i spoke with administrator groomsmen the other day, after the oig report, and it seems like they arelaiming the report was released prematurely as a result of miscommunication. many of the concerns have already been addressed. even if that's true, it raises concerns about the ability to carry out programs in the future if they cannot get on the same page as the office of inspector general. what improvements need to be made to solve these communications issues so we can have confidence that all the programs being run by the sba are doing so with the proper levels of oversight? i remind you, many, many people are waiting to get on these programs to save their businesses. >> this is a little surprising to me. you are catching me a little bit off guard. program staff and >> internally, before we release anything, there's quite a few meetings that take place between our audit teams and program staff. and even in, not necessarily a communication all issue, it was understanding of what we mean by you have to establish criteria that's different, because this is a grant program and not a lend

i'm going to have a question of waste, fraud, and abuse at the oig. thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back. chmn. quigley: thank you. mr. cartwright? rep. cartwright: thank you. congratulations on your confirmation. i want to follow-up on the restaurant revitalization fund. independent restaurants really are the cornerstone of communities across the country, and from the outset of the pandemic it was clear that this crisis would take a devastating toll on these small businesses, restaurants. so i spent the better part of this past year finding the secure targeted relief for northeastern pennsylvania independent restaurants, and now that that relief is finally on its way to our restaurants, i want to ensure the sba is taking every precaution to see that it gets into the right hands. so the first couple questions are about that. number one, what internal controls did the sba put into place to ensure that people engaged in fraud did not crowd out legitimate small businesses of the restaurant revitalization fund program. number two, how effective have those controls been in ensuri

period it became the center for research in eugenics and racial hygiene its director was anthropologist oig and fisher fisher also became the intellectual father of the draft law that the national socialists aim to use to implement their racial hygiene policies it laid down that anyone posing a threat to the help of the german race should not be permitted to reproduce this is the slogan on the sets of you don't know who exist for this was called the law for the prevention of oss bring with hereditary diseases of july 14th 1933 published by one of the s.s. his favorite publishing houses lehmann's in 1934 it contains the entire legal text and who was responsible for what. this inhumane legislation was purely about sterilization and its aim was to legalize amber genom eyes eugenic your forces massed their allies ation functionaries your only cohesion lickety me or you could be me and will. exhibitions promoted public acceptance of the new law their aim was to familiarize germans with the idea of racial hygiene. the need for forced sterilizations was even justified economically but fear for the

period he became the center for research in eugenics and racial hygiene its director was anthropologist oigand fisher fisher also became the intellectual father of the draft law that the national socialists aim to use to implement their racial hygiene policies it laid down that anyone posing a threat to the help of the german race should not be permitted to reproduce this is the slogan on the sets of you don't know who exist for this was called the law for the prevention of oss bring with hereditary diseases of july 14th 1933 published by one of the s.s. his favorite publishing houses in 1934.

cline: it is seven -- several different recommendations but the oig report, yes. dr. collins: i am very familiar and we have worked hard with i.t. to respond to those. i think a lot of work got done that does not necessarily get reflected in that report and that we inspired actions across the board and the actual numbers are better than what you have seen. so, yes. i think all organizations are struggling, many government agencies have been around a long time and the era of cybersecurity is challenging us and we will need resources for that as well to be sure that we are doing everything we can to keep the bad actors out of our systems. rep. cline: i was pleased to find in march 2020 a report found that they checked all applications to identified instances of duplicate grant lund -- offers. the federal government does continue to grow. this dramatic increase is of great concern, and i am reminded of a quote that said "nothing so permanent as a temporary government program." can you tell us what safeguards are you putting in place? dr. collins: we have worked hard on t

. >> i'm going to yield back and come back for a second, the oig so we will be prepared for that. i yield back. >> thank you and administrator guzman, nice to be with you and congratulations on your confirmation. i want to follow up about the restaurant revitalization fund. independent restaurants are the cornerstone of communities across the country and from the outset of the pandemic, it was clear that this crisis would take a devastating toll on the small businesses, restaurants. the better part of this securing a targeted relief for northeastern independent restaurants. now that that relief is finally on its way to our restaurants, i what you ensure they are taking every precaution to see it gets into the right hands. the first couple of questions about that. number one, what controls did the fda put in place to ensure people engaged in fraud did not crowd out legitimate small businesses from their restaurant revitalization fund program? how effective have the controls then in ensuring restaurant revitalization funds program. >> thank you. across the board we have made control

