and at the outset, before i get into the topic of this hearing, i would like to express the appreciation of the ig community to you and the members of the committee for your continuing support of our mission and your interest in our work. this committee has a noteworthy record of bipartisan support for the contributions of igs, and in particular we note your work on the data act of 2012, which was recently passed by the house and which contains several provisions that would greatly assist ig operations if enacted. so on behalf of the community, we want to thank you for your support. my written statement provides an overview of the ig council's activities, so i'm going to focus my remarks this morning on the role that we play as a council in filling ig vacancies. as has been remarked, the process to fill vacancies involves multiple players and a thorough vetting process.

and cigi plays a very small role at the front end of this proc s process. by law we are responsible for submitting recommendations on potential ig candidates to the appropriate appointing authority, namely, the president for cabinet level agencies, and the agency head for smaller designated federal entity igs. to do this we have set up an ig recommendation panel to receive materials from interested candidates. the panel is composed of experienced igs who represent different kinds of ig offices, who bring insight and experience to the process. with respect to the pasigs, the panel provides recommendations on an ongoing and continuous basis to the office of presidential personnel so that that office can consider candidates as vacancies arise. when a vacancy arises in a dfeig position, the panel contacts the appropriate agency head directly

to offer its assistance in filling that vacancy. cigi actively reaches out to numerous groups to publicize this process and to ensure that people who may be interested in ig positions understand the process that we play, the role that we play in the process, and that they are able to take advantage of that role. i should note here that while we do provide one source of ig candidates to appointing authorities, we are not the only source of candidates. for example, people who are interested in ig jobs can apply directly to the appointing authorities if they so desire. also, our recommendations are not binding. they are -- the appointing authorities are not required to accept or to act on our recommendations when they make decisions on how to fill ig vacancies. once we provide our recommendations, our formal role in the appointment process is over. we look forward today to continuing our work in this

area, and we welcome your questions and comments. thank you. >> thank you. inspector miller. >> good morning, chairman issa, ranking member cummings. members of the committee. thank you for inviting me here to talk about the role of inspectors general. my remarks today reflect only my personal experience. it is a great privilege for me to have served as inspector general since being confirmed in 2005. and i recognize the tremendous responsibility that comes with this job. igs wield a large amount of discretion and authority. they issue reports that can have a devastating impact on the agency and individuals. igs make criminal referrals, often resulting in felony convictions and incarceration. igs advise heads of federal agencies and the congress. we regularly appear at hearings

such as this one and often meet with members of congress and their staff. perhaps most importantly, igs need to navigate sometimes difficult relationships with their home agency as well as relationships with other igs, agencies, prosecutors and the law enforcement community as a whole. part of the genius of our system of government is that igs provide the needed check and balance on the operation of federal agencies. now, the usual incentives for taking a presidential appointment do not apply to ig positions. igs are not policymakers. they apply the laws and policies already on the books. they are not political. igs have to be nonpartisan, fair and impartial. finding and nominating the right person for the job is absolutely vital. igs have a dual reporting requirement to congress and the agency head.

as one former inspector general sherman funk put it in the fall 1996 issue of "the journal of public inquiry," dual reporting public inquiry, dual reporting equates to, quote, straddling a barbed wire fence, unquote. mr. funk stated that because of the challenges facing igs, the job must be done with sufficient common sense, a healthy dose of good humor, unremitting homework, support by professionally competent staff and above all a solid and reflexive integrity. then the barbed wire fence may cut occasionally, but it will not disable. based on my own experience, i believe that once selected and appointed, an ig needs time and experience on the job to develop. long-term audit and investigative priorities, the ability to hire highly specialized staff, and the independence to accomplish the mission.

my permanent appointment allowed me the needed leverage to make lasting improvements to my office and to make long-term recommendations to gsa. additionally, i believe my impact has been greater because i have been able to create longstanding relationships with agency officials, the department of justice, and the congress. i have also worked hard to establish partnerships with state and local igs in law enforcement as part of my duties with the financial fraud enforcement task force. examples of some of the steps i have been able to take include the following. in 2008 i formed the office of forensic auditing to employ innovative auditing and investigative techniques and to develop evidence that meets admissibility standards for prosecution in federal courts. in 2011 we began a criminal intelligence program to augment our investigative activities by

