Transcripts For CSPAN Politics And Public Policy Today 20180111

Committee on the fullscale audit that began last month. The hearing runs one hour and 45 minutes. The committee will come to order. David norquest as our witness today. The topic is the audit of the department of defense which by law begins this fiscal year. I will just say it is not by accident that the committee will start our year on this topic. Been ang the audit has bipartisan priority for some time. The act of 1990 required all federal departments conduct an audit. The 2010 and eaa required that the the departments be ready for audit by 2017. This panel on defense Financial Management and reform put scrutiny on the departments efforts and issued a number of recommendations that enabled us to arrive at this point. Eaa ndaa results are to be delivered next year. I want to commend chairman conaway for his expertise and persistence on this issue as well as mr. Courtney who was also a member of the audit panel several years ago. They will both be glad to know that we have had additional members join the committee in recent years who can contribute their background and experience to this issue as it we move ahead to as we move ahead. We hear evidence every week that we are not providing our military with the funding they need to carry out the missions they have been assigned. Spend more. At the same time we have a responsibility to americans to see that each of their tax dollars being spent to protect them is being spent in a transparent way with appropriate accountability. We should never assume that an audit will solve all the problems of inefficiency but it seems to me that the requirement of spending money smarter is knowing the certainty knowing with certainty how it is being spent. It is likely the result of the first audit will not be pretty. Those results will help direct us all, commerce on the department, and where we need to apply our efforts to improve. This issue is important and this many will continue to pursue it. Breaking members are recognized. Ranking members are recognized. Time, ie interest of will simplify by saying this is enormously important. There are a lot of concerns at the pentagon. There are two big issues. One, we are in a time of very tight resources and great needs. We have to get everything we can out of every dollar we spend. There are many issues this committee has covered the make this clear. Secondly, if we cannot explain where we spend the money in the pentagon, we are failing in the first mission. I know it is a lot of money and there is big bureaucracy and a lot going on. We ought to be able to do an audit that tells us where we are spending the money. It is that simple. Mission. He pentagons i want to specifically think mr. Conway for his great leadership on this issue. Who knew having an accountant on the committee would be critical . We should have known that. We appreciate his leadership and and we would feel great if at the some point this year we could say the pentagon has been audited. Close and we can get there. I look forward to hearing your testimony and i think the chairman for his leadership on this issue. Thank you. Mr. Darkest, ill come norquest, welcome. Thank you. Members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to provide an overview of the Department Progress and plans. I appreciate your long and unwavering support to the is to the effort. Thank you to congressman conway for his leadership over the year. He has helped the department maintain focus on audits. When the president made a promise to the people to rebuild the u. S. Armed forces, he made a commitment to start the audit. Inside the department of defense, a tone has been set from the top that embraces the audit as part of their vision to bring business reform to the department of defense. I know you have had many hearings where witnesses have told you they support the start of an audit eventually. This hearing is different. We have started the audit. We are only able to have todays hearing with the department of defense under his first audit because i should note that audits themselves are not moved to the department of defense. Dcaa employs 4000 auditors, for contractors to the government. This is the first time the department is undergoing a Financial Statement audit. It is comprehensive, occurs annually, and goes over Financial Management. A state audit goes over accounts, locations, and conditions to military equipment. It has a security vulnerability, and validates the accuracy of personal records, suggest separations. The department of defense anticipates that this spring and early summer, we will have 1200 financial auditors, assessing books and whether books and reflect our financial conditions and operations, in accordance with county standards. These are distinct from program audit. Ance or contract based on my experience with the department of Homeland Security, it will take time to implement the changes necessary to pass the audit. It took the department of Homeland Security about 10 years to get its first opinion. We dont have to wait to see the benefit of the audit. The Financial Statement audit helps drive enterprise wide improvement, and improve the quality of our data. Just like private Sector Companies and other federal agencies, the department of defense prepares Financial Statements every year for assets, liability, revenues, and expenses. Though not a corporation, dod owes accountability to the American People. The taxpayers are as important as it shareholders. There is a true and accurate position, a descriptor of. Inancial conditions transparency, accountability, and business process reform are some of the benefits of a Financial Statement audit. Transparency audit includes the underlying data that we make available to the public, including a picture of our liabilities is pending. This opinion will directly contribute to an audit opinion for the federal government, assets and liabilities. Accounting, the audit will highlight areas where we need to improve our accountability. During the initial audit, the army found 39 black hawk helicopters that had not been properly recorded. Were 478 buildings and structures and 12 installations that were not given a property system. Records, the property we can help demonstrate the accountability of our assets. In other cases, we will be able to obtain independent auditor feedback so we can better hold those vendors accountable for their solutions. T the combination of better data, business process reengineering, and the use of modern data analytics, directly supports the chief management officer position. Effort to bring businesses to this operations. These reforms will lead to savings that can be reinvested. The cost of performing the audit n and. E 367 millio discovers a fee to Accounting Firms and the infrastructure, including the salaries of the people supporting the audit. The 181 million in audit 1 oft cost is 1 30 of the doj was it budget. Its smaller than Many Companies pay to their auditors. In addition, we anticipate ,pending 551 million inequalities identified by the arbiters. The audit will likely be one of the largest ever undertaken, and comprises more than 24 standalone products and an overarching consolidated audit. At nine audits, conducted by ip firms with edw ip conforming to consult with thedwip dwip. Audits have begun to arrive. The department has established a tool and process to capture, prioritized, assign responsibility for, and have actions for audit findings. There will be steps to see whether the department has addressed the findings. Going forward, we will measure progress and go to achieving a positive opinion of using the number of findings resolved. I want to thank this committee for its continued focus on the audit. Your insight your oversight has been a catalyst, and we appreciate the partnership we enjoy with you and the Committee Staff on this important process. With your oversight, we will now continue to be a department that is not only under audits, but improving year after year. Approve continued support, and relate information to technology and funding, remains critical in moving to department or achieving achieving a positive opinion. I look forward to your questions. Thank you. I appreciate your differentiating what we are talking about here with a contract audit. Tohad a number of provisions reform the contract audit process in last years Defense Authorization bill. That will improve. Read where ated to retired general says basically, this audit is not worth doing. It requires going and checking the real property. Youve got to check and see whether all the weapons and equipment are accounted for, the various records and so forth. Expensive. Be his point is it is going to be expensive. His point is, its not worth the cost. You are doing it because the law requires you to, and i understand, but what would be your response to the argument that the cost is more than the benefit of doing a full financial audit of the department . T . [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] in the amount we are paying the ita, 181 million is 1 30 of 1 of the budget. Its a large number, but on the scale of the enterprise, that type of money for accountability is money well spent. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2016] the 560 million we talked about is to fix problems we find. Going forward we will see if we can live with for fix a problem, but ignorance is not the right way forward. I support the committee to conduct the audit, do the findings. Some of them point out, the article says that it covers so much. The answer is yes; when the point. That we want that is the point. One of the things a lot requires do integration of our standards. The audits are part of those. We will be able to understand weaknesses and hold people accountable to closing Cyber Security owner abilities in our systems. You would want that done under any circumstance. When we find those in the department, we close them. There are other ways to do this. Yes, there are. You talked about contract audits. Is 1200ncial statement auditors. We have 4000 looked at contractors. On the skillful we spend looking at contractors, the team on the scale we spend on looking at contractors, the team we have, it is large. The department is not a corporation, and does not undergo a strict financial audit. The law requires a financial audit, and the taxpayers deserve the same level of confidence as the shareholders in the use of their money. Thank you. I have a question. One, i totally agree with your remarks. To say its not worth doing we have screwed it up so bad for so long that the cost of fixing it is just overwhelming, so let it keep screwing up. I get that the upfront cost is going to be enormous, but longterm, the benefits are described. You if we got to suck it up for a couple years, and lower costs, be back on track, it will significant. All of the work in acquisition i know the chairman and i and many others have done can be so much better informed if we have this information, all right . Is an tell, gosh, this area when we passed legislation, they are making the process better. If we have a full audit, that legislation has a better chance of a competent that task. Yeah, its pretty bad better chance of accomplishing that task. So yeah, its pretty bad, some of the things you stated, so i agreed with that statement. I comply to doing this, and stand ready to have the Committee Help you in any way we can. My only comment is to reinforce the point about the information. The primary thing and audit promises is better data accuracy and accountability, and when many of the other forms depend on the accuracy other reforms depend on the accuracy of that data, it complicates that effort. Mr. Jones. Chairman, thank you. I have been here for 22 years, and this is the best news. I am hoping for something good. The friendsde on my side and other sites, for bringing their efforts together. I will never forget, rumsfeld, former secretary donald rumsfeld, former secretary of are. Se, sitting where you here account for every dollar of the taxpayer, and how much they spent in the department of defense. He might admit that it never happened, because that is why you are here today, because we have never been able to do anything to take a problem, and even in a small way make it better. I got one question that it does deal with that directly, not with you, but because of your position and oversight. Of all the articles i have seen in about race in the 22 years i have been here, probably this is in the top four or five. Its from two years ago. U. S. Army accounts for trillions me. Ollars excuse the defense department, inspector general, in a report two years ago, said the army made a 2. 8 trillion involvement, adjustment to in oneing increase in quarter alone. In 2015, six . 5 trillion for the year, yet the army lacked receipts and invoices to support these numbers, or simply made them up. This would be something i would think it would be under your departments jurisdiction. If it happened within the system , this is one of those things. Hat i would like to ask you how in the world to you its a anden how do you fix howoblem when you keep do you fix a problem when you keep funding the problem. . What a story like this goes public and the taxpayer reads it, thats why they are frustrated. While we have that is why we have an 18 approval rating. I would hope this would be a situation you can, in a short time, give me some hope that , andwill be dealt with people dont just say, it just happened. You catcht know how up when you keep funding the problem. Important one. Areof the issues you talking about relates to general vouchers, which occurs when money is spent. When you see an article that says billions of dollars, and we only received 600 billion in a year there is a mismatch. We have systems that dont have pass data from one to the other. The army goes into one at the end of their Financial Statements, finds the number in their pocketbook, and writes this into the general election. Property, there could be hundreds of billions of dollars. Because they dont have support, the whole entry is considered unimportant. Ass is not the same thing being able to account for money. Hat congress has given you it has to be spent. Part of that relates to systems that were stoked by it. In the private sector, they dont talk to each other. You dont let them have a system like that. We are adjusting to that challenge. One of my concerns is, only by eliminating the ones that there is an entry to, can you find underlying issues . Its important. I wouldnt want the taxpayer to dispute that with Something Else , which would not be accurate. Its an accounting problem that needs to be solved, because it can help underlying issues. Thank you very much. I might not be here when you resolve the problem, but i will be reading the paper. I wish you and your staff the great best. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, mr. Nordquist, for being here today. This is my first year in congress. I will tell you that often times, i am asked for my observation. I served in the government for 2040 years. The most shocking thing about being in congress is that there has never been a comprehensive audit like the dod. It is just outright ridiculous. There is no other way of putting it. It has been said that you cant measure it, cant evaluate, and i think this is one of the most significant issues facing the American People have an in our being able to act adequately fund our military having trust in our being able to adequately fund our military. We want peoples trust. Theres no question as to how daunting this task is going to be. The stakes are high. Billion in the department of defense was approved. We sell it to taxpayers to provide oversight and accountability over their tax dollars. Mr. Nordquist, in your written testimony, you mentioned that for years, the department had received opinions on dod ancial statements because mixed opinions on dod Financial Statements because it could not provide evidence. Those disclaimers were based on managements assertions, and not independent audit testing. Can you have an audit clarification and detail on this issue . Was even when you say it was based on management assertions and not independent audit testing . That my understanding audits are conducted for the fiscal year 2015. This has been conducted by an independent public accountant. If you could shed some light on that, i would greatly appreciate it. Id be happy to. There have been another things and the department of defense under audit for years, the commissaries, our pension plans, so forth. Many of them receive audit opinions. Its not the entire department, its not even the majority. Have an auditors opinion, management is not able to represent that everything is in forward in order, so they just say you failed. This is one of the reasons why i have been a strong advocate of the audit. Departmentat the of Homeland Security, they had had the off audit in the first year. The number of information you got was tremendous. This will provide a lot of useful information, and i think operating without it is eliminating to how much you can reform and fix without that independent check allocating that what was done was done correctly and effectively, and i think thats the biggest transition we are going to see from Previous Years. Thank you. Once we see the department of defense audit for fiscal year pride will doj track its progress how will the . Audit the mediation progress process be for execution and implementation of Lessons Learned . We have set up a data set where every time there is a , iting of recommendations is made up of several conditions, the auditors will enter that to the database. It will have their view for every entity of each of the findings. They will have codes. What is related to i. T. Systems, property. There will then be an organization with that in a far and the response of with that nfr, and the responsibility to correct it. Of departmenth opinion no. No one is able to feel accountable. Here, all these findings will be associated with an organization, office, or an individual, who will be responsible for an action plan. I will report to you each year which were closed and which were not. We should wait to say good job or who needs more help or encouragement to get their piece of it done, but we will track it findingbyfinding, over time. This is one of the tools of the audit. As we move from the higher levels, its hard to solve. What of the things i like about that is you may have one of the things i like about that is you may have a large number of findings. Its a large problem, but if you can fix to problems, thats all you need to do. The more people do that, the more the organization moves in the right direction. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I yield back. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I would like to join with my colleagues and saying much we look forward to your efforts, and wish you good luck. Thank you. Its certainly long overdue. I would like to thank mr. Conway for being so dogged in this. I yield my time to mr. Conway. On id, please class please pass on to your team, thank you to where you got us today. The thousands of people hours, however you want to refer to it, that got you here. We are far better off than when i first took office task. I have seen that progress and thank your team for it. A long way to go. Dont want to over promise and under deliver. The 18 audit is unlikely to be of plain opinion, given what has been done. We are so much further along with leadership from you and your team. In rock was up the hill and leaves falling back. Part of what we are trying to do is recognize what has been done. You talked about findings, and that has a certain definition. You explain why that is important . The auditor is holding the department accountable. There are certain recognized standards, so the finding can consist of, you were unable to produce records to support this at thetion, we looked property system and it indicated you should have 100 of these, and when we lock desktop walked the floor there were 900. 90. There were things wrong with assets or recording. These are priorities for us to fix. That includes weaknesses and internal controls, entering a circumstance where you have trillions of dollars going back and forth, a failure of terms control. Internal control systems, those findings were part of a control system. Correct. All the wayot get to a plain opinion soon. A couple ofd reasons why this has value along the way. Helicopters,the 39 we obviously knew that they were there. Some were through the management change, it disappeared in the inventory. Here were 400 buildings at some point in time, we have to address something of that nature. Can you talk to us about value over the next couple of years, that we will get as a result of doing these audits . Absolutely. In order to get a plain opinion, theres a lot that has to get done. If you think of the inventory and warehouse of how many spare there are, those have been delivered, but not recorder recorded. That means folks using them could take advantage of it. Or, you have the case of a building. The person on the fix may know mayre there the vix know theyre there, but someone else may have incomplete information. Accurate data helps drive more accurate decisionmaking. Theres a couple other benefits. Andee this clean opinion, this was able to return 230 million to the services, allowing them to spend that money on federations and readiness. It had a more accurate understanding of management of its finances. Likewise, the navy changed its process of information to be more automated. We see what this had to do for them. That saved them 65 million. Mainly onocus accuracy, Financial Statements income and other things benefit the men and women of the air force. People discover their enlistment records were being set up incorrectly, as to whether there were six or fouryear enlistments. Theyre updating manually, hundreds of records. Done incorrectly at the beginning. They sped up a lot of labor hours, reduced 80 of the net manpower. Thank you. Mr. Ohalloran. Thank you mr. Chairman. First of all, i want to thank all of those that worked on this. Ver the past decade like alls front row people, im kind of, after having read the information, im kind of shocked. As a new person here and, to ,ook at it decade after decade apparently no real rush to get to a point where we have an , its disturbing. And i want to thank people for being here today to discuss this taxpayers. Ican thank you for your service. I wanted to say that financial oversight is long overdue. Waste and other things have no place in the agencies, especially when it comes to guaranteeing our National Security and readiness. Every dollar wasted is a dollar lost. Better, and i look forward to working with you and the rest of this committee to look over our financial integrity. I also share concerns as to what we can expect from this process. The dod has not yet demonstrated that its leadership has the ability to achieve financial reform. Their qualifications of levels of expertise, leading to reform throughout this. Additionally, looking to what occurred in the financial industry over time, how we will what thisuaranteeing is is going to be transparent enough for us to understand that the taxpayer is getting the appropriate audits that we should be getting. What occurred in the financial industry, basically the auditors did what the auditors hang them to be auditors would do, so they could get the next contract the next time it was around. How wey want to know were going to watch that issue. Dod hasquist, the developed a process where not only will we say what we are going to get, but they have brought on additional personnel to illustrate different financial experience, continuing dods ability to develop qualified personnel and retain how we will verify the audits in the long term. You brought points up. I will start first with the independent auditors. There was something we had to address at the very beginning. The auditors do not report to the army, or force, or me. They report to the ig, comfort offices, who make decisions about what they do. They have the same independence. Theres also a reason why we split the audit. An auditor cannot audit an agency if they work there. Finding a not at government no consultant works in the department of defense would be limited. If you have the army or navy or air force, you will find firms that are, and you will find hopeful ones so you can have competition. Having to 24 separate audits is first, people are independent, and second, with sustained competition. Auditorsis most other will be experienced. Theres a question, why dont you just use one large audit . My answer is, we have created a monopoly. They would never be able to find another auditor who can compete, and then it would explain why this is failing. We have paid attention to concerns you have raised. The id functions with help maintaining that independence. Id and itsiate the ependence, but they have but the ig and its independence. They been around for a long time. Whether it is fraud or lack of information, theres no version of how to correct that. Just the idea that the ig will be the independent evaluator doesnt hear and see the taxpayers of america that this relationship, the one controlled by those that know and can manipulate the system, versus those that are responsible for making sure we get we are what we are paid for. A littleto talk to you bit more in depth you about where that goes. I yield back. So, thank you. Been part of several systems. He talked to me about auditing, and also the conflict between the services the defense provided to the navy, marine corps, and they were audited separately. This would be disruptive and inefficient. To the committee about how the team is looking at solving an issue. We have a number of places where an audit would extend into another. The army, and navy, air force, have properties that extended and to the defense finance and accounting services. 