>> it's really transformative. and we're proud of the work that we did together with the recovery board and chairman devaney in achieving some of the results there. we're ready. the final caveat is, we're ready to roll up our sleeves and work with this committee and with congress on solutions that can further advance these important goals of transparency and accountability. and while we'll get awe more kprees heyou a more comprehensive view on the data act, i'll start there. the first concern would be the data act as i understand it would create a new commission. and the question that we have is, in a time where government is looking to streamline the complexity of our bureaucracy is the way to move forward in enabling transparency to add an additional layer of potential

bureaucracy by creating a new organization, and it's not just that that organization would exist and be, and make government bigger. it's the fact that that organization would have regulatory authority to issue standards, and now as i'm a recipient already challenged by the complexity of having omb requirements and agency requirements and we work hard to try to dovetail those together and in effective ways, now you've added potentially a third entity. >> well, let me just stop you for a second, because i think that's a good point. and it's been one of the potential criticisms along with a pushback from those who would have to report, currently receive the money and have less transparency, because they don't actually have to tell us where they spent it. but the reason for the commission in the bill as it stands now is very straightforward. you haven't done your job. if you look at the transparency created, omb had the authority to bring groups together, to

provide the common standard to make it all happen, the authority already was there. congress to a certain extent is saying, you can only wait so long with people saying we're going to do it. when you have a situation as all of us in the day, most of us beyond even people here today, we were here for the beginning of recovery act. chairman townes was critic's in ensuring there was greater transparency and helping us, that there was a portion of the act that was earmarked for investigations and reporting, where initially we just setting the money and then not giving them an unfunded mandate. so all of that we went through. the point is, chairman devaney and the recovery act showed us something that was good model. we added on to its mother reforms. by the end of the day we believe that the reason that his model didn't spread throughout the government is that this administration and this government including career professionals who work for and with you simply have a lethargic

view towards making this transition. now, some of it may be that it's very hard to tell career people at all these agencies, you've got to do it. my view would be, any bureaucracy that accomplishes its goal, if you then want to reorganize to eliminate it, because it now can be taken on by a consolidation, that's great, but i would propose to you that senator warner and myself are pretty strong along with my ranking member that we don't see it happening if we simply they, thou shalt do it but with existing assets. your comment? >> i understand that perspective. obviously, i would bring a different perspective to the table in terms of oifr pace and accomplishments. the point i was raising was simply a suggestion that we look at different alternatives, you know. you're in an environment where the president has been pretty clear. he submitted a proposal to congress to give reorganization

authority. we're looking for different ways to streamline government. so i think it's a worthy question to explore whether the type of accountability that you're looking for can be achieved through existing instruments and existing organizations within government. it may be so. maybe not. that's the type of dialogue we want to engage with you, because of the importance we're placing onstreamlining the complexity of government bureaucracy. let me add just one more point. the other question i think is worth raising, again, without having a monopoly on what the right answer is, but just a question worth raising. it has to do with what measures can we take within a bill like this to ensure that the impact and burden that is placed on the community, state and local governments as an example, universities, businesses that do work with the government, both small, medium and large what kind of measures can we put in place to make sure that we're

balancing the important goal of transparency with the regulatory information collection reporting burd than would be imposed on them as we advance this objective? >> sure. i appreciate that. >> that's the type of question that de -- >> and we look forward to working with you on it. i will say, of course, although we fully paid for the data act on this side, we're all aware that we're asking in very few cases for all new reporting. in almost every case what we're doing is saying we're going to consolidate reporting so that if you do multiple reports, it's actually gets easier than it is, because we're looking at not having to report and report in different formats to different agencies which is one of the reasons for the data act. with that, i believe we go to the chairman emeritus for five minutes. >> i don't think i'll take the full five minutes. the first of all, mr. werfel -- okay. i think you've been a very good witness and i appreciate your forthcoming. we invited mr. zens down and for some reason he couldn't make it, and as i understand it, he is

responsible for handling the ig portfolio for the white house. as i understand it, he's the executive chairman of the cigie, and the president's liaison to the ig community. what i'd like to know is who makes the recommendations for new igs to the president? i mean, somebody la to say to the president, and the reason i think we asked mr. zins to come up here is because he's charged with the responsibility of this coordination process. so i think that many of us thought that maybe he was the one or somebody working with him was the one that made these recommendations to the president. do you have any idea who makes the recommendations? bu i'm sure the president with a vast bureaucracy we have doesn't have time to go through everything and try to pick out somebody that's qualified. so somebody's making those recommendations. do you know who that is?

