Committee on Oversight 
and Accountability will come to order. I want to welcome 
everyone here today.
    Without objection, the Chair may declare a recess at any 
time.
    Before I recognize myself for the purpose of making an 
opening statement--OK, I will begin with my opening statement 
now, and I was going to recognize Mr. Sessions here in a 
moment.
    This morning, we are here to review how the Federal 
Government is being run. Government performance impacts all 
Americans in one way or another, whether it is securing the 
border, issuing Social Security checks, or processing student 
financial aid forms. The Federal Government is the Nation's 
largest employer, with a 2 million strong civilian workforce 
headquartered here in Washington, DC. Each year those employees 
administer nearly $2 trillion in grants and contracts. They 
operate and secure a vast network of Federal information 
systems and perform myriad other functions to keep the 
government's gears turning.
    So, who is in charge of this operation? As much as any 
single individual, it is today's witness, Jason Miller, the 
Deputy Director for Management at the White House Office of 
Management and Budget. The management side of OMB, which Mr. 
Miller leads, advises and oversees the execution of the 
President's management agenda. That is the blueprint for how 
the President wants the government run: how to manage the 
workforce, the contracts, the IT, and the finances. OMB works 
with individual Federal agencies to ensure that vision is 
executed across the government.
    The government exists to serve the American people, so it 
should always be managed with their best interest in mind. My 
constituents and those of the other Members of this Committee 
want government services delivered efficiently and effectively, 
and they do not want to pay for unnecessary overhead. I think 
we can all surely agree on that. We can probably also agree 
that to run efficiently, any large organization today must make 
data-driven decisions to ensure efficiency and cost-
effectiveness, and the Biden Administration claims to be using 
data base management, but it is not showing its work. A prime 
example is telework.
    At the onset of the COVID pandemic, massive Federal 
employee telework was a justifiable necessity. That necessity 
ended long ago, long ago, yet massive telework continues under 
the Biden Administration, who is intent on making it a 
permanent fixture of Federal work life. How do we know that 
this is in the best interest of the public? The only data we 
have seen on that is a survey of Federal employees themselves. 
They think it is working great. I am sure they do. And it came 
as a surprise to Committee Members that when the OPM director 
appeared before us to testify last year, she was unable to 
answer basic questions about how many Federal employees were 
going into their offices. How can telework levels be data 
driven if you do not even know how many employees are 
teleworking?
    Since that OPM hearing, we have been requesting telework-
related information from agencies, including what evidence they 
possess that agency productivity is maximized by elevated 
levels of telework. In other words, how are Americans 
benefiting from Federal employees staying at home? The 
collective responses were limited. They gave no assurance 
whatsoever that these policies are data driven or otherwise 
designed with the best interest of the public in mind. So, what 
is driving them?
    Federal employee unions seem to be a major driver. The fact 
is, the President himself said 2 years ago in his State of the 
Union address that Federal workers would return to their 
offices, and the White House Chief of Staff has sent a few 
emails to agency heads prodding them to increase in-person 
work, but unions have continued to push back. Half of recent 
union grievance cases before the Federal Service Impasses Panel 
dealt with telework or similar workplace issues like hoteling 
or shared workspaces in Federal offices. The Administration 
often speaks of empowering Federal workers and their unions, 
and it has taken tangible steps to increase the strength of 
these unions. Well, they seem to have some muscle, and it is 
being flexed to resist the limited, belated attempts the 
Administration has made to get government employees back to 
work.
    To be clear, it is not just Federal employee unions that 
the White House caters to in its management agenda. Unions 
operating in the private sector are also benefiting at the 
public's expense. We see that in the way Federal contract 
dollars are being managed. For instance, the White House issued 
an executive order requiring Federal contracting agencies to 
mandate project labor agreements or PLAs on Federal 
construction projects worth $35 million or more. PLAs 
essentially require that union workers perform all labor on a 
project. This discriminates against the non-union majority of 
the construction workforce, and it drives up project costs to 
taxpayers by 12 to 20 percent. By one estimate, this PLA policy 
will impact at least 180 Federal construction projects valued 
at $16 billion.
    In December, OMB issued a memo concerning the PLA executive 
order, and our witness today, Mr. Miller, was among the White 
House officials who met last month with major union 
representatives at a roundtable on PLAs. I am glad Mr. Miller 
is taking the time to meet with us today to have this important 
discussion where we can work together to ensure that our 
government is being well managed.
    With that, I now yield to the Ranking Member for his 
opening statement.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Did you want to go to 
Mr. Sessions first?
    Chairman Comer. Yes, thank you. Before I yield to Ranking 
Member Raskin, I want to take a moment to offer my condolences 
to our colleague, Chairman Sessions, on the loss of his 
district director and, more importantly, his longtime friend, 
Kevin Burnette. I learned of Kevin's passing yesterday, and I 
know it came as a shock to you, Mr. Sessions, your staff, and 
all those who knew Kevin. So, on behalf of this Committee, I 
want to offer my thoughts and prayers to you and especially 
Kevin's wife, Pat, and his daughters, Anna Grace and Callie.
    Mr. Sessions. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. Mr. 
Burnette and I have been friends with each other since 1976. He 
served as our district director with honor and distinction, 
with balance and grace. And while none of us saw this coming, 
the good Lord stepped into Kevin on Sunday night, and we are 
all in shock. And I want to thank you and my colleagues who 
have all expressed to me the loss not only of a district 
director, but a dear, dear, dear, great and good, fine young 
man. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Comer. Thank you. We will be thinking of him. Now 
the Chair recognizes the Ranking Member, Mr. Raskin, for his 
opening statement.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and on behalf of the 
Minority, Mr. Sessions, we want to send you our sympathy and 
our love on the untimely loss of Mr. Burnette. And I never had 
the opportunity to meet him, but he sounds like just an 
extraordinary and wonderful man, and we know you have lost not 
just your district chief, but a close friend, and so our hearts 
are with you.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Deputy Director Miller, 
for appearing today.
    OMB sets the policies that guide executive branch agencies 
on how to spend the money that Congress appropriates. It is OMB 
that turns Administration policy priorities into the direct 
service of our constituents and our communities. So, what we 
are talking about today is the essential mechanics of how the 
Federal Government works and how it should work, how to ensure 
that government services reach all eligible recipients, how to 
prevent and detect and reduce improper access to Federal 
programs, and how to recruit and maintain the safety of the 2 
million-plus people across America who comprise the largest and 
most diversely talented and skilled workforce in our country.
    Under the Biden-Harris Administration, OMB has made 
excellent strides in modernizing and revitalizing a Federal 
Government that was demoralized and gutted after 4 years of 
undermining and mismanagement. When he was in office, ex-
President Trump used OMB not as the transmission belt for 
getting government services to the people, but as the 
instrument for personal vendettas against enemies in the public 
sector workforce as a whole. As Deputy Director Miller affirms 
in his testimony today, OMB is now using data and feedback from 
stakeholders across America to ensure that its guidance is 
always rooted in facts and the demands of pragmatic public 
policy, not ideological litmus tests and political loyalty 
tests.
    OMB's guidance and policies today are transforming how we 
interact with government. OMB is improving how our communities 
access Federal funding, including grants and loans. It is 
ensuring that Federal agencies use artificial intelligence 
equitably and ethically. OMB is setting excellent government-
wide policies on recruiting and retaining a qualified Federal 
workforce. Federal workers provide medical care to veterans, 
they respond to natural disasters, and they ensure the safety 
of the Nation's food supply. They show up every day to provide 
essential services, and OMB is transforming the way the Federal 
workforce thinks about serving the people and improving access 
to government programs and services.
    Here is a great example of the kind of innovation that is 
taking place. The IRS has launched the incredibly successful 
Direct File pilot, which allows taxpayers in several states to 
easily and quickly file their taxes directly with the IRS at no 
cost. The trick is that the IRS guides you through filling out 
your Form 1040 with all of your basic W-2 information, which is 
the major or only income that most people have to report. 
Taxpayers with additional questions about Direct File access 
customer service representatives directly for help, but in 
other words, the government comes to act as your tax preparer. 
People should not have to pay exorbitant fees to private 
companies for help filing a straightforward tax return. OMB is 
leading other similar government-wide efforts to reduce the 
cost and frustration of interacting with government. I look 
forward to the day soon, I hope, when we will have Direct File 
for the whole country and people will be able to open up a note 
from the IRS with their tax forms pre-populated. That is 
information that the government has.
    Another critical way that individuals, businesses, and 
communities interact with government is through the Federal 
grants process. In Fiscal Year 2024 thus far, for example, 
state and local government entities, non-profits, and local 
businesses in Texas, for example, received more than $29 
billion in grants just from the Department of Health and Human 
Services. Despite all these investments, the reporting 
requirements and the complicated process required to secure 
Federal funding have slowed down access and innovation and kept 
many communities from getting critical funding. But OMB's 
updated guidance puts grant applicants, the people who we are 
elected to serve, in the driver's seat and adapts the 
capabilities of today's technology to modern-day constituent 
expectations.
    When OMB announced this new guidance last month, the chief 
of the Division of Fiscal Management for Montgomery County, 
Maryland, which I represent, spoke at the event and said, 
``Plain language, accessible information, and reduction in 
burdensome closeout requirements allows for those of us in 
local government to have broader and clearer conversations on 
grant implementation through our organizations.'' As I am sure 
the distinguished Chairman can confirm, residents from Kentucky 
have also appreciated and lauded this new guidance, along with 
my constituents in Maryland. In the comment process for this 
new guidance, I noticed a consultant from Fort Knox, who helps 
museums, zoos, parks, and other cultural centers, who commented 
that the new guidance would reduce the burdens placed on 
nonprofits, allowing them to devote energies more toward doing 
the work that directly fulfills their missions.
    The National Council of Nonprofits said that OMB's new 
guidance is welcomed by the nonprofit community, particularly 
the improvements that reduce administrative burdens and require 
agencies to use plain language. Other nonprofit groups welcomed 
OMB's updated guidance as well. I look forward to hearing more 
today about how OMB has modernized and updated its grants 
guidance to simplify the process for all of the communities and 
constituents that we serve.
    I also look forward to hearing from Deputy Director Miller 
about how we can work together to make Federal programs even 
more effective by preventing fraud and waste in Federal 
spending. Earlier this month, I was proud to introduce the 
Government Spending Oversight Act of 2024, which would make 
more permanent the inspector general community's ability to 
identify and to ferret out fraud in Federal programs.
    Also very importantly, I want to highlight the vital role 
that a nonpartisan, merit-based Federal workforce plays for our 
country. The rejected Schedule F proposal would remove experts 
and replace them with an army of sycophants, and that proposal 
would disproportionately affect OMB's workforce. Under the ex-
President's plan, nearly 70 percent of our nonpolitical 
workforce could have been fired simply because they did their 
jobs and followed their oath to defend the Constitution. 
Although President Biden has taken steps to prevent a future 
similar attack on our civil service, we cannot forget that an 
expert and nonpartisan Federal workforce is essential to a 
functioning democratic government.
    With that, I look forward to hearing testimony this morning 
from Deputy Director Miller. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Comer. The Ranking Member yields back. Today, we 
are joined by Jason Miller, the Deputy Director for Management 
at the Office of Management and Budget, where he serves as the 
Federal Government's chief operating officer. In this role, Mr. 
Miller coordinates management initiatives touching on all 
aspects of government operations, including, but not limited 
to, personnel and telework policies, grants management, 
procurement, agency IT modernization, and agency use of 
artificial intelligence. Prior to his role in the Biden White 
House, Mr. Miller served on the National Economic Council in 
the Obama Administration.
    Pursuant to Committee Rule 9(g), the witness will please 
stand and raise his right hand.
    Do you solemnly swear that the testimony that you are about 
to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the 
truth, so help you God?
    Mr. Miller. I do.
    Chairman Comer. Let the record show the witness answered in 
the affirmative. Thank you. You may take a seat.
    We certainly appreciate you being here, Mr. Miller, and 
look forward to your testimony. Let me remind the witness that 
we have read your opening statement, and it will appear in full 
in the hearing record. Please limit your oral statement to 5 
minutes. As a reminder, please press the button on the 
microphone in front of you so that it is on, and the Members 
can hear you. When you begin to speak, the light in front of 
you will turn green. After 4 minutes, the light will turn 
yellow. When the red light comes on, your 5 minutes have 
expired, and we would ask that you please wrap it up.
    I now recognize Deputy Director Miller for his opening 
statement.

                       STATEMENT OF JASON MILLER

                     DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR MANAGEMENT

                  U.S. OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET

    Mr. Miller. Thank you, Chairman Comer, Ranking Member 
Raskin, and Members of the Committee for the opportunity to 
testify today. As the Deputy Director for Management at the 
Office of Management and Budget, I am responsible for 
overseeing government-wide management matters and ensuring that 
the Federal Government has the tools and processes to deliver 
for the American people.
    Upon taking office, the Biden-Harris Administration 
confronted historic crises: a raging pandemic and an economy 
that had lost millions of jobs, requiring strong, immediate 
execution by Federal agencies while they strengthened and 
rebuilt. In response, this Administration has focused our 
management efforts on strengthening the Federal workforce, 
improving service delivery and customer experience, and 
protecting taxpayer funds.
    First, the Federal Government's most important asset in 
delivering performance is its people, its workforce. Federal 
civil servants across the Nation have chosen to serve our 
country, but too often public discourse politicizes government 
personnel to the detriment of government performance, which, in 
turn, negatively impacts the American people they serve. For 
effective performance, we also need strong and healthy 
organizations. That is why last April, OMB issued guidance 
calling for agencies to substantially increase meaningful in-
person work at Federal offices, particularly at headquarters 
and equivalents. Federal agencies are moving toward a posture 
where telework-eligible teams are working in-person at the 
office at least half of their hours. OMB will continue to push 
agencies to complete implementation.
    Second, most Americans experience their government through 
the services that Federal agencies deliver. Under President 
Biden, the Administration has established the importance of 
simple, secure customer experiences. We have made substantial 
progress, but significant work remains. OMB's role includes 
driving an annual improvement process for our largest service 
providers. Amongst many actions over the last year, the 
Administration has made it easier for Americans to file their 
taxes, reducing wait times on call lines from 28 minutes in 
2022 to just 3 minutes this year, and piloting Direct File, a 
new, free, and simple digital solution for tax filing; issued 
the highest numbers of passports in a year while bringing the 
service commitment back down to pre-pandemic norms and piloting 
online passport renewals; reduced paperwork burdens for farmers 
applying for loans to USDA by more than half; and expanding the 
VA app so millions of veterans have simpler, more accessible 
tools to obtain health and benefits services.