16. Ave an acronym, ssa an audit of that support from one organization to the others is one that auditors can rely on. Otherwise, for different auditors would show up in audit one thing. This shows up with ammunition stores, where several of the Different Services of ammunition are held in one lace, and there will be a similar thing done over ammunition to say, you can all rely on this so you dont have a duplication of work. Talked about the accountability you will create with this database, the findings out there. Can you talk to us about the accountability piece youve got folks that will be responsible for addressing the fines. If that civilians as well as uniform people. Can you talk about the carrots you, ands available to the satisfaction of the auditor . Absolutely. We may need to work with the committee about things going forward. This is one of the first things the secretary of defense brought to me. How do you motivate it one of agency, when you dont have control in the private sector . So theres a couple of things. One is being able to clearly identify who is accountable, thats one of the first steps that the database gives us. The second is audit support, showing up in peoples performance evaluation. Theres no way around that comment being made about your contribution or your success. The civilian and military there are limits to how far we can go compared to a private sector, but i think the transparency and accountability , knowing one of the Biggest Challenges is their responsibility. And so fixing that and being clear whose responsibility it is helps to drive that performance. There are limits that i recognize. That database is a big improvement from where we have been in the past. Sometimes the tasks just are so daunting that you can get away without addressing it, but having it broke b down to bitesize pieces will see progress over the coming future. These cpa firms that provide the audit are held to professional standards by their own entry and by the very state boards of accounts. So its not like you dont have those without oversight from professional standards that they would have to subscribe to. They are audited on whether or not they met those audit standards. They will have to produce to an acceptable standard. So, were all humans. Theres been some failures in the past. There are professionals and professional standards that they are held to. Correct. A quick anecdote. Part of the issue has been over the time frame is making sure you have the tone from the top. I was encouraged by the experience i had in hawaii awhile back. Somewhere during that conversation, one of the petty officers asked me said congressman, how is the audit going. They are going throughout the food chain. If the issue of audit blt has gotten down to a petty officer in texas, we must be making some progress. With that, i yield back. Miss davis. Thank you. The efforts that are going on there its been a long standing problem. And we all know that. I wanted you to speak a little bit because i think we have addressed a few of the process issues, but particularly, the concerns around cultural resistance to change. And if you could, i think one of the things that were very aware of and any large bureaucracy that there are a lo the of issues and other people dont want the them to is a concern. Sexual harassment at the pentagon is a big concern. There are all these issues that go on in peoples workplaces and the cultural resistance to change is one that really has to be monitored closely. And how are you dealing with that . How are you expecting to be able to bring everybody to the table on these issues and get the kind of buy in thats necessary without individuals picking one another off. Its also that in order to fix the findings, we are taking systems and processes that were built to maximize support to one thing and requiring them to Pay Attention to the functions around them that they work with. That can be a challenge because this is how it disrupts it. Theres a couple factors that go into this. The fist is the tone first is the tone from the top. This is about accountability. This is what erg comes from. You are responsible for this. So its very clear running up your chain to say i dont want to do this. Its not going to run into success. The other one is the congress has been very clear. The other place you go is to tell them to make them stop. The likelihood of someone coming to congress and saying, please make them stop the audit and getting a warm and fuzzy hearing is pretty limited. In many cases, we have labor intensive processes that are data is trmped from one place to the other. It wasnt done right at the beginning. Or it was only filled in with the fields that the people needed. If you can explain that, we get that fixed and were going to spend less time doing this and hr time on the things you believe is your core mission. Yes, its a little bit of work. And when youre asked for records you dont have easy access to. Its a challenge. But over time, this will make your life easier. We have to work that office by office and organization by organization. But as you pointed out, this is as much changing peoples views about how to do things so they understand the importance. The third factor is the audit is annual annual. If you did this once and came back in ten years, i dont know you have the same incentive as the realization is they are coming back in six to nine months. So you can make the change and you can watch them find the same things again, so that third factor that what makes the Financial Statement is it repeats. They are just expecting you to change to provide an answer. Do you anticipate any need for Feedback System . So emp who is engaged in this can be getting their input all along the way. Some of that may be anonymous. We need the feedback. One of the things i have tried to draw attention to is because the audit is going to repeat, whats important is e we be able to sustain this. So if youre given a task where the resistance is way too labor intensive, stop. Lets figure out why answer request is labor intensive and fix the way we store the data or do the check so we can answer them efficiently every year. I would rather take the finding the fist year than do some expensive effort that im going to have to repeat the next year. If were not able to find the records, lets put the records where they can be searched. So next year its a quick process. We want to make this efficient over time and thats another way of reducing some of the resistance. The people have a way of saying i dont saying, hey, i dont understand why this is happening this way. The answer is maybe we can do it differently, but were still going to have to meet the standards of the audit. Speaking of the auditors, obviously youre going to be using a lot of different ways of responding to some of the concerns that have been existing for some time, is there anything in the training or preparation as you move forward that needs to be changed and that youre addressing as it relates to the way that people are approaching it . Theres been a lot of effort on that. My predecessor set up a relatively Robust Training Program for the Financial Management community that has been focused on introducing audits and audit rednessadiness. Theres been some training, but those areas are equally affected. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, mr. Nordquist. This is a very encouraging day, a day weve been waiting on a long time. We are facing so many threats about the world and we need more dollars to modernize and increase our readiness. At the same time, i hear back home concerns about waste. Any time there is waste, we need to make sure that it is rooted out and that were investing our precious defense dollars where they need to go. So you noted that one of the chief benefits of the audit process is improved accountability of the assets and resources. Are classified assets part of the audit process . Yes. Classified programs are included. Ill also tell you that all of the Defense Intelligence agencies have stand alone full scope audits. And most of them have been under audit for three years. Being a classified program does not exempt you from the scope of the audit. Will there be a separate addendum that we in congress will be able to access to look that the portion . Or how will there be accountability for the classified stand . For the stand alone audits, those are classified. As for the others, id rather talk to you in a closed forum. In your testimony you said something here that caught my attention. Of course, the cost is 367 million, which weve already talked about the longterm benefit of that investment in getting a handle on everything. But you go onto say you anticipate spending about 551 million this year in fiscal year 2018 fixing problems identified. Could you expound on what problems you anticipate and what the presumptions were to come up with that figure . Where do you get 551 for fixing problems . The number comes from talking to the services about what funding they have planned for this year and what did they have in the budget to address these reermt requirements. The types of requirements are systems that have been already fielded that either theyre not storing or transmitting the data properly. Some of those changes are in there. Improvements in the way they inventory or store things. One of the steps involves the accuracy of the records. Those are the things that are driving those types of costs. Sounds like the Services Already have a handle on what they know are problems. Correct. And then, they put a price tag to that, so most of that is Computer Software . Its a piece of it. Its not most of it, but the systems are certainly a piece of it. Can you give more a specific breakdown on that . You anticipate youre going to have to purchase so many more Computer Systems that talk to each other, and you say record management. So are you putting man hours are you anticipating additional personnel to create written records . Get more specific, please. Im going to have to give you some of this for the record, but ill talk you through what i can at this level. When youre going through the audit, for many of them theyve either done some work in advance or the auditors have done preliminary work before the full scope audit. So they have some indication of the types of challenges they face and theyve developed correction action plans for those, including modifying one system to allow them to be audit compliant and allow them to turn off systems that are not. So theyre Financial Systems costs that improve the accuracy of the data, and in the longterm may save us as we turn off the legacy systems. They may be changing the way they store the information or they store the assets to support the accountability depending on some of them switching to bar coding things that werent so they can have clear accountability of the status of each asset. Some of it is making sure thats centralized in a way they can respond in a way thats complete. Thats the types of at a high level the changes theyre doing. I would just say we need to watch this and dont let them get more money for something that simply should be their job, doing their job. Correct. Thank you. I yield back. Ms. Porter. Thank you. Im very excited about this. We have hoped for this for years. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about it. I think it was 2007 maybe i was sitting here on this committee and we found out a lot of the weapons had been sent to iraq, were not traceable anymore. I remember the person saying, well, we didnt have enough auditors. I said something along the lines of, well, shouldnt we have auditors when were spending this kind of money. How did you decide on the numbers of auditors and what will you do if you discover that you need more . The number of auditors is our the number of auditors is our estimate based on what the contractors have proposed to do. Those contracts i believe allow for them to make adjustments over time. One of the things we want to do is make the best use of their time and their benefit to the taxpayer. Unlike some audits where as soon as they run into a problem, they get to stop and say theres a problem, im done. The i. G. Can say it would be useful to us if you dug deeper into the root cause behind it. That way we make sure were not just fixing the symptoms. My view is the auditor piece of this is like the reconnaissance its the guys who find you the issues, and thats a tremendous value to us. So if we need additional ones, im not hesitant to make sure we can get access to that. So, they will not be constrained financially if you need that . It would have to be something in the way that the contract had been written, but we would realign funds if we needed to. I have a feeling its going to i have a feeling its going to be deeper and longer than you think. My understand right now is youre talking about 870 million and thats just for 2018 . Thats for 2018. How is the cr going to be impacting that . The cr creates pressure on us funding wise. We are going to go ahead with the audit. What it does is many of the people that i need focused on audit remediation are focused on trying to split contracts. And many of the people that we need to have focusing on this are the funs who are also affected by the incremental nature of a cr. It creates pressure because were significantly below either what this Committee Recommended or the president and we have to make tradeoffs within that space. But we will still proceed with the audit. Then the other question i had is you talked about contractors having growing pains. And i think this article, you also said that we shouldnt be looking for like billions of savings. But its always been kind of one of those understandings that if we actually did monitor these contracts over time that the waste and fraud and delays does add up to billions. So how will they experience growing pains . And why dont you think that ultimately over a period of time we actually could save really significant numbers . Are you talking about saving numbers by auditing contractors . If we do this work now, what will you be doing to make sure that contractors come in on time, we dont have cost delays . I know we have our work to do for the oversight, but i want to know how you think your role will play out. Let me break that into three parts. First is the piece of the Program Manager overseeing it. Thats not in the scope of the Financial Statements. We support them with better quality data. The second, we have the Defense Contract Audit Agency that looks directly at billing. They recovered in 2016 i think 3. 6 billion by looking at billings that were coming in and questioning charges. That, we will continue to do. The second focused on the department and indirectly on the contractors, but its our payments to them. I think the place youre going to see the biggest reform opportunity over time is by allowing us to operate more like a business. You think of improvements in the accuracy and completeness of the financial system, being able to put in front of the cmo information closer to what their commercial counterpart would have allows them to make decisions. Youre a 600 billion enterprise. Better Decision Making can let you make better use of the dollars on a very large scale. I think youll see that type of advantage in driving reform in the estimation as were re reforming the way we do something internally. There will be some cost avoidance when you have better security against intrusion. Im hoping well have more clarify when we have to make decisions. Yes. Thank you so much. I yield back. Many of us are familiar with the audit function in the private sector. In preparing for this, i came across an acronym called an ipa, which from my understanding is a really good type of beer. But i think you mean something different. These are major highly reputable firms. Ernst young, et cetera. There is a federal board that sets the auditing standards. They basically start with the commercial standards and then they add some modifications. For example, to defend the power of the purse of the u. S. Congress, we have budgetary rules that do not exist in the private sector. We have a series of accounting standards. We have things that matter to us in managing the money consistent with congress. So there are changes, all the other federal agencies follow them as well, but theres an accounting standards board that does that. Let me talk to you about 0 let me talk to you about continuing resolutions for a second. Recently the secretary of the navy has said publicly that since the budget control act was passed, the navy alone has lost or weve wasted 4 billion as a result of continuing residence laotian resolutions and budget unsernlt. I think the audit will show you some of the problems out of the disruption from the cr. Normally you have a year to spend money. One of the things that we tend not to like about federal agencies is that the fourth quarter, because of the way federal money works if you dont spend it, you lose it. Well, if the cr says wait, wait, wait, and then when youre down to a couple months left in the year, here, have it all, spend, spend, spend. And you may now be outside the window of when you negotiated an effective price. Your plans for contracting and so forth get depressed. The audit will help figure out how to manage it or what the consequences are. It would be helpful to us as the people that pass continuing resolutions to have that highlighted in your audit report so that we know that continuing resolutions have tangible negative results, not just to the operations but to the expenditure of money for the entire pentagon and each of the constituent services. During another part of my life, i was asked to take over the alabama twoyear College System at a time in which there were two criminal investigations going on. We used both the internal audit function and the external audit function not just to remedy what happened but to change the culture. Do you believe that there will be some change in the culture of the pentagon as a result of these audits . Absolutely. Thats the point. Good. Can you elaborate a little bit about how that would manifest itself . I think what youd find is there are folks who are doing their mission. One of their missions is to make sure information is updated for others to use. When their time is tight,gets skipped and they do the others. Knowing thats going to be audited creates incentive to get those items done. It should reduce the amount of phone calls the person gets to answer the question because somebody can rely on the system now. That type of culture change is important in an organization that has such a spread of functions and has to rely on those type of data sets. This may be one of the most important things that we accomplish during our terms here in congress. So i think you will see a lot of support for your activities here on this committee and throughout the congress. Mr. Norquist, im very excited about the work that youre doing. Its a big task. Im trained as a cpa and an attorney and i was the mayor of a small city and county executive of a large county that didnt have proper procedures in place. I went through this on a much smaller scale. When i first came to congress, i would hear my colleagues asking about different Weapons Systems and