a government commission found that the u.s. government has lost nearly $60 billion on projects in afghanistan and iraq because of waste and fraud. a senate homeland security subcommittee investigates ways to improve overseas contracting procedures. that's next on c-span3. then the group citizens against government waste releases its annual report on federal earmark spending. later, remarks from alec baldwin at the national press club. jury selection began this week in the retrial of former major league pitcher roger clemens charged by federal prosecutors with knowingly lying to congress in february 2008 on performance-enhancing drug use in baseball. >> let me read to you what his wife said in her affidavit. i, laura pettitte do depose and state in 1999 or 2000, andy told

me he had had a conversation with roger clemens in which roger admitted to him using human growth hormones. mr. clemens, once again, i remind you, you are under oath. you have said your conversation with mr. pettitte never happened. if that was true, why would laura pettitte remember andy telling her about the conversation? >> once again, i think he misremembers the conversation that we had. andy and i's relationship was close enough to know that if i would have known that he was -- had done hgh which i now know, that he was knowingly knowing that i had taken hgh, we would have talked about the subject. he would have come to me to ask me about the effects of it. >> watch his 2008 testimony online at the c-span video library. with over a quarter century of american politics and public affairs on your computer.

senior administration officials have expressed concerns about a senate bill that seeks to curb waste, fraud and abuse in overseas wartime contracts. we'll hear from one of the bill's sponsors, senator jim webb, along with pentagon and state department officials. this senate subcommittee hearing on contracting is chaired by missouri senator claire mccaskill who is also a co-sponsor of the legislation. >> i want to welcome everyone to this hearing this morning. i know that senator portman will be arriving shortly. i did want to not keep our first witness waiting. my colleague, senator jim webb, is here to give testimony about our subject today as a brief introductory remark, i'm not going to go into who he is and why he's here because i think most people know who he is. but i do want to say just about

why he's here when i came to the senate in 2007, senator webb and i quickly found that we had a place we wanted to work on. and that was contracting and contingencies. his background in the military was a great asset to us as we put together the war contracting commission legislation. and he and i worked on it together and succeeded back in the day that -- before senator warner had retired. senator warner as the ranking member of the armed services committee was a tough sell. i mean, people need to remember the context that this legislation was brought forward in. it was when president bush was still president. and i think there was a fear that this contracting commission was a political exercise. and, of course, it was far from that. it was something that was really needed to take a hard look at what had gone wrong with contracting and contingencies and to build a body of work that

could change the culture around contracting and contingencies for the long haul. and i want to thank him for his friendship and his hard work on this issue and look forward to his comments today as we look at legislation trying to implement the recommendations of the commission that we worked hard to create together. senator webb? >> thank you very much, madam chairman, ranking member portman and other members of the subcommittee. i know you've got two full panels. i will be brief here. i would ask that the full written testimony that i have would be included at the end of my brief oral remarks. >> without objection. >> thank you. i am here to basically express the strongest support possible for the movement of this

legislation that you, madam chairman, and i have worked on in different capacities for now five years. at a time when this senate is continually bogged down in symbolic votes rather than issues of governance. i'm very proud of what we've been able to do on this issue since 2007. i would say it's been one of the great pleasures of being in the senate to have been able to get this legislation into place. the first round of it with the wartime contracting situation and hopefully this recommendation that will be implementing some of the findings of that wartime contracting commission. as the chairman mentioned, she brought a strong background in auditing to the senate. i spent five years in the pentagon and in different capacities, including four years on a defense resources board. and one of my eye-openers coming to the senate, sitting on the

foreign relations committee in '07 when we had a hearing on iraq reconstruction programs with the state department and they mentioned in their testimony that they had $32 billion in iraq reconstruction programs that were appropriated and in some form of being put into play. and i asked in a way that i would normally have asked if i were in the pentagon years before to see the contracts and the amount and what -- who the contractor was and what the state of implementation was on these different contracts. and they couldn't tell us. we worked with them for months and they could not tell us where $32 billion had been spent in a specific way where we could evaluate the results. and that was one of the motivations that caused me to start working as avidly as i did along with chairman mccaskill to