recently the department of lane oig stated that the employment and training administration needs to take immediate action to ensure said agencies implement perot called to mitt grate fraud and improper payment. $89 billion is -- a significant portion of that is being due to frau fraud. despite that fraud, the individual who is in charge is soucy la levine. who was the head of -- when it gave away those billions of dollars. it was instruments straighting across the board, bipartisan frustration with what we felt was done by someone put in place to do a job receives not equipped to do. we sent in concerns in that she was being put in the same role on the federal level. but a i raise all this because i don't want to see what happened in washington state happen on the national level. and i wanted to see, you know, in your budget proposal it doesn't mention integrity measures or fraud prevention. if it does, i didn't see it. and unemployment is a high error program. but i need to know from you that you are going to not allow this to happen nationwide and kind of what measures you are going to

there is a number of reports coming from the oig. and it says that the sba office of inspector general has released multiple reports regarding potential fraud and identity theft within the i.d.l.e. program along with recommendations for tracking identity theft complaints. can you give us an update on how the sba is actually working to combat this fraud and identity theft within this specific program? >> yes. definitely reducing the risks of fraud and waste and abuse across the board are a priority. and i've informed my team to be very transparent with the i.g. we're working collaboratively to ensure that controls are in place. and beyond that i've asked them to please consider all those controls at the onset at the design. a lot of these problems with i.d.l.e. fraud did occur in previous in the past year, as originally they were required to issue these loans without tax documents. and so that led to a lot of challenges in their ability to provide oversight. but that was changed in december and implemented in this new year. and so we'

but last year an oig report highlighted deficiencies in the pto's patent capture and application processing system. the report found that pto has no assurance that it can restore critical applicationes in the event of system failure or a cyberattack and that the u.s. ptos continue to delay updating legacy systems rendered a $4 million per year processing site inadequate and impractical. i want to ask, giving the pto's mission to foster innovation competitiveness and economic growth, it's no surprise that pto and its applicants wish to secure their property rights and that those rights lee lie on dependable i.t. infrastructure to achieve this mission. the report made several recommendations. i understand the pto is working to address them. do you have an update on that? whether they have implemented these recommendations? >> thank you for bringing this up. i understand the significance of the issue and i am going to have to get back to you with details. i will do that and i will submit the answer, you know, for the record. >> thank you. i appreciate that. mr. chairman, i yield back. >> thank

>> madam chair, with your indulgence, i am following up on an oig report that identified $5 billion of potentially fraudulent ui benefits. >> i understand that time has expired so i have a brief answer because we have been delayed. we cannot hear you. >> i can't hear you, but if you can hear me if you want to get us the question, i will do that. $300 billion -- never mind. >> congressman, i am hoping that you and the secretary can address this offline, because we need to move on. cooks thank you, madam chair. welcome secretary walsh it is good to see you. i wanted to ask you about something in president biden's american jobs plan. he has $40 billion that is included for new dislocated worker training program. i was excited to see that. i believe we need to do more to help dislocated workers find good quality jobs including those who are displaced by technological advancement. in my own home state of illinois, there is a study that shows 50-60% of jobs in illinois could be at risk of becoming automated. that's alarming. then, covid-19 that accelerated these trends. 43% of businesses ant

general on integrity and efficiency testified "currently the government employees can avoid speaking with oig auditors, inspectors, or investigators by quitting or retiring prior to being interviewed." how big of a thing is this? how often our retirement or resignation used to avoid questioning? ms. hempowicz: thank you for the question. it is more common than you would think. i encourage members of this committee to page there inspectors general reports. they are fascinating. but you will often see, we could not complete this investigation because the person left government and would not answer our questions. it is a illogical limit to these inspectors general, for the ability to do their jobs. i will highlight, because mr. smith has raised that he had concerns about how they would exercise the subpoena authority. i want to highlight that the department of defense inspector general has testimonial subpoena authority. so does the pandemic response accountability committee. so does the special inspector general for pandemic recovery. we have not seen those inspectors general abusing those auth

cline: it is several different recommendations but the oig report, yes. dr. collins: i am very familiar and we have worked hard with i.t. to respond to those. i think a lot of work got done that does not necessarily get reflected in that report and that we inspired actions across the board and the actual numbers are better than what you have seen. so, yes. i think all organizations are struggling, many government agencies have been around a long time and the era of cybersecurity is challenging us and we will need resources for that as well to be sure that we are doing everything we can to keep the bad actors out of our systems. rep. cline: i was pleased to find in march 2020 a report found that they checked all applications to identified instances of duplicate grant funding. the federal government does continue to grow. this dramatic increase is of great concern, and i am reminded of a quote that said "nothing so permanent as a temporary government program." can you tell us what safeguards are you putting in place? dr. collins: we have worked hard on that bec