[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                     PROTECTING AMERICAN TAXPAYERS:
                    HIGHLIGHTING EFFORTS TO PROTECT
                     AGAINST FEDERAL WASTE, FRAUD,
                           AND MISMANAGEMENT

=======================================================================
                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                      COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE,
                             AND TECHNOLOGY

                                 OF THE

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                             APRIL 19, 2023

                               __________

                            Serial No. 118-8

                               __________

 Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology

[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]                                                                         
                                    

       Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
       
                               __________

                   U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
51-794PDF                  WASHINGTON : 2024                    
          
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              COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY

                  HON. FRANK LUCAS, Oklahoma, Chairman
BILL POSEY, Florida                  ZOE LOFGREN, California, Ranking 
RANDY WEBER, Texas                       Member
BRIAN BABIN, Texas                   SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
JIM BAIRD, Indiana                   HALEY STEVENS, Michigan
DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida              JAMAAL BOWMAN, New York
MIKE GARCIA, California              DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
STEPHANIE BICE, Oklahoma             ERIC SORENSEN, Illinois
JAY OBERNOLTE, California            ANDREA SALINAS, Oregon
CHUCK FLEISCHMANN, Tennessee         VALERIE FOUSHEE, North Carolina
DARRELL ISSA, California             KEVIN MULLIN, California
RICK CRAWFORD, Arkansas              JEFF JACKSON, North Carolina
CLAUDIA TENNEY, New York             EMILIA SYKES, Ohio
RYAN ZINKE, Montana                  MAXWELL FROST, Florida
SCOTT FRANKLIN, Florida              YADIRA CARAVEO, Colorado
DALE STRONG, Alabama                 SUMMER LEE, Pennsylvania
MAX MILLER, Ohio                     JENNIFER McCLELLAN, Virginia
RICH McCORMICK, Georgia              TED LIEU, California
MIKE COLLINS, Georgia                SEAN CASTEN, Illinois
BRANDON WILLIAMS, New York           PAUL TONKO, New York
TOM KEAN, New Jersey
VACANCY
                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                             April 19, 2023

                                                                   Page

Hearing Charter..................................................     2

                           Opening Statements

Statement by Representative Jay Obernolte, Chairman, Subcommittee 
  on Investigations and Oversight, Committee on Science, Space, 
  and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives..................    15
    Written Statement............................................    16

Statement by Representative Valerie Foushee, Ranking Member, 
  Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, Committee on 
  Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives..    17
    Written Statement............................................    18

Statement by Representative Zoe Lofgren, Ranking Member, 
  Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of 
  Representatives................................................    19
    Written Statement............................................    19

                               Witnesses:

The Honorable Paul K. Martin, Inspector General, National 
  Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
    Oral Statement...............................................    20
    Written Statement............................................    23

The Honorable Allison C. Lerner, Inspector General, National 
  Science Foundation (NSF)
    Oral Statement...............................................    33
    Written Statement............................................    35

The Honorable Teri L. Donaldson, Inspector General, Department of 
  Energy (DOE)
    Oral Statement...............................................    51
    Written Statement............................................    53

The Honorable Eric J. Soskin, Inspector General, Department of 
  Transportation (DOT)
    Oral Statement...............................................    75
    Written Statement............................................    77

The Honorable Sean W. O'Donnell, Inspector General, Environmental 
  Protection Agency (EPA)
    Oral Statement...............................................    86
    Written Statement............................................    88

Discussion.......................................................   101

              Appendix: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

The Honorable Paul K. Martin, Inspector General, National 
  Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)....................   138

The Honorable Allison C. Lerner, Inspector General, National 
  Science Foundation (NSF).......................................   140

The Honorable Teri L. Donaldson, Inspector General, Department of 
  Energy (DOE)...................................................   142

The Honorable Eric J. Soskin, Inspector General, Department of 
  Transportation (DOT)...........................................   143

 
                     PROTECTING AMERICAN TAXPAYERS:
                    HIGHLIGHTING EFFORTS TO PROTECT
                     AGAINST FEDERAL WASTE, FRAUD,
                           AND MISMANAGEMENT

                              ----------                              


                       WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19, 2023

                          House of Representatives,
               Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
                                                   Washington, D.C.

