[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 176 (Monday, December 7, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H9018-H9021]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           FEDERAL IMPROPER PAYMENTS COORDINATION ACT OF 2015

  Mr. MULVANEY. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the 
bill (S. 614) to provide access to and use of information by Federal 
agencies in order to reduce improper payments, and for other purposes.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The text of the bill is as follows:

                                 S. 614

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Federal Improper Payments 
     Coordination Act of 2015''.

     SEC. 2. AVAILABILITY OF THE DO NOT PAY INITIATIVE TO THE 
                   JUDICIAL AND LEGISLATIVE BRANCHES AND STATES.

       Section 5 of the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery 
     Improvement Act of 2012 (31 U.S.C. 3321 note) is amended--
       (1) in subsection (b)(3)--
       (A) in the paragraph heading, by striking ``by agencies'';
       (B) by striking ``For purposes'' and inserting the 
     following:
       ``(A) In general.--For purposes''; and
       (C) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(B) Other entities.--States and any contractor, 
     subcontractor, or agent of a State, and the judicial and 
     legislative branches of the United States (as defined in 
     paragraphs (2) and (3), respectively, of section 202(e) of 
     title 18, United States Code), shall have access to, and use 
     of, the Do Not Pay Initiative for the purpose of verifying 
     payment or award eligibility for payments (as defined in 
     section 2(g)(3) of the Improper Payments Information Act of 
     2002 (31 U.S.C. 3321 note)) when, with respect to a State, 
     the Director of the Office of Management and Budget 
     determines that the Do Not Pay Initiative is appropriately 
     established for that State and any contractor, subcontractor, 
     or agent of the State, and, with respect to the judicial and 
     legislative branches of the United States, when the Director 
     of the Office of Management and Budget determines that the Do 
     Not Pay Initiative is appropriately established for the 
     judicial branch or the legislative branch, as applicable.
       ``(C) Consistency with privacy act of 1974.--To ensure 
     consistency with the principles of section 552a of title 5, 
     United States

[[Page H9019]]

     Code (commonly known as the `Privacy Act of 1974'), the 
     Director of the Office of Management and Budget may issue 
     guidance that establishes privacy and other requirements that 
     shall be incorporated into Do Not Pay Initiative access 
     agreements with States, including any contractor, 
     subcontractor, or agent of a State, and the judicial and 
     legislative branches of the United States.''; and
       (2) in subsection (d)(2)--
       (A) in subparagraph (B), by striking ``and'' after the 
     semicolon;
       (B) in subparagraph (C), by striking the period at the end 
     and inserting ``; and''; and
       (C) by inserting after subparagraph (C) the following:
       ``(D) may include States and their quasi-government 
     entities, and the judicial and legislative branches of the 
     United States (as defined in paragraphs (2) and (3), 
     respectively, of section 202(e) of title 18, United States 
     Code) as users of the system in accordance with subsection 
     (b)(3).''.

     SEC. 3. IMPROVING THE SHARING AND USE OF DATA BY GOVERNMENT 
                   AGENCIES TO CURB IMPROPER PAYMENTS.

       The Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Improvement 
     Act of 2012 (31 U.S.C. 3321 note) is amended--
       (1) in section 5(a)(2), by striking subparagraph (A) and 
     inserting the following:
       ``(A) The death records maintained by the Commissioner of 
     Social Security.''; and
       (2) by adding at the end the following:

     ``SEC. 7. IMPROVING THE USE OF DATA BY GOVERNMENT AGENCIES 
                   FOR CURBING IMPROPER PAYMENTS.

       ``(a) Prompt Reporting of Death Information by the 
     Department of State and the Department of Defense.--Not later 
     than 1 year after the date of enactment of this section, the 
     Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense shall 
     establish a procedure under which each Secretary shall, 
     promptly and on a regular basis, submit information relating 
     to the deaths of individuals to each agency for which the 
     Director of the Office of Management and Budget determines 
     receiving and using such information would be relevant and 
     necessary.
       ``(b) Guidance to Agencies Regarding Data Access and Use 
     for Improper Payments Purposes.--
       ``(1) In general.--Not later than 1 year after the date of 
     enactment of this section, the Director of the Office of 
     Management and Budget, in consultation with the Council of 
     the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, the heads 
     of other relevant Federal, State, and local agencies, and 
     Indian tribes and tribal organizations, as appropriate, shall 
     issue guidance regarding implementation of the Do Not Pay 
     Initiative under section 5 to--
       ``(A) the Department of the Treasury; and
       ``(B) each agency or component of an agency--
       ``(i) that operates or maintains a database of information 
     described in section 5(a)(2); or
       ``(ii) for which the Director determines improved data 
     matching would be relevant, necessary, or beneficial.
       ``(2) Requirements.--The guidance issued under paragraph 
     (1) shall--
       ``(A) address the implementation of subsection (a); and
       ``(B) include the establishment of deadlines for access to 
     and use of the databases described in section 5(a)(2) under 
     the Do Not Pay Initiative.''.