>> well, first of all let me clarify, congressman, that mr. zions is not the. >> excuse me. >> right. is not the official within the white house that makes recommendations to the president on filling ig vacancies. it's as the acting director and leader within the office of management and budget that is not within his set of responsibilities. >> who does? do you know? >> as i mentioned earlier and i think as ms. fong testified, there's -- there's one of two ways, i think, in which recommendations can be made to the president. one is that the, the siggy, the council harks an inspecteder format developing a list of qualified candidates for the president to consider, and then there is a presidential personnel office within, within the white house, which recruits and explores a variety of different candidates for positions throughout government, including inspector generals,

and they can identify candidates and make recommendations to the president as well. so there's a separate function within the white house that omb is not involved in and particular not with respect to inspector generals. >> since you and mr. zions. >> zions. >> since you work in the coordinating process between the various ones, you -- you know when a new ig is taking office and you know the process and everything else. why -- and i just don't understand this, because i've never been a president, and never been to any of the executive branch. but when a president takes office and this vast bureaucracy has to be filled with people appointed and confirmed by the senate, i would presume that organizations like cigie, makes recommendations rather quickly

so that the president can get on with his job of being the chief executive. i guess the thing i don't understand is, how there could be a number of vacancies, whether it's under republican or democratic administrations that go on for, say, three or four years, when these recommendations are made relatively soon after the president is sworn in? and i don't know if you can answer that or not, but it just seems to me that these recommendations are made by the office of personnel management, or omb or whoever it is, or this organization siggy, relatively soon. so why is it it takes so long for the president to make a recommendation to the senate? >> again i don't have the particular subject matter expertise or experience with respect to any given vacancy, because i'm not involved in that role. what i will say -- >> well, when you coordinate, and mr. zions coordinates

between various igs, he obviously is working with some who are acting and some who are permanent. it they're acting i just wonder if there's any question that ever arises, why haven't we pick add permanent person for this and went through senate confirmation? >> i have never raised that question, and i'm not aware, and i can't speak for mr. zions whether he has. as i testified earlier, i have not and never experienced any dim munition in the effectiveness of the ig whether acting or not. >> i guess my final question is there's a list of people that are vetted, and they're recommended for various positions like the -- the -- what's the -- and they're presented to somebody. maybe it's the chief of staff at the white house who says to the president, this is a guy that ought to fill this job over at state. and you don't know who that person?

>> i'm -- me personally, i've never been consulted or asked regarding a particular -- >> mr. chairman i think that's one of the things we ought to find out at some point. who is making the recommendations to the president, and why there isn't any action taken, especially after a period of two, three years. with that, i yield back. >> thank you, for that. i yield myself for five minutes. mr. werfel, welcome back again. glad you're here on that. it is my same question on that. why would we not try to press, would it be omb or the executive office's not try to go back and say, we haven't filled post of the secretaries ig ever. been here 3 1/2 years. there's never been a nominee for that. the interior position, if i remember that correctly, it was a month after the president took office, that went vacant. there's never been a nominee there. what's the process of acknowledging, and we've got a big hole here. who, then, takes it from there?

to make sure that gets pressed that that gets done? >> well, it's an interesting question. and i feel i can only speak for myself and my role at omb, and i have a very particular focus with respect to the manner in which i interact with inspector generals, and believe me. i'm very busy, and the inspector general community keeps me very busy in terms of identifying new areas for me to be coordinating across government. the mere fact and the practical reality is that as part of that footprint it has not historically involved advising on candidates. in some measure -- >> not just candidates. getting it done at all. i'm not saying your office would select the next person. just saying you know what? this has not been filled in 3 1/2 years. we probably should get a person. nap is the watchdog for the organization. i bring it up, mention a couple of thing. when i was in afghanistan last august and we met with spokes from the state department and

from usad, projects were happening on the ground in afghanistan. for instance, a hospital that was constructed that after they constructed it they said you know what? this region needs a hospital and then determined we really don't have doctors or nurses to man this long term. we don't va hospital administrator. so we spent millions and millions of dollars constructing a building in afghanistan that now can't be used. and that they can't transition it over. a power plant that can't be transitioned. they've said we've shifted our focus from actually constructing to just trying to maintain what we've constructed. well, that's really the job of the inspector general to jump in in the middle and say we have an enormous amount of waste that's happening by the millions of dollars in some of our usaid programs. we just had a hearing with the ogr several, what, three months ago, discussing the human trafficking that's happening with the state department and d.o.d. that is something uniquely the ag can rise up and say, in some

of our embassies with state, we have employ there's that are actually in debt bondage we're bringing in from third world countries that are coming into this spot. no one denied it. it's a matter of, what do we do with that? those are issues we need an ig in place that can help go after that. the question becomes, that's out there. we know about those things. what do we not know about, because we've never a h a permanent ig in those areas? you can't answer that obviously. someone that ho raise the flog s flag to fill the position saying we have a watchdog in place. one other issue. one that surprises me. i have kearns on usaid, and i'm sure there is no political ramification for usaid to have a theme forward, but for that program that's out there that intentionally is focused on transitioning money to other

