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Calendar No. 409
115th Congress } SENATE { Report
2d Session } { 115-245
______________________________________________________________________
INSPECTOR GENERAL RECOMMENDATION TRANSPARENCY ACT OF 2018
__________
R E P O R T
of the
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND
GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
to accompany
S. 2178
TO REQUIRE THE COUNCIL OF INSPECTORS GENERAL ON
INTEGRITY AND EFFICIENCY TO MAKE OPEN RECOMMENDATIONS
OF INSPECTORS GENERAL PUBLICLY AVAILABLE, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
May 10, 2018.--Ordered to be printed
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
79-010 WASHINGTON : 2018
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin, Chairman
JOHN McCAIN, Arizona CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri
ROB PORTMAN, Ohio THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
RAND PAUL, Kentucky HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma GARY C. PETERS, Michigan
MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire
JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota KAMALA D. HARRIS, California
STEVE DAINES, Montana DOUG JONES, Alabama
Christopher R. Hixon, Staff Director
Gabrielle D'Adamo Singer, Chief Counsel
Courtney J. Allen, Deputy Chief Counsel for Governmental Affairs
Daniel J. Spino, Research Assistant
Margaret E. Daum, Minority Staff Director
Stacia M. Cardille, Minority Chief Counsel
Charles A. Moskowitz, Minority Senior Legislative Counsel
Katherine C. Sybenga, Minority Counsel
Laura W. Kilbride, Chief Clerk
Calendar No. 409
115th Congress } { Report
2d Session } SENATE { 115-245
======================================================================
INSPECTOR GENERAL RECOMMENDATION TRANSPARENCY ACT OF 2018
_______
May 10, 2018.--Ordered to be printed
_______
Mr. Johnson, from the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs, submitted the following
R E P O R T
[To accompany S. 2178]
[Including cost estimate of the Congressional Budget Office]
The Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs, to which was referred the bill (S. 2178) to require
the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency
to make open recommendations of Inspectors General publicly
available, and for other purposes, having considered the same,
reports favorably thereon with an amendment in the nature of a
substitute and an amendment to the title and recommends that
the bill, as amended, do pass.
CONTENTS
Page
I. Purpose and Summary..............................................1
II. Background and Need for the Legislation..........................2
III. Legislative History..............................................3
IV. Section-by-Section Analysis......................................4
V. Evaluation of Regulatory Impact..................................4
VI. Congressional Budget Office Cost Estimate........................5
VII. Changes in Existing Law Made by the bill, as Reported............6
I. Purpose and Summary
The purpose of S. 2178, the Inspector General
Recommendation Transparency Act of 2018, is to provide
transparency to Congress and to the public on recommendations
made by agency inspectors general (IGs) that have yet to be
addressed by the agency.
II. Background and the Need for Legislation
The Inspector General Act of 1978 (IG Act) established
agency offices of inspectors general to be ``independent and
objective'' entities to promote accountability and transparency
and provide oversight of Federal agencies' operations.\1\ The
IG Act authorized IGs to recommend policies to ``promote
economy, efficiency, and effectiveness'' and ``to prevent and
detect fraud and abuse in . . . [agencies'] programs and
operations.``\2\ The Inspector General Reform Act of 2008
created the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and
Efficiency (CIGIE) to provide guidance to the IG community and
to support more effective oversight of Federal agencies.\3\
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\1\Inspector General Act of 1978, Pub. L. No. 95-452, 92 Stat. 1101
(as amended by Pub. L. No. 114-317 (Dec. 16, 2016)). See also 5 U.S.C
App., Sec. 2.
\2\Id.
\3\5 U.S.C. App. Sec. 11(a) (Pub. L. No. 110-409).
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Each agency IG is required by law to publicly issue
semiannual reports, summarizing the audit and investigative
activities conducted during the preceding six-month period.\4\
These summaries must include descriptions of abuses and
deficiencies found in agency programs and operations, and
related recommendations made by the IG to the agency to correct
these issues.\5\ The semiannual reports must also include each
IG recommendation described in previous semiannual reports for
which the agency has not completed the corrective action, known
as an open recommendation.\6\ An open recommendation is
considered unresolved until the agency and IG agree on the
steps necessary to address the issue, and the agency completes
the corrective actions, with sufficient supporting evidence
provided to the IG.\7\
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\4\5 U.S.C. App. Sec. 5(a) (Pub. L. No. 95-452).
