mr. lightfoot. >> thank you, mr. chairman ranking member cummings, members of the committee. appreciate the opportunity to educate discussed nasa's efforts to improve acquisition management. nasa to those missions and capabilities expand the frontiers of knowledge capability up or killed in space and on earth. by their nature of our mission our activities are high risk. at the same time recognize the critical importance of managing our projects as effective stewards of taxpayer dollars. this means managing our projects to deliver them on cost on schedule and identify risk as quickly as possible. we have made significant improvements both in managing our projects and preparing our managers to these improvements are yielding results particularly with our small and medium class missions. we have seen a reduction in the number of projects that exceed the baselines. several projects have launched within the baselines including juno, the mars atmosphere and alltel evolution and just two weeks ago the soil moisture active and passive mission. are larger more complex projects typical

mr. lightfoot nasa's done a good job in making progress on getting off the high-risk list. there are still some issues -- i'm from alabama. nasa's a major presence in our state. there have been some issues with re-base lining costs and scheduling in management and technical issues. can you address that? on some of your projects? >> yes, sir. we have -- the process we go through where we review these projects on a routine basis, we've had some that have done really well. we continue to make progress on the last eight of the last nine. once we go through confirmation what we call confirmation of a project that moves it from formulation to development that's when we make a commitment for a certain cost and schedule. the process we have where we review those monthly, occasionally we have one that pops up, and it gives us an issue. we've had two of those. sustaining the system we have, and the project where we were required to go back and baseline. you go through a process of announcing alternatives, is there another way to get the particular mission accomplished. can you de-sco

mr. robert m. lightfoot jr., associate administrator at the national aeronautics and space administration. we thank you for your patience. it's been a while to get to this panel but we do appreciate you here. pursuant to committee rules, if you could all please rise and raise your right hand. do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. thank you. let the record reflect that all witnesses answered in the affirmative. you may be seated. we will start with you. your full statement will be introduced into the record but we'd ask that you please limit your testimony to five minutes and we'll go from there. >> thank you chairman. ranking member and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the government accountable office's high-risk list as it pertains to irs operations. i'm delighted to note that one of our programs, business systems modernization, was removed from the list in 2013 after being on

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. turnin