see if we couldn't have the management structures in place catch up with the realities of what happened in the post-9/11 environment of military commitments overseas. this is a particular problem in the state department and usaid. i don't think they had anticipated these sorts of programs before the situation that existed once 9/11 occurred. we were very lucky as chairman mccaskill mentioned to have gotten the support of senator john warner when we were advancing this legislation through the senate. he was my senior senator. was a republican. i had worked with him when i was a young marine when he was secretary of the navy. i followed him as secretary of the navy. and he, by stepping forward and demonstrating that this was an issue with wide concern and from people like himself who had

spent time in management positions in the pentagon, really helped us push this over the threshold and into reality. we had a bipartisan wartime contracting commission. i think they did a really fine job. i personally will say i'm very disappointing a lot of the findings have been sealed up for 20 years. but the overall recommendations, i think, are something that we will be able to work on in terms of implementing legislation that get into management, policies and how we bring wriggor to the process. and i would like to emphasize here as i did in our press conference earlier that i believe, and i want to acknowledge, that the great majority of the contractors who participated in this process since 9/11 are not only reputable but they have really, really done a very fine job in

an environment that a lot of people had not anticipated. so this is not a piece of legislation, nor was it a major goal of this process simply to bash wartime contractors. we can't get along without them. this had been an effort to put the right kind of structure into place so that we can have efficiently run, well managed and effective wartime contracting and operational contingencies now and in the future. so i was very pleased to have worked in detail on this legislation as it was developed. it has my strongest support, and i thank senator mccaskill for her untiring efforts here in order to bring good governance into this body. thank you, madam chairman.

>> thank you, senator webb. i will make a brief opening statement and then turn it over to my colleague senator portman for a brief opening statement and then we'll ask our first panel of witnesses to come to the table. on august 31st, 2011, the commission on wartime contracting in iraq and afghanistan presented its final report to congress. on february 29th, 2012, senator webb and i introduced senate bill 2139. the comprehensive contingency contract reform act of 2012. this legislation is based on the findings and recommendations of the commission. this morning i have the honor of hearing the distinguished representatives of the defense department, state department, usaid and respective agencies inspectors generals present their views on this important legislation.

based on their contributions and what we have heard from many of the stakeholders with whom i and the staff have met with over the past few months and on the inpuft other senators, we were advised the legislation and introduce a new version for consideration by the homeland security and government affairs committee. this legislation will increase accountability for wartime contracting and transform the way the federal government awards, manages and oversees wartime contracts. it will help ensure that the waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement that we saw in iraq and afghanistan will never happen again. i want to make a few points about today's hearing. first, we are here today to seek input from the executive branch, agencies and inspectors general because we want to get this right. the subcommittee has previously met with contractors and other stakeholders regarding this legislation. however, major portions of this bill deal with accountability and responsibility for the government. and that is by design.

therefore, i encourage you to share any suggestions you have to improve this legislation. second, this legislation builds on existing structures and rules to solve the problems identified by the commission. senate bill 2139 requires each agency responsible for wartime contracting to establish clear lines of authority and responsibility for all aspects of contingency contracting. it requires the department of defense, the state department and usaid to improve their training and planning for contract support in contingencies. the legislation reduces reliance on noncompetitive contracting practices and restricts subcontracting practices that have resulted in a lack of transparency and visibility. the legislation requires agencies to conduct risk analyses before relying on private security contractors and to terminate unsustainable reconstruction and development projects. it also strengthens tools to

combat human trafficking. this approach is pragmatic and will reduce the potential for waste, fraud and abuse in future wars. many of the witnesses today have already testified numerous times before this committee about lessons learned in iraq and afghanistan. i commend the departments, particularly the defense department, for recognizing that they have shortcomings in implementing changes. however, the commission concluded in its final report that, quote, meaningful progress will be limited as long as agencies resist major reforms that would elevate the importance of contracting. i want to put you all on notice today that such resistance is no longer acceptable. today and in the weeks and months to come, we have an opportunity to make a real change in the way government spends money during wartime. it is not too late to prevent further waste in afghanistan. and it's not too late to prevent