     SEC. 4. DATA ANALYTICS.

       Section 5 of the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery 
     Improvement Act of 2012 (31 U.S.C. 3321 note), is amended by 
     adding at the end the following:
       ``(h) Report on Improper Payments Data Analysis.--Not later 
     than 180 days after the date of enactment of the Federal 
     Improper Payments Coordination Act of 2015, the Secretary of 
     the Treasury shall submit to Congress a report which shall 
     include a description of--
       ``(1) data analytics performed as part of the Do Not Pay 
     Business Center operated by the Department of the Treasury 
     for the purpose of detecting, preventing, and recovering 
     improper payments through preaward, postaward prepayment, and 
     postpayment analysis, which shall include a description of 
     any analysis or investigations incorporating--
       ``(A) review and data matching of payments and beneficiary 
     enrollment lists of State programs carried out using Federal 
     funds for the purposes of identifying eligibility 
     duplication, residency ineligibility, duplicate payments, or 
     other potential improper payment issues;
       ``(B) review of multiple Federal agencies and programs for 
     which comparison of data could show payment duplication; and
       ``(C) review of other information the Secretary of the 
     Treasury determines could prove effective for identifying, 
     preventing, or recovering improper payments, which may 
     include investigation or review of information from multiple 
     Federal agencies or programs;
       ``(2) the metrics used in determining whether the analytic 
     and investigatory efforts have reduced, or contributed to the 
     reduction of, improper payments or improper awards; and
       ``(3) the target dates for implementing the data analytics 
     operations performed as part of the Do Not Pay Business 
     Center''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
South Carolina (Mr. Mulvaney) and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. 
Connolly) each will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from South Carolina.


                             General Leave

  Mr. MULVANEY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their 
remarks.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from South Carolina?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. MULVANEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a Senate bill that we take up today, but there 
has actually been a House bill that is almost exactly the same for the 
last year or so.
  The story behind how this bill comes to the floor is one of those 
stories that should make folks confident that the system can work. I 
was on a Facebook townhall meeting about a year and a half ago and got 
a question from one of the constituents about all the money that they 
have heard the government wastes by paying the wrong people, paying 
dead people, or paying people way too much money.
  I remember it specifically, Mr. Speaker, because shortly after that, 
my uncle passed away. When my uncle passed away, I was named executor 
of his estate. It was the first time I have ever been the executor of 
an estate. One of the things I remember was that I got a notice 10 days 
after he had died, very shortly--2 weeks--from the Social Security 
Administration saying: You are going to get another check for your 
uncle. Don't cash it or else you can be in a lot of trouble.
  I thought that was really neat. Here is a Federal agency that is 
actually doing its job in very short order and very efficiently. And I 
filed that away.
  A couple months later, Mr. Speaker, my good friend from North 
Carolina (Mr. Meadows), who is the subcommittee chairman of the 
Government Operations on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, 
was having a hearing about all of these payments that we are not 
supposed to be making. I had a chance to ask some questions, and I told 
that story to the government witnesses from the executive branch who 
were there. I said: Look, how is it that this works so well in the 
Social Security Administration, but we have all these tales of all 
these improper payments going to other people?
  They said: Well, Mr. Congressman, that is because the Social Security 
Administration has a really, really good database, and they process the 
information very well when folks die.
  I asked what I thought was a relatively straightforward question: Why 
don't they share the information with the other Federal agencies?
  That was the genesis of this bill. What we set out to try and do is 
try and take circumstances, take examples of where the Federal 
Government actually does its job well and use that as a model that can 
be shared by other parts of the government.
  Mr. Speaker, the bill, by the way, that we are talking about is S. 
614. There was a House version of it that I worked off of, just because 
I am a little bit more familiar with it. It is H.R. 2320. The language 
is almost exactly the same.
  I want to thank Mrs. Bustos, Mr. Connolly, and also Mr. Carter of 
Georgia and Mr. Westmoreland of Georgia, who are the original 
cosponsors of this.
  Mr. Speaker, the bill does two very specific, large things and one 
small thing. It expands that Social Security database. So it takes 
this, again, this example of something that actually works the way that 
it is supposed to, and lets other folks use the information.
  What does that mean? States will now be able to use it. State 
contractors will now be able to gain access to it. The judicial branch 
will be able to gain access to it, and the legislative branch will as 
well.
  So the example is that this really good information is not being 
shared broadly throughout governments--local, State, and Federal--and 
we are seeking to fix that in the bill.
  The other thing the bill does is to expand what is called the Do Not 
Pay portal. This is a database that is managed by the United States 
Department of the Treasury and contains, again,