    Third, the Biden-Harris Administration has worked to ensure 
taxpayers get the best bang for their buck. On Federal 
procurement, our efforts have resulted in more than $40 billion 
in savings and cost avoidance, and OMB launched the Better 
Contracting Initiative, which we estimate will result in at 
least $10 billion more per year in savings and cost avoidance. 
On program integrity, the Administration has taken significant 
action to address the fraud we inherited in pandemic relief 
programs. Those actions included reinstalling basic controls, 
rebuilding the relationship with the oversight community, and 
strengthening systems to prevent fraud. These actions, combined 
with the President's comprehensive anti-fraud proposal, would 
have prevented a substantial amount of the fraud experienced 
early in the pandemic.
    On Federal financial assistance, earlier this month, OMB 
announced an overhaul of the Uniform Grants Guidance to 
streamline requirements on Federal funds, cutting red tape so 
recipients focus on outcomes, not overhead, while strengthening 
the ability to safeguard these funds. On Made in America, OMB 
created a first-ever Made in America Office, increased the 
share of Federal procurement to domestic workers and 
businesses, and implemented Build America Buy America 
requirements, which expand domestic content requirements to all 
Federal infrastructure. As part of the President's strategy to 
strengthen domestic manufacturing and supply chains, this 
approach is working, with more than $600 billion in private 
investment to American manufacturing. And enabling all this 
work requires modern and secure technology systems. OMB has 
worked to accelerate the retirement and migration of legacy IT 
systems, strengthen technical talent in Federal agencies, raise 
standards for cybersecurity through OMB's zero trust strategy, 
and prepare agencies to harness the opportunities and mitigate 
the risks of artificial intelligence.
    We have delivered real results for the American people, but 
there is much more work to do. I look forward to continuing to 
work with Congress across these management priorities.
    Chairman Comer. Thank you. Now we will begin the 
questioning phase of the hearing. I recognize Mr. Grothman from 
Wisconsin for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Grothman. Thank you. A while back, I had a staffer 
leave me, really, a sharp guy, and I asked him for comments on 
what we could do to improve the office. And like a lot of 
offices, we went through a period of telework during the COVID, 
and he was critical of it. He felt he was a great worker, as 
good as he could be, but when you are at home, as soon as the 
kids are around, as soon as the dogs are around, it is hard to 
really be honest and say you are getting as much done as you 
would be without it. In your opinion, is widespread Federal 
telework as effective, efficient, and good for the taxpayer as 
in-person work?
    Mr. Miller. Congressman, thank you. And as you noted, it 
was an important tool during the pandemic to navigate through 
that for some of the Federal workforce. It is important to put 
in context the Federal workforce. About half of Federal workers 
have to be at a worksite to perform their job responsibilities.
    Mr. Grothman. Right.
    Mr. Miller. Our approach in early 2023 was to release 
guidance to agencies to substantially increase the amount of 
in-person work. The purpose of that approach was to strengthen 
teams and organizations, make sure that we had strong culture, 
make sure that we had innovative teams, make sure that we are 
able to bring people on board. For office workers, the place 
where there is consistency across different agencies, we have 
been clear that our expectation is agencies are achieving at 
least 50 percent while giving them flexibility for how to 
deliver based upon their diverse mission space. That is 
consistent with where the private sector is, and we are going 
to continue to adjust as needed. We should compete for talent. 
We should be able to measure performance.
    Mr. Grothman. OK. So, you are saying a good target is half 
the people going to work every day?
    Mr. Miller. Our expectation is for office workers, 
headquarters and equivalents, that agencies are achieving at 
least 50 percent. To the extent they want to adjust to levels 
above that, we give them that flexibility. We set that target 
because it is consistent with where the private sector is. We 
think, given where the market is, that is the right answer.
    Mr. Grothman. I will ask you again. Do you feel Federal 
telework is effective, efficient, and as good for the taxpayer 
as in-person work, in your own opinion?
    Mr. Miller. I think that agencies have the ability to 
deliver on effective and efficient telework.
    Mr. Grothman. You do not want to answer that question. The 
White House Chief of Staff, Jeff Zients, sent an email to the 
Cabinet leadership in August 2023 calling for agency heads to 
aggressively increase in-person work, stating that doing so is 
a priority for President Biden. His email said that doing so 
would allow the executive branch to deliver better results for 
the American people by improving teamwork and productivity. 
Does Mr. Zients' email imply that teamwork and productivity 
within the Federal workforce had been negatively impacted by 
widespread telework?
    Mr. Miller. Thank you. The rationale for our approach to 
substantially increase in-person work was because we believed 
an amount of in-person work is critical for healthy teams. We 
have seen that in the private sector. We want that in our 
organizations going forward. We are trying to also make sure 
that leadership is focused on it, so it is not a check-the-box 
exercise. We want to make sure at least half of hours for 
comparable work is in-person based upon what we see in the 
market and what we have seen on the evolving research. We think 
that is the right answer that balances the flexibility, that 
gives strength to our teams, that increases employee 
engagement, and allows us to compete for talent.
    Mr. Grothman. So, that is the permanent state of affairs 
now for the Federal Government, half? Your average guy or, I 
will say even, management where I think it is even more 
relevant--is your policy for management of teams that they are 
there half the time and half the time they do not have to be?
    Mr. Miller. Our policy is for agencies to achieve at least 
and make sure that they are adjusting----
    Mr. Grothman. Well, again, I will narrow it down to 
management positions. I mean, in my opinion, it is more 
important for management to be there than someone else, OK? So, 
then management is kind of overlooking things. Are you 
satisfied if management only comes in half the time?
    Mr. Miller. Our focus is making sure that agencies have 
policies that are geared toward performance. If being in-person 
more for the management team improves their performance, that 
is exactly what they should do.
    Mr. Grothman. OK. I mentioned that the last email from Mr. 
Zients was January 19, 2024, pretty late in the game. Do you 
feel that your progress toward getting people back to work in-
person is slower than desired? I mean, it seems to me like the 
COVID is ancient history right now, and I think that email 
dated January 2024, kind of recent. Does it imply that things 
are going slower than your expectations were?
    Mr. Miller. We expect agencies to completely follow through 
on their implementation, and we will hold them accountable for 
that.
    Mr. Grothman. OK. I will just make one more comment. I do 
feel that in government, sometimes they do not realize the 
degree to which in the private sector, in many areas, everybody 
was back to work, OK? And when I go home at night, it is kind 
of a stereotype, but I got Wisconsin, I got all these cheese 
factories I drive by, depending upon which way I go home. They 
were all packed even at 1 in the morning, you know? So, I just 
want to emphasize that I think in many private sector jobs, 
they were showing up at work in the teeth of the epidemic, and 
we should be back to where we want to be. Thank you.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Raskin for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The government 
distributes $1.2 trillion a year in grants and loans through 
thousands of different programs that go out to the states and 
localities and tribal governments. All of us have constituents 
who benefit from Federal grant money going to fire safety, 
healthcare, domestic violence programs, afterschool programs, 
and so on. Traditionally, it has been very difficult to apply 
to get this money. The application process has been opaque, 
elusive, inscrutable, incomprehensible, poorly written, lots of 
unnecessary administrative burdens, and so on. But earlier this 
month, you announced significant updates to the OMB's uniform 
grants guidance process, and we have been getting rave reviews 
from different parts of the country about this.
    Tell us, what are the changes that you have made to the 
uniform grants process to make it more transparent and 
accessible to the mayors and the county commissioners and the 
people who end up applying for a lot of this money?
    Mr. Miller. Ranking Member Raskin, thank you for the 
question, and we were appreciative of having a Montgomery 
County resident speak at our event. OMB does not typically hold 
events when we announce new government-wide policy. We had 
about 10,000 people join on this event, and we had a packed 
room, over 150 people in the room, given the broad excitement 
across every single state.
    The first thing we did was completely overwrite the grants 
guidance in plain language. Why does that matter? Agencies were 
interpreting specific components of it in different ways. So, 
that meant a recipient who had grants from two different places 
was getting two sets of requirements from two different 
agencies on the same words, or agencies were layering on 
compliance requirements that was discouraging people from ever 
even applying for Federal funds. The second thing is we are 
using this overhaul to also change our approach to notices of 
funding opportunities, NOFOs. We are trying to dramatically 
simplify them. We should give out dollars to the organizations 
that can best deliver on outcomes, not the organizations that 
can afford experts who can best fill out the paperwork to apply 
for those grants.
    Mr. Raskin. Is this going to help communities that have 
been traditionally underserved?
    Mr. Miller. Absolutely.
    Mr. Raskin. Why?
    Mr. Miller. We expect it will. We think the simplification 
of the process will open the door to more organizations. We 
like to say we want the dollars to focus on outcomes, not 
overhead. That will bring in more organizations who have 
traditionally thought that government funding was not an 
available resource for them. We have tried to make clear 
requirements from agencies to simplify. And by the way, we did 
this with the oversight community, so this was done in a way to 
also strengthen the safeguards we have in place while 
broadening the pool of potential applicants.
    Mr. Raskin. The Schedule F proposal would permit the 
President to replace career government workers and experts with 
political loyalists. Can you discuss what the return of 
Schedule F could do to the civil service and how it would 
affect the services to our people?
    Mr. Miller. Ranking Member Raskin, thank you. This is an 
important topic. Again, for well-performing organizations, 
whether in the private sector or the public sector, the most 
important thing is its workforce. We have for 140 years had an 
approach focused on experience and expertise, a merit-based 
system. Schedule F would have undermined that very system. We 
want to make sure that the people within our agencies bring 
experience and expertise irrespective of their personal 
political views or who sits in the White House so that we can 
deliver.
    We have leaders in positions that are the decision-makers. 
The workforce is accountable to their managers and to the 
leaders. The approach that we have taken, the first week the 
President reversed that through executive order, would 
strengthen. The return of Schedule F would have a significant 
chilling effect on our ability to retain and to recruit talents 
in a broad range of spaces, including critical skill areas the 
Federal Government badly needs.
    Mr. Raskin. Finally, I am looking at some data from the 
Congressional Budget Office, which shows that percentage of 
employees working to who typically work from home is actually 
higher in the private sector than in the Federal Government, 
although they are comparable to each other, it looks like 
around 20 or 25 percent, but both have been declining since 
COVID. Is that right?
    Mr. Miller. I am not familiar with the specifics. Again, 
about half of the Federal Government does not even have the 
opportunity to telework based upon their job requirements. 
There are some workers who are telework eligible that do not 
because it is not in the best interest of their teams and their 
organizations.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much. I yield back, Mr. 
Chairman.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Palmer from 
Alabama for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Palmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Miller, Federal 
News Network surveys over 6,300 Federal employees. Only six 
percent were entirely in office. There was an article in the 
last few days that showed the Department of Agriculture has 
space for 7,400 employees, but only 456 are actually coming 
into work. That is six percent. It is consistent with what 
Federal News Network survey found. OMB put out a memo 
encouraging people come back to work basically saying that you 
wanted purposeful, well planned in-person work. President Biden 
put out a memo telling people to return to the office. Why 
hasn't that been implemented?
    Mr. Miller. Thank you, Congressman. It is important that 
our agencies have policies that do----
    Mr. Palmer. No, I am not going to let you lobby. I want you 
to do your job. I want you to answer questions, and the 
question I asked is, why haven't those policies been 
implemented? I do not want you to try to filibuster this.
    Mr. Miller. Agencies are currently implementing where we 
are today as a Federal Government. Again, 50 percent of our 
workforce is not eligible for telework based upon where they 
are. We measure----
    Mr. Palmer. But why only six percent of the----
    Mr. Miller. Agencies are required to measure hours. Part of 
our guidance told agencies that they have to have monitoring 
systems in place.
    Mr. Palmer. OK. Why are there only 456 employees showing up 
at the Department of Agriculture?
    Mr. Miller. I would have to direct you to USDA about their 
specific numbers.
    Mr. Palmer. OK. Let me ask you something else. In 2019, 
Congress enacted the Foundations for Evidence-Based 
Policymaking Act, otherwise known as the Open Government Data 
Act. That is 5 years ago that that was enacted, and it was to 
make government transparent and accessible to public and 
private sector interests. But yet, here we are 5 years later, 
we still do not have the implementing guidance from OMB for 
Title II of the Open Government Data Act. What accounts for the 
delay in releasing the guidance?
    Mr. Miller. Congressman, we take implementation of the 
Evidence Act seriously. We have made a lot of progress. I have 
a team that reports to me that focuses----
    Mr. Palmer. Five years. Is that because you do not have 
enough people in the office or you are just incompetent?
    Mr. Miller. Congressman, again, evidence----
    Mr. Palmer. You have not implemented it in 5 years.
    Mr. Miller. Congressman----
    Mr. Palmer. Mr. Chairman, I bet we could write this in just 
a matter of days, the implementation guidance, but 5 years 
later, you have not done it. Why?
    Mr. Miller. Congressman, again, we have been implementing 
the Evidence Act. I would be happy to follow-up with you with 
concerns with respect to the guidance specifically. We have 
been strengthening evidence building in agencies. We have 
launched learning agendas, both for our management agenda and 
within agencies, to bring in research to evaluate programs in 
terms of transparency and Government performance.
    Mr. Palmer. Well, can you give me a date, a specific date 
that OMB will finalize and release the guidance?
    Mr. Miller. I would be happy to take that back and get back 
to you, Congressman.
    Mr. Palmer. OK. Will you get back to us in writing, via 
email, text message? You are going to run an ad? What are you 
going to do?
    Mr. Miller. I would be happy to take that back and follow-
up with you, yes.
    Mr. Palmer. All right.
    I want to ask you something else about this. I mean, I have 
sat here now and watched the Federal Government issue 
regulations, just a deluge of regulations and guidance, which 
is basically lawmaking bypassing Congress, yet 5 years later, 
you still have not been able to get the guidance written for a 
bill that we passed in 2019. I also want to ask you about, did 
OMB provide a strategic plan outlining the ways OMB would 
comply with the Executive Order 14019? Are you familiar with 
that?
    Mr. Miller. Not by the number, Congressman.
    Mr. Palmer. It is an executive order, direction to mobilize 
voters and submit your plans directly to the White House. Is 
OMB engaging in a voter turnout effort? Maybe I should put it 
that way.