\5\Id. at Sec. 5(d).
\6\Id.
\7\Recommendation FAQs, Office of Inspector General, U.S. Dep't of
Transp., https://www.oig.dot.gov/recommendation-faqs.
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In 2016, the majority staff for the Committee, with the
majority staff for the Senate Committee on the Judiciary,
issued an oversight report highlighting agencies' inaction on
open IG recommendations.\8\ The Committee found 15,222 open and
unimplemented recommendations across the Federal Government.\9\
Those open recommendations represent over $87 billion in
potential cost savings to taxpayers.\10\ For example, the
Department of Housing and Urban Development IG reported over
2,000 recommendations that the agency had not addressed, some
of which were first recommended over 16 years ago.\11\ The
Department of Defense IG reported that the agency could save
$33 billion if it implemented all of its open IG
recommendations.\12\ As of April, 2018, 23 Federal agencies
have over 4,600 recommendations that have been open and
unimplemented for at least one year, resulting in possible
savings of over $39 billion.\13\ These open recommendations
represent thousands of opportunities for Federal agencies to
improve their operations in order to efficiently utilize
taxpayer dollars for the public interest.
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\8\S. Comm. on Homeland Sec. & Governmental Affairs and S. Comm. on
the Judiciary, Empowering Inspectors General: Supporting the IG
Community Could Save Billions For American Taxpayers, 114th Cong.,
available at https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/
IG%20Open%20Recs%20Staff%20Report_FINAL%20(2).pdf.
\9\Id. at 2.
\10\Id.
\11\Id.
\12\Id.
\13\S. Comm. on Homeland Sec. & Governmental Affairs staff product
compiled from publically available Inspector General Semiannual Reports
of 23 Federal agencies.
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To make IG reports more accessible to the public, CIGIE
launched Oversight.gov on October 2, 2017.\14\ Oversight.gov is
a public website that posts reports and data submitted by
agency IGs in one place.\15\ However, users currently must
access each individual IG report from Oversight.gov to identify
open recommendations and there is not a simple way for Congress
or the public to monitor the status of open recommendations.
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\14\Press Release, The Council of the Inspectors General on
Integrity and Efficiency, CIGIE Launches Oversight.gov: IGs Found More
Than $25 Billion in Potential Cost Savings in FY 2017, New Website
Shows (Oct. 2, 2017), available at https://www.ignet.gov/sites/default/
files/files/
CIGIE%20Announces%20Official%20Launch%20of%20Oversight_gov_10_02_17_Fina
l.pdf.
\15\The Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and
Efficiency, About Oversight.gov, Oversight.gov (2017), https://
www.oversight.gov/about.
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S. 2178 would require agency IGs to include more detailed
information about open recommendations in their semiannual
reports. This information includes the total number of open
recommendations, a short description of each open
recommendation, the date each recommendation was first
submitted to the agency, and any cost savings that could be
realized if corrective action was completed by the agency.
These semiannual reports, along with all publicly-released IG
reports, must be submitted by the IG to CIGIE within 30 days of
issuance. CIGIE would then be required to include the
information on IG open recommendations in a standardized,
searchable format on its website. By increasing transparency,
Congress and the public will be better equipped to hold
agencies accountable and encourage them to implement
recommendations, which could help the Federal Government save
billions in taxpayer dollars.
CIGIE Chair and Department of Justice Inspector General
Michael Horowitz agreed with the aim of this legislation:
we agree that greater transparency regarding the
thousands of open IG recommendations is important
because implementing these recommendations could
potentially save the federal government billions of
dollars. Moreover, we have found that transparency has
a positive impact on encouraging agencies to address
long-standing unimplemented recommendations, which
benefits taxpayers.\16\
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\16\Recommendations and Reforms from the Inspectors General:
Hearing Before the H. Comm. on Oversight & Gov't Reform, 115th Cong. 5
(2017) (statement of Michael E. Horowitz, CIGIE Chair).