governments and to nongovernmental organizations, 30% of their budget. so now we have usaid that doesn't have an inspector general transitioning 30% of its funds in this new forward program to people that don't have a watchdog. we're in trouble on that. we have a giant risk of an enormous amount of fraud and waste happening with no watchdogs now in two layers of that. does that raise a red flag to you at all? >> actually it does not raise -- i wouldn't characterize it as a red flag and here's why. because i challenge the premise of the question that there's no watchdog. the inspector general's office has been talked about throughout this hearing. there are thousands of civil servant, talented individuals that step in and often step in with great effectiveness in the event of the inevitable vacancies that occur. my work as controller at omb focuses on a set of activities,

such as financial management, the financial statements, improper payments, internal controls, and from my reflection, i have not observed any reduction in effectiveness of the ig community. in fact, if anything, they're keeping us as busy as ever in terms of the aggressiveness of their approach, the, there was charts that showed that the increasing nature of their investigations and their -- >> the post office things. i noted that. >> they're at effective as i've ever witnessed an ig community from the perspective i have as controller and the specific areas that i focus on. >> i understand that. but i also hear every time there's an issue that comes up in any department and it's a position that's being, that the senate is drags their feet on confirmation, the first thing the other side of the aisle rises up and says is, you know what? this wouldn't be an issue if we had a permanent chair in that spot a permanent leader in that spot. this is a problem because we've never confirmed someone. and the flip side, no one nominated, oh, it's trick 8ing

along doing fine. in some ways we're trying to have it goethe ways. when the senate hasn't confirmed, that's the cause of this. going back to things even lime atf. we've never had a permanent director, all of these problems because we don't have a permanent director. now we don't have a permanent igp that's fine. i have a difficult time looking at it both ways especially with areas with the usaid forward program that's transitioning dollars even farther away from us. one other quick thought on it. a concern on the ig interior department. a month into the administration that goes vacant. we'll dealing with the bp oil spill, brand new regulations on fracking. bureau land management, dealing with very controversial issues on how we handle the future of energy with the department of interior, and we have no permanent ig there. do you know when there's going to be a proposal for a watchdog in an organization that much of our energy future is dependant on whats in this entity?

>> again, i'm not involved in that process, so i have no details. >> okay. with that, i'd like to yield. >> thank you, mr. werfel, and i yield myself. the remainder of the time here for some questions. how long have you been in your position? >> i was confirmed by the senate on october 13, 2009, to be the controller at am b. omb. >> so you've been there since the beginning of the obama administration? >> yes, and prior to that, i served as civil servant within

omb as the deputy and acting controller, and i started my career at omb in 1997. >> and who do you report to? >> jeff psyience. >> what his position? >> the dep ted position and currently the acting director. >> but he is in an acting position? >> that is correct. >> very frustrated with this administration in particular. we had former chairman burton just a few minutes ago, and led this committee. i've been on it since i came to congress. now, i guess, 19 going on 20 years. been through all kinds of administrations. republican and democrat. i have to say, this is the most difficult one we've ever had to deal with. this stonewalling is a great new art form with these folks. i chair the transportation

infrastructure committee, and we have six subcommittees with broad jurisdiction. d.o.t., faa, gsa, which has been on the news day and night. tsa isn't under our jurisdiction, but, legislatively, but we conduct oversight there, too. the other thing, too, is, with the czars and these, some of these positions that aren't approved, it's made it doubly difficult to -- to obtain information. we, you know, our side is -- the founding fathers wanted it this way. they wanted oversight. actually, the founding fathers back in 1808 created this committee, the predecessor to this committee. it's an interesting history, because they didn't trust the appropriators and didn't trust the authorizers who created the

programs. they wanted someone else to investigate, make certain that things were right. you have an important role, too, in making certain that there's proper financial management. is that correct? >> yes that is my role. i coordinate financial management policy across -- >> and since they don't comment and they stonewall us, it's been almost impossible to get information. the only recourse we've had is going to the inspector generals, and now i see when we have ten vacancies and some of them, i guess there's four of them that might make some progress, i see why you wouldn't want to have permanent people in place who are getting information that could possibly be passed on to congress. doesn't that sound like a pattern of further impediment to the process? because i -- i've got two investigators here that i've sent out trying to get information. i've only been chairman for 14