    Mr. Miller. Got it. Thank you, Congressman. I am going to 
have to take that back. I am not familiar with the specifics.
    Mr. Palmer. And it is something I think we need to do 
additional work on. Mr. Chairman, it appears that we are using 
Federal resources for voter turnout efforts for the President. 
I yield back.
    Chairman Comer. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Palmer. The Chair 
now recognizes Mr. Lynch from Massachusetts.
    Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Miller, thank you 
for your willingness to come before this Committee and help us 
with our work.
    So, let us talk telework first. We have often been urged to 
have government work more like the private sector for a very 
long time. And we have seen in the private sector that the 
shift to telework, working from home, has transformed much of 
the business community in the private sector in major cities 
like New York City, Boston, Chicago, to the degree that 25 
percent of the office space now in New York City is vacant 
because the private sector sees the value in working from home, 
and so they are capitalizing on that. They do not need all of 
this expensive space now, and so they are operating more 
efficiently. This is the private sector. The private sector. In 
Boston, 23 percent vacancy rates in expensive office space with 
workers working from home. Is that something that the 
government might take a lesson from in terms of having workers 
work more efficiently from home?
    Mr. Miller. In crafting our government-wide guidance, we 
have followed very closely the research and actions by the 
private sector. Ultimately, we need to compete for talent. 
Right now, we have a major effort underway in trying to 
implement AI and strengthen our use of AI in the Federal 
Government. That is going to require competing with the private 
sector for talent. In crafting our approach, we want to give 
flexibility to agencies based upon their diverse mission needs, 
but absolutely, we need to compete, and right now the research 
suggests that where we are landing is the right answer, but of 
course we are going to be dynamic going forward.
    Mr. Lynch. That is great. Let us switch over to project 
labor agreements. We have had project labor agreements in this 
country for a long, long time. The Hoover Dam, one of the 
largest, it was the largest construction project in the history 
of this country at the time. The Hoover Dam was a PLA, and the 
challenge for the authority building that project was to get as 
many workers as possible who were skilled. It was sort of a 
remote location. They had to get as many workers there. They 
wanted to have no work stoppages. They wanted to have high-
quality construction, and it was a multi-year project. This 
thing went on for 7 or 8 years.
    And so, the PLA model was a huge success in that project, 
and then the government started using it at other big and 
complex projects. As a union iron worker, and a former union 
president, I have been involved in multiple projects that have 
used PLAs, not just the government, but the private sector as 
well. I know there is a new Intel chip plant out in Ohio that 
is using a PLA to get as many workers as possible, and they 
have had great success there in recruiting workers. What are 
the advantages of using a PLA for the Federal Government?
    Mr. Miller. Yes. The Federal Government is a big buyer of 
large construction projects, and the simplest version is PLAs 
for public sector projects have been shown to bring down cost 
over time. It guarantees access to skilled talent. It meets the 
time requirements on projects--you do not have cost overruns at 
the same rate. It is just smart business for us to focus on 
encouraging agencies to leverage and utilize PLAs. I was in 
Cleveland with Congressman Brown announcing this effort on a 
$48 million construction project overhauling a major Federal 
building in downtown Cleveland using a PLA, which was done 
because we believe it will lower the cost of the project and 
deliver the project on time.
    Mr. Lynch. And in the long-term project, talking about 
apprenticeship programs, wouldn't that give a worker working on 
a 2-or 3-year project an opportunity to complete an 
apprenticeship program? So, not only have they been employed 
for 3 years, but at the end of that 3 years, they are a journey 
person. They are a young man or a young woman or maybe not so 
young, but coming out with a skill that can be redeployed and 
provide for a great career and a great quality of life.
    Mr. Miller. Absolutely. Absolutely. It is a win-win.
    Mr. Lynch. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Higgins from 
Louisiana.
    Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Miller, I am 
going to reference the Biden Executive Order 14063 from 
February 2022. The use of Project Labor Agreements for Federal 
construction projects is what we are going to discuss. Earlier, 
you stated you were not familiar with the executive order by 
number, so I am just clarifying. We are talking about the Biden 
Administration's mandate for Federal projects over $35 million 
to use labor unions. Are you familiar?
    Mr. Miller. I am.
    Mr. Higgins. OK. Good. Do you believe in state sovereignty, 
good sir? I am quite sure you are proud American.
    Mr. Miller. I am a proud American.
    Mr. Higgins. Thank you very much. We are happy to hear 
that. Do you believe in state sovereignty? Do you recognize the 
sovereignty of our states?
    Mr. Miller. Yes.
    Mr. Higgins. Absolutely. So, how would you in your position 
as a high officer within the Biden Administration, responsible 
for administering work and labor policies, how do you balance 
an executive order that mandates Federal projects, moving 
forward within the sovereign states, use labor unions when 24 
of our states like Louisiana, the right-to-work state, has 
specific laws or existing executive orders within that state 
specifically forbidding a mandate for projects to use labor 
unions? How do you balance an executive order? You are a proud 
American. You believe in state sovereignty. You have stated 
that. How would you support an executive order that overwrite 
state sovereignty?
    Mr. Miller. The specifics of the executive order directed 
the FAR Council----
    Mr. Higgins. I have read it.
    Mr. Miller. So, the FAR Council issued a rule encouraging 
PLAs. It is not a mandate. It is intended to promote 
competition.
    Mr. Higgins. It is most certainly a mandate. We are not 
going to get into the weeds about that. That is going to be 
argued in court, and we are going to win. But in the meantime, 
the Biden Administration has effectively shut down large 
Federal projects that had been long planned, permitted, 
authorized, and funded within 24 of our sovereign states. It is 
a massive transfer of wealth from red states, not just to blue 
states, but actually to labor unions within the blue states in 
an election year. We are going to sue. Many states coming 
together, we are going to sue. We are going to win. You know we 
are going to win, the Biden Administration knows we are going 
to win, but in the meantime, billions and billions of dollars 
will be transferred from red states, not just to blue states, 
but to labor unions and their entire organization machine 
within those blue states. Do you know, sir, or you should know, 
you know that about 80 percent of the American workforce is not 
union affiliated. What do you have to say to those 8 out of 10 
American workers that cannot work on these jobs in these 24 
states or elsewhere? What do you say to them?
    Mr. Miller. Congressman, the rulemaking encourages 
competition. It does not mandate that a construction project 
cannot move forward----
    Mr. Higgins. Well, you are a talking point fellow. Listen, 
I am an American. You are an American. I am an Army veteran. 
Are you a veteran?
    Mr. Miller. I am not, sir.
    Mr. Higgins. Oh, you are one of the civilians that I serve 
and protect.
    Mr. Miller. I appreciate your service.
    Mr. Higgins. So, this is just two Americans talking. What 
do you tell one of the 80 percent of American workforce that no 
longer qualifies to work on billions of dollars' worth of 
Federal projects? What would you tell that man? I am not asking 
you, Jamie. I am asking Mr. Miller.
    Mr. Miller. I want every single American to have access to 
skills and a high-quality job.
    Mr. Higgins. That is your answer? You want every American 
to have a high-quality job?
    Mr. Miller. Again, sir----
    Mr. Higgins. That is a talking point.
    Mr. Miller. Congressman----
    Mr. Higgins. How do you respond to the family that cannot 
work? You know what is going to happen? The Federal Government 
is going to push these states too far. If I was a Governor, I 
would seize those projects and put them 100 percent onto the 
sovereignty of my state. I would remove the Federal Government 
funding formula completely. Mr. Chairman, I yield.
    Chairman Comer. Very good. The gentleman yields back. The 
Chair now recognizes Ms. Brown from Ohio.
    Ms. Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As part of its duties, 
the Office of Management and Budget oversees the annual release 
of the President's budget, which includes funding and direction 
for the entire Federal workforce. The Federal Government is the 
largest employer in the United States with over 10,000 
employees alone in my district of Ohio's 11th congressional 
District. As a result, the Administration has a significant 
amount of leverage to promote changes in the workforce, making 
it more reflective for people of all backgrounds. Opportunities 
like remote or telework help increase diversity in the Federal 
workforce for people who face all types of barriers, like 
access to transportation, taking care of an aging relative, or 
having to pick up their children from school.
    We are living in a post-pandemic 21st century, and we 
should make the most of the incredible advantages technology 
provides us all. As you said in your testimony, Deputy Director 
Miller, ``It is in the interest of the American people to 
ensure that Federal jobs are attractive so that they can be 
filled by dedicated individuals with experience and 
expertise.'' So, Deputy Director, can you speak to how the 
Federal Government is competing for younger, diverse employees 
of all backgrounds with opportunities like telework and other 
aspects of hybrid work?
    Mr. Miller. Great, Congresswoman. It is good to see you.
    Ms. Brown. Thank you.
    Mr. Miller. And thank you for that question. We are 
competing for talent. We increasingly need a set of highly 
technical skills--that is one area that we are competing in. 
Also, our Federal workforce is older than the workforce 
overall. We have been particularly focused on increasing early 
career talent in the Federal workforce, we have grown that by 
13 percent, but we still have a long way to go. One of the ways 
that we are doing that is by trying to broaden the access to 
broader pools, broader talent pipelines across all of the 
country. If we are leaving some of the country on the bench and 
not giving them access, we are missing out on potential skills 
and expertise that could serve the American people in these 
roles.
    OPM recently took action to drive to encourage skills-based 
hiring within Federal agencies--that is also a shift that is 
happening in the private sector--so that we are moving away 
from purely degree attainment as a proof point for accessing 
jobs to do you have the skills to do the work and the ability 
and the energy to come in and serve people. You know, 
ultimately, the President says this, our Federal Government 
should reflect the people that it serves, and, frankly, I 
believe that that would strengthen our performance on an 
ongoing basis.
    Ms. Brown. Thank you for that. On June 25, 2021, President 
Biden signed the executive order on diversity, equity, 
inclusion, and accessibility in the Federal workforce. As part 
of the executive order, the President directed the Office of 
Management and Budget to develop and issue a government-wide 
diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility strategic plan, 
and, consistent with merit system principles, identify 
strategies to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and 
accessibility and eliminate barriers to equity and Federal 
workforce functions. So, Deputy Director Miller, can you speak 
to the progress on these efforts and how the Biden-Harris 
Administration is working to further diversity in the Federal 
workforce?
    Mr. Miller. Yes, absolutely. Thank you, Congresswoman. 
Again, making sure that we have access to a broader set of 
talents within our Federal agencies will strengthen Federal 
agencies. One of the places that we have also focused is on 
utilizing internships as a real pathway to bring people in. 
Recently, OPM finalized pathways regulation. That is the 
premier internship program with a major focus on increasing 
paid internships within the Federal Government that gives 
people from all backgrounds the ability to take on these roles. 
And we are encouraging and creating platforms for agencies to 
hire interns across agencies so that open roles can be filled 
by people who have proven their skills in an internship.
    Ms. Brown. Thank you. As a result of the executive order, 
you issued a memorandum last year to the heads of executive 
departments and agencies encouraging them to expand access to a 
diverse and resilient base of U.S. business suppliers for the 
Federal Government. I applaud this step to advance our national 
interests by promoting businesses which have been marginalized 
and yet provide essential, overlooked resources. So, how long 
has the Office of Management and Budget created a ``diverse and 
resilient marketplace for American small businesses?'' And 
finally, with my remaining time, I would yield you an 
opportunity to address any other questions my colleagues 
presented.
    Mr. Miller. Great.
    Ms. Brown. A challenge for you.
    Mr. Miller. Thank you. On small businesses--the President 
announced this yesterday--we achieved our goal of highest small 
business procurement on record, highest small, disadvantaged 
business procurement on record. That is important because our 
supply base has been declining over the last 10 years. And we 
want that diversity in our supply base so that we do not get 
locked into the same set of contractors on an ongoing basis, 
and we can make sure that we are high performing. We have got 
work to do, but we have made real progress and hit our goals 
thus far.
    Chairman Comer. The gentlelady's time has expired. The 
Chair now recognizes the Chairman of the Government Operations 
Subcommittee, Mr. Sessions, from Texas.
    Mr. Sessions. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. Mr. 
Miller, I greeted you and you greeted me very warmly when you 
came in, and thank you very much. I stated to you that I felt 
like today might be some opportunity for us to provide you 
feedback and you us. But I would not like the time to go by 
without saying that you and I agreed that we need to get 
together on really specifics on some of the conversation that 
is around here, for instance, whether we are looking for 
younger, diverse workforce, rather than qualified workforce. We 
are talking about all sorts of things that deal with 
internships, bringing people in, even though they really do not 
fit and cannot do the job.
    Exhibit A of that would be 18F, that organization within 
the GSA that came in of hiring young people to a job, for them 
to seek out what kind of opportunities would be in the 
government. And what happened was they created a front part to 
Login.gov that assured people that the person who signed in 
would be who they were based upon biometrics and other 
identifiers that they would qualify people. The IRS counted on 
it, the Social Security counted on it, and all sorts of other 
people. It was fraud.
    Last year, we had a hearing that was Members of this 
Committee on the Republican and Democratic side, flayed the 
government for this kind of a mission, that they would bring 
people in--that instead of being qualified, they would bring 
them in as internships and finding ways to get diversity and 
equity and inclusion. And this is not ``Howdy Doody'' time, Mr. 
Miller. This is a direct conversation that you are having with 
Members of Congress. That happens on a regular basis, whether 
it is about passports, the IRS, or other areas of running the 
Government. I do not want to pick on your words. I told you I 
did not want to do that, and I will not. But this is not 
something where you can say, in my opinion, that you have met 
your goals, when, in fact, the time at the Social Security 
office is well over an hour, the IRS well over an hour, 
hundreds of billions of dollars that this Congress gave to the 
IRS, this Administration, to fix problems. Now, at the end of 4 
years, we are struggling across the government.
    And what do we hear back? We hear back, well, we are 
meeting our goals. Well, if that is the best that can be done, 
that is why you and I had conversation up front. I think you 
have got to do better. I think to simply offer a parity that 
you do the same things like the private sector, I think that is 
wholly inadequate. And I had those conversations with the young 
Ambassador from the Passport Agency who did a great job on 
behalf of not just this Administration, but the American people 
when they turned around a disastrous circumstance that was 
built upon diversity, equity, and inclusion, was based on we 
will shut down these areas, and just go to a part-time 
workforce.
