You think the source is . And i just to the extent that you can say time and date and if you will, accountable individual who you think is the Decision Maker or the impediment, i would like that answer as succinctly as possible. Miss buller . In my case its very easy to pinpoint the time and the person. The passage of the act mandating the restrictive reporting was the impetus. The person was the general counsel. Basically, he has taken the opportunity to interpret the act to impede our access. Mr. Elkins . In my case, you know, i have two agencies that i oversee, the csb and Environmental Protection agency. In both cases, i have to say that issues relative to access starts at the top with a clear message from the top that access will be granted, it will be granted. To the extent that there is a muddled message or the message is not clear, you end up in situations that we have here today. Some of the on the csb side of the house, the issues started back in 2010, 2011. On the epa side of the house, some of the issues that were dealing with today actually started before i even came on board. So this has been an ongoing sort of matter. To answer your question directly, it starts at the top. Clear message from the top what the expectations are. Thats the way the rest of the troops will march. Thank you. Mr. Horowitz . Our issues starts in 2010, have continue econtinued. It started in 2010 with the fbi raising objections. Theres a list of them that have said me too in terms of section 6a of the act doesnt mean what it says. What youre saying is is it began with the fbi thinking they could beat your oversight but like any infection, particularly a popular one, you are being shut out systematically . Correct. If theres a way to do that, thats what happened. Yesterday, you and i were together. I think you testified that on six occasions the attorney general or the Deputy Attorney general has intervened when you have been denied and ultimately allowed you to get some of the information. Is that correct . Thats correct. Approximately six. So in your case, its delay and impeding and, in fact, some of the benefits of expeexpedien . You continue to not get information and that is a decision being made by the agency head, is that right . Well, i cant say emphatically that its coming from the agency head. I should say, the agency head has not intervened in some of these letters, ask her to do so. Thats what i was saying. I think thats a fair characterization. But ultimately, thats the person who could intervene . Absolutely. Absolutely. Miss buller, in your case, you site the general counsel. But the general counsel is a referral point. There is an agency head that also has not intervened . Yes. And i think if i can take mr. Elkins and miss buller and bring your two statements together, which i think are important for mr. Cummings and myself both, mr. Elkins you cautioned us not to attempt to clarify, if you 6g will, and maybe come up short and diminish whatt already is e law. Miss buller, you clearly said, this review, which is also going on at justice, begs the whole question of, is 6a, does it notwithstanding other laws mean what it says it means. Now, mr. Elkins, im coming back to you for that reason. If you either through executive action of the office of the president or through congressional action if we say, because we believe, that notwithstanding other laws 6a means what it says it means, does that both meet your test of not writing new law on top of already good law but at the same time clarify the question so there not be endless review by agency heads, general counsels and referrals to legal review . I think that would be i think that would be quite helpful. I think coming that message clearly without any wiggle room coming from the president would help. Absolutely. Thank you. With that, i have9xm used 12 seco seconds. I want to go back to what the chairman was asking. Miss buller, as i listen to you and i readc your testimony thought about the issue here, personally identifiable information, it just seems like we should be able to work that out some kind of way. I mean, have you gotten any further than the memorandum of understanding . We have the memorandum of understanding in place. We are hopeful that we can continue to do our work with that memorandum of understanding. But theres with the legal opinion thats still in place, if theres another dispute that comes up regarding what pii is or what explicit details of the Sexual Assault is, were going to be right back where we started going back and forth with the general counsels office trying to figure that out. Mr. Elkins, during your tenure as the Inspector General, you worked with the epa to identify ways they can improve management. For example, your Office Released three reports in the past month that identify ways the epa can save money by improving its contracting processes and oversight. Is that right . That is correct. Your recommendations have led to many successful reforms. For example, on july 22, 2014, your office reported that the epa implemented corrective action on all of your recommendations regarding nationwide Monitoring System that protects us from exposure to radiation. Is that right . Thats correct, sir. Congress has also charged you with overseeing the chemical safety board, which i want to ask you about. You discuss in your testimony alongterm dispute with the csb. You also identify before the committee in june testified about that issue. Your office is investigating use of personal email accounts by senior csb officials to conduct official business. Is that right . That is correct, sir. On september 5, 2013, you sent a 7day letter to the csb seeking email records. The csb refused to provide. This is the only 7day letter you have issued in your tenure as Inspector General, is that right . Thats correct. How long you have been Inspector General . Over four years now. After