    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room 
2318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jay Obernolte 
presiding.
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

    Mr. Obernolte. The hour of 10 o'clock having arrived, this 
hearing of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee is 
hereby convened.
    I'd like to begin today by thanking Chairman Lucas and 
Ranking Member Lofgren for allowing both myself and Mrs. 
Foushee to lead this Full Committee hearing. And I'm very 
excited about the topic we're going to be discussing today.
    This hearing focuses on a topic of great importance both to 
me and to this Committee, which is to review the oversight and 
investigative efforts of the Inspectors General (IGs) within 
each agency within the jurisdiction of our Committee. The role 
of the OIG (Office of Inspector General) in these agencies is 
an essential one, which is to protect the American taxpayer by 
working to identify Federal waste, fraud, and mismanagement.
    Inspectors General have a strong historical precedent in 
our Nation. IGs are meant to be the watchdogs for Congress and 
the American taxpayer. The independent oversight capability the 
IG wields to expose waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement is 
their core responsibility. It's critical to the independence of 
Inspectors General that this independence is maintained. IGs 
are meant to be in their parent agencies, but not of their 
parent agencies, or frankly, of any Administration. They're 
meant to be apolitical and set apart in order to do the hard 
task of publicly highlighting the flaws of their parent 
agencies, and I know that that is not an easy one. Helping to 
achieve transparency and accountability within an 
Administration is a difficult but a very necessary role that 
the IG leads.
    Each agency has a very different mission and goal, which 
makes it challenging to have a single, all-encompassing metric 
to evaluate the effectiveness of each IG. I hope that this 
hearing will be an opportunity to discuss the potential metrics 
by which each Office of the Inspector General should be 
measured and where those offices currently stand.
    This hearing is also a chance to highlight the important 
work done by each of the offices here before us today. I'd 
particularly like to highlight the oversight work surrounding 
the growing threat to our cybersecurity and research integrity 
standards. The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed technologies 
forward and implemented remote capabilities far sooner than any 
of us had anticipated. Hearing from each of you today on the 
oversight efforts your agencies have taken to enhance 
cybersecurity standards and promote research integrity is 
particularly important to me. I hope that this topic can be 
effectively discussed as it relates to the security of 
passwords and protective internal practices of each of the 
agencies that you represent. This is likely to be discussion 
for future hearings as well. I certainly hope it will be. But I 
encourage conversations on this topic today.
    Several of the agencies here today before us have received 
millions if not billions of Federal dollars to advance research 
and development initiatives. Massive spending bills such as the 
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, CHIPS and Science Act, 
and the Inflation Reduction Act have recently become law, and 
have provided agencies with new statutory mandates, as well as 
research and development funds to advance innovation in our 
country.
    However, more spending also means more opportunities for 
mismanagement of those taxpayer funds, making the IGs' role 
more important than ever. I'd like to hear how each IG has 
already begun to provide oversight of these taxpayer funds, as 
well as future oversight plans in these areas. It's critical as 
new programs and funds are implemented that every proper 
measure is taken to safeguard them from fraud and abuse.
    This hearing also serves as an opportunity for this 
Committee to emphasize the various findings the IGs have 
reported on in areas that have raised considerable concerns. 
Just a few issues we hope to address here include the law 
enforcement presence and mitigation efforts of sexual assault 
and harassment allegations in the Antarctic, the extent of 
work-from-home policies that are in place, and various award 
and procurement issues as we move closer to the congressional 
appropriations season.
    At this time, I would like to welcome our esteemed 
witnesses and thank you all for joining us. I'm looking forward 
to a robust discussion with each of you. And I'm hopeful our 
conversation today will highlight the good work being done in 
accountability and transparency and hope it also strengthens 
your oversight and investigatory efforts. So I thank you very 
much for being here.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Obernolte follows:]