the problems in iraq and afghanistan from occurring in the next war whenever and wherever that may be. everyone knows that contracting in a wartime environment is not going to go away. it will be here with our nation in the future. it is imperative that we no longer make excuses, rationalizations or hide behind existing structures to defend the gross inaccuracies that our government has displayed during contracting processes in iraq and afghanistan. we must fix these problems now while the memory is fresh, while the memory of these failures are fresh. and before the harsh lessons of iraq and afghanistan are forgotten. i remember on my first trip to iraq on contracting oversight, i remember being accompanied by a general, a high-ranking general

in the army. and i remember the conversation where it was said, you know, we did a lessons learned after bosnia. i just don't know what happened to it. i want to make sure that those same sentences are not uttered during the next contingency as we face contracting in the most difficult environment that contracting occurs, and that is when our men and women are putting their lives on the line for our security and our freedom. i thank the witnesses for being here today, and i look forward to their testimony. senator portman. >> thank you, madam chair. i appreciate your comments. and i am pleased our witnesses are experts who can give smus input as you say and it's good to hear from our colleague from virginia, senator webb. it's an incredibly important hearing. it's an opportunity to examine the lessons we have learned from wartime contracting, from our experience over the last decade.

ten years in afghanistan. nine years in iraq. and it's a chance to hear from our witnesses on some of these reforms that are necessary to improve the stewardship of our taxpayer dollars and some very challenging environments. this past august, as was noted, the bipartisan wartime contracting commission issued their final report on its investigation over government's use of contractors in iraq and afghanistan. and in my view, the commission came to a very troubling bottom line conclusion. it was estimated by the commission that out of the $206 billion we spent on service contracts in iraq and afghanistan, which includes everything from building military installations to training election workers, between $31 billion and $60 billion was lost to what they termed to be avoidable waste. so out of $206 billion spent on billion lost to , between $31 avoidable waste. is a difficult environment. winston churchill once said the only thing certain in war is

that it is full of disappointments and also full of mistakes. and it's true. it's a tough environment. but when it comes to wartime contracting, we certainly have a responsibility to look back and understand what reforms are necessary to avoid making more costly mistakes. and this is not just a retrospective exercise because contractors are still very much engaged, particularly in afghanistan where the united states still has, as we count them, over 100,000 private contractors. even in iraq today, after the last u.s. troops returned home in december, the departments of defense and state maintained roughly 30,000 private contractors. at this time of serious fiscal challenges and trillion-dollar deficits, we must do all we can to avoid waste and to get the best possible value out of the taxpayers dollar. the war contracting commission along with a long series of inspector general reports identified some of the issues we should be focused on. the challenges range from imflifg use of reliable price information which we'll talk

about today, to ensure that the government is getting a fair deal, to tightening restrictions on noncompetitive contracts, to strengthening oversight of subcontractors who are too often ooinsalated from direct accountability. in addition, looking ahead, one of my principal concerns is that of sustainability. and by that i mean how do we ensure that our work rerks construction, development work and so on will last and be carried on by the afghan and iraqi government and the people of those countries. the issue is critically important because it's making sure our good investments don't go bad. we've got to consider not only for example how many additional schools and health clinics we can construct but who is going to sustain them? do they have the medical professionals and the teachers to be able to sustain them and keep them going? on this issue, the wartime contracting commission was not very optimistic. and i'll look forward to hearing from our panel on what steps are needed to reduce this risk of future waste where again, lack of sustainability.

of course, beyond ensuring that wartime contracting is sound we have to ensure it's performed with our deeply held values as americans. on that score it was concerning to see the commission's report on what they called the tragic evidence of the recurrent problem of trafficking and persons by labor brokers who were subcontractors of contingency contractors. the report said that existing prohibitions on such traffic having failed to suppress it. they have an innocent ittive to lure third party nationals into coming for u.s. contractors only to be mistreated or exploited. one of the commission members, a former reagan and bush administration official testified that these findings were just the tip of the iceberg. and both dod and state department igs told us we lack sufficient monitoring to have clear visibility into labor practices by contractors and subcontractors. as many of you know, that's why we introduced legislation, senator blumenthal and i.