the committees hearings, csb provided some documents but on july 8, however, you informed the committee that csb still had not fully complied with your request. You are said the document you said the documents they provided were not fully responsive, the attachments were not provided and some documents were redacted, is that right . That is correct. More recently csb has provided additional documents, included unredacted copies. And you sent a letter to the committee saying, oig concludes that the csb has complied substantially with our document request, however, the evidence we have gathered demonstrate that there are additional documents within the scope of our request which csb officials have not provided to the oig. It sounds like csb improved its cooperation following the committees hearing in june but even that was like pulling teeth. Is that a fair statement . Thats a very fair statement. I think i got to tell you. I think that this is totally unacceptable. Can you tell us now specifically how you know the csb is withholding documents . I would like to think ive got a crack team of investigators that ask good questions. And we track the documents. We track the questions. Its really just matching it up. We ask certain questions. We look to see if weve got a response. If the response is not there, then theres a void. Thats pretty much what weve got. You can identify the documents so we can follow up directly . I can give you somewhat of a characterization. For instance, there was, you know, of course the instance of using email thats not government email to conduct agency business. At one point in the process, it was conveyed to us that there was a directive to csb staff not to do that. And then subsequent, we found emails that suggested that after that date it was still going on. So in our mind, that suggests that theres a disconnect there. Thats one example. Last question. In the letter you sent on tuesday, you said you will be issuing a report of investigation in the near future. What will the scope of that report be . When do you expect to issue it . Well, it will be a compilation of what we have determined based on the facts of the case. At this point, it appears to us that the csb leadership was using means other than federal communication means to conduct agency business. So thats where the report is likely to hit. In terms of when that report is going to be issued, i cant give you an exact date. But i would say very shortly, maybe within the next 90 days or so. Thank you very much. We will follow up. Ranking member yield . Miss buller, did you ever ask on this personally identifiable information and the details, did you ask for in camera review for your people to look at the documents without receiving them . No. That wouldnt have been permitted under the general counsels legal opinion. The question is, did you ask . Did you attempt to have something where you would respect the fact that you wouldnt take possession but you would review them . No, we did not. One last question. As i listencanuygk to your test one of the key when i think about the conflict you said that your agency has been used to handling very sensitive mqjaa6n;oq ua;cc lyndcyqz nk confidential. Im sure you made those same arguments to the peace corps. Yes. What was the response . Weve got government Public Servants who want to do the right thing. And the last thing your agency would be doing would be going against yourself by revealing information identifying somebody who may have been sexually assaulted. Im just wondering what happened there. You follow me . Do you think theres a distrust . The way that the act is drafted, there are two except n exceptions on the disclosure. One is for one of the exceptions that is enumerated and the other is that if the person files a restrictive report, it wont trigger an investigative process. Our general counsel basically interpreted the receipt by my office of any information from a restricted report as doing that, automatically triggering an investigative process even though we assured him that we are required to follow the law, that if we got any restricted reported information, we would not use it to trigger an investigation. It didnt seem to make an impact on him. And he is the only person who has concluded that the two laws conflict. When you read the two laws, theres a withay to interpret t that they dont. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding this hearing. I appreciate the Inspector Generals testifying. I guess with being the Senior Member of the committee and having gone through almost all the half a dozen or so chairmen and others who have been on the panel, you get insight. I have never seen an instance in my 21plus years of 47 Inspector Generals coming together and saying that their oversight was being obstructed. Mr. Horowitz, do you know of any instance similar to this . I dont. Mr. Elkins . This is the first to my recollection. Miss buller . I dont recall any either. Each of the instances which you have come here to site before us have different parameters. Some of them, you know there could be questions. Ive seen some of your recommendations for possible changes in legislation. That would be one way to resolve some of the issues. I think, mr. Horowitz, you have some recommendations about some exsem exemptions that should be allowed . Yes, miss buller . Yes. appears that the actions taken by epa in really ignoring you and allowing whistleblowers and others to be intimidated, this has under mined your position at Inspector General to conduct yournr legitimate investigative oversight responsibilities . Would that be a fair statement . That would be a fair statement. The other thing that would concern me is using some language or exceptions that are in the law in the case of justice and peace corps to obstruct investigation or even worse to cover up, particularly concerned about the sexual abuse instances. Some of these cases, the staff had told me may be like peace corps worker on peace corps worker or some locals on peace corps volunteers. Is that the case . Yes. And, again, it appears that it is sort of a blatant coverup of sexual abuse cases that some might embarrass the agency. I guess you expose yourself when you send people to foreign lands or on any mission to locals or foreign nationals taking advantage of american personnel. The case of problems with peace corps workers being involved in these instances . Usually, its a Host Country National involved in the assaults. From what we gather, the information we gathered, its usually volunteer onnr voluntee or staff on volunteer in about 4 of the cases. How many . 