[[Page H9020]]

really good information about who has passed away, how much money 
people should be receiving, who has moved, and who is entitled to 
benefits and who is not.
  By the way, there is a third thing that the bill does, Mr. Speaker. 
It seems inevitable that we cannot pass a bill here without asking for 
a report that goes along with it. But I think it is probably common 
sense to say that at some point in the future, we would like the 
Treasury to tell us if it is actually working.
  It is not very often, Mr. Speaker, that I come up here and tell you 
that there are examples of the Federal Government doing its job well; 
but when we do find those examples, I am very happy to get up and admit 
it. As a small government, conservative Republican, ordinarily I am the 
one that says government never does anything right; but here, actually, 
parts and parcels of the Federal Government are doing their job well. 
If we can take that example, take that model and expand it to other 
parts of the government, we would actually have a chance to solve what 
is a real problem.
  We spent about $125 billion last year on improper payments, payments 
to people who should not have received it, payments to people who have 
passed away, or payments to people in the wrong amount--$125 billion. 
We just had a major fight on this floor 2 weeks ago over spending $80 
billion extra in the budget bill, yet we spend that much, half again, 
on improper payments every single year. In fact, it is one of the 
fastest growing line items in our budget. That $125 billion represents 
a 15 percent increase over the previous year. One of the fastest 
growing areas of our government is improper payments.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I just want to thank Mrs. Bustos, Mr. Connolly, Mr. 
Carter of Georgia, and Mr. Westmoreland in the House for helping bring 
this bill to the floor. Also, I want to thank Senator Carper from 
Delaware and Senator Ron Johnson from Wisconsin for shepherding it 
through the Senate.
  This is their bill that we are taking. I guess that is another 
inevitability, that, if the Senate has the same bill as the House does, 
the Senate gets all the credit. But sometimes it is interesting to see 
what you can actually accomplish around here, Mr. Speaker, if you don't 
worry about who gets the credit.
  I do want to thank the folks who took the time and the effort to 
shepherd this very sound, well-considered, and bipartisan bill to the 
floor today.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Federal Improper Payments 
Coordination Act before the House this afternoon. I am pleased to join 
my friend from South Carolina (Mr. Mulvaney) in sponsoring the House 
companion of this bipartisan legislation. He has already mentioned the 
cosponsors, Cheri Bustos, Buddy Carter, and Lynn Westmoreland among 
them. I also want to thank our Senate partners for their work on this 
important initiative.