    Mr. Miller, I think you have got a big job, and I respect 
that. Mr. Miller, I think that you need to head back to the 
White House at some point today and say I do not think our plan 
was well received up on the Hill, and the reason why it was not 
is because the American people talk to us every day. And during 
the last eight or nine hearings that my Subcommittee has held, 
it has been a bipartisan tap dance on the face of every single 
Administration official who chose to come forward. So, we would 
like to put you on notice again. We think you can do better. If 
they are meeting the goals that you had established, you need 
to reassess that because the goals are not good to the American 
people.
    Last, I spent 16 years in the private sector. If we did not 
achieve what we needed to do, we were replaced. We did not ever 
do that with part-time people. We did it with qualified 
applicants, qualified applicants who understood what the 
American people would want and need. Last, there is a lot of 
conversation here about post-pandemic. Well, in Texas, we had 
people die also, and I am very sorry as COVID happened, but we 
went back to work. And we went back to work, and that is why we 
are in the hustle and bustle state that we are, that is growing 
exponentially, as a matter of fact, too fast. And I would 
suggest to you that some of these areas are more interested in 
trying to deal with internal problems that came from elected 
people rather than serving the people who they have.
    So, Mr. Miller, I look forward to you and I getting 
together. I want to thank you for your time today. I tried not 
to make this personal, but what I would say is, I think this 
Administration, going all the way up to the top, needs to 
reexamine and look at their policies that are causing the 
outcome. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, I yield back my 
time.
    Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes Ms. Lee from Pennsylvania.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chair. My community, like so many 
others across the country, relies on Federal money for vital 
investments. Through these Federal funding grants, we can see 
Federal ideas and support actual work on the local level to 
improve our constituents' livelihood. We know that improvements 
to infrastructure, affordable housing, STEM innovation, clean 
air and clean water, good-paying jobs, food insecurity, and so 
much more can be addressed or at least we can begin to address 
them through Federal grants.
    I am proud of my local research institutions, like Carnegie 
Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh, for bringing hundreds 
of millions of dollars back to the community to perform 
groundbreaking research, but we cannot forget the equally 
important smaller organizations that often have difficulty in 
getting and accessing Federal funding. Some of these smaller 
organizations have difficulty using the grant money because 
they are subjected to unexpected costs and requirements that 
are not disclosed in the beginning. The financial costs of 
cutting through some of this red tape can be too big of a 
burden for so many.
    OMB directs agencies' processes for administering grant 
applications and reporting requirements, and as I have heard in 
my community, the process was in serious need of an overhaul. 
Thankfully, it seems that the process for receiving and 
reporting on Federal funding is changing. Last month, OMB 
announced its new Uniform Grants Guidance. So, Mr. Miller, what 
other changes to the grant making process are in the new 
guidance, and how will they improve the process overall?
    Mr. Miller. Congresswoman, thank you for the question, and 
you highlighted a number of the reasons why we took on this 
overhaul, rewriting it from the bottom up. The goal very much 
was if we are giving out dollars to recipients, those dollars 
should be focused on delivering outcomes, not on low-value-add 
or no-value-add compliance requirements. As I noted to Ranking 
Member Raskin, we had agencies interpreting the same words in 
the guidance in multiple ways which creates confusion, and it 
discourages potential organizations, that would be the best at 
delivering on those dollars for the outcomes that we are trying 
to deliver, from even applying, and we wanted to change that.
    Going forward, one of our major efforts, we are pushing 
very hard on Federal agencies to implement this guidance by the 
end of this fiscal year. That will be a sprint. We are also 
working with Federal agencies to overall how they do their 
grant announcements, their notices of funding opportunity, to 
simplify them, to make them clearer, to all be written in plain 
language. Those are things that should be no-brainers.
    Ms. Lee. That sounds wonderful.
    Mr. Miller. But it is really important, and, again, we have 
had overwhelming positive feedback. We had over 6,000 comments 
when we put this out, and the comments, if I could sum them up, 
mostly were, ``long overdue, thank you.'' We have work to do to 
implement. Guidance is not a light switch, but I am excited 
about where this can head, and we need to continue to execute.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you. Another challenge that I am seeing in 
my community is the timelines getting in the way. So, when a 
project is time sensitive, even when a grant has been approved, 
sometimes the groups do not receive the funding with enough 
time to actually implement them. So, I am wondering, will the 
new grant process change? When the grant process changes, will 
they improve how quickly the organizations receive their grant 
money?
    Mr. Miller. We have set up a council of the key Federal 
financial assistance officials across agencies so that we can 
improve on those kinds of processes and that we can make sure 
that we are doing a better job of gathering feedback from 
recipients into the process. Ultimately, our approach is to 
make sure that we are getting more efficiency out of the 
dollars that we are spending. The dollars that we are giving 
out to these organizations, I think it has the potential to be 
a big win, but we need to execute.
    Ms. Lee. OK. So, I would say we also have to stay focused 
on eliminating the barriers that many of the families, 
communities, and businesses encounter when they are trying to 
access those resources. That means meeting people where they 
are at, wherever that might be. So, finally, potential 
recipients who do not speak English as a first language, for 
instance, will have the opportunity to access the funding that 
their community needs. How will the new guidance help diverse 
districts, for instance, like mine, and underserved communities 
access Federal dollars?
    Mr. Miller. So, you noted one of the changes, which is 
removing the requirement that applications or notices be in 
English, to the extent that that is important in some 
communities in the United States, including, for example, in 
Puerto Rico. The other is by simplifying the overall approach 
and changing the way in which we do things like indirect costs. 
It will broaden the set of community-based organizations in 
particular, we believe, that will seek to access Federal 
funding.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you. Thank you for your time, and I yield 
back.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Perry from 
Pennsylvania.
    Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, Director 
Miller. I want to talk to you about Executive Order 14019 and 
your involvement in the implementation of that. Does OMB have a 
strategic plan to implement that Executive Order, and if you 
need me to characterize what it is, I will let you know.
    Mr. Miller. Congressman, one of your fellow Congressmen has 
asked me the same question, and I said I would come back on the 
specifics. That has not been a focus of mine.
    Mr. Perry. So, there is a plan, and you just have to get it 
to us, or you do not know of a plan, or what is the situation?
    Mr. Miller. Again, I am going to take that back and make 
sure that I get you a precise answer.
    Mr. Perry. OK. And assuming that there is a plan, can 
Congress have all of that unredacted? Would you commit to that 
at this point?
    Mr. Miller. Again, Congressman, I will happily take that 
back and get back to you with a specific answer.
    Mr. Perry. OK. Is there any reason to not provide Congress 
with an unredacted complete plan? Strategically, is there some 
national security interest or some other concern where Congress 
could not have the oversight of that plan?
    Mr. Miller. Congressman, I do not want to provide you with 
any inaccurate information, and I will take that back.
    Mr. Perry. We would just like to have any information. Let 
me ask you this. The United States Attorney General established 
a procedure for educating felons on how to register to vote, 
how to vote by mail, those type of things, and as you probably 
know, there is a Federal Bureau of Prisons, and Federal felons 
are ineligible to vote. Why would we have a plan under 
Executive Order 14019 to educate these folks ineligible to vote 
on how to vote and how to proceed with that? Why would that be? 
Do you know?
    Mr. Miller. Congressman, I would have to direct you to the 
Department of Justice for specifics around that. I am not 
familiar.
    Mr. Perry. But you oversee the rollout of these processes 
as one of the directors of OMB, right? So, you have to be aware 
of that, right?
    Mr. Miller. Congressman, on the specifics, I am very 
familiar with the Bureau of Prisons. The Bureau of Prisons has 
recently added to the High Risk List by GAO focus on management 
issues associated with the Bureau of Prisons. We take all of 
the issues across the high risk list very seriously, but on the 
specifics of that action, I would have to direct you to the 
Department of Justice.
    Mr. Perry. So, you are not going to do any oversight 
yourself on it. You are not going to look at what they are 
doing and inform Congress? You are not going to do any of that?
    Mr. Miller. I am happy to have my team follow-up with yours 
on the specific concerns, and on this specific action by DOJ, I 
would have to refer you to DOJ.
    Mr. Perry. OK. How about this one? What actions are you 
taking at OMB to ensure that people that are here illegally are 
not eligible to vote under this Executive Order?
    Mr. Miller. Congressman, again, I want to make sure that I 
give you a precise----
    Mr. Perry. Do you know anything about this executive order 
at all?
    Mr. Miller. I am familiar with the executive order.
    Mr. Perry. OK. So that should be easy. What actions are you 
taking, or have you taken in your office to ensure that people 
residing here illegally are ineligible to vote under the 
provisions rolled out by this Administration under this 
executive order, knowing that they have to have a strategic 
plan submitted?
    Mr. Miller. Congressman, I am happy to take back your 
questions and your concerns and make sure I get you a precise 
answer. I am happy to talk about my purview as management at 
OMB and the broad set of management priorities that we have 
been implementing.
    Mr. Perry. Is there any reason, at this point, that you 
know of, because we are here at the hearing, I get it, and 
maybe this is the first time you have been asked in public. But 
as you know--well, I hope you know--in Pennsylvania, 27 
Pennsylvania legislators sued regarding this information. Now, 
they were found to not have standing, and, of course, Article I 
says that the states determine the manner, time, and place of 
election, so I do not know who has standing if they do not have 
standing. But it seems to me that time and time again on this 
occasion regarding this EO, that the plans remain unavailable 
to the public, unavailable to Congress. Why would that be?
    Mr. Miller. Congressman, again, on the specifics here, I am 
happy to take your concerns back. I want to make sure I provide 
a precise answer.
    Mr. Perry. Can you provide anything at all, any information 
whatsoever, on this executive order today at this hearing?
    Mr. Miller. I am happy to talk about my broad management 
purview and the specific priorities that I have been focused 
on, on the specifics here.
    Mr. Perry. And what are they? What are those regarding this 
executive order? If you want to talk about that since----
    Mr. Miller. Again, it has not been a major focus of my 
time. I am happy to take back your specific question.
    Mr. Perry. That is the limit of what you can talk about 
regarding your involvement.
    Mr. Miller. Congressman, I am happy to take back your 
question, and I will make sure that we provide you with 
specific information.
    Mr. Perry. OK. Last question, I promise. What is the 
timeline on the provision of these answers? What are we talking 
about, a week, 6 months? You know there is an election coming 
in November, so we would like to have that in a timely manner 
so we can evaluate how well you are doing and if you are out of 
bounds. So, what are we talking about?
    Mr. Miller. I fully understand that. I am required as part 
of this to respond to your questions for the record as well, 
and I am sure----
    Mr. Perry. Timeline, sir. What is the time? For a love of 
god, can you give me anything? Two weeks? Give me something 
that you feel comfortable with, even if I do not like it.
    Mr. Miller. Consistent with whatever Chairman Comer and we 
agree, and in terms of the questions for the record, that will 
be the timeline.
    Chairman Comer. Well, we would like them.
    Mr. Perry. Soon. Can you commit to 2 weeks?
    Chairman Comer. Today? Tomorrow?
    Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, we are now over 55 seconds.
    Mr. Perry. I yield the balance.
    Chairman Comer. And we look forward to getting the answers 
soon.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. Frost from Florida for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Frost. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Nearly 3 million 
Federal employees and 1.5 million private citizens--what is 
going on?
    Chairman Comer. OK. Somebody told me Frost. I am sorry. I 
am now advised by staff--Mr. Connolly from Virginia.
    Mr. Connolly. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Miller, 
what is your timeline for making sure Ukraine wins the war?
    Mr. Miller. Again, Congressman, I am happy to talk about 
the topics that are in my purview as the Deputy Director from 
Management.
    Mr. Connolly. That is not in your purview. Got it. All 
right. Then I will not belabor you with questions that are not 
relevant to your purview. Let me ask about Federal pay. Every 
year, I, with my colleagues from a number of states, especially 
Maryland and Virginia, have introduced the FAIR Act. This year, 
we recommend a 7.2 percent increase for both military and 
civilian. I have to admit, we were distressed that this year 
looks like we are going backward instead of forward after some 
real progress in the Biden Administration. Help us understand 
why you are only recommending two percent for Federal employees 
when inflation is higher than that? And second, why you have, 
in fact, widened the gap between military and civilian 
compensation? Pay parity has really been a goal we have had for 
a long time around here.
    Mr. Miller. Congressman, thank you. Thank you for your 
broader leadership. On our Federal workforce, it has been 
important, under the Biden Administration, that we are working 
to close the longstanding gap. Our Fiscal Year 2025 budget had 
to comply with Fiscal Responsibility Act, and we took that very 
seriously. We also wanted to make sure that our pay policy 
decisions were not having negative impacts on near-term service 
levels. We are currently several months into implementing the 
newest, most recent pay increase, which is why we recommended 
the two percent pay increase as part of the Fiscal Year 2025 
budget.
    Mr. Connolly. OK. I guess, I mean, when we looked at our 
analytics, there is no way we could have gotten the two 
percent, you know, and I hope we have an opportunity to dialog 
about that, but I think that is just a very inadequate number 
for hard-working Federal employees. So, as you know, we passed 
the FedRAMP legislation, which is the program, and we codified 
FedRAMP in law so that it is not just an orphan in the 
executive branch. And we worked well with your office as well 
as others in the executive branch, and OMB drafted a FedRAMP 
memo and solicited public comments, but that memo has not been 
finalized or issued.
    And as you might imagine, after dissolving the JAB, the 
Joint Authorization Board, a number of companies that were sort 
of in process feel that they are now in limbo. And the whole 
point of trying to make the changes we made in law with respect 
to FedRAMP was to streamline and lower the cost and make it 
more predictable and reliable. By having a presumption of 
adequacy that if you get approved in one Federal window, it is 
pretty much good to go unless there is something very, very 
specialized. So, when can we expect that memo, and do we have 
your commitment that in the spirit of the FedRAMP law we passed 
and President signed, that we are going to do everything we can 
to meet the original goals of FedRAMP of 6 months, you know, 
reasonable cost and predictable?
    Mr. Miller. Yes, you have my commitment that hard work is 
underway to reform FedRAMP for the very reasons that you moved 
forward with legislation and for your ongoing leadership on 
this. You have my commitment that we will continue to make 
FedRAMP a priority and move expeditiously.