pieces of equipment. And i didnt know what we owned and i tried to get my staff to figure out what we owned by working together with the d. O. D. And other people. It was very hard to get the limited information we got. 14,500 aircraft in the u. S. Military, for example. How many ships do we have, how many armored vehicles. We have a will we have a comprehensive inventory at the end of this process . This is the important way of how we implement the audit. It is possible to have that without making it easily accessible. My concern is you miss some of the benefit of the audit. One of the changes is not only to have the accurate count but to have it easily searchable, in other words in a data set where somebody can run the report and say heres what you have, heres where they are and heres why theyre not working or working. So the idea is, well have the count. What we want to do is be more like a business, which is go beyond the mother standards of the audit to use that to drive intelligence so the leadership will have timely and Accurate Information not just about the dollars but about the facilities and equipment and military supplies. Each piece of equipment will be rated as far as its condition . The audit doesnt worry about small items, but the larger end ideas would certainly be things we should be able to have timely what percentage of the overall audit will be devoted to inventory . They will do inventory. They will do property, meaning buildings and other large items. Able also to pay and personnel, those types of things. Over time that could be more labor intensive than the other pieces, but it is one of many items. It is half the task . is it a quarter of the task . Quarter ofguess one the hours would be spent looking at the labor items. With their be a physical visiting of the site to identify the pieces by the auditors . The auditors will do it two ways, book to floro and floor to book. Itt way, they are checking both directions to make sure they both align. This is a very exciting task you are going to accomplish. Think the audit of the inventory of equipment of properties of buildings will be conducted by the end of the calendar year of 2018, where it will be sometime into the future . They will go through the audit this spring and summer and will publish their reports, starting november 15. This being the first year audit, it could take extra time. They will do this every year. They will do a sample and they take certain pieces of equipment the first year, and another the next year. As soon as we see them, that gives the agency a clear idea. They only give you a sample inventory of what we own . They use statistical sampling to be able to have a level of confidence in it. Onsite,will be counting things and checking numbers. Will he be able to find out from you, if i reach out to you, what the sample size will be and what it will be of . I dont know if it will tell us exactly what they counted, but it will tell as the sample size is coming is. I yield back. Mr. Kelly. Thank you, mr. Chairman and mr. Norquist for being here. I want to thank the chairman. It is a massive undertaking come along overdue. I hope we will focus on the things that improve the processes going forward. Some of those number one are oca. There is a lot of rim, even when people are trying to do that right for abuses. I am more concerned about the unintentional, which people do not know. How far back are you going to the start of the audit . When you look at dollars in fy18 they will be auditing money we received in fiscal year 18. Look at assets acquired, it does not matter when they were acquired. Very good. From having served quite a long time, i think some of the i understand the process, at the end of the year spent all the money or you lose it. That needs to be a recommendation that you dont lose it, so we can spend that money wisely. There are some things, acquisitions, where it is important to carry that money forward, as long as it is earmarked for allocated to a source, even though it is not spent yet, rather than having to rush and spend it on things you dont need. Those Little Things add up. My final point is, im sure you will look at things like ocie, when we turn in equipment, the write offs and how you do that, and also, tool dropages. You come back from a field exercise with regard and you do all these tool dropages to make sure you get your equipment back when maybe that is not the right way. You will be looking at processes like that, Holding People accountable when they are accountable, or Service Members as opposed to just, ok, it is within the dollars. Is that correct . It will hold people accountable because we look at disposable equipment. It depends on the size of the equipment. But did you properly dispose of it, did you record it . Well clearly say, did you get paid for the disposal . My final question goes to the d. O. D. The case, the likes the sufficient number of financial managers. What has the apartment done to acquire these . This is a challenge. When you have an organization where most of it has never been under audit and federal employees do not conduct Financial Statement audits the way commercial enterprises do. You might have cpas, but you have cpas that dont have exposure to the other practices. Over time we have been able to grow that a couple of ways. The first is, the agencies that went under audit first, like the corps of engineers they have had a number of people that have been through an audit multiple times, know what it looks like, i have been part of fixing things. Some of them we have done by leading by example. Some we have hired. The third focus is trading. We have a Robust Training Program where we have been emphasizing audit standards, audit readiness and controls. All of those pieces, whereas a decade or two ago, it would have been budget and paper talopics. I yield back my time. Mr. Norquest, i want to interject on one point mr. Kelly raised. I am also very concerned that we are going to be so late in the fiscal year with a final appropriation and the needs are so great that there is going to be inevitable problems as a result. And im thinking about the audit. You are going to find things and there may not be enough time to fix the things you find by the time the money is so, i think my staff has reached out to yours to Work Together to see about some greater flexibility and spending money after the end of the fiscal year. I think about our maintenance problems. They are enormous. We dont want to waste money, but we have got to get our ships and planes fixed. Absolutely. There is a lot of concern in congress about accountability for the money. I understand that. You want to work with you in the department to have a better understanding especially this year because we are going to be so late. I wanted to mention that because you were discussing that. Mr. Panetta. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for being here, taking the time. But also, thank you for helping in providing, people with accountability, providing accountability to the american taxpayer. I appreciate that. Obviously, you have a tremendous amount of experience, doing what you are doing, 28 years. You were the cfo audit at dhs. Thats correct. In the six months you have been in this position, what has been the biggest lesson you have learned so far . Do you foresee any other potential delays, besides worrying about budget stability and funding, as you mentioned in your last paragraph of your statement . Are there any other delays you foresee that will prevent you from doing your job . Mr. Norquist the thing that surprised me the most was how many people who have been working this issue were eager for it to finally stick. For the accountant to be told to put together all of these controls and then say, we are not doing the audit this year and then do it again and then each year they repeat that, you start to wonder, is it ever going to happen . Is built up sense of, it is happening this year and everything you have been up until now matters we would get into rooms with folks working on this and they were reenergized. The sense of, excellent there were a lot of folks wondering if they had been working in vain. And now they know, everything they have done to get the pieces in place will pay off. Thats been a pleasant surprise on moving forward. The biggest concern in the long run will be the systems. They take the longest to pay. Policies, procedures even do. Ural changes swwe can committee, when somebody asks for money for a system, make sure you understand, is it compliant, have the organized the things related to the audit . Or have they pushed those things down on their to do list . I dont want to say they dont get a lot of attention. But they are not sexy or glamorous, but making sure the funding for those, those are the ones that will take some time. But i think they have tremendous longterm improvements for the department. Great. Once again, thank you and good luck. I yield back. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman and mr. Norquist, i apologize. I will probably be covering ground you have covered. I was in another committee and we had a markup. From the 30,000 foot level, i like the audit will result in more accountability and transparency, but the other thing that will be accomplished is really important and i would like to get your thoughts on this and that is reform. Im covering or maybe we dont have the best practices in place, where there might be waste or duplication. Can you reassure not just the members of this committee, but by extension, the rest of our congress and the american taxpayers, you think are audit will cover, so we spending money in the best way possible . Lethal capability for the d. O. D. Mr. Norquist i think it is very essential in reform. Deputy secretary shanahan set up organizations with ain the department that are working on this issue. I support them with the audit to make sure they had the business data they need to make those reform decisions. So, as you look across organizations and you are comparing, what we pay in electrical rates across our different facilities. Why . Why are they paying higher rates . Whats the difference. We focus on those places where the costs seem out of line with the rest of the enterprise. That type of financial data, the accuracy of that, pulling it from multiple systems and having confidence in it, that is what the a udit gives you. I am sure we will find within the financial processes, we are moving places where we have to rework data because the accuracy allows it to move faster. Im more excited in the long run about what it all of the department to do to function like a business. I know my colleagues on my left ear and many others have been pushing for greater effectiveness and efficiency in how the dollars are spent. We have that trust to the american taxpayer. Will the outcome be not only that we find these inefficiencies, but that its done in a way where the American People know that we are finding these things and the entire Congress Knows we are finding these inefficiencies . Mr. Norquist yes, the Financial Statement is public. What they fix will be known. What i will make a point of letting the committee know, here is how the reforms change things and here is the way our business is now run differently. For some of them, like the working capital funds, they bill for their services, so we can look at the rates they charge. Are they able to reduce their cost of operating . An d we can use that as well. Thank you for that. The military of our country is held in the highest esteem by the American People. The only criticism i sometimes hear is, are we spending the dollars in the most effective way . And people are concerned about that. Thank you for what you are doing and mr. Chairman, i yield back. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Norquist, i wanted to ask you about some of the issues that the outside auditors had that were brought in. Somebody had asked the question a little bit earlier, one of the reports i read said that they were having some challenges being able to make final conclusions. Can you talk about some of the issues the outside auditors brought in had . Mr. Norquist is there a particular one you are thinking about, or did you want me to walk through the challenges they faced in general . In general. Mr. Norquist the first challenge and auditor faces in general is they are required to be independent. Which means the people showing up did not use to work for you. They have to understand your business processes. We have put together guides that say, here is our structure and here is what we do. When we spend money, the this, solooks like they can recognize them. We have been doing the security clearances because a lot of them require security clearances to be able to do their work. In number of them are out doing understand what is going on is a different place of. The navy auditor is visiting able air station is visiting Naval Air Station jackson in the fall. There is an orientation to make sure the audit is consistent and there are security clearances we have been getting them through so they can start in a timely manner. Those are the key pieces. This is not just a large audit for us. It is a large audit for them. But they have all scaled up for that challenge. What about training and sustaining a workforce to be able to work consistently on Financial Management and what have you within d. O. D. . What are some challenges around that . I would think just being able to have a fulltime staff work solely on this is a big issue, it must be a challenge. Mr. Norquist it is and we have had to realign folks internally to be able to provide the time and attention on this to support them. These are some of the functions where over time, people took cuts. They said, we can reduce this because there is not an au dit for the current ability. We are doing internal tradeoff s for that. We are operating under reduction accounts put in place. Those are realigning forces within it. I will tell you that over time, what i will come back to you with is shifting some of the work hired by an outside firm as a consultant to a federal employee because we need those capabilities inhouse. In some cases, we hired the expertise and we could change the balance of that over time as we realize this function will stay. Theres always a use for skilled experts on the outside on particular topics, but you want to change that dependency over time. Mr. Chairman, i yield back. Mr. Conway. Thank you. Two other things very quick. The department is facing funding challenges. Thed, do you think you have right strength of position to maintain and protect the funding to get all of this done . It will be setting priorities and trading these dollars to get this done overtime, versus spending somewhere else of importance within the department. Do you have the support from the secretary and others to be able to make the argument that you need these funds to continue the audits . Mr. Norquist i do, i have the full support of the secretary and deputy secretary. At the president s budgetary level, i am very comfortable. There are very tucked tradeoffs across the department. I will fight to protect this, but there are readiness issues i would have to Pay Attention to as well. And on the database of findings, they will be some that are more important than others. When it first comes out, the scope of the number of findings will probably be startling. World cpa firms grade those findings that are really critical, versus systemic, versus ones that are easily fixed. There,ere be a grade so we can better understand . Mr. Norquist they will score it in ways that relate to the size related to the Financial Statement. Thats not necessarily its importance to the department in terms of fixing. Where the a change savings are there and we want to do that fix first. We have their scores, in terms of how they categorize it. But we will need to categorize which of these reforms need to get done to support the chief management officer, to save the taxpayer money. And even some of the later ones, even if they are dollar values, if we do not think that is data people will use right away, we could wait on some of those performances to prioritize the other things first. It will calm with a timeframe that is rational and expected . Mr. Norquist i expect the timeframe to come from the corrective action plan. Well check. Is this a reasonable timeframe. Some of these will take a good amount of time. Thank you, mr. Chairman and mr. Norquist, thank you for your testimony and the work you are doing. I think your work is vitally important for the department and for the taxpayer, spending dollars the way they should be spent. This auditing function is something i have had a longstanding interest in. I remember years ago serving on the Intelligence Committee and we had somebody from d. O. D. There, and i asked the question, what about the audit function to make sure we are spending dollars wisely . I was told, we dont do the auditing function. So, im glad we are finally getting to this point. Many of the questions i have had have been addressed. I wanted to delve a little deeper. Dit ofconducting an au this magnitude, i want to know how you deal with a significant complexity, as they present old contracts, contracts for systems not designed with an auditin m i ind, or auditing the classified portion of the budget. This is a particular area of interest that i would have. Were you know ,by design, theres not much transparency and black projects programs for security reasons. How do you deal with those issues . Does guidance for new contracts provide for the eventuality of an audit . Mr. Norquist there are a couple of pieces and the first to bring up are contract. There is some issues, to examine Property Value we need the contractor to give us invoices set up a certain way, to see the pieces included. Older contracts do not have that. You look at which ones you modify, which once you build on and are there some where you use an alternate way of valuation. You decide from accuracy and the taxpayer point of view, what is the best use of taxpayer money . Some equipment, if you think it