to you about one of the primary things that you do identification of the risk of federal programming. we know that there is also best practices not only for the public sector but the private as well. and we understand that this is not just federal agency but also private. we have heard about the home depot and the compromise of about 66 million companies and credit card and debit card information as well as the nation's second-largest and

basically it relates to the activities counter by the activities or overseeing this by activities of another group so one group does not have full control over this or a process where this is being processed

because they could potentially make undetected changes to the software processing data and we don't want that to happen. so developers in this case should be confined to a development environment. >> my understanding, my children will till you but i have no technological knowledge, but kind of like a submarine when there is a leak in one area you can close off that section and in another area where the leak occurs doesn't infect the other areas. is that occurring now in the federal agencies with the situation? >> yes, and several there are about 14 agencies that have weaknesses in segregation control. and they have an example that you highlighted that exude a sense and that is another security defense principle that

agencies support layer upon layer of security controls in the event that one layer might be circumvented or penetrated in systems that can't. >> i can't. >> one of the reasons that i mention, home depot, anthem, we know that this has occurred with other private sector areas, what is the relationship that you have with trying to assist those private sector individuals and best practices. at the end of the day all of the systems connect with one another. >> actually the department of homeland security has an overriding role within the federal government for helping and assisting with the critical industry. you may also be the federal trade commission that would also provide those entities.

>> we have more dialogue and information sharing between the public sector and the private sector and both have been reticent for different reasons. >> you can be helpful in this regard. >> i'm hopeful that this hobby will continue to assist making sure that that happens. >> the gentlewoman, we now recognize you. >> thank you, good to see you again and all of your cohorts. >> you know, objections. [laughter] and i think it may reflect best the core mission of this

committee and i did notice in your list of areas of concern we have these high risk that the va health is on that for the first time. and this designation and we have accessibility and quality of care we have a terrible situation and we also have huge increase in the number of veterans who are lining on this health care. and so we have huge amounts of

pressure on the system including operation iraqi freedom in afghanistan. mindful that most of those folks talked about this, i was in the kandahar province and i asked how many folks were on their first tour, second tour, all the way up to this before i ran out of millions and most of them had been a and that repeated cycle of deployments does a lot of damage to the psychiatry of serving among the young men and women and i think that we will see reverberations in the health care system as a result of the multiple of appointments. i'm looking forward and actually the ranking democrat on the

national situations and we will continue in that area, especially with some of the new implementations we have had a lot of veterans to be treated at non-va facilities and that is going to be the constant problem for us not just in the northeast but all across america and i know that florida is at the because of the number of retirees down as well and we have had a very long backlog fair, some areas infectious as well virginia a huge number in his district as well and also we have the ability to let them go to non-va this oldies or their travel is more than 40 hours. and it all builds up to a greater reliance upon our

ability to conduct oversight on the va health care system and i look forward to working with you, you have any great staff and cohort of people behind you to work tirelessly over the years and i'm looking forward as we have no shortage of issues to work on and i appreciate the work you do every day. and i think you and i yield back. >> mr. lynch how many times have you been up on the stand and how many times have you been in iraq remapped. >> i've been to iraq about 14 times in afghanistan about 12 times. often times with folks the gentleman works with common special inspector generals, and others as well. >> i just want to say that you

have been a model of oversight commitment to the work in both countries at personal risk to yourself and i honor you for that and i think you. >> thank you. >> i were to say in terms of his picture that you paying, they are going to be living longer thanks to modern medicine and this will occur over decades. we need to get a handle on it, there will be more veterans coming back and this is a significant long-term issue and one of the reasons reported on the high risk list. >> we now recognize the gentleman. >> we had a meeting on cybersecurity i believe this is

something that we can work together to address. so i want to mention the assessments that we have down for dealing with cyberattacks and the reports have implement the policy and procedures spun into a data breach involving mess. can you explain those areas where inconsistent application of policies responding to data breaches and what do we do about them? >> greg is our expert. >> we conducted a rule of several federal agencies over procedures and policies, responding to this and one thing that we talked about is that they did not physically identify the risk to the affected individuals and the harm that could occur, the impact it could

occur to those individuals and in addition at what point do they provide additional services to those individuals, of whether or not to provide credit monitoring services or other types of services to help those individuals whose information has been compromised. >> what can they do to advocate in responding to these bridges. >> sirach we believe that the privacy act that was passed in 1974 needs to be updated and congress should take out on the responsibility and the agencies are collecting more information and was contemplated in the privacy act but not through social media and other people there is a definition that is very broad, which leads to

inconsistent applications, there's not enough notice it's made to the public typically in those days it was through the federal register and having more available tools to make things available so we need to update the privacy act and we need to work with and are happy to work with this committee to do so. >> finally you stay dead agencies may not be taking this from the related data breaches. so what are the specific actions that agencies can take right now to improve their ability to respond to data breaches on top of rewriting this? >> this includes before incidents occur once we know how an incident will occur and the work has shown that the number

of incidents is climbing and every agency is affected by that. that can include having a dedicated team that has the roles and responsibilities previously identified and trained in those roles and responsibilities in order to act appropriately and timely when these incidents occur. >> finally how can congress be most useful in ensuring that this is agencies that take all the necessary actions needed? >> old one is to implement this with the privacy of personally identifiable information and the other is holding agencies to account for the incidents that occur in ensuring that they are corporal utley implementing this but could be compromised. >> thank you so very much. >> thank you, if no other member has a question for this panel we would like to again thank the

gao for the great work that so many of you and your staff have done. i would ask that the clerk change the table and i would actually like to mention something as we do this in the essence of time. so go ahead and make the change, i want to talk about the artwork that you have seen in your and i would like to make a bit of a statement with a little commotion here as we change out the names and if you on the second panel, come take a seat. we made some alterations to the our work here. and part of what i was trying to do was i felt it would be best to highlight the people that we serve rather than the past committee chairman and i feel that we should be inspired by those in the american people and that is who we serve, they have done great things over

generations of times and those are the type of people that we should be inspired by. so i would like to introduce this as we get this next panel ready and i will tell you that they are real photography and real photos and i would like to are here with this one on the ben franklin bridge, it was taken by the bridge and it connects camden with new jersey. contrasting the urban setting we have this new photo that was taken in my congressional district and it looks like a painting but it was an actual photograph was taken in january along the river there in the distance and we live in a very beautiful setting and i think that this is more of what i wanted to highlight today. this is a photo that was taken

when it was first published in march 1966 loading mailbags into trucks for delivery and a good number of people have been doing good work and the postal service in this next photo back over here is we have had people who have been in the mining industry or their school or copper or whatnot and this was first published back in 1942 and the next photo was taken in afghanistan. capturing first rays of sunlight, hoisted from this and on the outskirts of afghanistan in honor of veterans day, shot in november of 2010.

not a professional photographer but that's one of the most beautiful shots that i have seen and we really appreciate the service that paul has offered the country and the photo that he took that day honoring veterans day there in the mountains outside kabul, we have had thousands of american serve overseas and in afghanistan and we honor them and should be thinking of them. the next photo at the back of the room is actually a civil rights protesters. this was first published in 1965 and is a good reminder that people have gone through a lot of hardships but also have made a lot of progress. i love the patriotic nature of the bearing of the flags and appreciate the library of congress for providing it to us as well. the next one is the golden spike

that happened in utah and was taken on may the 10th of 1869 by joining the central pacific and union pacific lines of may 10, 1860, he was the last spike driven and to join these to form the first continental railroad across the united states bridging the east and the west together. the next photo is really the only portraits that i would consider here, but this was interestingly enough published from the lincoln memorial, one of the best sides in this country and the united states but when he was the congressman, he served in the committee and the expenditures and department of war committee, two of them that were part of this reform committee. so it seems that when he served

on a serve him served on what is now known as the oversight and government one committee and an inspiration to a lot of people. over here we have two more of this photo taken from the library of congress, were not sure that's rancher who the library of congress was, probably sometime between 1914 and 1918. it is women taken at this routine company facility in illinois. again, it has been a great deal of sacrifice that has gone on and actually i love the patriotic nature of that as well. finally i would like you to look closely if you have a chance this is a steelworker of the empire state building with the chrysler building displayed in the back, the photographer was

louis hine and it was published in 1930. it comes to us from the national archives. not exactly kosher compliant. working hard to build this country without a safety harness or the types of things that workers have now, but a good deal of people have made these kinds of dedications and sacrifices and i'm glad that they captured a photo of it rather than just the committee and i'm honored to have these photos in here and i thank the members for the indulgence. we would now like to recognize our second panel of witnesses. oh, pardon me.