consolidating our information-gathering efforts and serving as a force multiplier for our special agents around the country. we have integrated our hotline into this program so that a trained investigative analyst looks at every complaint and tip to identify trends and connections to other open cases. additionally, our partnership with the financial crimes enforcement network broadens our agencies to spot bribery and kickbacks. i appreciate the time and effort that went into confirming me as an inspector general. and i hope that my efforts have served the interests of the united states. thank you for your time, and i'd be happy to answer any questions. >> thank you. mr. wiens. >> chairman issa, ranking member cummings, thank you for -- >> if you pull it just a little

closer, that's probably why you aren't hearing a little echo. thanks. >> my name is jake wiens. i'm an investigator at the projects on government oversight also known as pogo. from pogo's perspective the inspector general system is an essential component of a well-functioning federal government. igs identify billions of dollars in cost savings every year. they conduct investigations that hold government officials and contractors accountable for misconduct, and they help to evaluate the effectiveness of government programs and policies. because pogo considers igs to be so incredibly important, we regularly undertake efforts to strengthen and improve the ig system as a whole. some of those efforts have focused on efforts of giving igs more tools to be more indspent. and other efforts have focused on the necessity of holding igs themselves accountable for misconduct and poor performance. our most recent effort to strengthen the ig system is a web page called, "where are all the watchdogs"? the web page continually tracks the overall number and length of ig vacancies and whose

responsibility it is to fill the positions. pogo created the ig vacancies tracker because we firmly believe the effectiveness of an ig office can be disminished when an office does not have permanent leadership. ig offices led by permanent igs have structural advantages. some of those advantages are unique to the ig context and others are general management concepts that could apply in basically any organization. one structural advantage, permanent ig leadership involves independence. another advantage of permanent ig leadership involves credibility. both of those qualities can have a huge determinant or effectiveness or lack thereof of an ig office. as of today, 10 of the 73 statutory ig positions are vacant. some of the positions have been without permanent leadership for years on end where others only recently became vacant. although the overall number of ig vacancies is important, the

context particular -- surrounding particular vacancies is necessary to truly understand the implication of that vacancy. ig positions can become vacant for a variety of reasons. some of which are troubling, while others are completely appropriate. in some occasions a vacancy may be beneficial. likewise, ig vacancies can continue for extended periods of time for a variety of reasons. it's useful to look at some of the current vacancies to understand how they began why they have continued and what the implications of those vacancies might be. the state department ig has now been vacant for 1,576 days, over four years. the position first became vacant when the state's most permanent ig resigned amid allegations that he had been blocking criminal investigations into contractors operating in iraq. the initiation of that vacancy created an opportunity to fill that position with a highly qualified and well-respected permanent ig who could restore credibility to that ig office, but that opportunity has not been realized as the position

has remained vacant without a nominee since the last year of the bush administration. the corporation for national community service position has now been vacant for 1,064 days. the position became vacant in june 2009 when president obama removed the most recent ig under controversial circumstances. since waltman's termination, the obama administration has nominated two candidates for the position. the first nominated in february 2010, but his nomination has since been withdrawn, and the second was nominated in november 2011 and has been awaiting senate confirmation for 177 days. the continued vacancy, regardless of fault, comes at a terrible time for the cncsig because the budget was cut in half in the fy-2012 appropriations. the special inspector general for afghanistan reconstruction position has been vacant for 461 days. the position became vacant after the original cigar resigned his office amid scrutiny from a bipartisan group of senators as

well as pogo who had arriveded at the conclusion that he was not qualified for such an important position. but the fact a replacement has not been appointed by the president, even though it has been more than a year since he resigned, also shows it can be easier to create outside pressure for removal rather than appointment even though the impact of not having an effective cigir can be just as bad as having an ineffective cigir. pogo strongly urges the obama administration and congress to make filling all of these vacancies a priority. but we also caution that filling the vacancies quickly should not come at the expense of identifying highly qualified candidates, a process which can take time. thank you very much for asking pogo for our views on these important issues. i'd be happy to answer any questions. >> thank you. before i recognize myself, i'd ask unanimous consent that two letters from congressman chaffetz, one to president obama dated february 9th, 2012 and one also to president obama dated may 17th, 2011, be placed in the record.

both related to these vacancies. without objection, so ordered. mr. wiens, one quick question. in your opening statement you said that sometimes a vacancy can be good. i'm presuming that what that meant was sometimes creating a vacancy would be good but retaining a vacancy is never desirable. >> exactly. it's the initiation of that vacancy is what i meant. it creates the opportunity. >> thanks. no problem at all. i'm going to start with a question i know the answer to. that always makes it easier from the dais. mr. miller, are you familiar with white house liaisons that operate within, for example, gsa? >> generally. i've met i think each one. >> miss fong, you are, too? >> yes. >> and mr. wiens, are you familiar with how white house liaisons are placed in all of the branches of the executive branch? >> i'm not as familiar.