months. i've never -- i mean, mr. burton and i, we did whitewater. we did waco. we did travelgate, we did every hearing you could possibly think of on this committee, because this is an important investigative committee of congress, but never before have i ever seen an administration that not only will not give you the information, we have demanded time and time -- i could give you copies in the last 14 months trying to get information. the gsa fiasco we did the very first hearing in an empty building that sat empty two blocks from the white house, asked for information about their administrative expenditures. my subcommittee chairman and i demanded at every public hearing and in writing information. then when -- the only way these people got caught was through the ig, and of course, we had

mr. miller, the ig, and i wonder a little bit about that, because when they held this outrageous gsa held the outrageous lavish taxpayer funded fiasco in las vegas, it was reported by a former staffer of our committee that this was going on. the ig began an investigation. this occurred in october of 2010. it was reported to the ig in november. mr. miller are went to work in may. he finished the report. he briefed gsa. and other administration officials. in june he briefed kimberly harris, counsel with the white house. do you know kim bberly harris? >> i know kimberly harris but i'm not aware of the particular communication. >> that's another thing. i'm wondering in this flow.

your job is financial managementened r and did the igs report back to you? are you informed when there's waste, or corruption or any of the above? >> as a general manner, i review ig reports. >> did you review the ig report for gsa? >> i have read the ig report. >> did you -- did mr. miller bring it to you, also, in may or in june of last year? >> no, he did not. >> he did not. so it went to kimberly harris, is what the information we got. then nothing was done with it. we didn't see it. it was never given to us. now i know why they only wanted to give us one line. they gave us one line that was her total administrative cost. now, of course, we're not the brightest people in the world, but we figured out, if you are spending 300% more in 2 1/2 years, now that would be a financial management issue. wouldn't it be, mr. werfel, if

you saw that, increase in administrative expenditures? >> i would -- >> it would light up a few lights. if it doesn't, then there's something wrong. somebody doesn't have their lights on up here, but we're supposed to be protecting the taxpayers. you are and omb and your financial management. one, there's something wrong if you know this person if you're not getting the information. there's something wrong here. if first of all -- thank god we had miller there. now, miller never turned anything over to us. it took the whistle-blower, our former employee, to go to him to miller again. did it not? are you aware that she went back to miller and asked, when -- after the guy snubbed his nose, held a convention, the investigation was done. plenty of time to do an investigation from, we had from november to may, adequate time to do an investigation on the funny biz in las vegas. i think that was enough time.

they informed the gsa administrator at the time and other officials. they never let us know. we kept asks questioning. show us what's going on, could warrant these expenses. then only because of this is outrageous director, former employee, thumbs his nose, decides to do a pacific vacation, napa valley, he picked the best locales. so he's off there, and she blows the whistle again. and so miller does his investigation. this is with an ig in place. i'm not talking about how many agencies that don't have an ig in place. folks, can you imagine what it's like out there when there's nobody minding the store? this is a very, very serious business. and, you know i think we need to

even look at the law in making certain -- >> would the gentleman yield? >> no. not right now. i'm on a roll. but a little later. >> well, mr. chairman, i know you're on a roll, but -- >> no. >> we're still operating under the five-minute rule here. are we not? >> no. not right now. did i say -- suddenly set the clock? i'm not sure. >> you're clocking in at 8:50. >> i'm on a second round. i just grant aed a second round >> i don't mean to interrupt. >> i'm trying to make some points here and i could get members to yield time. we can go through that routine and i'll be glad to extend the courtesy to you or any democrat members, because i think it's fair. and i'm not trying to harass him, but i'm just trying to make a point here. again, this is very difficult for us to get information, even when there is an ig is my whole point, and mr. miller was then asked again to investigate more

of this funny business was reported, and the only way we found out about it was, what, about a month ago when that report did become public, but i think -- don't you think, mr. werfel that you should, or somebody at omb should have their lights turned on when these reports are done? if you're in charge of financial management, which you are, and i don't care whether the president obama, president bush, republican or democrat, that's not the issue here. the issue is, something's not working. and i just sent these guys down to texas. stonewalled again by tsa, and the only way we found out was through a whistle-blower. the agencies give us information, and i sent the igs down there and if it wasn't for some of those guys intervening, and then this committee intervening, they told us they had 2800 pieces of equipment. turned out they had 5,700.

they told us they were taking care of 9 situation. gentlemen. our investigators are going in the front door. they're moving stuff out of the back door giving us a bogus report. so the inspector general in every administration in this committee play an important r e role, and i would -- i think -- i want you to report back to the committee or omb and let us know. would it be helpful? should we put in the law that obviously, we're not clicking here. i go back and people say, how can you let this goen on? well, it's very lard for me to explain. i'm trying to get the information. i can't get the information. there's no igs in place to even help us. so you see the frustration and we've got to do a better job. we've got to restore faith in this whole system. i mean, just in the last few weeks, my goodness, people just have to, have lost faith in government. do you see my point, mr. werfel? again, i hope we can make