  I want to assure my friend, Mr. Mulvaney, we are going to be marking 
up a companion bill to this tomorrow in our committee, and hopefully we 
will send it over to the Senate with a House number on it. Fair is 
fair.
  This is the latest in a series of commonsense, good-government laws 
we have enacted over the last decade as we work to reduce, if not 
outright eliminate, billions of taxpayer dollars in improper payments 
made by Federal agencies. The gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. 
Mulvaney) pointed out just how large a number this is: $125 billion a 
year.
  Now, over a decade, that is $1.25 trillion. That exceeds all of 
sequestration. We wouldn't have to make any cuts to investments or 
raise any taxes to deal with sequestration if we just dealt with this. 
With the GAO reporting nearly $125 billion of improper payments, it is 
clear that more can and must be done to deal with government waste and 
fraud.
  Today's legislation would expand the use, as Mr. Mulvaney indicated, 
of the Do Not Pay Initiative to the legislative and judicial branches 
and to our State partners. That initiative was the result of the 
Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Improvement Act of 2012, 
which was also a product of our committee, and I was pleased to 
cosponsor it at that time.
  The Do Not Pay Initiative was launched by Treasury and leverages 
multiple data sources--many of which were formerly siloed--to create a 
central, comprehensive list that Federal agencies can quickly reference 
to determine whether an individual or organization is, in fact, 
eligible to receive a Federal grant, benefit, or contract; and it also 
allows them to verify such payments after the fact.
  For example, this initiative has prompted agencies to better share 
the reporting of death information to help reduce Federal payments to 
those, obviously, we have lost or for those who have had their 
identities stolen. Today's legislation would require the Departments of 
Defense and State to report information on deaths that occur overseas 
more quickly so that the agencies can better detect fraudulent payments 
or recoup improper payments if necessary.
  Just last week, Mr. Speaker, the Office of Management and Budget 
delivered its first report to Congress on the Do Not Pay Initiative, 
which it says resulted in more than $2 billion in stopped payments--
that is to say, savings for the U.S. taxpayer. Obviously, we can, with 
this bill, increase that number even more.
  Based on that early success, it makes good sense for us to expand the 
use of this valuable tool to the legislative and judicial branches, as 
well as our State partners, so they have the ability to quickly verify 
payments or the eligibility of recipients to receive such payments.
  This commonsense proposal was a welcomed suggestion from the GAO in 
its latest report on improper payments. I would also add that the 
Oversight and Government Reform Committee will continue this work, as I 
indicated, with a markup tomorrow.
  Mr. Speaker, again, I want to thank my colleague, Mr. Mulvaney, for 
his leadership on this matter, and I urge our colleagues to support 
this important reform to our government in making it more efficient and 
accountable to the taxpayer.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. 
Bustos), my good friend and the cosponsor of this legislation.
  Mrs. BUSTOS. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Connolly and 
Congressman Mulvaney for their hard work on this.
  Mr. Speaker, as one of the Democratic coleaders of this legislation, 
I am so proud to rise in support of the Federal Improper Payments 
Coordination Act of 2015. The goal of this bill is straightforward: 
simply, to save taxpayer dollars that are currently going to waste and 
to make the Federal Government more effective and more efficient.
  Each year, Mr. Speaker, the Federal Government spends billions of 
dollars in improper payments. This not only wastes taxpayer dollars, 
but it also erodes the public trust in government. Just last year, as 
my colleagues have pointed out, improper payments by the Federal 
Government rose to $125 billion. That is more than $1 trillion over a 
decade. That is according to the Office of Management and Budget. It is 
also an increase of 15 percent up from the year before, where it was 
$106 billion. So we are talking about real money here.
  In tough times, working families have to figure out how to cut costs 
to get their budgets in line. We all know that. I think it is time that 
Washington do the same thing. That is why our bill takes reasonable--
reasonable--steps to improve information sharing between Federal and 
State agencies to prevent these improper payments.
  This also helps modernize Federal agencies by putting 21st century 
data analytics to work in identifying and eliminating governmentwide 
waste and fraud. The status quo is, plain and simple, not acceptable.
  At a time when so many working families have to tighten their belts 
and cut costs, they expect Congress to act responsibly with their hard-
earned taxpayer dollars. This bipartisan legislation represents a 
commonsense approach to a problem that is costing the taxpayers 
billions of dollars. This is undermining the effectiveness and the 
credibility of the Federal Government.
  I thank Congressman Mulvaney and Congressman Connolly. I think this 
is

[[Page H9021]]

an indication that we know how to work together. I want to applaud my 
colleagues for joining our efforts to protect taxpayers.
  Mr. MULVANEY. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

                              {time}  1600

  Mr. CONNOLLY. Again, I want to thank my friend, Mrs. Bustos, for her 
leadership on this very important issue.
  I, also, in closing, just want to say to my friend from South 
Carolina, part of improper payments is also fraud, and the biggest 
chunk of that is Medicare fraud. We need the help of U.S. Attorney's 
Offices to go after that. I am aware of one U.S. Attorney's Office last 
year that identified and recovered $3 billion of Medicare fraud. Now, I 
believe there are 99 U.S. Attorney's Offices in the United States. If 
every one of them made going after this fraud a priority, I assure you, 
we could significantly reduce improper payments by a commensurate 
amount. I would be glad to work with him and my friend, Mrs. Bustos, on 
a bipartisan basis to address that aspect of it as well.
  Again, I want to thank Mr. Mulvaney for his leadership and for the 
bipartisan approach we have approached this legislation.
  We have no more speakers on our side, Mr. Speaker.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. MULVANEY. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I urge 
adoption.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Mulvaney) that the House suspend the 
rules and pass the bill, S. 614.
  The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the 
rules were suspended and the bill was passed.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________