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III. Legislative History
S. 2178 was introduced on November 30, 2017, by Senators
Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) and Joni Ernst (R-IA). The bill was
referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs. The Committee considered S. 2178 at a business meeting
on February 14, 2018.
During the business meeting, Senator Heitkamp offered a
substitute amendment requiring IGs to report information
regarding open recommendations in semiannual reports, to modify
the definition of ``open recommendation,'' and to require the
CIGIE database to be publicly available and in a standardized,
searchable format. Senator Heitkamp also offered a technical
amendment to correct the name of CIGIE in the title of the
bill. Senator Lankford offered an amendment to require the
inclusion of information regarding any potential cost savings
associated with open recommendations and to require IGs to
submit public reports to CIGIE within 30 days after issuance.
Both the amendments and the legislation as modified by the
amendments were passed by voice vote en bloc with Senators
Johnson, Portman, Paul, Lankford, Enzi, Hoeven, Daines,
McCaskill, Heitkamp, Peters, Hassan, Harris, and Jones present.
IV. Section-by-Section Analysis of the Bill, as Reported
Section 1. Short title
This section establishes the short title of the bill as the
``Inspector General Recommendation Transparency Act of 2018.''
Section 2. Inspector General open recommendations
This section requires agency IGs to publicly report on open
recommendations and for CIGIE to publish this information on a
public database.
Subsection (a) requires agency IGs to include in their
semiannual reports mandated under section 5 of the Inspector
General Act of 1978 information about the total number of
corrective actions recommended by the IG but not completed by
the agency. This information includes the IG report in which
the open recommendation was issued, a short description of the
open recommendation, the date on which the recommendation was
submitted to the agency, and any potential cost savings from
completing corrective action on the open recommendation. This
subsection includes the definition of an open recommendation.
This subsection also requires CIGIE to maintain a publicly
available database on which information about open
recommendations can be accessed in a standardized, searchable
format.
Agency IGs are required to submit to CIGIE all reports that
it makes public within 30 days of issuance.
Subsection (b) requires agency IGs to include information
on open recommendations required in subsection (a) by the first
semiannual report prepared one year after the date this bill is
enacted.
V. Evaluation of Regulatory Impact
Pursuant to the requirements of paragraph 11(b) of rule
XXVI of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the Committee has
considered the regulatory impact of this bill and determined
that the bill will have no regulatory impact within the meaning
of the rules. The Committee agrees with the Congressional
Budget Office's statement that the bill contains no
intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the
Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA) and would impose no costs
on state, local, or tribal governments.
VI. Congressional Budget Office Cost Estimates
March 28, 2018.
Hon. Ron Johnson, Chairman,
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs,
U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Chairman: The Congressional Budget Office has
prepared the enclosed cost estimate for S. 2178, the Inspector
General Recommendation Transparency Act of 2018.
If you wish further details on this estimate, we will be
pleased to provide them. The CBO staff contact is Matthew
Pickford.
Sincerely,
Keith Hall.
Enclosure.
S. 2178--Inspector General Recommendation Transparency Act of 2018
S. 2178 would amend federal law to require all federal
inspectors general (IGs) to report on open recommendations
(those that they have made that have not been implemented).
After conducting audits, investigations, and inspections, IGs
typically report their recommendations to their agencies. A
recommendation is considered open if the IG determines that the
agency has not implemented it. The bill also would require the
Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency
(CIGIE) to keep a database of open recommendations and make it
available through a public website.
The more than 70 federal IGs spend a total of about $2.5
billion a year to detect and deter fraud, waste, and abuse. In
fiscal year 2016, IGs produced over 5,000 audit, investigation,
and evaluation reports. CBO is not aware of any comprehensive
information on open federal recommendations. Information from
CIGIE and some IGs indicates that some agencies track open
recommendations, but CBO expects that some additional
administrative work would be necessary to report on all open
recommendations.
Based on the type and scope of the necessary work, CBO
estimates that that implementing the bill would require 15
percent of the time of one employee and cost around $20,000 per
agency each year. That spending would be subject to the
availability of appropriated funds and would amount to $5
million over the 2018-2022 period.