>> sir i do know what you were going to do. [applause] but i must tell you that we had all of those that had anything to do with the photographs, they are absolutely beautiful. you know i used to say that my father who only had a second-rate education but who educated all seven of the kids i used to say that i was inspired by his aspirations and when we look at these pictures, the ones of hard-working americans in the pursuit of happiness, i believe that they have stories. just looking at them and all of

us to be the very best that we can be in sort of lift up their lives and the people like them. and then looking at the other ones that show the environment, i think that it should be a reminder that we do have a sacred duty to be there for our children and the environment that is as good as or better than the one that we inherited and it is said that we do not inherit our environment from our ancestors. but we borrow it from our children. i would say the same thing about our democracy. and last but not least mr. chairman, you did a heck of a job right there because it

just reminds me every time i'm looking at it of for years before that in baltimore little kids marching and it was an all-white school, we were beaten but yet we march to the pursuit of happiness and so i would like to say that i am hoping that these photos will be an aspiration and in inspiration because of these folks who made america what it is. thank you very much. >> now back to the business

before, i think the gentleman who has joined us and i would like to recognize the panel of witnesses. please welcome the commissioner at the internal revenue service. as well as alan estevez crystal deputy secretary of defense for acquisition technology at the united states department of defense. mr. john mcmillion and then shantanu agrawal. >> yes. >> the deputy administrator and director of the senate program integrity for centers of medicare and medicaid services and mr. robert lightfoot junior jr. we thank you for your patience and it's been a while to get to this panel but we do appreciate you being here. so if you could please rise and

raise your right hand. do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony will be the truth and the whole truth and nothing but the truth? >> yes thank you. >> let all the witnesses answer in the affirmative and you may be seated. we will start with you mr. john koskinen. the single will be introduced into the record, please limit your testimony to five minute to thank you. >> chairman ranking member, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the government accountability offices high risk as it obtains to irs operations. i am delighted to note that business systems modernization was removed from the list in 2013 after being on it since 1995. its removal came about because of the dances that the irs has made over many years in addressing weaknesses and information technology and

financial management capabilities. turning now to tax enforcement we have identified this because of the size and the difficulty over time in narrowing the gap. the most recent study of this lease in 2012 found that it was $385 billion for 2006. the error as is preparing a new audit that will be done between 2000 and 2010 we expect this report to be released in the first quarter of 2016. one of the key findings from the ongoing research of the tax gap has been that compliance is high for income and subject to information reporting, subject to third-party reporting is under reported only about 8% of the time. that number jumps to 56% for income that is not subject to any third-party reporting or

withholding. and another thing we have learned is that the biggest portion of the tax involves the underreporting of business income by individual taxpayers that total $122 billion in 2006. the evidence is clear that the lack of reliable comprehensive reporting and withholding on this type of income is the main reason for such a high level of underreporting. a good example of recent efforts to improve compliance in this area involved the legislative requirement for electronic payment processors and credit card companies to send this information from business receipts on our new forum. the first were filed in 2012 and the transactions in 2011 and a police i'm pleased to report that we are beginning to see positive impacts on compliance from this new program provided by the congress. programs are useful not only because they help the irs to collect the correct amount of tax but also because they encourage voluntary compliance

and the importance voluntary compliance cannot be overstated. the 1% increase brings in about $30 billion annually in tax receipts and even with these and other efforts i would note that it's not possible to illuminate this completely. getting to 100% tax compliance would require a huge increase in audits and significant greater third-party reporting compared to what we have now. holistically that would work because the burden on taxpayers and the strain on resources would be far too great. the budget situation represents our ability to keep making progress on this front and in order to absorb this the irs has taken a number of difficult steps including about 1800 key enforcement personnel and that includes audit cases and we estimate the government will

lose at least $2 billion in revenue that otherwise would have been collected. additionally the reductions on the funding have forced us to make cuts in taxpayer service and this is also troublesome because if we can't provide the services, taxpayers need to fill taxpayer obligations and voluntary compliance will suffer. this concludes my statement and i would be happy to take all your questions. >> thank you. >> mr. chaffetz, ranking members, i appreciate the opportunity to discuss a couple of the areas of high risk identified by the gal. ..

at the height of operations in afghanistan we provide a million gallons of fuel. 435 meals a day and deliver medical supplies construction materials and spare parts to sustain our combat power at record levels of readiness. the dod manages 5 million items valued over 9 0 million and inventory performance will maintain over arching performance and have produced substantial results that have been acknowledged by gio.

since 2010. they have been implementing the comprehensive improvement plans since 2012 we have reduced the government management by 14 if the 4 bill the first reduction of government inventory since the 9 0s. and implementing the new forecasting method which is producing improved material availability. decreased back orders and reduced procurements. and with that said there is more work to be done on improving the supply chain performance we are remaining photocopied on doing so. and the second area of high risk that i want to address is the weapons system acquisition. it is important to recognize that the acquisition process has provided the united states with dominant military capabilities the rise of foreign capability. coupled with our ongoing combat operations and global commitments and reduced budgets are jeopardizing our technological superiority. and process has to deliver needed capabilities to war fighters as effectively as

possible and a program for improvement in this area that we call bbp. better buying power. and gios and main concern of acquisition is cost and scheduled of growth. and under the bbt. they will set the caps on major weapons system. we are tracking the performance against established caps to ensure compliance and tied to requirements bbp will drive active engagements with the acquisition and requirement leadership that would be operators that use weapons systems and during the systems development to assure those associated with the program to address war fighter needs in the cost effective and affordable way. we will revise the aing sdigs policy. and dod that will institutionize the bbt and reform act including the emphasis of system

engineering and testing. in addition the actions mentioned we are measuring our own performance. and the first two annual reports on the performances of the defense acquisition issue system provided data that the department has used to increase the performance of the acquisition process gio is using those reports and in sum reechlt dt od will continue to work to address the unlying causes to result in the high risk designation. we are and continue to be focused on removing ourselves from the list by correcting our difsh sees. and for the ben fist our war fighters and the taxpayer. thank you for the opportunity. i look forward to your questions. thank you mr. mcmilan. ranking cummings and members of the committee. i appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss department of energy's efforts at improving our management and of our capital asset projects this is a topic of great importance to the secretary and our deputy

secretary sherwood randall. and the doe manages the largest and most complex and technically challenging projects and in the public or private sectors due to the diverse measure mission. and the portfolio those taken by do sierra unique from other projects in the public and private sectors but also each doe project is unique from the other doe projects. the projects are truly one of a kind with uncommon enchallenges such as handling radioactive conditions and producing extremely bright x-rays for nanoscience in light of these challenges the doe has historically struggle with the the project and contract management. and we have been on the gao's high risk list since the list inreception of 1990 we have made important progress however. in 2009, with we are

removed. the g.i. o removed the office of science from the high risk list. and in 2013, gio again narrowed the doe focus to projects over 750 million dollars in the department's office of environmental management and the national nuclear security administration. the department remains very focused on getting off of this list entirely. to meet this challenge, the secretary is instituting changes to improve environmental performance on major projects and one of the first actions that he took when he became secretary was to create an undersecretary foremanagement and performance to focus specifically on improving project management and providing direct supervision of many of the doe's most challenging projects in august 2013, the secretary also established a working group which he asked me to lead to conduct the in-depth