4 . Thats huge but its very embarrassing, i would imagine, to the agency. Again, i think we have a particular position of responsibility to deal with that kind of action and also i think you should have that authority to uncover, again, whats going on and expose it. A couple of questions, because Inspector Generals have been under attack for a number of years now. Several ways of attacking, one, get rid of them. We went through that in the beginning. I remember gerald walpin. He was removed. The committee let it be known that that was not going to be tolerated, although they did get away with that, that particular instance. Then not appointing attorney generals. Im told there is 13 vacancies, . Vccnj presleytlga0fn . Zpy4wf s. 20 of the Inspector General positions are vacant. Is that about right, mr. Horowitz . I think thats right. You think . I dont have the statistics. It sounds right. These are the numbers that i have. If you dont appoint them, you try to get rid of them. And then you dont cooperate with them and about strukt thob. Those are serious problems. Appreciate you bringing this to the matter of the committee. I thank you. The gentleman yields back. Hearing. Ik find myself in firm agreeme with yourself and with the Ranking Member. Your opening statements. Miss buller, my other committee, the House Foreign Affairs committee, we had legislation dealing with the peace corps and the issue of Sexual Assaults and how best to handle that. There were a series of investigations and investigative stories really that were highlighted how poorly historically the peace corps had here to for frankly managed cases of Sexual Assault among volunteers. We introduced legislation to try to address that. So im particularly concerned tg find that today on the subject at the peace corps there isnt full cooperation with your office. So thats the context in which i look at particularly the peace corps issue and the role of the ig. In january, you testifiedc befe this committee and raised concerns about access to peace corps information, is that correct. Yes. What was the nature of that testimony . It was the same issue. Could you speak into the microphone . Thanks so much. It was the same issue that i am testifying about today. Its the lack of access to restricted reported information. Specifically in 2011, we passed the volunteer protection act to which i just referred requiring the peace corps to establish restricted reporting system giving volunteers the option to report Sexual Assaults on a confidential basis. Under this act, the peace corps ig is required to conduct a case review of a statistically significant number of Sexual Assault cases to evaluate the effectiveness of that policy and to provide a report to congress. Is that right . Yes. Due to the peace corpss interpretation of that act, the agency, however, withheld from the ig certain personal information about victims as well as sexually explicit details about sexual crimes. Is that correct . Yes. On may 22, you and the Agency Signed a memorandum of understanding. Under that agreement the agency agreed to provide you with access to all information related to restricted reports other than clearly defined personally identifiable information and explicit details of Sexual Assaults. Is that correct . Yes. Since that mou has been in effect, has your office requested any Sexual Assault case information under the mou from the Peace Corps Agency . We have requested prime incident reports for Program Evaluation that we were going to do. Did you say five . No. Two. We have one Program Evaluation and we requested all of the crime incident reports including restricted reports, for that country before we went into evaluation. There were two reports. We did get both reports with redactions. With the appropriate redactions . Yes. From. From your point of view . According to the mou, yes. So since that mou has been put into affect, you have had requests and you have found full compliance on behalf of the agency . Yes. Is your expectation that the case information that you did receive is useful to the work you are undertaking . Its useful to the particular Program Evaluation were doing at this particular point in time. The problem that we have is, when we are going to do our case review for the mandated work, it requires a statistic sampling to do that. The peace corps has no Case Management system. Everybody is compi everything is compiled in one place. We have records all over the place. We dont have any way to track how a volunteer is treated after they have been assaulted because theres no Case Management system. Even now . Even now, yes. And would that Case Management also include legal actions . For example, if somebody has been sexually assaulted, presumably, theres a legal case pending in the host country. If there is, it should be included in the record. But its part of the Case Management problem, i assume, thats also somewhere else . If the case was taken into court, with t would no longer be restricted. We should have access to that. Do you . Yes. We do have access to nonrestricted reports. The problem is the default position for peace corps is every report of Sexual Assault