    Mr. Connolly. Good, because we care a lot about that. Final 
thing, in your purview, you chair the Security Clearance, 
Sustainability, and Credentialing Performance Accountability 
Council, a mouthful, if there ever was one. One of the biggest 
complaints, certainly in my district from Federal contractors 
in intelligence, defense, and homeland security, is how long it 
takes to, A) get a security clearance, B) to even transfer it, 
which ought to be the low-hanging fruit, right? I mean, if you 
have already got one, and you are going to move from Company A 
to Company B, it seems to me, that ought to be easy, and yet, 
that also consumes a lot of time and a lot of bureaucracy. What 
can I tell companies in my district and people living in limbo 
with respect to the security clearance? Is there hope on the 
way? Are we going to get into that backlog? Are we going to 
streamline the process as we move forward?
    Mr. Miller. Because of that mouthful, we refer to it as the 
PAC, to simplify.
    Mr. Connolly. Up here ``PAC'' means something else. But, 
all right.
    Mr. Miller. The transformation effort, we believe, will 
result in meaningful reductions in the overall timelines. We 
put out those goals. Last year, in terms of the reductions we 
have had at a stable place, the backlog has been at a stable 
place, and we have been making progress on the transfer of 
trust, the reciprocity, as you know, particularly at DoD, but 
we absolutely have more work to do.
    Mr. Connolly. All right. I am going to hold you to it. 
Finally, I wrote you a letter about OMB's compliance with 
FITARA. We do not have a response yet. When might we expect 
that response?
    Mr. Miller. I am aware of the letter. We will follow-up 
with you expeditiously, and we will give you clarity on a 
timeline quickly.
    Mr. Connolly. All right. Thank you.
    Mr. Miller. Thank you.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Dr. Foxx from 
North Carolina.
    Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Miller 
for being here. I have several questions, so I would like to 
try to get through as many of them as I can.
    The November 2023 revisions to OMB Circular A-4 are a 
departure from the bipartisan and widely accepted practice and 
principles dating back to the Clinton era. The recent revision 
is little more than a thinly veiled attempt to stack the deck 
in favor of extremely costly new regulations. Why did the Biden 
Administration feel the need to depart from the established 
bipartisan framework and guardrails for considering different 
regulatory approaches seeking to give Americans an accurate 
representation of the true cost of new regulations?
    Mr. Miller. Congresswoman, thank you for the question. My 
purview is over our management apparatus, not our regulatory 
and information. What I will say is we take cost benefit 
analysis very seriously. The intent of updating A-4 was to 
update approaches that are used to modernize the way we do 
cost-benefit analysis to make sure that we are taking all of 
the costs and all of the benefits adequately when we are 
looking at regulation. Again, for specifics, I can come back to 
you. I do not oversee our regulatory creation.
    Ms. Foxx. Well, I have got a follow-up. It seems to me that 
the OMB Circular A-4 revisions are just a ploy to allow 
agencies to overstate the benefits and undercount the cost 
regulations that we all know will bankrupt Americans so long as 
they contain certain buzzwords like ``climate change'' and 
``social costs of carbon.'' My concern is that this new 
framework will allow even more expensive regulations to be 
justified moving forward by ``offsetting them'' with inflated 
so-called benefits. Can you tell me the total projected cost of 
new regulations and rules cleared by OMB in the last roughly 6 
months since the Circular A-4 was revised in November, and how 
does that figure compare to the 6-months' period before the 
Circular A-4 was revised?
    Mr. Miller. Congresswoman, again, the regulatory 
information activities of OMB are not under my purview. We take 
cost-benefit analysis very seriously in making sure that we are 
having the most accurate for both cost and benefits.
    Ms. Foxx. OK. Well, this is a real specific question I am 
asking you, so I will ask you to give me the information within 
a week because it should not be any problem to compare what I 
just said to you with the other time.
    Mr. Miller. Understood.
    Ms. Foxx. So, I am going to ask you, Mr. Chairman, for that 
information within a week.
    One of the key points made in the Government Accountability 
Office's, or GAO's, High Risk List is that the Office of 
Management and Budget is critical to addressing high risk areas 
because of its role in leading and supporting agencies. How can 
Congress help OMB conduct more meaningful oversight to help 
improve high risk programs?
    Mr. Miller. Thank you, Congresswoman, and this is an area 
that I have been very focused on in partnership with GAO. I 
referenced a recent discussion that we had with the Bureau of 
Prisons, which is one of the newest issues added to the High 
Risk List. Our focus is making sure that there are two things 
happening on every single one of the High Risk List items: one, 
leadership attention. It is absolutely imperative that we have 
leadership attention in an area, making sure, that is, leaders 
have relevant agencies. If we do not, that would be a shared 
interest of OMB and Congress to make sure that we have 
leadership attention on every single one of those and that we 
are making positive progress everywhere we can.
    In GAO's last High Risk List report, they noted that we are 
making progress on 16 of the High Risk List areas, which they 
noted was the most in a 2-year period. We still have work to 
do, and I would like to do better than that.
    Ms. Foxx. Well, again, let me have a quick follow-up. OMB 
is one of the largest agencies that does not have an Office of 
Inspector General. What role do you think an inspector general 
at OMB would play, and how would it help make OMB more 
accountable?
    Mr. Miller. We have been very focused on the oversight 
community, both GAO and IGs. In late 2021, December 2021, we 
issued guidance to all agencies on the importance of 
collaboration between agencies and IGs. That has been a 
hallmark effort of this Administration.
    Ms. Foxx. OK. One more question. I authored the GREAT Act, 
which set data standards for agency-driven data collection 
across the Federal Government. Can you tell me why each agency 
is left to its own devices, to design its own grant application 
processes and post-award forms without standardization, and are 
there efforts to standardize the grant application process 
across Federal agencies?
    Mr. Miller. Congresswoman, thank you for that, and this is 
a topic that has come up today and something that I appreciate 
your leadership on. We absolutely want to be moving toward a 
broader enterprise approach. We just overhauled our uniform 
grants guidance to drive that kind of consistency. We are 
pushing agencies to implement that guidance by the end of the 
Fiscal Year and to dramatically simplify their approaches to 
notices of funding opportunity for more consistency, especially 
for recipients that are receiving funds from multiple agencies.
    Ms. Foxx. It is very important to our constituents all 
across the country that this be done. They are suffering as a 
result of your not doing that and we need to do it. Thank you, 
Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Chairman Comer. The gentlelady yields back. Mr. Miller, you 
quoted, I believe--I am going to quote you, too--``The hallmark 
of the Biden Administration has been working with the oversight 
community.'' Could you bring, within a week, evidence of that? 
Because we have not seen that on our end.
    Mr. Miller. Yes.
    Chairman Comer. Especially with this Committee.
    They called votes, but we are going to try to get two more 
questions. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Frost from Florida.
    Mr. Frost. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Nearly 3 million Federal 
employees and 1.3 million private sector contractors hold 
security clearances that allow them to work with sensitive 
Federal information and data. Each of these individuals 
underwent comprehensive and extensive background investigations 
to clear their credentials. Improving personnel vetting and 
onboarding for the most sensitive government positions is key 
to our national security, especially when the legacy system is 
about 70 years old. So, Mr. Miller, in your role as Chair of 
the Performance Accountability Council spearheading the 
implementation of Trusted Workforce 2.0, can you briefly 
describe what Trusted Workforce 2.0 is?
    Mr. Miller. Yes, thank you, and Trusted Workforce has been 
a project across multiple administrations, improving our 
overall personnel vetting system. It is a relook at how we do 
suitability and security clearance and a rebuild of the 
underlying systems, standards, and approaches. One of the major 
changes which we have implemented now for the entirety of the 
national security workforce is to move away from a periodic 
reinvestigation model to a continuous vetting model. The result 
of that is that agencies identify potentially problematic 
information years faster. That is a significant shift. We have 
a lot of work still to go. We put out a quarterly report on our 
progress around the Trusted Workforce 2.0 effort, but it is 
really imperative that we deliver through our overall 
implementation.
    Mr. Frost. Thank you. I was actually going to touch on the 
continuous vetting, and, you know, we know in July 2021, not 
long after it was adopted, we heard about there was a defense, 
counterintelligence, and security agency that received an alert 
that somebody with security clearance was wanted in connection 
with an attempted murder. That individual was promptly removed, 
as we know, from security access, but if we had not had 
continuous vetting, they may have had access for another 5-and-
a-half years. While this incident demonstrates the system's 
potential, can you elaborate on how frequently such alerts have 
led to actionable intelligence since the program's inception?
    Mr. Miller. I have been in discussions with agencies about 
their figures. I do not get into the specific personnel 
matters. But from our agencies, particularly our large 
agencies, they have seen meaningful increases in the number of 
alerts that has also required them to redo their business 
processes so that they can navigate through a different 
approach.
    Mr. Frost. Roughly how many people in the Federal 
Government are still under the periodic review system or 
changes in their risk, you know, could go unnoticed for about 
half a decade?
    Mr. Miller. We have moved the national security sensitive 
workforce entirely into continuous vetting. Our next approach 
is to do the nonsensitive public trust population into 
continuous vetting. We are working to do that in the coming 
months.
    Mr. Frost. Thank you so much. According to GAO, 
construction of the National Background Investigation Services, 
the underlying IT system, enabling Trusted Workforce 2.0 is 
several years behind schedule. Despite spending about half a 
billion dollars on the NBIS system since 2016, DoD had neither 
developed a reliable schedule for completion of the project nor 
a reliable cost estimate for the total project. And 
unsurprisingly, DoD recently told congressional staff that NBIS 
is off schedule and over budget again. How exactly will OMB and 
the Performance Accountability Council get these reforms on 
track?
    Mr. Miller. Thank you. And this has been an important 
focus, and late last year, DoD informed me in my role as Chair 
of the PAC that they were now behind on new timelines. They 
reset their timelines in 2020 per the challenges with the 
earlier years. In my role as PAC, I directed DoD, ODNI, and OPM 
to provide responses on specific actions in 30, 60, and 90 
days, so that we can rebuild our schedule. I am sure you are 
aware DoD briefed staff that they have new leadership in place 
at DCSA, and this is their top priority. In my position as PAC 
Chair, I plan to hold them accountable.
    Mr. Frost. Do you buy, you know, that the old leadership 
was the whole source of the problem, or have you identified 
other sources of the problem there?
    Mr. Miller. Oftentimes, within these large transformation 
efforts, there is inadequate technical talent. That has been a 
major focus of DoD, not just a leadership change, but bringing 
in more technical talent into the team to make sure that we are 
delivering.
    Mr. Frost. Thank you. Reforming our decades-old security 
vetting system is crucial. We cannot allow poor planning in 
project management to affect our Nation's ability to improve 
security clearance vetting. I look forward to continuing this 
oversight work with my colleagues. Thank you. I yield back.
    Mr. Miller. Thank you, Congressman.
    Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back, and our last 
questioner before we take a recess for votes will be Ms. Mace 
from South Carolina.
    Ms. Mace. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I got a little 
sidetracked by your answers, or actually nonanswers, by 
Representative Perry this morning on EO 14019 about Federal 
agencies, political appointees, specifically at Federal 
agencies, electioneering that would be allowed under that 
Executive Order. Why did you choose not to answer his questions 
this morning?
    Mr. Miller. Again, Congresswoman, I am happy to take back 
specifics. This issue is not under my purview.
    Ms. Mace. Do you believe that political appointees at 
Federal agencies should be able to register voters and 
distribute mail-in ballots? Is that a kind of electioneering 
constitutional in your opinion?
    Mr. Miller. I have been a political appointee now under two 
administrations----
    Ms. Mace. Do you believe you should be registering voters, 
like, Federal agencies, political appointees, at Federal 
agencies should be allowed to register voters?
    Mr. Miller. I have been a political appointee under two 
administrations, and we have very strict, clear restrictions on 
what we are allowed to do under the Hatch Act.
    Ms. Mace. Right. And constitutionally, the power of 
elections and their oversight resides with the states. Is that 
correct?
    Mr. Miller. Again, I have restrictions----
    Ms. Mace. The answer is ``yes'' there. OK. So, I have a few 
questions in the last 3-and-a-half minutes that I have this 
morning. I know that there is an effort afoot, as you mentioned 
today, talking about Federal jobs and requirements and the 
kinds of folks we need to hire in our Federal workforce. There 
are thousands of vacant Federal IT jobs, and the Federal 
workforce has 4 times as many IT workers over the age of 60 
than under the age of 30. Huge problem. One part of the 
solution, I believe, is more creative hiring, thinking outside 
of the box. So, this particular Committee has voted out 
multiple bills of mine and almost unanimously, I think, both 
times, totally unanimously, bipartisan way.
    And the bills that I have voted out of here, the MACE Act, 
H.R. 4502, which overwhelmingly passed actually out of the 
House last fall, also would waive and limit degree requirements 
for cybersecurity positions in Federal Government. And then 
just a couple of weeks ago, we passed out of this Committee, 
H.R. 7887, the ACCESS Act, which would do the same thing for 
Federal contracts and their workers. So, do you agree that 
these measures would be important to meeting our hiring goals 
for Federal agencies in cyber?
    Mr. Miller. First, I agree with you that we have a 
significant issue on IT. An approach that is more oriented 
toward skills-based hiring is absolutely the right approach 
that we should be taking.
    Ms. Mace. I agree. We are doing it in the private sector. 
There is no reason why we cannot do it in Federal Government. 
Would you support both the MACE Act and the ACCESS Act and 
their passage and being signed into law?
    Mr. Miller. I am not familiar with all of the specifics, 
but we are very supportive of making sure that we have a more 
skills-based hiring approach, and we would welcome working with 
you on that.
    Ms. Mace. OK. We need to protect the critical data in 
Federal computers such as personally identifiable information 
of tens of millions of Americans, but a series of reports show 
that too many Federal employees are lax in their password 
protection. In fact, there was a study done to look at 
passwords, and 1 in 5 agency email accounts, 18,000 in total, 
most commonly used password was ``password1234,'' some with a 
hyphen, some without a hyphen, and hundreds of accounts were 
using these passwords. Is there any way to hold Federal 
employees accountable for not using appropriate cyber hygiene 
and putting America's data at risk when their accounts get 
hacked?
    Mr. Miller. We absolutely need to strengthen cyber hygiene, 
and one of the ways that OMB is focused on doing that is 
driving multifactor authentication across all of the Federal 
workforce.
    Ms. Mace. Is that a requirement?
    Mr. Miller. We are driving agencies to have multifactor 
authentication across Federal personnel.
    Ms. Mace. Do you know what percentage of Federal employees 
are doing multifactor? Or agencies?
    Mr. Miller. I do not have a specific number, but happy to 
follow-up.
    Ms. Mace. When did you guys start doing that push?
