From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: Comptroller General Testifies to U.S. House on GAO's 2017 High Risk List Description: In his February 15, 2017 testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives, Comptroller General Gene Dodaro provides an update of GAO's 2017 High Risk List. Related GAO Works: GAO-17-317: High-Risk Series: Progress On Many High-Risk Areas, While Substantial Efforts Needed On Others and GAO-17-375T: High-Risk Series: Progress On Many High-Risk Areas, While Substantial Efforts Needed On Others Released: February 2017 [First Screen] House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform [Second Screen] High Risk Series: Progress on Many High-Risk Areas, While Substantial Efforts Needed on Others [Third Screen] U.S. Comptroller General Gene L. Dodaro Opening Statement February 15, 2017 [ Gene Dodaro: ] Thank you very much Mr. Chairman. Good morning to you, Ranking Member Cummings, and members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss our latest edition of the High-Risk list. As has been pointed out in both of your opening statements, there have been areas, many areas where solid progress has been made. In fact, 23 of the 32 areas we had on the High-Risk list in 2015 have either met or fully met the 5 criteria for coming off the list. Those criteria are Leadership, the capacity, planning, monitoring, and actually demonstrating some progress, which is the most difficult criteria to meet. That progress was achieved through a lot of hard work by agency leaders and staff in those agencies and by the Congress. I really want to complement the Congress over this last 2-year period. Over a dozen pieces of legislation were passed to address individual high-risk areas and some government-wide issues, as well. And Congress held over 250 hearings on subjects covered by the high-risk hearings. And this committee in particular is to be commended, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Cummings, for the bipartisan approach that has been taken to address many of these issues, which is really needed. And so I look forward to working with you to help resolve all these areas. I share your interest in getting as many areas off this list as possible. I made that a goal during my confirmation hearing and, you know we will maintain our independence, we're not going to take anything off until it’s ready, but we're trying to do what we can to be specific and get them off the list. The one area you mentioned -- managing information sharing of terrorist-related information -- has really shown steady progress over the years, met all criteria, so It's coming off the list. I want to assure this committee that when something goes off the list, it is not out of sight. So we're still monitoring and we'll keep an eye on it to make sure we don't have any regression in that area. On the other side, there's a number of areas that really need some substantial attention. Veterans' health care, which we put on the last update in 2015. DOD financial management, which we've talked about in the past, still needs substantial attention. Protecting our information systems from cyber attacks and our critical infrastructure throughout the United States is important. We first put cyber security across the federal government on the high-risk list in 1997. So that's the 20th anniversary of us warning about this issue, and there's still a lot that needs to be done. Information Technology acquisitions and operations, which this committee has shown a lot of good oversight in a number of hearings, two of the subcommittees in particular have been working together on that area, so I commend the committee in that regard. And reforming housing finance in the federal government. Fannie and Freddie are still in conservatorship. They've been there since 2008. The federal government is assuming too much risk in the housing market in my opinion. And things need to be done in that area, as well. We are, as you mentioned, we're adding three new areas this year. I'll quickly cover them in closing. Number one is federal activities to work with tribes and their members. Wherever we look, if it's helping them with education, ensuring safety of schools, ensuring adequate health care for Indian tribes and their members, or allowing them to take energy resources off their land and put them into production so it can generate revenues. There is inadequate federal oversight and support. We've made a number of recommendations, 41, 39 are still outstanding. This needs attention. Secondly is the growth in environmental liabilities. This is to clean up nuclear weapons complex waste as well as disposing of civilian waste generated through nuclear power plants. This liability has grown. It's approaching one half trillion dollars. We don’t believe that’s even the total estimate yet, that’s accurate. The government has been spending tens of billions of dollars trying to clean up this activity over the past several years, but the liability keeps growing. We've made a number of recommendations, they need a more risk-based approach in this area. And then lastly, the decennial cesnsus, the 2020 census. If you look back on the high-risk list, the census is one that we put on in the 2010 census, in 2008, and it needs attention. The cost exceeded $12 billion for the 2020 census. This one's on track, if you use the old methods, to be close to $18 trillion. I think I said trillion. It's $12.3 billion. It is on track to be close to that. But they're trying some innovative measures, which I can talk about in the Q&A. But those measures, such as using the Internet for response and developing innovative ways not to do physical canvassing in street walking and communities, introduces a lot of risk. And we think theres much more needs to be done to manage that risk so we have a cost effective and an effective census, which is very important. So Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Cummings, I appreciate your comments about the GAO workforce, they're a very talented, dedicated group of people. We look forward to working with you to resolve all the areas on the high-risk list. Thank you for the opportunity to be here.