analysis of the project management. the working group was comprised of doe senior most project management experts. we took a comprehensive look at the challenges that the doe faces and the group provided pnlz as to why the projects either failed or succeed in the doe environment and the working groups findings were issued in a report that is was released in december that report if you can find on the website at the department of energy the report led to several recent implementations of several efforts to improve project management. very strength ended the energy system advisory board. we will now reveal all of the projects within an estimated cost of a hundred million dollars and up that used to be we looked at $750 million and up. and the board that is chaired by the deputy second tree. and comprised of the senior most departmental officials will now meet at least quarterly. and will focus on project

that's are deemed to be at risk of not meeting their performance base lines second, we have established a new committee. the project management risk committee. this is comprised of the senior project managers that are the same folks that wrote the report that i just referenced. and that is providing the risk assessment and advice to the department senior leadership. reviewing and analyzing the projects before all critical decisions and baseline change proposals and providing pier reviews and the in house consulting to projects across the department. finely, the secretary is taking a series of actions and improving responsibility. and improving our pier review process the department is improving an accountability. by ensuring that for each project that the appropriate under secretary must now designate a clear owner that has budgetary. responsibility. and also must be a clear

line of responsibility to extend from the undersecretary to the project donor to the federal project director in addition where it doesn't exist already. each has established a project assessment office. reforms and process that's we are instituting in the doe with respect to the project management is the critical step to meet solemn responsibility to be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars we are encouraged by the work done over last year that has been focused on affecting permanent stuctural and cultural change in the way that he department manages projects thank you. would i be pleased to answer your questions the membership advisory. on the floor. we have three votes and the intension is to have the next to give them opening staple. he will not get to the questions until after the votes. so we anticipate that it will happen no sooner than 5:15 each of 2000 gentlemen

will have five minutes, be swift in the full statements that will be entered into the record. thank you. chairman members of the committee. thank you for the opportunity to discuss operation of the programs. we share this committee's protecting beneficiaries and taxpayer dollars and protecting generations for to come. medicare is a large and complex program that serves 54 million beneficiaries and working with 1. 5 million providers. he pay over a billion claims per year from the appropriate rights. and the gio continues the medicare high risk program there is good news to report. the last two years saw the slowest growth in the real per capita expenditures on record and the 2014 medicare trustees report projects that the trust fund that finances medicare's hospital insurance coverage will remain solvent until 2030

four years jon what was projected last year and promising the improvements for beneficiaries and fema initiatives have contributed to 50,000 fewer patient deaths and hospitals. and 1.3 million fewer hospital acquired conditions and saving 12 billion dollars over three years. and medical review strategies have resulted in 505 billion dollars in is savings in the last fiscal year. and they are working to transfer that into a high value pair with payment policies based on quality and not just volume. we will remain focused on preventing waste and abuse and fraud before it occurs. not just about cost but threat not been fishery health through substandard care. dangerous prescribing and a host of other problems. they have been using the fraud prevention system on all service claim and the system will incorporate beneficiary complaints made through 800 medicare and works with the numerous

other imputs to generate leads for future further review and investigation. and cmf will take the administrative action to stop the problematic behaviors through the suspension of payments. and medical review of claims and ring moving from the program. when we have recently reported to congress. the advanced system has generate add 5-1 urn on investment. and the other come point of the efforts are the strength and provider by verifying that of new and existing medicare providers and the risk based approach. he are screening those that pose the highest risk to the program using routine data checks of criminal records. and scheduled and unscheduled side visits and finger printing and as a result we have removed 4 other ,000 medical enrollment since 2010 and denied thousands of applications. which means that the providers will never gain the ability or lose the ability to build the medicare program. the unpresidented examples of success have been positively acknowledged by the gio. we are engaging with a

private sector in new ways to better share the information and transform insight into action. the health care fraud prevention partnership is maimed of 38 private and state members and will continue to gain membership. it is completing studies to allow those actions and is developing aedal studies based on these results the president's budget includes that proposal to allow the public and private partners to support this partnership by providing funds. and beyond that partnership. they have made important progress to integrating private sector tools in our operation including advance analytics and prior authorization and the use of prepayment plans. that the initiatives will net hundreds and millions in savings every year. finally for service reimbursement by paying the number of tests performed instead of quality and outcomes. and they are testing different payment models where providers are held accountable for the quality and the cost of their care.

and provider left side have a find incentives to coordinate care for patients. for the first time them. are set explicit goals for this work and it is a goal of tying 30% of the traditional service medicare payments to quality through alternative payment models through 2016 and tying 50% by the end of 018 and as a physician myself. i care most about the health of patient that's i am remime of daily as i will work with the colleagues time prove that delivery of health care services and the health care system will have the highest quality to ensure that have individuals and population? i look forward to answering the committee questions. thank you for your time and thank you. recognize five minutes and thank you so much. ranking member cummings and the members of the committee. we appreciate the discussion of the efforts of acquisition management. they will develop capabilities to expand frontiers of the opportunities in space and

here on earth. by the native our mission. activities are high risk. and at the same time, we will roth critical importance of managing stewards of taxpayer dollars. that means to deliver costs and on schedule and identifying the rick as quickly as possible time mrement the appropriate and corrective actions we have managed and preparing managers. and the improvements are yielding results and particularly with the small and the median class missions and a significant reduction of the products that have received base lines and several have lost within base lines including juno and the mars atmosphere. and volatile resolution. and the soil moisture active massive mission. and our larger and more complex projects typically involume development of significant number of new technologies that will present a greater technical risk. the next great observatory. in space.

that was originally confirmed on our cost policy that we used. and exceeded the original baseline. has benefitted from the improved process. and james webb's telescope is on track to meet the new cost and baseline that we have in an order ans with the three years ago, the cost policies have evolved over time. in the joint cost and scheduled confidence level analysis. and the enable nasa to complete a project within a certain life cycle and cost and schedule baited on the unique technical and problematic characteristics and the key benefit to the competence level is what is brought to the analysis and integrated analysis to the cost and schedule and technical rick. and they are taking steps to enhance the agency's earned value management capabilities. and guidance has provided to the nasa immunity too thousand the recently released project management handbook and nasa routinely will earn management data as reoccurring meetings in

the center of the anything and at the agency level as well as ad hoc being meetings should the issue as reiff. and nasa will rely on the knowledge gained and each project for product management and introduces new tools to assess whether projects and are on track to meet scheduled commitments. would i like to thank the gio foretheir hard work and valuable insights. he appreciate the open dialogue that we have had with them over the years as we have work today improve and refine our project management capabilities. as a result, i think that and while i in i there is work to be done. an am confident that we are for project nasa. . >> look forward to your questions the vote on the floor. the committee will be standing in recess when the votes will could not throughout clued. we will continue thank you for your patience. committee will come to order. thank you all for your patience with the votes on the floor.