>> okay. then i'll stick to my two igs for a moment. in your experience, isn't it true that these white house liaisons, regardless of who is in the white house, have pretty much unfettered access to information that they would choose to have and the ability then to report it directly back to councils in the white house? >> i wouldn't know, mr. chairman. >> well, in your particular case, the white house liaison was aware of your investigation and reported -- and the chief of staff actually, in this case i believe, reported it back to the white house council. so there is a separate avenue in every administration of these legislative or white house liaisons. here's one of my basic questions for the two igs. that's all well and good, but do we currently have that same level of transparency from igs or any one else in each of the

branches? we'll take that as a no? >> i'm sorry, but i don't follow your question. >> miss fong, unless you report with the same specificity and constant reporting nature that a white house liaison does at, you name the abc, justice, gsa, s.e.c., wherever. unless we have that same level, then the white house knows an awful lot more about things that are going right and wrong, more directly and more unfettered than we do. isn't that true? because you're our only eyes and ears. we don't get to appoint a person who works for this branch to sit every day and be able to be in the critical meetings with the cabinet officer and other direct staff. isn't that true? >> i will just say from our perspective, we, as you know, have a statutory responsibility to report directly to you as well as the head of our agencies, and we carry that

responsibility out. we believe that it's a very important responsibility. >> that's my very question. mr. miller, you're a hero around here. you did a very good job and continue to do a very good job in your role at gsa, and we want you to do that. but i want to make a point here today, and that was the reason for this fairly long set of questions. in the case of your recognition that there was a huge problem with the las vegas gsa party, and other problems, you determined that and informed the white house through the referrals that gsa made directly to counsel but not you doing it. it happened as a result of your reporting it to the administrator. but -- and thus to the white house liaison, the chief of staff and so on, but you didn't report it to us during that ten months. the current statute would have made it a requirement, wouldn't it, not the general

interpretation of the statute, but doesn't the current statute, miss fong, if something is significant, significant enough that you are pre-warning an administration official, you are pre-warning them because you want them to deal with it immediately and it is, in fact, serious, doesn't that trigger the same requirement under current statute that you report to congress? >> i think you've put your finger on exactly what the issue is. the language in the statute says keep the head of the agency and congress fully and currently informed of significant issues. as you noted, the practice is to work with the agencies on urgent issues immediately so that they can be addressed very quickly, and then to work with congress as quickly as can be reasonably handled. and it does involve some discretion and some judgment. >> so, if this committee were to send a letter to cigi but to all of the igs in light of the

historic interpretation, and i want to be very fair. there is an historic interpretation, and then there is an interpretation that perhaps i'm going to give you today from the dais. it would be my new interpretation that anything that you choose or believe you have to tell the head, formally or informally, because you believe it's significant, triggers that requirement that you also tell us in due course. don't have a problem with caveats for things that have unique sensitively, law enforcement sensitivity. but the basic we have a problem reporting, would it help if perhaps the ranking member and i made it clear that we believe that should trigger the information on some basis to us. miss fong? or do you need new legislative language? which is always our backup. >> we always welcome legislation. >> no, you don't. all of us would prefer to work

refining things without vast new laws because we always piggyback a lot on when we get to a new law. my time's run out. could you comment on that. >> sure. i appreciate your comments. i'm aware that there have been legislative proposals on this area, and you're aware of some of the concerns that the ig community has historically had. i think we should definitely have continuing dialogue with you on this and to flesh out areas where you have a concern where perhaps you don't believe we have been as forthcoming as you believe we should be. and i think we should continue that with you, your staff, the ranking member. >> i believe we have enough time for the ranking member's questions and then we're going to go do the votes and come back. the gentleman's recognized. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. miss fong, council of inspectors general on integrity and efficiency issues annual reports on activities and accomplishments of the federal igs. each year your report includes