Enacting S. 2178 could affect direct spending by agencies
that are not funded through annual appropriations; therefore,
pay-as-you-go procedures apply. CBO estimates, however, that
any net increase in spending by those agencies would be
negligible. Enacting the bill would not affect revenues.
CBO estimates that enacting S. 2178 would not increase net
direct spending or on-budget deficits in any of the four
consecutive 10-year periods beginning in 2028.
S. 2178 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector
mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act.
The CBO staff contact for this estimate is Matthew
Pickford. The estimate was approved by H. Samuel Papenfuss,
Deputy Assistant Director for Budget Analysis.
VII. Changes in Existing Law Made by the Bill, as Reported
In compliance with paragraph 12 of rule XXVI of the
Standing Rules of the Senate, changes in existing law made by
the bill, as reported, are shown as follows: (existing law
proposed to be omitted is enclosed in brackets, new matter is
printed in italic, and existing law in which no change is
proposed is shown in roman):
UNITED STATES CODE
* * * * * * *
TITLE 5--GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION AND EMPLOYEES
* * * * * * *
APPENDIX
* * * * * * *
INSPECTOR GENERAL ACT OF 1978
* * * * * * *
SEC. 5. SEMIANNUAL REPORTS; TRANSMITTAL TO CONGRESS; AVAILABILITY TO
PUBLIC; IMMEDIATE REPORT ON SERIOUS OR FLAGRANT
PROBLEMS; DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION; DEFINITIONS.
(a) * * *
(1) * * *
(2) the total number and a description of the
recommendations for corrective action made by the
Office during the reporting period with respect to
significant problems, abuses, or deficiencies
identified pursuant to paragraph (1);
[(3) an identification of each significant
recommendation described in previous semiannual reports
on which corrective action has not been completed;]
(3) the total number of open recommendations
described in previous semiannual reports on which
corrective action has not been completed, and an
identification of each open recommendation, which shall
include--
(A) the title of each report in which an open
recommendation was issued;
(B) the assigned number of each open
recommendation, as designated within a report
described in subparagraph (A);
(C) a short description of each open
recommendation;
(D) the date on which each open
recommendation was submitted in final form to
the head of the establishment;
(E) if available, any cost savings if the
corrective action with respect to the open
recommendation were completed; and
(F) any other information as determined
appropriate by the Inspector General that
clarifies the progress of implementing the open
recommendation or the expected timeframe for
implementation;
* * * * * * *
(f) * * *
(1) * * *
* * * * * * *
(6) * * *
(A) * * *
(B) in the event that the management of an
establishment concludes no action is necessary,
final action occurs when a management decision
has been made [and];
(7) * * *
(A) * * *
(B) any commissioned officer in the Armed
Forces in pay grades 0-6 and above [.]; and
(8) the term ``open recommendation'' means a
recommendation--
(A) issued by an Inspector General of an
establishment and made publicly available;
(B) on which corrective action has not been
completed by the establishment during the 1-
year period following the date on which the
recommendation was issued; and
(C) that has not been otherwise closed by the
Office.
* * * * * * *
SEC. 11. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE COUNCIL OF THE INSPECTORS GENERAL ON
INTEGRITY AND EFFICIENCY.
(a) * * *
(b) * * *
(c) * * *
(1) * * *
* * * * * * *
(5) Establishment of database.--Not later than 18
months after the date on which the first semiannual
report is required to be prepared under section 5(a)
after the date of enactment of this paragraph, the
Council shall establish and operate a publicly
available database that--
(A) is accessible via the website of the
Council in a standardized, searchable format;
and
(B) includes--
(i) the information on open
recommendations that is required to be
included in each semiannual report
under section 5(a)(3); and
(ii) any other information as
determined necessary by the Council.
(6) Submission of reports.--Beginning not later than
60 days after the date of enactment of this paragraph,
each Inspector General of an establishment or a
designated Federal entity (as defined in section 8G(a))
shall, not later than 30 days after the date on which
the Inspector General issues a public report, submit to
the Council the report for publication on a centralized
website.
* * * * * * *
[all]