with we are delayed actually. would i like to start by recognizing this gentleman from north carolina. a chairman on subcommittee and government operations mr. meadows for five minutes thank you mr. chairman. and thank you all for being flexible today really the concern that i have is that we have and are celebrating and we have to get away to get the high ri list this. is not a high benchmark. and if you look at the come opponents of that, making a real concerted effort. and i am looking forward to each of you putting together the plan to make sure that we can do that let me come to you and sent you an e-mail. i want to complement you on

the fact that during the e-mail that was shockingly surprisingly. and a surprise. and i want to say thank you and do you have the automatic re-enroll men number that's i have been requesting from cms. have they given them to you and happy to be accessible when you need and i think that we are working on it. you know. that is apart of the agency that i do not have direct oversight over. my understand something that have you had numerous conversations with the ceo of the marketplace kevin and that they are, woulding on a sm blee of the numbers and obviously as you new york the focus is on getting the numbers out to you and the public. making sure that they are accurate when we do so when you have not seen numbers for the automatic enrollment. you have not seen the totals? it is my understand that can we have numbers and we have been trying 60 days to get

it. is there any reason why it would take that long to verify the numbers? i think that it is confirming the numbers are number that's we can stand behind and making sure that they are good numbers and they are in touch with the staff. and making that we have been in touch. they have not been in touch. from a follow-up into it is amazing to me. that we would have the response time for those that would get recorded messages and operator that's we know down to the second or actually a tenth of a second and yet we cannot get automatic re-enrollment numbers from cmf. and expect that i don't have a particular timeline. i will go on further i have limited time. and we will look at medicare. going 14,000 lines of code to 68,000 codes in terms of

the care and reimbursements occurring you are talking about icd? yeah. we are going to go to a different schedule. so the doctors and the hospitals putting in the wrong towed will come out as an improper payment for fraud improper payment. and why would we go from 14,000 codes to 68,000 codes? how could that make it more efficient? let me say that adopting the codes that are established out of the agency processes and with the imput the provider community it is the provider community searching for specificity and the ability to define exactly what they were seeing. and we have codes now that

one in particular and big code. there is six different codes for squirrels so if a squirrel bites and you if it is the first time or second time. scratches you do you not see that we have more codes that will not make it more efficient? there is one code in here for spending too much time. the freezer. and it is incredibly ridiculous. i will tell you that the physicians that i have talked today and the hospitals that i have talked to are spending millions in compliance to figure out our codes we will increase those so why do that. an orca attack as well.

there are different and starting that one. and many of the others. let me ask that you if you have a different code for a rodant or a mouse and but are in control of that are you not? on implementing that. the program integrity. we are going to be require to implement icd 10 and there is delayed implementations of the requirement. that is meant to co-design itself has not been something that cmf is engaged in. and understanding of administrative data that will reflect what is going

on in the real world. and have had imput into the code sets. i think that we are as much of a recipient. across the world. timex fired ranking member mr. cummings five minutes and cmf and proper payment in the medicare program. and i am concerned about how they work. and how effective that they are. and what you have you seen for the future and suppliers that have historically posed a higher rics of fraud or abuse. suppliers that are attempting to either enroll in the medicare program or

revalidate their participating can you describe the different risks and screening levels designation and requirements that providers and suppliers in the categories are subjected to? by provider types are subdivided among the three risk categories. limited and medium and high as you go up the chain of risk. more screening strategies and approaches are implemented to screen those types of providers. again if they are newly enrolling or revalidating. the highest level of risk say that newly enrolling agency, that there are autimated back ground checks to be perform and they are performed for all provider types to be adequate and lack of a relevant criminal back ground or a cem record to keep the provider out you have the record and in addition the highest rings providers will face the site visits and they face

finger print based background checks so the multitude of different screening approaches for the highest risk providers and that also includes provider that's are attempting to re-enroll after having the actions taken against them in the past. the results of all of this work and to date we have revalidated over a million of the million and a half providers and those enrolled in medicare and the total of this work on both newly enrolling and the revalidation is that we have removed the billing privileges of over 4 50,000 enrollment in medicare to date. i will tell you that the new enrollment requirements are also allowing for us to deny more applications that the front end. and providers will never make it. they do not qualify so as opposed to chasing money. you will do preventive thing. is that right? i think that they are solidly landing on the preventative category this.

is really designed to keep the folks out of the program that don't belong. so if we conduct this site visit you never will make it into the program or if we check a criminal background record or determine that you are not appropriately liabilitiesed or if have you a relevant felony conviction that would keep you out you have the program. we will deny your enrollment in education. and let me ask you about the program of power mobility devices. how will the agency's demonstration and power mobility devices and complement those pranling at the right efforts. thank you very much for the question. one of the central challenges of the improper payment rate is that there is a disconnect between the medical record documentation that under lies the medical service or you know indicates what happened in the course of the medical interaction and acclaim that comes through. the bill for that interest axe and what prior

authorization does is it will allow for to us ensure that medical nitz requirements and documentation requirements are met on the front end before the service left side even offer to the beneficiary. again to take a risk based approach. and the demonstration was implemented in the power mobility devices first. we are with a proposed rule of the high cost and element that will look to oxygen. and scheduled ambulance transportation and and uses every day. provide the determining that it is okay and provider gets paid. adversely. affected. i think that it is an important issue and the

fronten and before provided that documentation is appropriate and the necessity is there so from potentially being on the hook. for the denied claim. the services were never provide and neither proed divide or the hook for the serviced provided but they are not getting paid for and the beneficiaries are not on the hook for having received the service that the provider will not then get paid for. thank you thank you gentlemen. recognizing from tennessee just today the newspaper says that in an article. before signing on to the increased pentagon and highest level ever. congress will insist on the serious efforts to identify and a dr. s wasteful spending by the pentagon. among federal agencies that the pentagon is never to submit. another article said that the pentagon leaders have

request add step up production of the f-35. and the beleaguered jet fighter that would prove to be a massive drain on resources with no end in sight sunk into the fiscal year. 2014 alone and egregious acquisition failures so over the years have i read so many articles. i wonder if there is a fiscal conservative at the pentagon. what do you say? how much do you have any estimate as to how much we have spent on 35 so far? you are concerned about the hill today that talks about wasteful spending? thank you and we are concerned about any wasteful spending in the pentagon and a number of processes in place to address spending in

general including overhead fundings and process i do not have the number of total spent today at 35 costs. per plain plane have gone down. and it was rebase lined 2010 is it actually producing a good airplane and it is stuck on old news. so. you are the principle deputy for the a being sdigs. and do you have any rough guess as to how much we have spent on that 35 thus far? a wild rough guess? i will get that you for the record. i don't know. it will go back to 2004 congressman. right all right. doctor i met last week with hospitals from east tennessee. and they told me that many of the hospitals in

tennessee are either going to have to close or go unor will be sold to a big out of state me care wage index and that the system now very expensive penalizes and have continually lowered their have you looked into this? and being paid say in san francisco or in comparison to tennessee or mississippi or places like that. it is almost unbelievable the hospitals are being paid twice as much for some of the mostly the and that is

not all of the fraud that is occurring in the irs but the tax refund. that led to the research that i want to ask you about which is your testimony last week before senator mr. grassley senator grassley asked you questions about the impact within the internal revenue code and the department of what the president has done on executive amnesty. you went back and forth with senator grassley. and asked you about um people that are benefiting from the amnesty. and claiming the earned

income tax credit up to 3 years you remember that testimony with senator grassley? i do. i don't now know if we established that -- what would the total cost that have program be? i don't know. i don't know where the $31 billion of 21 billion i don't know where the $ -- 21 billion has. we have stopped with the refund fraud and $ 5 billion. what went through. and we are worried about and this is not 21 or $31 billion going out the door. with regard to the question that you asked earlier. yes to be eligible for the earned income tax credit you have to work it is an earned income tax credit. to be able to apply for that have you to have a social security number and okay. so if you are. we have $700,000 out there by illegal immigrants that are paying taxes. correct they are not

eligible to apply. they do not have a social security number several million will get a social security number under new program, right and under the new program if you get a social security number and you work. you will be able to apply for the earned income tax credit. you will get them in an amount depending on your situation. if you are an individual working and applying for the individual tax credit. the maximum that you can get is dog to be arrange of 5 to $600 slowing down a little bit there was an apparent lack of clarity in the interpretation of what you said in the senate. i want to clear it up. is the earned income tax credit only going to be available to illegal immigrants that filed taxes previously or will it be available to all of them that receive social security numbered under new program there is a lack of clarity on that. if you receive a social security number. you can file this year if you are working. and if you earned income in