    Mr. Miller. In 2021, the President issued an EO on 
cybersecurity with a broad range of measures. Our 
responsibility was over Federal systems. We issued guidance, 
what we call our zero-trust strategy, that has been focused on 
a range of actions for agencies to take on endpoint detection, 
on monitoring, on multifactor authentication. We have also 
built those strategies into our budget process, so we make sure 
that agencies have----
    Ms. Mace. And then I have 30 seconds. Are there any 
consequences for Federal employees that do not follow guidance 
when it comes to password protection, cybersecurity issues, et 
cetera?
    Mr. Miller. All Federal employees are accountable to their 
managers on a broad range of----
    Ms. Mace. How are they held accountable then? How is that 
done?
    Mr. Miller. I cannot speak to the specifics of any 
individual action, but Federal employees are responsible for 
following the guidance of their agencies and managers.
    Ms. Mace. But then when they do not, what happens?
    Mr. Miller. I do not want to speak to a hypothetical about 
a specific situation, but our expectation is that agencies are 
moving forward on improving their cyber hygiene and multifactor 
authentication.
    Ms. Mace. But do you get reports back on how many Federal 
employees are following guidance and cyber hygiene, like the 
numbers?
    Mr. Miller. I do not want to give you an imprecise answer, 
but I would be happy to follow-up.
    Ms. Mace. But are you getting reports at least?
    Mr. Miller. Our OMB office monitors performance across 
agencies on things like multifactor authentication, yes.
    Ms. Mace. OK. Thank you, and I yield back.
    Chairman Comer. Pursuant to the previous order, the Chair 
declares the Committee in recess, subject to the call of the 
Chair. We plan to reconvene 10 minutes after the last vote.
    The Committee stands in recess.
    [Recess.]
    [Audio malfunction in the hearing room.]
    Mr. Cloud. Do you have any sort of buzz around the office 
that anything is being done in regard to this?
    Mr. Miller. I understand the question. Again, the specifics 
here are not under my purview. I have not focused my time on 
issues that are not under my purview.
    Mr. Cloud. At the moment, I am asking are you aware of any 
sort of office buzz that anything is being done on this? Are 
the reports being done? Is the OMB office in general working?
    Mr. Miller. I am not----
    Mr. Cloud. Have you, in meetings, heard cross-pollination 
or any sort of conversations related to this executive order?
    Mr. Miller. I am not familiar with specific activities. It 
is not under my purview. I have not spent my time on this.
    Mr. Cloud. OK. Fine. Seems hard to believe, but moving on 
to something that definitely is under your purview. Last year, 
the Government Accountability Office released a report showing 
that during the first 3 months of 2023, 17 out of 24 agencies 
studied were using their buildings at 25 percent capacity due 
to telework policies. Is that still the case? Have you made 
progress on getting people back to work?
    Mr. Miller. Thank you, Congressman. Yes, we have made 
progress. Agencies are implementing. That data shows two 
issues. One is where agencies were in implementing updated 
telework policies and longstanding challenges we have with 
having too much real estate within the Federal Government, an 
issue that existed long before this Administration. With 
regards to where we are right now, in April 2023, so after that 
data, we directed agencies to take steps to substantially 
increase their in-person presence to reflect their mission 
space, organize that around making sure that they are 
performing where there are similarities, where we have office 
workers. So, we refer to it as headquarters and equivalents in 
our guidance, that they are achieving at least 50 percent in 
time with their ability to adjust accordingly. We are making 
progress. Agencies are still implementing.
    Mr. Cloud. OK. I mean, for most of America, 50 percent 
would still seem like a low mark. I mean, granted that would be 
progress compared to 25 percent. And you do mention, like, 
maybe the buildings are too big for the right size. You know, 
in the private sector we look at telework as, OK, you are going 
to maybe take a hit on productivity, but you are going to gain 
on, you know, you will not need the office space, and so you 
will save money there. But we never seem to see that same ROI, 
like, we do not have agencies coming to us and saying, well, we 
do not need this building anymore or we do not need this office 
space, so we can reduce our budget here to make up for it 
there. So, I would just encourage you to continue to work on 
that.
    Along those lines, it was reported that President Biden's 
Chief of Staff had to personally exhort Cabinet secretaries to 
get their employees back to the office to just 50 percent of 
the time. Are we at 50 percent yet or how is that going?
    Mr. Miller. So, about half of the Federal workforce cannot 
telework because of their job responsibilities. Our guidance 
was a focus on office workers. Where we are and what we have 
directed agencies to do is to monitor by hours. So, what is the 
share of hours that are in-person? Where we are for the Federal 
Government overall, again, half of our workforce cannot 
telework due to their job responsibilities. Where we are 
overall, it is about 80 percent based upon the discussions that 
we have had with agencies today.
    Mr. Cloud. OK. The Architect of the Capitol's Inspector 
General recently found eight percent of telework-eligible 
employees were getting improper locality pay, wasting hundreds 
of thousands of tax dollars. Is this occurring at AOC, or if it 
is, you would think it is also happening at other agencies as 
well. How many Federal employees have had their telework 
agreements revoked for misconduct, fraud or other improper 
behavior, or simply poor performance?
    Mr. Miller. Right. So, for Federal agencies, I think the 
specific issue you are speaking to is around appropriate 
locality pay or whether or not people are following their 
telework agreements.
    Mr. Cloud. Right.
    Mr. Miller. Each individual employee should have a telework 
agreement. They are responsible for upholding that. My 
expectation is agency leaders are holding them accountable to 
the telework agreements that they have signed. Similarly, if 
they have taken action where individuals are not in a 
consistent place with the locality that they should be, then 
agencies need to fix that. I am not aware of this being a 
widespread issue, no.
    Mr. Cloud. I can appreciate you expecting that the work 
would be done, but, you know, as has been said--President 
Reagan, ``trust, but verify.'' I have heard someone say unless 
you inspect what you expect, you will not get what you expect, 
so I think it is important that you be well aware of where we 
are on this. One of the things that we have seen in DHS, for 
example, 336 individuals applied for COVID-19 relief funds 
while also continuing to be employed, so they were getting 
unemployment benefits while continuing to be employed and 
actually receiving overtime pay. We have heard stories of like 
this through the IRS and those kinds of things. How many 
employees have been held accountable to that, have been fired 
for basically, essentially stealing from the taxpayer? What 
kind of accountability metrics have been put in place to not 
only make sure this does not happen again, but make sure that 
those who have done this are not in positions of public trust?
    Mr. Miller. I am not aware of the specifics of the DHS 
example that you cited. Federal employees, absolutely, are 
responsible for upholding the law, and they should be held 
accountable if they do not.
    Mr. Cloud. We agree that they should be. The question is we 
do not hear that they are being held accountable. So, my 
question to you is, do you know of cases where people are being 
fired for essentially defrauding the American people?
    Mr. Miller. Fraud during the pandemic was a challenge that 
we face? I am not familiar with the specifics of the DHS case. 
My expectation is that we also have, inside of agencies, IGs 
looking into issues such as that and agencies should.
    Mr. Cloud. Yes, a lot of this information comes from the IG 
reports, and the story we are getting is that nothing is being 
done to provide disciplinary action. So, I am asking you to, 
you know, if there has been and certainly could you look into 
that.
    Mr. Miller. I am happy to look into those cases.
    Mr. Cloud. Thank you very much.
    Chairman, I yield back.
    Chairman Comer. Thank you. The Chair now recognizes Ms. 
Pressley from Massachusetts.
    Ms. Pressley. Thank you, Mr. Miller, for joining us today. 
I want to take a moment to discuss the critical importance of 
DEI work. Colleagues across the aisle have waged an all-out war 
on diversity, equity, and inclusion. I am not sure if it is 
that they just hate one aspect of it, like diversity, or if it 
is the combination of all three. Regardless, this Republican 
Majority has demonstrated it is out of touch with the 
priorities of everyday people, and it has focused its effort on 
passing legislation and budgets to undermine DEI and entrench 
systemic discrimination against people of color, folks with 
disabilities, and other marginalized groups.
    Republicans sought to defund the Office of Civil Rights in 
the Department of Education, which is essential to confronting 
the rise in antisemitism and islamophobia impacting our 
students. Republicans voted to stop the hiring of DEI personnel 
in the military despite evidence that it will improve military 
readiness. And Republicans consistently use harmful rhetoric at 
every opportunity to undermine the talent, knowledge, skills, 
and the training of professionals in every sector where DEI 
initiatives exist. And they often pervert, mischaracterize, and 
weaponize the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., despite the 
fact that his surviving children have repeatedly asked them to 
cease and desist from doing so.
    It is no surprise that the same people complaining about 
DEI are the same people who complained about the Me Too 
movement, about Black Lives Matter, about the ERA, about the 
gay rights movement, and so much more. The fact that as soon as 
someone who was Black or gay or has a disability earns a 
promotion, Republicans complain that they are unqualified and 
begin ranting about how diversity, equity, and inclusion is 
ruining the country. It is shameful, it is untrue, it is 
discriminatory, and we must not back down in our efforts to 
create a Nation that respects all people. Might I add that the 
opposition is majority overwhelmingly White and male.
    Now, President Biden signed a historic executive order on 
his first day in office to take a whole-of-government approach 
that embodies equity in the Administration's work to ensure all 
people benefit, not just the wealthy and well-connected. Mr. 
Miller, the Office of Management and Budget plays an outsized 
role in implementing and overseeing the executive orders on 
equity. Can you explain why equity is an important part of 
performance goals for agencies?
    Mr. Miller. Thank you, Congresswoman, and there was a 
phrase that you used that is central to explaining it, is that 
government should work for all Americans. So, one example of 
something that we are doing is around accessibility associated 
with government services. We have many government digital 
websites and services where it is hard for some people, 
including disabled individuals, to access those government 
services, and we are working to improve that. Our services are 
not working if they are not serving all of America.
    Ms. Pressley. Very good. I agree. What is an example of how 
President Biden's executive order on equity has helped folks 
across the country?
    Mr. Miller. Well, one of the things that we have done is to 
broaden, and discussed in this hearing, the way in which we are 
utilizing Federal financial assistance to reach more broadly 
into communities to improve performance of the dollars, to make 
sure that community-based organizations that might otherwise 
not have applied for Federal funds are able to access those 
funds, and better deliver because they are closer to those in 
their community. That means better results, that means more 
efficiency, and, frankly, that means less waste on useless 
overhead.
    Ms. Pressley. Thank you. The executive order, this is truly 
a first of its kind. I am proud to partner with Ranking Member 
Raskin on legislation to codify key aspects into law so that 
they will exist in perpetuity. The truth is that America needs 
DEI to disrupt systems of oppression that are active in every 
facet of our society. DEI initiatives are how we combat white 
supremacy, antisemitism, ableism, sexism, transphobia, and 
more. In the face of this opposition, I applaud those who are 
committed to doing this work, from college presidents, 
corporate executives, to community organizers, and academic 
researchers. And to those who are against DEI, I would love to 
know really what you are so afraid of. What are you so 
threatened by? Thank you. I yield.
    Chairman Comer. The gentlelady yields. I will now recognize 
myself for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Miller, Chairman Sessions and I sent you a letter in 
January asking for documents and information around both 
telework and your healthy workplaces guidance. Your response 
did not include any of the documents we requested. 
Understanding how agencies are measuring their performance is 
important for the Committee's oversight as is understanding how 
their return to work plans are progressing. When we spoke 
yesterday, you expressed a willingness to share that 
information with us. I would like for you to confirm that for 
the record today, that you will work with us on getting that 
information. I know lots of other Members have asked the same 
question, so I will ask it again on the record. Will OMB 
provide the Committee the plans and relevant information 
agencies have provided pursuant to OMB's healthy workplaces 
guidance with the Committee?
    Mr. Miller. Chairman Comer, thank you. We are currently in 
the process of collecting updated information from agencies to 
develop a report for the Appropriations Committee as directed 
by Fiscal Year 2024 appropriations legislation that will 
include----
    Chairman Comer. So, yes. That is it. OK.
    Mr. Miller. Yes. So, it will include telework policies and 
more.
    Chairman Comer. And going back to telework, and you could 
see the frustration on our side of the aisle because we do not 
believe the Federal Government is any more efficient or 
productive with its new wide-open telework policy. We do not 
even know what the telework policy is. We just know that there 
is a significantly higher percentage of the Federal workforce 
that is working from home as opposed to working in the office. 
Now, if you can prove to us through data that it is more 
efficient, then we will accept that, but we will start selling 
off unnecessary Federal property. That is something that Mayor 
Bowser strongly agrees with us on as well. So, one of the 
things that we have noticed is that President Biden and his 
Chief of Staff have called for agencies to get back to working 
within the office, but it does not appear the Federal employees 
are adhering to the President's policy. So, why has it been so 
difficult for the Biden Administration to get workers back in 
the office?
    Mr. Miller. Chairman, we share the goal of making sure that 
we have a data-oriented approach. That is why we had a whole--
--
    Chairman Comer. But you agree, I mean, there is still a lot 
more people that are not coming into the office that I think 
every agency would hope would come into the office, right?
    Mr. Miller. We have set a standard for office workers where 
there is comparability, and agencies are still implementing 
which means we still have work to do.
    Chairman Comer. What is taking so long? My god, COVID has 
been over 2 years, 3 years.
    Mr. Miller. And you noted this in terms of communication, 
pushing on agency leadership.
    Chairman Comer. Is it a weak President? I mean, if the 
President says for them to come back to work and they do not 
come back to work, I mean why are the civil servants disobeying 
the orders of the President of the United States?
    Mr. Miller. Chairman Comer, as you know, about half of our 
Federal workforce already has to be at the worksite and has 
been at the site----
    Chairman Comer. Are they?
    Mr. Miller [continuing]. Due to their job responsibilities 
every single day. Our expectation is that agencies are 
monitoring. Our expectation is also that agencies are 
responsive to your request.
    Chairman Comer. Do you have data to support that because I 
do not think they are coming to work, and that is what our 
sources tell us. You know, if you talk to any caseworkers, the 
people on our staff that do the work, they have had significant 
difficulty getting people on the phone at the VA, at the IRS, 
at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the agencies go on 
and on, Medicare. It appears that is because they have a lot of 
their workforce still working from home. They are doing what 
they want. They are not obeying the directive of the President 
of United States, and I do not think you have any data after 
all this time to prove they are coming back to work. You sure 
do not have any data that shows it is a better deal to the 
taxpayers. We all work for the taxpayers. Whether we are in 
Congress, whether you work for the Federal Government, we work 
for the taxpayers of America, and the taxpayers are not getting 
their money's worth.