data on government-wide potential savings and total savings to the government from all ig audit recommendations. can you explain the difference between potential er we have a dharlt somewhere. somebody put the chart up. can you explain the difference between potential and total savings? >> let me just take a step back. my understanding of the data and this is bassed on the data that each ig office compiles in response to the igf requirements. . and the data categories talk about potential savings because it's very difficult to measure actual savings. so my understanding of the data that we're providing is we give a number of potential savings from audits, and another number for potential savings for investigations. we add that up and have a total number of potential savings

overall. it is very difficult to track actuals, because of the nature of the criminal justice system for example. >> but you do this reporting, right? >> yeah, the council does the report. >> i think you're right, i have looked at the results for the last three years, now the last five because i didn't do that. but the last three do look as if we're on a very upward trend, i will note that a large portion of the recoveries in the last few years have been due to the postal service ig and some of the specific work they're doing on pensions and ebt. >> so let me show you the stats, okay? the graph appears that the potential savings for all ig recommendations and the actual savings to the government have

suddenly increased dramatically over the years and i understand it's hard to get the actual number so i guess these are pretty closest mats. but no matter how you look at it, fiscal year fiction potential savings were only 9.9 billion and a total savings were $16.7 billion. by fiscal year 2008, potential savings were $14.2 billion. and the total savings went up to 18.6 billion. by fiscal year 2010, potential savings shot up to $80.2 billion and the total savings went up to $87.2 billion. does this appear to be accurate to you? >> i appreciate your asking me that question. this is the first we have seen from the chart and i would be

very happy to take the chart and analyze it in light of the data we have and provide you some comments on it for the record. >> i think one of the things we find in government data there's a lot of talk about federal e e employees and what they don't accomplish and agencies that don't accomplish certain things. and this committee being concerned about savings, seems like this would be something that would be at the top of your list as far as what your effectiveness is. and that's what we're all interested in. but you're not there with these charges? >> i think generally the numbers appear to me to be accurate, but i would like to just take a closer look and get some comments back. >> based upon what you do see is that there's a positive trend. >> can you generally comment on

why that might be? without even knowing all the numbers, i mean is there something happening that we don't know about? >> well, i would like to say that as the ig community matures and gets more experience, that we are getting better at identifying the issues that really require oversight and that's showing some payoff, in terms of dollar recoveries as well as recommendations to improve programs. i would like to say that. >> just say it. >> all right, i say that. >> what does this say overall about the community of inspectors general? can you comment on the community of the inspectors general and some of whom are acting? we have around -- obviously the actings and the people in permanent positions, apparently

they're doing something significant because that's a big jump from a few years ago until now. >> well, just to comment on the jump, again, i just want to reiterate that a large portion of that is due to the poetal service igs accomplishments and i want to give them appropriate credit. i have spoken to many of them recently, all of them have told me, the ones i have spoken with that they are going after their mission full speed ahead, that they are very proud of the accomplishments of their offices, that they feel that they have issued some very hard hitting reports with real dollar recoveries and they feel that their offices continue to operate at a high professional level. >> as i close, i would agree with that and want to publicly thank them for what they do. i think it would be almost impossible for us on this panel, and this committee to effectively and efficiently do

our jobs without you and without the igs. so with that i'll yield back. >> and with that agreement, we'll stand in recess until just a few minutes after the second of two votes, which means about 15 minutes, thank you. >> thank you. >> this meeting will come to order.

[ inaudible ] >> one indicator of effectiveness is the amount of recovered funds and other quantitative metrics, all of which igs report to congress on a semiannual or quarterly basis. do you have any statistics that compare the output of permanent igs to acting igs. >> let me go ahead and comment on that question. when we compile our statistics,

we compile them for the whole list of igs. i believe we could break it out on a fiscal year basis, the s s statistics for -- headed by acting igs. but we do not currently have that statistics. >> all right, but i'm sure you will agree that acting igs often perform very valuable services in conducting audits inspections and investigations, would that be correct? >> yes, i would very much agree with that. >> the acting ig or the department of interior conducted the investigation into the deep water horizon spill, is that correct? >> i believe that's correct. >> i asked my staff to pull together some stats on this and

i think with the slide that we could look at that might show what i'm talking about. for example, the department of homeland security currently has an acting ig who testified for us yesterday. before he assumed his post, recovered funtds were $3.7 million in fines, savings and administrative cost savings were $6.5 million. after he assumed his post, these amounts increased to $19.9 million and 20.5 million respectfully. my point is not that he's doing something substantially different than his predecessor, although that may be true. my point is that the ig offices are made up of thousands and thous