the three years before that and if you filed you will be eligible. if you did not file. will you have to file a return and file and demonstrate with that which anyone would that you earned income that you were eligible so if there was an assumption of the tax credit automatically whether working or not so it will be available to all work even if they did not file in the previous three years that is my understanding, yes have you no idea how much it will cost? into i do not know how many people will get social security numbers and how many we do this all of the time. did the white house not ask to you estimate that? i have not talked with the white house about this at all. did anyone at the white house ever consult with your office before the issue of the executive orders to give rise to the executive amnesty? they did not consult with me, or anyone else. i am not aware of any consultation you are aware that if we were to do what the president did by legislation that he did by executive order that we would have to go and get an estimate of he can actually

what we are talking about here today? from the joint committee on taxation. or cbo and so if we did this same thing that the president did by law with he would have to know the answer to that question. the president does not have to know the answer to know before did he what he did. the president would not necessarily come to us to get the answer. but he would go to omb. and the same token did not. did he ask you for example by the increase of the risk of fraud? no we have no conversations with the white house that i am aware of. i certainly have not talked with the white house about any of this. u2 i appreciate that. . >> thank you gentlemen mr. jordan five minutes i this i that the chairman i wanted to talk about the conservative groups. and frankly the parent of did he accept shonl and the delay that we have seen from this administration. and if you do not take my word for it. just yesterday in the hill front page the feds will not release i.r.s. targeting documents.

don't take my word. bob cusack mainstream hill journalist talking about the deception and the delay from the administration. we have to remember the whole saga here. february 2012 this committee staff that there was no targeting going on and it turned out to be a lie of course. and march 23rd doug shul man commissioner then told the ways and means committee to assurance that there was no targeting going on. also a false statement and may 2013 when going in front of the bar association in d.c. with the pointed question. again unprecedent today get there. went before the inspector general to release a property. and to talk about a targeting by the irs of conservative groups i quote from remember. talking to treasury and the white house about this. from mr. cusack's article yesterday. i quote -- then chief of staff patterson treasury informed the white house about the plan to disclose the targeting quote so that

the white house would not be surprised by the news. so think about this a planted question. before the inspector general's report comes out. disclose that can. and the white house and the treasury knew that it was going on. and then of course we have miss learner talking about a bob and not watched and that was false and the white house said that it was a phony scandal. no corrupt shonl that will bring me to mr. cost letter and the current commissioner. february 14 last year we subpoenaed you for all of the lois lerner's e-mails. slide number one. and just a few weeks later. march 26 in the committee room the chairman of the committee asked you question. you are going to provide all of lois learner an essie mails. and you said yes. we will do that do you remember that conversation into i do remember that conversation. you reminded me of that a couple of times i will keep doing that the american people are frustrate with the regarded free speech rights. and june 13th you sent a letter to senate finance saying we lost lois learn or

an essie mails and destroyed and tapes are destroyed. you remember that letter sent to finance ten days after that was sent you came back and we asked you questions and put up the second slide. i asked you specifically. what date did you learn that you could not get all of hurry mails? remember that conversation? i do remember that conversation your response was:i learneded in april. so my question to you is today, will you admit that you misled this committee. and the u.s. congress and importantly the american people just like mr. miss learner and mr. shul man was doing that you misled the gr he is and the american people? absolutely not you do not think that you misled them no. so you told mr. chafe yes we will get you all of had erie mails and a few days later you learned in april. that was? march. that you learned that you can't. and you wait two months to

tell us. and that is not misleading the american people. into and have you and pretty let me ask you this. have you sent the chairman a letter. not march 26th yes we will get you all of lois lerner's e-mails. and what i told you march 26 is not true. i still tell that you we will gift e-mails and we had. as we told you once before that we could not make up the lerner e-mails and we gave you all of the e-mails that we had. and givings them all to you. you write a letter to the senate finance saying that you lost them. destroyed them and have you done anything to correct the record? actually. we did not lose them and destroy them. they were lost in the period of time 2012. and then when we 2e6d in june i testified that we wait this had six weeks as we tried to provide you with

as much e-mails as we could. put up slide four and this is the letter sent and confirmed that you connecticut firm the record. waited six weeks to provide you all of the e-mails that we could find and provided you with 24,000 e-mails from the time of the hard drive crash and we said in the backup tapes that this of rerecorded over i have another question. in the last ten seconds if i could. have you withdrawn the letter understand that can e-mails are recoverable on the backup tapes have you with 2kr5u7b9 willer that you sent where you confirmed

that the tapes were not there? and i bring this up mr. chairman because this committee has experience with letters being withdrawn. and 2011 a judges advertise department thank you

chairman. monday and tuesday of this week i did two live town halls back in the district. and one town hall and two of those events the issue that was brought up the same story that came out in the "washington post" with the headlines irs rehired hundreds of exempt employees with troubled records came up and basically came up from my could not state went saying that in a why can we not get away with the same thing that were record there had? in the article it initial indicated that between 2010 january and september 2013 that the i.r.s. would rehire 7,000 employees.

a great jobs program and delighted when people are employed and the question comes from my people as to why over 800 of those 7,000 rehired irs employees were rehired with prior substantial employment issues. including 11 individual that's have engaged in unauthorized access to taxpayer information. and that really discourages and frustrates my citizens. that these people 11 of them that engaged in unauthorized access to the taxpayer information that is a crime as we understand it are rehired. why? the building be of the those are seasonals and those are hired for 4 to 6 to 8 mozza year depending on the time. they should not be rehired. even though they commit add crime. you are saying that they

why were they rehired the prois at this point in time. 2009 and 201 is. and 2012 followed as the iged said the rules and regulation that's in fact would have allowed those people to be applied. we consolidated in 2012 and all of the hiring issues into the personal security division have i made sure that if you vie lighted the section 1203 b that if you worked with the irdz and violated section 3 b you will not be rehired. well they say that it is a concern because in 2012. and 20136789 the i.r.s. hired individuals with prior significant substantiated conduct and performance issues. what you are doing? it was subsequent to that. and what the i g.e. would recommend in the report said that it was all pursuant. we followed pursuant to when we followed up the rules and ig said that we should make sure that we will make sure before we will hire someone that we have actually

reviewed all of this. and as i said. that we will do that and we took the ig recommend ages have i talked with the personnel people since the ig started to raise this issue. which i think is an important issue in december. and to make sure that in this consolidation with the personal security people. if have you violated 1203 b. and willful access tack pair information. you will not be hired let me proceed further then. i hope that this is a general trend. the audit that identified 141 individual that's were rehired. ahead of the prior tax issue. with five of them having been found by the irs management to have which willy not filed taxes. how many of these employees are work something my do not noah lot of them do not come back the next year. i don't know how many there were. i would note that the 141 that we will take the rekwiernlt of the irs employees to be tax come mrienlt seriously. and the compliance rate is over 99% we will hold the

people accountable even if mistakes are inadvertent and if they make the modest mistakes we count that as noncompliance. what we are concern about the is the five employers that you mentioned that have willfully been found not to pay their taxes and violate tax laws and the people are subject today termination could you get us fofg people that reare referring to that are still employed? 141 and if you have had a minor attempt or mistake. those you would get cited for. and they are a basis not for termination. the five that you mention with the a willful termination i will find out that information and get it back to you and all right i appreciate that. what about those not tax issues. but had substantial prior many employment issues. attendance issues a misrepresent send takes if they were on the job? as i said. the consolidation that we

have in the personal security department that reviews every offer before it is made to make sure that we have gone over all of this again. some personal activities are are. you did not show up for work for two days others are a significant problem and we will distinguish that the rules are clear about that. and because you had a performance issue in the file did not mean that would you never work again for the irs. and it did he pens on the nature and the duration of the affair. fwhur is important for people to be confident though 80% are seasonal and do not necessarily work even for half of the year this. is important for to us make sure and very important that we have approach appropriate people working. so i will take the report. a big supporter of ig's they will continue to review the issue scombez will take it seriously. and he have implemented recommendations and we have a personal security group now and it is ensuring the two most serious issue