    No one says we are totally opposed to telework. We just 
want to see data that shows it is more efficient, and I don't 
think you all have that data. I do not think you have tried to 
get the data because I do not think there is a willingness by 
this Administration to want to alienate the Federal workforce. 
That is not a good deal for the American taxpayers.
    So, we have asked for this information. You say you are 
compiling it. With all due respect, you should have already 
compiled it, and we should know exactly what percentage of the 
workforce is working from home. And we should also know whether 
or not that has provided more efficiency and effectiveness for 
the American taxpayer, which I do not think it has, but we 
would like to see that data. And I have used all of my time on 
this, but we are very frustrated with that.
    And then with respect to Schedule F, I have to say this. 
One of the problems that a new administration often encounters 
is they come in, and if you talk about energy policy with the 
EPA, that is going to be an issue in this Presidential 
election. If we change administrations, we are going to have a 
significantly different energy policy in America. But if you 
have a Federal workforce that does not comply with the will of 
the American people, with the mandate that the American people 
have given a new administration, they continue to restrict 
drilling, restrict fracking, oppose, you know, any type of 
fossil fuel, then that is not a good deal for the American 
people. The American people are not getting what they voted for 
at the ballot. And we have a lot of Federal employees that 
spend all their time obstructing a new administration's policy 
directives, an administration elected by the people. So, we 
believe Schedule F is a good deal for the American people, for 
the taxpayer. So, I just want to throw that in there.
    Do you all have another questioner?
    [No response.]
    Chairman Comer. If not, I will recognize Mr. Timmons for 5 
minutes. Mr. Timmons from South Carolina.
    Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank you for 
holding this hearing today, and I want to thank the Deputy 
Director from OMB for being here today.
    I am going to talk about debt. I ran for Congress 6 years 
ago, and I remember the line I used--the Chairman of the Joint 
Chiefs in 2010 said, testified before Congress, that the No. 1 
national security threat facing the United States was our 
inability to spend within our means, Congress' inability to 
spend within its means. At the time in 2010--this is kind of 
shocking--our debt was $13.5 trillion. Today, our debt is 
almost $35 trillion. We have a $1.8 trillion deficit annually, 
and we are adding $1 trillion in debt to our debt every 100 
days. It is just entirely unsustainable, and while Congress has 
to solve some of these problems, I do believe that OMB can lead 
in some of these areas.
    So, I am going to talk about a bill that I sponsored with a 
friend of mine from Washington, Representative Kilmer. It was 
H.R. 7331, The Improving Government for America's Taxpayers 
Act, and it requires GAO to submit a report annually on the 
estimated cost savings of its unimplemented recommendations and 
report on high risk areas for waste, fraud, and abuse, and 
mismanagement, and OMB has a huge role in this. I mean, you all 
are leading the charge to try to root out waste, fraud, and 
abuse and save taxpayer dollars. So, this bill was signed into 
law in December 2022 as a part of the Fiscal Year 2023 NDAA. 
And so, I guess, my question to you is, are you aware of this 
GAO program, the high-risk-area program to try to save money?
    Mr. Miller. Sorry. Are you speaking to the specific report 
or to the High Risk List that GAO has?
    Mr. Timmons. The High Risk List. I mean, technically, OMB 
has a huge leadership role in implementing those 
recommendations.
    Mr. Miller. Yes, and in my role I work closely with GAO, 
with the Comptroller General and his team on all of the High 
Risk List areas. We convene all of the relevant agencies. In 
some cases, we are the relevant agency on making sure that we 
are making meaningful improvements. In GAO's most recent High 
Risk List report, they noted that there was more improvement 
over the prior 2 years on high risk list items than there has 
ever been.
    Mr. Timmons. That is great. We got to keep going in that 
direction. Would you agree that debt is one of the biggest 
challenges facing our country?
    Mr. Miller. The President believes deeply in fiscal 
responsibility and put forward a budget. Director Young was 
here in front of House Budget testifying on the President's 
approach.
    Mr. Timmons. OK. Do you know of any steps that are being 
taken to address the high risk areas that you are referencing, 
specifically or just you are generally aware of the program and 
the affects?
    Mr. Miller. Yes. I work with GAO on bringing together our 
team at OMB, the GAO team, and the agencies on each of the high 
risk areas to make sure that we have visibility on whether they 
are making progress. And importantly, one of the areas I am 
particularly committed to is making sure that we have 
leadership attention on every single one of the High Risk List 
areas because without leadership attention, we are not going to 
get progress.
    Mr. Timmons. Could you talk me through, like, who in your 
Agency is tasked with which areas of the High Risk List? How 
does that work?
    Mr. Miller. So, we, the Comptroller General and I, convene 
what we call tripartite meetings. That was something that had 
been done under previous administrations. It was something I 
committed to during my confirmation hearings in early 2021. We 
have worked through the vast majority of those within OMB. Both 
the management team and the resource management offices that 
oversee individual agencies participate in those so that we are 
monitoring progress. GAO has a rating system, a five-point 
rating system. Leadership attention is one of the five items in 
order to move things off of the High Risk List. So, the 
combination of GAO oversight and OMB working closely with 
agencies is how we have approached High Risk List areas.
    Mr. Timmons. Thank you for that. Is there an opportunity to 
use technology, perhaps even AI, to try to further increase 
savings?
    Mr. Miller. I think there is real opportunity for AI. We 
are committed to making sure that we are doing that 
responsibly, including on tackling things like fraud. We have 
opportunities. There was an analytic center that was created by 
the PRAC, the oversight body for pandemic relief. We believe 
maintaining that analytic center across the Federal Government 
will enable us to use better analytics and the possibility for 
AI to look into that data so we can identify risks and reduce 
and prevent fraud.
    Mr. Timmons. Thank you for that. The Federal Government is 
going to have to do more with less. We have to get our spending 
under control, and we got to grow the economy to create 
additional tax revenue to pay our way out of the debt that we 
are under. I appreciate all that you are doing to help save tax 
taxpayer dollars. With that Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Burchett. [Presiding.] Thank you, Mr. Timmons. At this 
point I will recognize myself, which I always think is kind of 
weird, because if I was looking at a mirror I would go, hey, 
there is Tim Burchett, and I go, yes, that is me, and then I 
would recognize myself, but I am not doing that. Mr. Miller, 
does the Office of Management and Budget comply with the 
executive order on promoting access to voting?
    Mr. Miller. Congressman, again, a number of your colleagues 
have asked this question to me. This is not----
    Mr. Burchett. I know they always ask the number. They 
always give you the, whatever, the five-digit number, and I am, 
like, who is going to remember a dadgum number.
    Mr. Miller. I appreciate that. Again, this is an issue that 
is not under my purview. I will take this back to OMB, and I 
will make sure that we have a response to you.
    Mr. Burchett. OK. And I would like in that response, to 
provide--I want you to keep track of how many Members it helps 
to register. And I want the details on showing the locations, 
the precincts that are targeted, whether they are rural or 
urban, and what states or cities that you all are doing that 
in. Can you do that?
    Mr. Miller. I understand your request. Again, this is not 
an issue that has been under my purview.
    Mr. Burchett. OK. But it is under the Department. Is that 
correct?
    Mr. Miller. I am not familiar with the specific activities. 
It is not under my purview. To the extent we are directed 
actions under the EO, we will absolutely provide a response to 
you.
    Mr. Burchett. OK.
    Also, how does your office, the Management and Budget, 
reduce improper payments and fraud across the Federal 
Government?
    Mr. Miller. Congressman, thank you. On this topic, this is 
a major focus, particularly in 2021 when at the beginning of 
this Administration, we came in amidst the pandemic, major 
challenges still in the economy, and we are implementing a set 
of relief programs, some of which we had inherited from 2020. 
It was significant, there were historic levels of fraud in our 
pandemic relief programs. They provided critical relief, but 
there were also not basic controls put in place in 2020 that 
would have allowed us to do things to prevent the fraud while 
enabling timely implementation. We took steps to reinstate 
basic controls. The three main programs that experienced that 
fraud were PPP and EIDL at SBA, and UI programs, which are 
state-administered but overseen by the Department of Labor, 
things like utilizing the Do Not Pay List at the Department of 
Treasury, things like making sure that businesses have their 
tax transcripts so that we know that they are, in fact, real 
businesses.
    The President has also put forward in 2023 a comprehensive 
anti-fraud proposal that would both provide the resources for 
inspectors general and the Department of Justice to go after 
the guys who took advantage of these programs, and also 
implement additional steps to prevent fraud going forward. We 
believe with the combination of the steps that we have taken, 
including bringing the IGs in on the front end of program 
design and the President's anti-fraud proposal, we could have 
prevented a substantial portion of the fraud that occurred. We 
should never be in that situation where our systems are not 
prepared. This should be an issue that we can work together on 
to make sure that we are taking the steps and learning the 
lessons from those pandemic relief programs to strengthen our 
systems going forward.
    Mr. Burchett. In your opinion, what agencies are most prone 
to the waste, fraud, and abuse?
    Mr. Miller. What we saw inside of the pandemic were the 
three programs I mentioned, at SBA and the UI programs. In 
part, the UI program, you had state systems that were 
overwhelmed, their systems were not able to keep up with the 
sizable number of individuals applying, and they did not have 
adequate controls on the front end. This is also an area where 
we report. We are pushing on agencies to strengthen their 
analysis around improper payments and annually re-release 
improper payments in major programs, both the level and rate 
for those major programs.
    Mr. Burchett. What are the resources that are available to 
you all, as far as the Federal agencies, and are the agencies 
all aware of these resources?
    Mr. Miller. I am sorry. Could you clarify the question?
    Mr. Burchett. Yes. The government-wide resources that are 
available to Federal agencies to reduce the risk of improper 
payments and frauds.
    Mr. Miller. Yes. Yes. So, one of the key resources that we 
have been working to buildup is the Do Not Pay List at the 
Treasury Department. That has meant us putting more data into 
it, so, for example, we have made the full Death Master File 
available in the Do Not Pay List. This was a story that was in 
2020 where certain checks were going out to individuals that 
were deceased because we did not have updated data in the 
programs that could identify who had recently passed away. 
Strengthening the Do Not Pay List is something that we want to 
do going forward and make sure that we are utilizing more 
broadly across programs.
    Mr. Burchett. OK. My time is just about up. I would remind 
the Members that I had just had a conversation with the 
Chairman about a situation at GW where the students felt 
threatened and where they felt like they were in danger, and 
the school asked for police presence there, and the Mayor 
turned them down. We are asking the Chairman if we can have a 
hearing on that tomorrow or in the next few days to get to the 
bottom of that. So, I am just putting the Members on notice. 
That was actually brought to me by a friend of mine across the 
aisle, so it is a bipartisan issue.
    Next, we will recognize Representative Goldman. Is he here? 
Oh no, Representative Crockett. OK. I am sorry. I am just going 
by the list that was up here.
    Ms. Crockett. Thank you so much. Before I begin my 
officially prepared remarks, there were some questions posed to 
you specifically about debt, and there seemed to be a concern 
about the mounting debt. And I am going out on a limb, and I am 
going to ask you if you are aware of how much debt we added 
under the Trump Administration, out of curiosity. If you do not 
know, I know off the top of my head, but something tells me you 
may know.
    Mr. Miller. I have an imprecise number.
    Ms. Crockett. OK.
    Mr. Miller. I bet you have the precise number in front of 
you, so I do not want to give you the imprecise number if you 
have the precise number.
    Ms. Crockett. No, no, no, give me the imprecise number.
    Mr. Miller. No, no, please.
    Ms. Crockett. Well, I am going off of my head because that 
was not part of what I was going to say. But long story short, 
$8 trillion was added under the Trump Administration. And so, I 
think that it is important that we focus on making sure that we 
are keeping our debt under control, but I think it is also 
important that we are honest about how that debt is accrued and 
make sure that we do not continue to make the same mistakes.
    I know that the election was brought up, and there are 
those that are standing by their man. But they also seem to be 
concerned about debt, which seems like the two do not go 
together because we know that their man actually is really good 
at running up the credit card debt for this country because he 
likes to give tax breaks to his very rich friends, which means 
that we do not get as much money coming through the door when 
they are not required to pay their fair share. So, I just 
wanted to make sure that we put that out there.
    First and foremost, I recently was appointed to the 
Weaponization Subcommittee. And so, I am going to have plenty 
of long days ahead of me, kind of like what I have here on 
Oversight. But the point of the Weaponization Committee was to 
have a conversation about the government being weaponized in a 
way so that people could somehow get some personal gain because 
there is this theory that this Administration has somehow 
weaponized the government. There is not this acknowledgement 
that the other guy just is a criminal because that is just too 
hard to believe, even though he currently is sitting in New 
York facing criminal charges that were not brought not by the 
Federal Government, but instead by state government. 
Nevertheless, so when I think about weaponization, I honestly 
can only think about Trump and his Administration and all the 
work that he did to harm Federal employees.
    So, to be clear, Trump's 2020 executive order would have 
effectively gutted civil service job protections for workers 
across the Federal Government. Trump would have created 
politically charged firings of potentially thousands of Federal 
workers and made these public servants subject to the whims of 
a political dictator and his posse rather than the adherence of 
the tenants of our Constitution. So let us be clear. 
Individuals pursuing public service do so largely because of 
their belief in Government. I am sure you can make a lot more 
money if you just decided to go elsewhere in private industry. 
A lot of us could, honestly, but if this rule was implemented, 
it would destroy the little bit of foundation and structure 
public servants still have that allow them to put people over 
politics. How do I know this? Because Trump and his Republican 
lackeys stated they felt nonpartisan bureaucrats were hampering 
Trump's policies and he wanted to ``shatter the deep state.'' 
In fact, President Donald Trump's personnel chief, John 
McEntee, told agency officials at a meeting to implement 
staffing changes and movements across the government.
    Mr. Chairman, I would like to enter into the record an 
article from Axios stating that Mr. John McEntee, a 29-year-old 
at the time, a former body man to Trump who was fired in 2018 
by then Chief of Staff, John Kelly, but then rehired and 
promoted to head the Presidential Personnel Office, directed 
staff to identify anti-Trumpers and stated that they will no 
longer get promotions and will be shifted around agencies.
    Mr. Biggs. [Presiding.] Without objection.