will go out of inventory, you will decide, i am not going to spend a lot of money on it over the next couple of years. It will not be here anymore. So it is not essential. I look at each system and ask a question, can i fix it to do what we need it to do with a Software Patch of gray, can i replace it by moving it to wor somewhere else, or do i have to work around it in some manual form because that system will retire . Each of the organizations is going through them. D. A. I. Is the name of the Accounting System that has been implemented across 20 defense wide entities. We are just turning off and replacing those. Consolidatingre most of are going to from several Accounting Systems down to fewer. We need to talk to you offline about how we handle the classified, but classified programs are included within the audit. We have cleared auditors who can do this. As you mentioned from the Intelligence Committee, they always see scandal on opinions, so they have been under audit for three years now. The members of congress are entitled to look at that. And for the classified programs going forward, will those all be inhose auditors and not outside contractors . Mr. Norquist can i address all of those in a different format . I will run in to classification concerns. I will show you they are included and then we can talk about the mechanics in a different way. I would like to do that. Very good. Thank you for the work you are doing. I yield back. Thank you, mr. Chairman and mr. Norquist. It is my understanding that the army, navy, air force programs, the u. S. Special Operations Command and transportation command still have not received a clean audit opinion from the dodig. Can you talk about how you approach auditing these provisions of d. O. D. Over 2018 . Caller mr. Norquist there are some that have and some that have not. Dla was under audit this Previous Year in fiscal year 17. Corps went. Marine under audit for the first time in 2017. The army, navy and air force, they are splitting their audits in two parts. They have appropriations directly from congress, and another, which is called the working capital fund. Meaning it bills for his services. They each have different accounting services. They split the opinion into two parts, which will allow us to the progress within each of those organizations. That split occurs in the army, navy and air force. The other is the small. They will be covered by the i. G. , and will be rolled together by the i. G. To get the opinion on the department as a whole. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I yield back. You referenced, this earlier and i want to ask again, in these efforts, do you have the support of the secretary of defense and the deputy secretary . Because what you have talked about his cultural change, its prioritizing dollars. It involves a number of things that, if they are not supported by the top leadership, they are not going to happen. Mr. Norquist absolutely, the tone from the top is excellent. The first conversation i had with the secretary after he was nominated to be secretary you. Rought this up on his own my experience with him is he believes this is very important and i just think you have got to have that support from him. To make this successful, i think. To norquist i just want brag for the chairman, having the first hearing of 2018. I appreciate your continued support for getting this done. That tone from the top is very much appreciated. Thinkppreciate it, but i all members this has been a bipartisan right already for years. We are going to stand there right with you, mr. Norquist, to make sure it actually occurs. Mr. Norquist thank you, mr. Chairman. With that, the hearing is adjourned. [simultaneous talking] you are just talking about the c. R. My question was focusing on the end of the year, september 30. Is there a responsible way to allow them more flexibility to 2 . Nd fy18 money october that expires by the end of the year. Yes, because as you know, procurement dollars have d iffernt time periods in which they can be spent. Conscious of the maintenance problems. We have talked about them for the last two years. We have got dire needs to fix our ships and planes and equipment. And i want to make sure we do that and we do it smartly. Arent you concerned about the training . Mr. Norquist you are exactly right. And if you will remember, the department has reported to us that after three months of the c. R. Theres training that can never be recovered because those demands keep rolling and you can never catch up. I am concerned. That thats part of the reason i highlighted it. Its not exactly the topic of his herein, but it is the topic of making good use of taxpayer dollars. Through 67 million just to million tot and 551 do the fixes. Did you anticipate these costs . I did not know how much it costs but he helped me understand. Hiding your head in the sand is not a good answer. If you have business Accounting Systems, they do not talk to each other. Thats part of what has gotten us into this problem we are in. Trying to fix those things. Particularly at the beginning. It will be expensive. That itmly of the view will pay off for the taxpayers and for the fighters. Said,her point, somebody if we are trying to do acquisition reform, you have to have data. You have to know what you are doing to fix it. Last year, we really wanted to focus on what we contract for services but what we found out was, theres a lot of information we dont have. Last year, we had to put in requirements for data and greater transparency. It helps all of that. Just to clarify, you are february, the spring, whatever, and you get an a big boosttheres and the dod has to spend this surplus in a short amount of time. All of a sudden you have six months or whatevers left to spend the rest of the money and i am concerned that the needs are so great, i dont want that money to either not be spent or to be spent foolishly. Could you go below that . At this point, you have done half the year. In answer to this question, the problems do not go away. The maintenance problems, the readiness, the training, the problems are there. We need to fix them. Do you feel like you are . Aking headway do they understand . Headwayhas really made is the death of sailors, the death ofheadway marines, death of soldiers, etc. Ignore thecan accidents and casualties that of come from accidents. The other thing is the news of the day. The north Korean Missile launches at all the things that have happened in the world. They know. I think they have a better appreciation for the fact that we cant afford to wait and assume were going to fix things later. The world the mans it now. Do you feel dod is focusing enough now . They are definitely focused on the problem. Some of the folks at dod are reluctant to top to openly to openly openly too because you are broadcasting that to your a potential adversaries. Its a fine balance. If we are going to convince my colleagues that are not on this committee to fix these things, i think we have to talk some what openly. Have you seen either draft of the Ballistic Missile review and Nuclear Possibility review and how are those things shaping up . I look forward to seeing them when theyre released soon. I am hopeful that we will have a hearing to go through those results. Then we will all be able to talk about it. Dont want to talk about what is seen and what i havent. Thank you. You all have a good day. [indiscernible] on thursday, the house is back at 9 00 a. M. To debate the authorization of section 702 of the foreign Intelligence Surveillance act. Coverage on cspan. On cspan two in the morning, a texas congressman joins a discussion on Border Security of the Brookings Institute and the senate meets at 10 00 a. M. , the senate0 Foreign Relations Committee Meets to look at syria strategy now that isis has been ousted. That is live on cspan three. Former Energy Secretary talks nuclear liberation at 4 00 on cspan. Washington journal, live with news and policy issues that affect you. Roger marshall joins us to discuss the future of health care. Jet talksman diana to policy. Washington journal live. The house gavels back in tomorrow morning at 9 00 eastern , continuing work on a measure that reauthorizes the surveillance program. Members started work on the measure today. Here is some of the debate. E gentleman from georgia is recognized for one hour. Collins mr. Speaker, for the purposes of debate only, i yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from florida, mr. Hastings, pending which i yield myself such time as i may consume. During consideration of this resolution all time is yielded for the purposes of debate only. Mr. Speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on House Resolution 682, currently under consideration. The speaker pro tempore without objection. Mr. Collins thank you, mr. Speaker. I am pleased to bring forward this rule on behalf of the rules committee. The rule provides for consideration of s. 139, the fisa amendments reauthorization act. The rule provides for one hour of debate with 40 minutes equally divided and controlled by tha