that's you will not be hired. if there are other conduct issues not only will we follow the rules we will review those for the appropriateness and work at the irs and i this i that it is important for people to be comfortable if we are collecting your taxes we ought to be paying ours snoop 824 covers a lot thank you i this i that the general gentlemen. time is expired mr. palmer for five minutes and thank you mr. chairman. i want to give him a break here for a minute and talk for a moment i do not think that, that is not appreciated. mr. light foot nasa is making progress on getting off the high risk list and

from alabama. and massive major press end in the state. but there have been issues right now with the rebase lining costs and scheduled in management and technical issues so can you address that on the projects? yes. we have had that have done really well and have made good process under a baseline. when we have gone through confirmation. what we call a project that moves from the formulation to development. that is when we will make a commitment for a certain cost and schedule to live to. and a process that we have reviewed monthly, we will occasionally have one that will pop up and give us an issue so we have had two of those and the space grounds. sustained we had. and the project that is

issue that's we have going on and you go to announcement. and is there away that we have the process that we go through and each has the lessons and for the rest of the projects. and a couple of major engineering companies one of the things that will drive a client crazy changing ofrdz orders. is that you have projects that i don't know if it is a result of design changes or poor design to begin with that is running runs on change orders and this is

the first time that we have applied project methodology and a ground system. that is one thing that is an upgrade to the ground network to communicate with all of the satellites that we have in orbit. and what we did is we went out. and we knew that we had a job in front of us. the title program techniques that we have been doing for spacecraft. to a ground system. we have learned a couple of systems in the process. the number one is that the first one is that we have to be very clear on our requirements much of what you are talking about. and to understand. to make sure that the contractor that is doing that work, will understand those requirement as well so. we have gone back and forth with this. in terms of trying to define better what the expectation that's we have and contractor and managing that contractor in this

particular case. we have changed out the entire contract management team and the team that we have in terms of our managing and since we have done that, we have we have managed to stay from an earned value perspective, we will state the levels that we have respected? so do you say that this is the result of a design that is a project that scheduled and dictated the design or is this something where you are entering a new area and you are designing as you go? i this that i this is a case where we under estimated the type of work that we needed to do to deal with the issue that's we had in front of us. in terms of a software system that we are putting into place with new equipment all right. i believe that is what i have. i will balance my time and chairman from gentleman georgia. five minutes thank you chairman. mr. chairman since you had the break i thought that it was only appropriate to

come back and ask you a couple of questions that were on my mind in particular based on the previous testimony, have you made it clear that the ability of the irs to make progress in the area that's had been out lined by the gio have been largely hinl derd due to reductions and funding. this is the personal question to me due to involvement with the non-profit organizations and the irs has spent millions to basically to rewrite the govern governing rules and non-profit organizations specifically and potentially remove the tax exempt status and involved in a political activity my question is

multiand amazing personally that there would be an issue of trying to hinder speech of americans my specific question comes down to how much money can you tell me how much money that the i.r.s. has spent on writing and the attempt to rewrite that specific section of the ruling? i know that it was withdrawn. my understand something an attempt to rewrite that and how much was spent to that end. the lawyer that's have been working on the drafting of this. this is not spending full-time. so this is not a large amount that i will try to get an estimate of how many people have worked on that and the first version was done before i got there. if you would like we will figure out a rough estimate in the man hours and the only time would be say a relatively small time of lawyeres to work on it. when i started and inherited

all of this, the goal is in fact to try to make clear what the rules are in away that is fair to everybody. all of the organizations. this is clear and easy to administer. the rule that was there a long time is that you will judge both the determination is to where you will be eligible. and then whether you are performing under the statute by the facts and circumstances. so that means that anybody running an organization is running a risk and looking over their shoulder saying there could be a different view of the facts and circumstances and my sense is that we ought not to be hindering a political speech but changing the way that people act and what we ought to have is ig in the recommendation said that the treasury department and the irs should clear up what the standard and what amount how much and what the definition is of the political being activity that you can engage in my sense that it is possible to have a rule to be clearer easier for the people in organizations running them to understand and fair to everyone.

that would not be hindering the political speech. so this is not my intention anyway in looking at that to do that. and my sense and my concern is that the present system has over the last several years, by the ig analysis turned out to be unworkable. it would be nerve's interest that it would be clearer with rules are. and without hindering people and able to run organizations confident that somebody isn't going to come in and second guess them on facts and circumstances that they are operating under.

these problems have still not been addressed. >> that's not quite true. we did have more money in 2010 by a long shot and as i noted in my testimony in 2013, as a result of some of the spending on information technology the information technology business system mod concern highsation process for the irs was taken off the high-risk list after having been there for 14 years. it's been proven in the i.t. area if we have the funding we i

can make significant progress. >> that's great for the i.t. area but many other areas need to be addressed and 25 years is far too long. time to put some teeth to it, sir. thank you. >> now recognize the gentleman from florida for five minutes. >> commissioner koskinen a year ago the senior irs leadership learned lois learner's hard drive crashed. there was an issue about getting her e-mails off backup tapes. you wrote a letter to senate finance in june of 2514, saying that there were problem wiz learner's e-mails and the backup tapes had been destroyed and then on january 20th you testified that the irs went to, quote, great lengths and meat, quote, extraordinary efforts to recover learner's e-mails. after the irs became aware of learner's hard drives crashed, what specific steps did the irs take to locate any backup tapes or disaster recovery tapes.

>> the disaster recovery tapes at the irs are recorded over when they're used until they're no longer usable so there is no technique or capacity in the irs to actually retrieve e-mails off of those tapes. what we did do was go to everybody in the custodial list of 80 different people, miss lerner would have been communicating with. we're looking for all e-mails. we produced e-mails relevant to the determination process. we were then trying to respond to all. we took every e-mail that was to or from lois lerner, compare them against e-mails -- >> but that would not have been back toup tapes. >> that it is their -- >> the backup tapes you made the judgment that they simply were not going to be recoverable or did you actually have somebody investigate whether you could have backup tapes or find some backup tapes? >> our expert said we had no way, they were not recoverable.

it's taken six months working around the clock and has not gotten them produced and we don't know how many there are. my position all along as been with the i.g., was we helped define what they backup tapes were if he could find more e-mails that would be terrific and i actually mean that seriously because it would lend even more light than the 24,000 we already produced into what were in those ohm i'ms in that time frame. >> why were the i.g. be able to find it if you couldn't. >> the e. guardian when we discovered this -- the i.g. -- when we discovered it in the spring and reported nit june, within a couple weeks thereafter the ig started his investigation, and if we started today, think of the i.g., taken them over six months to in fact recover whatever they're going to recover. >> let me ask you this. >> the irs -- we don't have that capacity. >> did the irs collect any tapes or send backup tapes to forensic

labs in your investigation, the people you detailed to do there is? were any tapes recovered, any tapes ever standpoint the lab by the irs. >> no. >> who told you that the backup tapes would not yield any e-mails from lois learner's crashed hard drive. >> if was told that by our information technology department. >> what was -- do you know the basis for that statement? did you inquire how they could be sure of that? >> basically what they described to me was they have these disaster recovery tapes. they're actual tapes. and then when the six months -- they keep them for six months and when the six months is done they roo use them and record over them and if you ever had tapes, when you record over them then in the normal process the data underneath is gone, and in fact i was told we had no capacity and no way to actually recover those, and in fact they were not sure there was any way you could recover them. >> has the irs communicated with lois lerner, her attorneys, about recovering the e-mails from any of her crashed hard