    Ms. Crockett. Thank you so much. Now, Mr. Miller, can you 
tell us how the implementation of Schedule F would impact the 
morale and performance of all Federal employees?
    Mr. Miller. Thank you, Congresswoman. This is a critical 
issue and a critical question. In the first week in office, 
President Biden canceled Schedule F. This is real for OMB. The 
vast majority of our staff in 2020 was being considered to move 
to Schedule F. I think this would have a debilitating impact on 
the basic performance of Federal agencies. We already have a 
system where 3,000 different roles are for political 
appointees. Those political appointees are in leadership and 
decision-making roles, overseeing their agencies. If we were to 
go down the path that you outlined where there were arbitrary 
or political decisions made instead of decisions made around 
expertise and experience, it would deeply harm the 
institutional knowledge in our agencies, but it would also 
deeply harm our ability to recruit talent, going forward, into 
organizations that we want to organize around performance.
    Ms. Crockett. Thank you so much for your answer, and I 
absolutely agree. My mother has worked in, I do not know how 
many, Federal agencies since I was a little girl in elementary 
school. And I promise you, we have changed from Democrats to 
Republicans to MAGA, back to all the things.
    Mr. Biggs. The gentlelady's time has expired.
    Ms. Crockett. But I can tell you that she is so very 
qualified to do her work, and this will be devastating. Thank 
you so much, and I yield.
    Mr. Miller. I thank her for her service.
    Mr. Biggs. The gentlelady yields. I recognize myself for 5 
minutes. Thanks for being here, Mr. Miller.
    So every year, the Federal Government obligates more than a 
trillion dollars in Federal financial assistance. Some go to 
grants, some go to cooperative agreements, other direct 
appropriations or property donations. I am trying to understand 
grants, if you can help me with grants.
    Mr. Miller. Yes.
    Mr. Biggs. In dollars, how much of that is going to 
grantees?
    Mr. Miller. Of the $1.2 trillion?
    Mr. Biggs. Yes.
    Mr. Miller. I do not have the precise breakdown between 
grants and other forms of Federal financial assistance.
    Mr. Biggs. Would that be possible for you guys to grab and 
get to me?
    Mr. Miller. I would be happy to follow-up with you on 
specifics.
    Mr. Biggs. Great. Thank you, and I am thinking that there 
might be as many as 40,000 recipients. I would like to know the 
number of recipients as well.
    Mr. Miller. We can get back to you on the specifics there 
as well.
    Mr. Biggs. Very good.
    And the reason I am going that way is because I want to 
know a couple of things. Are these grants pursuant to 
administrative regulatory creation or are they statutory 
animals?
    Mr. Miller. Our programs are operating under statutes, so 
Federal financial assistance programs, there is a wide array of 
them----
    Mr. Biggs. But I am focusing specifically on grants, not 
necessarily financial assistance benefits or that type of 
thing.
    Mr. Miller. Right.
    Mr. Biggs. So, grantees, and so the grant programs, it is 
my understanding some are statutorily created. Others are 
created through bureaucratic rulemaking that they believe that 
they have been delegated authority on. I am trying to get a 
breakdown on that. Is that possible for you to get for us?
    Mr. Miller. I will be happy to take back your question, 
make sure that we have response.
    Mr. Biggs. OK.
    Mr. Miller. Some grants are by formula.
    Mr. Biggs. Sure.
    Mr. Miller. Some grants are competitive grants in nature. 
All of these programs have the statutory authority to move 
forward on their Federal financial assistance.
    Mr. Biggs. So, on pages six and seven of your testimony, 
you talk about some of the anti-fraud measures that have been 
put in place, and those seem to focus on the benefits that are 
being given as opposed to grants. And I am wondering what kind 
of measures do you guys have? Because OMB has actually 
indicated that there is waste, perhaps, even in the grant 
program. And so I am trying to understand, do you have the same 
mechanism in place to recover money from grantees that have 
perhaps defrauded or gotten outside of their lane.
    Mr. Miller. So, we recently announced an overhaul to our 
Uniform Grant Guidance. We worked with the inspector general 
community on that, so that by simplifying the guidance, we made 
it easier for inspectors general to do their jobs and identify 
areas of waste, fraud, and abuse. One specific that I would 
note is----
    Mr. Biggs. OK. I am sorry. I do not want to cut you off, 
but there is another area I want to get into. So, I would love 
any additional details that you might want to send memo form to 
us that I would include as part of the record, if that would be 
possible, Mr. Miller.
    Mr. Miller. Understood. Thank you.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you so much.
    So, since the Hamas attacks on Israel of October 7, there 
have been reports of Federal employees calling for walkouts. 
Federal employees have also been circulating open letters, 
albeit anonymously, voicing strong opposition to the 
President's policies in Gaza. Federal employees have First 
Amendment rights, I recognize that, the same as every American 
does, but they cannot strike. And with that in mind, what, if 
any, action has been taken to identify Federal employees who 
engage in illegal job actions in protest against the 
President's policies in Gaza?
    Mr. Miller. Chair, I understand, or Congressman, I 
understand that question and the concern. I am not familiar 
with specific actions that were taken. Agencies should----
    Mr. Biggs. Is there a way you could?
    Mr. Miller. Agencies should have procedures in place to 
make sure that their employees are complying with their 
responsibilities, including some of the responsibilities you 
noted.
    Mr. Biggs. So, you would be able to find out if there are 
policies in place and if there has been any action based on 
those policies for us?
    Mr. Miller. I am happy to take that back, yes.
    Mr. Biggs. Yes. Thank you. And so, when you take it back, 
everybody up here knows, everybody tells us we will take it 
back and we will get back with you. I would like to ask you if 
maybe in a couple weeks we can get an answer to these questions 
that I have been posing to you. Is that acceptable?
    Mr. Miller. Yes.
    Mr. Biggs. Great. And additionally, I would like to know 
more about anything related to any kind of these employee 
actions. So, look forward to hearing from you, Mr. Miller.
    And with that, I am going to yield back the balance of my 
time, and I am going to recognize for a closing statement----
    Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, before we do that----
    Mr. Biggs. Oh, Ms. Stansbury has gotten here, sorry.
    Mr. Raskin. Yes.
    Mr. Biggs. I did not realize that.
    Mr. Raskin. Yes. Before she goes, could I just----
    Mr. Biggs. You got to submit some----
    Mr. Raskin [continuing]. Submit for UC, yes. An article 
from the Washington Business Journal called, ``The Benefits of 
Project Labor Agreements Along With the Myths;'' an article 
from the Economic Policy Institute called, ``Project Labor 
Agreements on Federal Construction Projects Will Benefit Nearly 
200,000 Workers;'' and an article on project labor agreements 
and community workforce agreements from the Center on American 
Progress.
    Mr. Biggs. Without objection, so ordered.
    Thank you. I now recognize for 5 minutes the gentlelady 
from New Mexico, Ms. Stansbury.
    Ms. Stansbury. Great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome, 
Mr. Miller. It is wonderful to have you here today. As a proud 
OMB alum and former civil servant serving in this great 
Nation's government of ours, I am especially happy to have the 
final word here in the Committee before closing statements. I 
served at OMB between 2011 and 2015, and I was a program 
examiner in the OMB Interior Branch. So, it is wonderful to be 
able to be on this side and to say thank you to all of your 
staff, and, of course, to anyone who is watching back in the 
EEOB or the NEOB, hi, friends.
    I want to just take a few moments to talk about the 
importance of the civil service and the attacks that we saw in 
the previous Administration. As you are well aware, in October 
2020, then-President Trump issued an executive order that 
sought to turn our Federal workforce into partisan loyalists. 
Thankfully, Democrats in Congress worked to prevent 
implementation, and the Biden-Harris Administration revoked 
this order almost immediately when they came into office, but 
it went far beyond that executive order. We saw during the 
Trump Administration that across the Federal service, you know, 
there were heads of agencies and departments that were moved 
within the SES bands, and whole agency headquarters were moved 
to different cities and states with the intention of trying to 
get civil servants to quit their jobs because they could not 
fire them. It was a massive disruption to the Federal 
workforce. Thousands of people left their jobs, and part of why 
we are still struggling under the current Administration to 
catch up on so many vital services is because of the actions 
that were taken.
    And I know, Mr. Miller, you are serving in a political 
role, but talk to us about the importance of our civil service. 
What is their role within the Federal Government, and why is it 
so crucial that political appointees do not serve in every 
single role that the Federal Government does?
    Mr. Miller. Thank you, and thank you for your service at 
OMB. We are proud of all of our alumni. First, the effective 
performance of our organizations--this is true in public and 
private sector--is based on having strong teams and strong 
culture. Within the Federal Government, we have a 140-year 
tradition of a nonpartisan service system based on merit, that 
we look at people's skills, their expertise, and their 
experience. We want to cultivate that irrespective of what 
their personal views are. We want our teams to bring that to 
the office every day.
    I know as a leader and a manager, I want a team that gives 
me their very best, that gives me their real views, even if 
those views are in disagreement with my own, because I want the 
best advice in making decisions about what we need to do going 
forward. We have 3,000 different roles where we have political 
appointees fill them in leadership positions across agencies, 
they are responsible for setting the agenda, for leading those 
agencies, for ultimately being the decision-makers. But the 
institutional knowledge and the expertise of our civil servants 
is critical to the well-functioning of our government, whether 
that is providing good customer experience at a call center or 
that is delivering relief after a disaster. Having our civil 
servants know that they are there based on their merit is 
critical to well-performing organizations, irrespective of who 
is in the White House.
    Ms. Stansbury. Thank you. And, you know, I would add to 
that not only are they kind of the heart and soul of these 
institutions themselves, they are the institutional memory, as 
well as the folks who know the law and compliance with the law. 
And, you know, I left OMB in 2015, as I said, and then went to 
the Hill before I moved home, and I was struck during the Trump 
Administration when some colleagues of mine who were civil 
servants within OMB were raising alarm bells about nefarious 
actions that were happening with politicals under the Trump 
Administration. And, in fact, months before the news broke, I 
was hearing from folks that the politicals at OMB were trying 
to use apportionments to violate the Budget Control Act, 
basically to withhold aid to Ukraine.
    Now, there is probably no one in this room except for me, 
and you, and the staff sitting behind you that know what an 
apportionment is, and that is because that is the institutional 
memory and functioning of how OMB releases funds that are 
appropriated by Congress. So, if we need any example of why we 
need a civil service, how about following the law and making 
sure that no U.S. President ever again can violate the law and 
withhold aid to a foreign ally in its efforts to try to hold 
back an adversarial nation. I mean, this is literally global 
democracy on the line. So, I appreciate your service, I 
appreciate the service of all of our colleagues, and with that, 
I yield back.
    Mr. Biggs. The gentlelady yields. And now, for a closing 
statement, I recognize the Ranking Member for 2 minutes. Mr. 
Raskin?
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you very kindly, Mr. Chairman. I just 
want to clean up a couple of matters that may be hung over from 
prior questioning, one about project labor agreements. Those 
are only for Federal contracts and Federal projects, and they 
have been enormously successful in setting wages and benefits 
for workers and creating good employer-employee relations. So, 
for the life of me, I do not understand the nature of that 
attack. I want to echo my distinguished colleague from New 
Mexico about this whole effort in the last Administration and 
by a current candidate for President to basically ravage the 
civil service by replacing professional civil servants and 
experts with political flunkies. And to give another example--
the gentlelady gave the example of what happened Ukraine--I 
want to give a closer-to-home example of what happened with 
Hurricane Dorian.
    When the scientists at NOAA--the National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration--and the National Weather Service 
made predictions about where the hurricane was going to hit on 
the East Coast, President Trump decided that the hurricane was 
really going to hit in Alabama, and that was just contradicted 
by the facts. And NOAA continued to put out notices to the 
public saying, no, that Alabama was not at serious risk for 
being a target and it was going to be on the coast and much 
further south. And then Trump got very mad about that, and he 
got the Secretary of Commerce to go after them and so on. And 
this is really what we are talking about. Do you want the 
Federal Government filled with a bunch of political flunkies, 
hacks, and sycophants who will say whatever the President 
wants, or do you want professional scientists and civil 
servants who are going to follow facts and follow the law?
    The President's job is to take care that the law is 
faithfully executed, not that the law is disrupted and remade 
in his own royal image. And so, if you want a government that 
is going to be letting Donald Trump and his sharpie determine 
where a hurricane is going to hit as opposed to scientists, 
then you would be for Schedule F. But we view Schedule F as a 
serious danger to the professional civil service that has been 
built up over the last several decades. So, Mr. Chairman, I 
mean, I have got some comments on some of the other things that 
were said, but we agreed to just 2 minutes. I am happy to yield 
back to you, so.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you. The gentleman yields. Now I recognize 
myself for 2 minutes on closing.
    I just want to talk about a couple issues. One was raised 
by gentlelady from Texas. I am talking about the national debt. 
Well, according to the U.S. Treasury, over the past 366 days, 
the total national debt has increased by $3.1 trillion, debt 
held by the public has increased by $2.4 trillion, and inter-
governmental debt by $265 billion over that same period of 
time. I think that is important. And I will just say, when you 
start talking about political junkies, hacks, and sycophants, 
we do not want to see that. Yes, I do not disagree, but you 
know where we see that in abundance? On the border. On the 
border, and the people who are opposing the border security 
policy, which is why we have wide open border. I encourage my 
colleagues to get down there as often as I do. Just down there 
again last week, will be down there again next week.
    So, Schedule F was mentioned earlier in the hearing, and 
OPM recently issued a final rule, which seems like it was an 
attempt to prevent President Trump from reissuing Schedule F 
should he win another term. Opponents of Schedule F like to 
talk about politicization of the Federal workforce, but from 
our perspective, that has already happened. And surely reports 
of Federal employees organizing at the beginning of the last 
Administration to plan how to block President Trump's policies 
have to be concerning. They are to us. The fact is, certain 
Federal employees have an ever-increasing amount of power to 
decide what does and does not happen with respect to an 
administration's policies. Earlier, telework was mentioned as 
an example of civil servants thinking they can do what they 
want. An unaccountable civil service is just as dangerous to 
our country as a patronage system. So, with all that said, we 
need something like Schedule F to ensure the people we elect 
are able to do what they were elected to do, and that is why we 
support Schedule F.
    We have had a good hearing today. I appreciate you being 
here, Director Miller. Thank you, and I appreciate all the 
Members that came and those who came and sat in the gallery, 
and the staff that helped.
    With that, we are adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 1:56 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

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