it's bipartisan legislation. we've been joined by senator mccaskill, the chair here this morning as well as senator rubio, senator lieberman, senator collins, senator franken. broadly defined human contracting means forced labor and other coercive labor that contribute to trafficking. requiring workers to leave their home countries based on fraudulent promises, confiscating passports, charging workers recruitment fees that consume more than a month's salary and many other forms of abuse that were mentioned in the commission's report. we should be clear that the overwhelming majority of u.s. contractors and subcreditors are law-abiding and reputable. and they are doing a good job in a difficult situation. they've made it a priority to ensure abusive labor practices play no role in this challenging work they are doing in iraq and afghanistan. our proposal is designed to show the best practices adopted by

those contractors become standard practice for all contractors. and they include requiring contractors to have compliance plan in place, reporting and monitoring requirements to ensure credible evidence immediately triggers an investigation and giving contracting officers moreviolat. i'm hoping we can make these bipartisan reforms the law of the land. we've invested heavily to achieve the goal of building up civil institutions, functioning economies and stable institutional governments. and our military men and women have done everything they've been asked to do and more in iraq and afghanistan. they perform with extraordinary skill and bravery under the toughest of circumstances. getting this overseas contracting right, especially in the area rev construction and development is critical to consolidating the hard-won gains they have achieved. madam chair, thanks for holding this hearing. i look forward to hearing from our witnesses. >> thank you senator portman. if our first panel of witnesses

could come forward. while you are doing that, i will introduce you. richard ginman assumed the position of director of defense procurement and acquisition policy. he retired after 30 years of service in 2000. prior to assuming his current position he was principal deputy to the director from 2008 into 2010. and deputy director contingency contract and acquisition policy from 2010 until assuming the position as director. patrick kennedy has served as undersecretary for management for the united states department of state since 2007. he has been with the department of state for 39 years and has held positions including director of the office of management policy, right sizing innovation, assistant secretary for administration, u.s. representative to the u.n. for management and reform, chief of staff of the coalition provisional authority in iraq and deputy director of national

intelligence for management. angelique crumbly is the acting assistant to the administrator for the bureau of management for the united states agency for international development. commonly known as usaid. she is a member of the senior executive service with more than 20 years of federal service and has held several key positions at usaid, including senior deputy assistant administrator in the bureau for management and director of the office for management, policy budget and performance. it's the custom to swear in all witnesses that appear before us. if you don't mind, i'd ask you to stand. do you swear that the testimony you will give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so, help you god? >> i do. >> let the record reflect that all of the witnesses have answered in the affirmative. please be seated. we will be using a timing system today. we would ask that your oral testimony be no more than five minutes. your written testimony will be printed in the record in its entirety. i am told that i have -- we have

committed a protocol gaffe. mr. kennedy. that under the hierarchy of undersecretarys versus directors and assistant administrators that you should be first in the pecking order at this hearing so we will call on you first for your testimony concerning your input into this legislation from the perspective of the department of state. >> madam chairman, i certainly defer to the chair. you may please call upon the witnesses in whatever order you wish. >> go ahead, secretary kennedy. it's fine go ahead. >> chairman mccass kale, ranking member portman, thank you for inviting me to discuss the comprehensive contingency contract and reform act of 2012. we share your desire to strengthen contingency contracting. our review of the bill continues and we very much welcome madam chairman, your request that we work with you. we've met with your staff once and we very much appreciate your invitation. we look forward to continuing to

do so. is in legislation builds on the important work of the commission on wartime contracting and independent bipartisan panel that you, chairman mccaskill created with senator webb. from his formation in 2008 until its sunset gang valuable insight we've taken many steps to improve the contingency contracting. we are now engaged with the general accountability office on its review of the iraq transition, contingency contracting and the cwc's final report. we have learned much from the iraq transition working closely with dod, usaid and inneragency partners. on april 3, secretary clinton addressing cadets at the virginia military institute described the iraq transition as the largest military to civilian transition since the marshall plan. we are now taking the lessons learned in iraq and applying them to contracting, planning and ex