drives? >> no. i have had no communication with lois lerner about this at all. i've never met her. >> let me ask you this in the course of the irs' response to this committee's investigation, has the irs withheld any information or documents from congress on any other basis other than 6103? >> no. we have had some we asked the staff to review in camera because there are basically personal matters that have nothing to do with the investigation. but we are exercised no privilege. we aren't trying to keep anything from you. in fact we have continued to respond to requests and continue to provide any information we can find. >> you would say that your responses to the requests from this committee have been above and beyond what is required in this situation? >> i don't say above and beyond. when you want information and ask for it, we have an obligation to do our best to provide that and we've done that. i don't know if that's above and beyond. >> extraordinary efforts north above and beyond. >> extraordinary efforts when we discovered the crash, then it

was my decision and thought we needed to do whatever we could to fill in that gap, and we did find 24,000 e-mails we provided. my understanding from news reports, because the i.g. doesn't tell us stuff about this -- that the i.g. may be able to fine another nine or ten thousand lois lerner e-mails. >> final question is you made the effort. you were not cavalier about this. you made the effort to find what the committee wanted. is that your testimony? >> that's my testimony. >> thank you. yield back. >> thank the gentleman. now recognize the distinguished gentleman from south carolina for five minutes. >> thank you mr. chairman. the book of -- teaches us there's a time and season for everything and you con vinceed me earlier this evening this is not the time to question mr. cost skinnen. -- koskinen. he was here for gao related testimony and not irs. i believe you have agreed that at some point he is going to

come back before the committee and i was wondering if the chairman might engage in a colloquy with me to make sure micronnology is correct. i thought the last time that commissioner koskinen was in front of us there was a robust discussion about a time period within which he was going to produce e-mails. and he had asked us to narrow the scope so that he could prioritize and get us the e-mails we had asked for, and of course as the chairman will recall, we need those e-mails because the e-mails we do have from lois lerner contain such jewels as lamenting g.o.p. wins. celebrating democrat wins. forecasting gloom and doom if the g.o.p. god forbid every controlled the senate, saying that we needed a plan to overcome citizens united.

those were some of the e-mails i recall, mr. chairman and if my chronology holds they magically disappeared, and then the irs of course, mr. chairman employed herculean efforts to recover those e-mails. they were not successful, but then after the election, or just talliesman i cannily they did appear and we are now reading that 500 of the e-mails will not be made available due to the invocation of a privilege. does the chairman know what privilege the white house is relying upon to not produce those documents to congress? >> i do not. >> do you think -- do you know whether the president has had an opportunity to review those 500 documents?

>> good question. >> do you think there's chance that his conclusion not a smidgen on corruption might exist in this investigation might alter if he had an opportunity to reviews the documents? >> certainly. >> will you consider inviting mr. koskinen back to update us on this chronology? >> yes indeed. >> all right. well mr. koskinen, commissioner, i'm not going to question you today because i think the hearing title was something else but i hope at some point we can go back to where we left off which was an assurance from you that you were going to prioritize e-mail productions, and i hope at some point, mr. chairman, we can evaluate the refusal to turn over certain documents to congress, the invocation of privilege -- and i is hasten to ad as the chairman remembers because of his service on

judiciary and oversight this administration has invoked executive privilege before only for us to then learn that the privilege was invoked to protect an e-mail that the attorney general sent to his wife. under what theory of executive privilege is that e-mail protected? so i hope that i live long enough to see the production of those e-mails, and i'll certainly hope i live long enough to see the commissioner come back before us, and with that -- >> the gentleman yield. >> could i just make one clarification? during the course of all of the document production treasury department turned over all of its lois lerner e-mails and the white house made a representation they had no lois lerner e-mails. in terms 0 of that process and this committee issued a report in december, noting that in fact there was no evidence that anybody outside of the irs whether at the white house or treasury, had any impact or influence over the i.g. said, improper use of criteria for the

determination process for c-4. so i don't know what the documents over there are. there's been a litigation around the inspector general investigating communications but that's not a case between us and the irs is not a party to that, and -- >> no, it's not, which is in part why i directed my questions to the chairman and not to you, but if you would like us to have this conversation, i will ask you, do you understand why congress wants those e-mails? thank you understand as a trained attorney what we might want access to all the documents? >> i can understand that. my understanding was that the white house sometime ago certified there were no lois lerner e-mails and treasury gave you all of their lois lerner e-mails. >> they're claiming privilege -- >> i think this is my sixth appearance before this committee. i look forward to the seventh and we'll talk about and it be delighted to give you an update and i will be delight evidence if the inspector general can ever complete its work.

it's now going six months to produce the e-mails and then all of us will learn what was in them i have been tote live supportive of the i.g. and my view if therer e-mails and the i.g. in the press has been said has been able to find 'them that will be a major step forward and i look forward to discussion that with you. >> i'm out of time but you can appreciate our cynicism and skepticism because it appears at if sometimes the strategy is to delay and obfuscate and wait and wait and wait until either the public loses interest or until there's a new administration. so i know you can appreciate our desire to have those documents sooner rather than later. >> i can thoroughly understand that. >> thank the gentleman. >> thank you. >> gentleman's time is expired. i now recognize myself for five minutes. i have not had a chance to ask questions. i'd like to remind my colleagues why we're here. the five of you are very presentable, you put a happy

face on the difficult situation. but here's the reality. 25 years in a row your agencies, these problems have come before congress. 25 years in a row. this is the all-star team of problems. that's the reality. you can try to put lipstick on the pig, but the reality is, it's ugly. to get on this list you have to be engaged in waste fraud, and abuse in excess of a billion dollars a year. now to get off the list, granted, it's not easy but here are the cite tear ya for getting off the list. leadership commitment agency capacity. action plan be monitoring efforts and show progress. that seems like a reasonable five sets of criteria you can accomplish. according to gao, 25 years in a

row you failed to hit the criteria on those five. and consequently, that's why we're highlighting this. i think you're all well intentioned. i think you're all very talented individuals, but the math the bureaucracy in the organizations is failing to meet these modest goals and that's what is so frustrating. things are going to pop up. challenges are going to arise but 25 years in a row, is just not good enough. i heard they were making measurable progress. six levels. good news to report. i'm sorry, you don't have good news to report. the bad news is you're back again. we don't want to keep having these hearings. we want to show the progress. and i really do appreciate the good men and women who spent untold number of hours and years going through the details of

what is happening within these departments and agencies. as a followup i don't expect you to do this off the top of your head. one of my concerns is, who is held accountable? who actually is held accountable? we asked, i think, at the very beginning, a good question about, anybody ever been fired? i think was mr. hurt -- hurd, anybody fired, transferred, for not meeting these goals? we have thousands of good quality people who work for the federal government. these are employees who wake up they're patriotic work harked trying to do their best, but somehow, some sways this has totally fallen down and we're not achieving the goals. at the criteria doesn't say you have to solve this. it says you're on the trajectory to actually getting it solved. so part of the followup that we would appreciate is who is held

accountable? what happens if you don't meet these goals? because some of these are astronomically large. we're talking hundreds of billions of dollars. if you just take -- you want to wipe out the federal deficit? you just look at the uncollected taxes and the problems we have in waste, fraud and abuse, going out the door through hhs. that more than wipes out all owe the deficit right there just those two things. it's not very easily done. but the waste, the fraud can the abuse, and you look at the people who work hard and pay their taxes and they're doing everything they can and then they hear hundreds of billions of dollars going out that is either not checked or going out erroneously and the waste and fraud. they throw up their hands. they're 2500 bucks means something in their lives and yet the numbers here are so big. i do not understand why the five

that are highlighted here -- there's six programs two at the department of defense -- why you can't hit those five goals, and according to the gao, like the mid care program, they've only met one of the five goals. four partially on the two dod programs, met one of the five criteria. four are partially met. at the department of energy, one partially met, one fully met three not met at all. so, 25 years in a row. i don't want to come back and have this same hearing at the beginning of the next congress. i want y'all to solve it. the committee would like to know and hear from you how are you going to do that? how are you going to do that? and again, difficult for you answer, but i'm telling you, y'all are given -- painted a pretty picture. it ain't so pretty.

we want to see what is the action plan to create an action plan? that's the hope and goal. that's my concern. and with that, i want to yield back. i think -- there are any members who wish to ask a second round of questions? gentleman from ohio. >> i appreciate the chair's indulgence. put up the two slides again. mr. koskinen. i just want to -- >> it was noted -- agreed by congressman gowdy and the chairman i'll come back and we'll have a full hearing about this. >> i fully expect that. >> but aim happy to answer more questions. that's fine. >> that's the way it works. we call you here and we're allowed to ask question because the american people want to know why the internal revenue service violated their rights. we appreciate your willingness to answer the questions on behalf of the american people of. that's awful big of you. >> just noting we'll have another hearing on this and i've had five hearings already but i'm happy to answer the

questions. >> but we have not gotten the truth, as evidenced by the headline yesterday, the mainstream press can't even get the documents. >> those aren't documents they're requesting from us. >> but they derive from your unlawful, un -- activity. that's the point. that's something you got to understand. the guy who heads heads the agency with as much power as you do to have that kind of attitude, that frustrates not just members of the committee but all kinds of americans. mr. chairman, that is the problem. let's go back to this this is what you told me when i asked you, when did you learn you could not get all your e-mails? you learned in april. then you learned in april -- and then let's put the next slide -- this is the letter you sent to senate finance telling them? june -- you used the word wow confirmed" that no backup tapes -- that backup tapes no longer exist. so i want to know, between

april, when you learned, and june when you told the congress and the american people what you did to confirm that those tapes didn't exist which we now me to do exist. so, what did you do to confirm that the tapes didn't exist, mr. koskinen? >> i talked to our i.t. people, who told me that when the tapes were finished with their six months they were reused and then destroyed. and that as far as they were concerned, there was no way -- we had no capacity even if we knew where they were, to distract e-mails from them and it's taken the i.g. six months and they still have not completed the process. >> that's all you did. you asked your i.t. people. >> right. >> was it's long conversation? did you ask them one question? >> i asked them questions about how the backup disaster recovery process worked. >> so the word "confirmed" is

based on one conversation you head with i.t. people. >> yes. those are the experts. they told me there was no way those tapes could be found or would be used because they were reused -- >> that's all you did. >> that's all i did. >> really. an issue where repeated lies from lois lerner, false statements given by doug schulman the unprecedented fashion in which you release the data ahead of the inspector general's report, with the plan in question you have tipped off the treasury and white house about, and all you do to confirm, you lost the most important documents from the most important person in the center of the scandal, owl you do is ask a question of the irv t. people? that's it? >> we spent six weeks looking at the hard drives and the documents for 82 people -- >> no, no, no. >> to produce 24,000 more lois lerner e-mails. that's what we did. >> who was the person, this one conversation you had to confirm you lost valuable documents from the central figure in this entire scandal in whose the one

person you asked the question to. >> that would have been steve manning, the senior i.t. guy and i asked him could we find with those tapes available, he said. no and then we decided what we could do, what we did dierks looked at all of the i'ms to and from from 80 people and produce for you 24,000 e-mails. >> i'm phone discussion on the word, confirm with one conversation with one i.t. guy that turned out not to be true. here's the big picture. your chief counsel knew in february you had problem with lois learner's e-mails. you learned in april and didn't tell us null june. so from february to june you learned they're a big problem and the only thing you do to confirm is one question to your i.t. guy. >> if knew in april -- >> about something where people's fundamental rights were violated. >> a lot of time to get 24,000 e-mails which was -- at that time we thought the pest we could do and an extraordinary

evident to get the additional 24,000 e-mails, which by the way apparently i don't have much interest in them because they're been -- >> one conversation, mr. chairman, one conversation with an i.t. guy and he writes u.s. congress, and tells the american people we have lost lois learner's e-mails and then and -- one more question. when did you learn they actually found the tapes and could recover her e-mails? >> i haven't learned yet they could recover. i learned they -- they went through the system and our people helped them find do -- by august they thought they found the tapes from -- >> wait, wait. this is an important point. a month after -- in jewel and early august, mock after you said, we confirmed that backup tapes no longer exist they had the backup takes. >> our people -- >> within a month they got tapes you confirm didn't exist. >> that's exactly right. >> my goodness. >> thank the gentleman.

>> recognize the ranking member. >> we can -- sitting here and lining to all of this, i'm just trying to figure out how do we move forward? y'all have been on the list for 25 years. that's a long time. administration after administration, and at some point we need to get off this merry-go-round. and one of the things i've noticed after being here for 18 years now, is that there's a tendency for -- i think it was mr. gowdy who said it-or somebody up there -- that, quote, wait for another administration or another congress and then we just

recycle the same problems. i guess my question is very simple to each of you. if you were -- if you had a magic wand and could get this done, what would you do to get yourselves off the list? i'm serious. what does it take? if you were us, what would you do to get you off the list, or to have a kind of accountability the chairman talked about? i got to agree with him. we're better than this. and we are just 0 going round and round and round. we're losing hundreds of billions of dollars. we are wasting a lot of time and it's very frustrating. and i just believe -- is it that we are too big to have accountability? is it that we are too big to be

able to say okay, this is how it's supposed to be done and we're going to do it this way and we're going to do it, in an effective and efficient manner? you all may feel that the questions are a bit unfair and tough, so i'm going to turn the table. why don't you tell us what you would -- if you were us, what would we have you do so that you get off the list? so we can hold you accountable. start with you, mr. macwilliams, since you have such a wonderful smile. >> thank you for your question. first of all, the point i would make with respect to department of energy and to chairman's comments, we have made progress but the gao is focusing on half dozen large capital projects where we have had repeated

problems and we still do have problems. there's no effort on our part to claim success on that and we welcome your oversight and the oversight of gao. what success we have had is in projects below the 750. i won't dwell on those but will point out in the department -- in the nsa, for example in the last three years, where seven percent below budget and on time we have had other large projects recently such as the national project coming in on budget. the problem wes have, which are systemic, are in the large capital projects and tend to be the nuclear projects, among the most complex projects in the world. therefore what we're trying to focus on are structural changes so that they last passed someone like me testifying before you for a couple of years and that's why we have tried to create a much improved esab, a new

project risk management committee. that committee is meant to create enterprise-wide dialogue and challenge by all the project members from across the program, so we can avoid future problems like this and hopefully get to the bottom of the problems that we have. the last thing i just mention sir, is both of you talked about accountability, that has been a significant issue at the department of energy. when everybody is in charge of a project, nobody is in charge. and so that's why as i mixed earlier, we -- the secretary has mandated that for every project we have to have a defined owner to the chairman's question so that is the person that is accountable when things don't go correctly. >> i think we have a solution to this issue, and i think -- >> the ranking member and i

mr. cummings and i have chatted, and i think what we would like to do is to send each of you a letter. we would request that you would respond within a 30-day period what is your plan? show us your game plan and what you need to do to accomplish that plan? is that -- does anybody have an objection to that? is that fair? anybody have an objection to that? we need that 30-day timeline if we send you a letter this week? fair enough. this has been a long hearing. you have been very patient taking your time here. but that what we'll do. we'll send a bipartisan letter, ask you to respond within 30 days, show us your game plan and then that way i think we can go from here. we do appreciate your agency. again, most of the people -- they're good hard-working, patriotic people but we're failing them and if we don't address and it put a machine in place, we'll be back here again and we don't ever want to do that.

with that this committee will stand adjourned. thank you. >> up next, some of today's white house cyber security summit in california, beginning with president obama talking about information sharing between government and private industry. then homeland security secretary jeh johnson discusses the same issue with business leaders from american express pacific gas and electric and kaiser permanente. and later the ceo's of master card aig and bank of america, sit down with congress secretary penny pritzker for a discussion of on what companies can do to better protect against cyber attacks. >> president obama signed a new executive order today at a white house cyber security summit. the order makes it easier for