    Good morning. I would like to begin today by thanking 
Chairman Lucas and Ranking Member Lofgren for allowing myself 
and Ms. Foushee to lead this full committee hearing.
    Today's hearing focuses on a topic of great importance to 
this committee: protecting the American taxpayer by working to 
expose federal waste, fraud, and mismanagement. Essentially, 
the role of the Office of Inspectors General.
    Inspectors General have a strong historical precedent in 
our nation. IGs are meant to be the watchdogs for Congress and 
the American taxpayer. The independent oversight capability the 
IG wields to expose waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement is 
their core responsibility.
    It is critical that the independence of Inspectors General 
is maintained. IGs are meant to be IN their parent agencies, 
but not OF their parent agencies or any administration. They 
are meant to be apolitical and set apart in order to do the 
hard task of publicly highlighting the flaws of their parent 
agencies. Helping to advance transparency and accountability 
within an administration is a difficult but necessary role that 
the IG leads.
    Each agency has a different mission and goal, making it 
challenging to have a single, all-encompassing metric to 
evaluate the effectiveness of each IG. I hope this hearing will 
be an opportunity to discuss the potential metrics by which 
each office of the inspector general should be measured and 
where those offices currently stand.
    This hearing is also a chance to highlight the important 
work done by each of the offices before us today. I 
particularly want to highlight the oversight work surrounding 
the growing threat to our cybersecurity and research integrity 
standards. The COVID-19 pandemic pushed technologies forward 
and implemented remote capabilities far sooner than any 
anticipated. Hearing from each of you today on the oversight 
efforts your agencies have taken to enhance cybersecurity 
standards and promote research integrity is particularly 
important.
    I hope this topic can be effectively discussed as it 
relates to the security of passwords and protective internal 
practices of each agency. This is likely to be a discussion for 
future hearings, but I encourage conversations on this topic 
today as well.
    Several of the agencies here today have received millions, 
if not billions, of federal dollars to advance research and 
development initiatives. Massive spending bills such as the 
Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act, CHIPS and Science Act, 
and the Inflation Reduction Act have recently become law and 
provided agencies with new statutory mandates as well as R&D 
funds to advance innovation. More spending means more 
opportunities for mismanagement of taxpayer funds, making the 
IG's role more important than ever. I would like to hear how 
each IG has already begun to provide oversight of these 
taxpayer funds, as well as future oversight plans in these 
areas. It is critical as new programs and funds are implemented 
that every proper measure is taken to safeguard them from fraud 
and misuse.
    This hearing also serves as an opportunity for this 
committee to emphasize the various findings the IGs have 
reported on in areas that have raised considerable concern. 
Just a few issues we hope to address include the law 
enforcement presence and mitigation efforts of sexual assault 
and harassment allegations in the Antarctic; the extent of work 
from home policies in place; and various award and procurement 
issues as we move closer to the Congressional appropriations 
season.
    At this time, I would like to welcome to our esteemed 
witnesses and thank you all for joining us. I am looking 
forward to a robust discussion with each of you. I am hopeful 
our conversation today will highlight the good work being done 
in accountability and transparency and help to strengthen your 
oversight and investigative efforts.

    Mr. Obernolte. And I'll now recognize my Ranking Member, 
the gentlewoman from North Carolina, for 5 minutes for her 
opening statement.
    Mrs. Foushee. Thank you, Chairman Obernolte, and thank you 
for leading today's hearing. I'm very pleased to serve beside 
you this Congress as the Ranking Member of Investigations and 
Oversight Subcommittee. Science Committee oversight of Federal 
scientific enterprise is crucial. I look forward to working 
with you in a bipartisan fashion to support the incredible work 
that scientists inside and outside of government are doing 
every day to confront the challenges of the 21 century and to 
maintain American leadership in science and innovation.
    I am a strong supporter of Federal scientific research, and 
I believe the Federal Government is irreplaceable in its 
ability to deploy resources on a vast scale to fund 
breakthroughs in basic and applied science. But with that 
singular role comes a responsibility to use taxpayer dollars 
effectively. Through the work of their offices, the Inspectors 
General testifying here today are helpful to uphold core 
principles of good government that we all share. That is why I 
am proud to support their work and eager to hear their 
perspectives on strengthening the integrity of Federal 
scientific programs.
    I am proud to represent North Carolina's 4th Congressional 
District, which is one of the Nation's leading hubs for 
scientific research, led by research universities such as Duke 
University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 
and North Carolina Central University, as well as innovation 
centers like Research Triangle Park. My district understands 
the power of science to generate innovation, transform 
industry, and create jobs.
    Federal science agencies such as NSF (National Science 
Foundation), DOE (Department of Energy), and EPA (Environmental 
Protection Agency) are important participants in this research 
ecosystem. North Carolina's 4th is home to the world-class EPA 
lab, where Federal researchers at EPA's Office of Research and 
Development provide the scientific underpinning for crucial 
health protective regulations. Agencies also fund programs and 
initiatives at local institutions in support of a wide range of 
cutting-edge scientific activities, such as DOE's Triangle 
University's Nuclear Laboratory Center of Excellence and NSF's 
Research Triangle Nanotechnology Network. So I have a keen 
interest in ensuring that Federal research programs are managed 
well and adhere to best practices in using the funds that are 
entrusted to them.
    The researchers in my district are some of the most 
brilliant people you will ever meet, and they deserve to know 
that the Federal agencies working to support them are upholding 
the same rigorous standards that they apply to their own work.
    I also want to emphasize that support for rigorous 
oversight does not in any way signal a lack of support for 
investing in Federal research at the levels we need to maintain 
American preeminence in science and technology. Indeed, the two 
priorities go hand-in-hand.
    The last Congress made critical investments in Federal 
science through landmark legislation like the CHIPS and Science 
Act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and the 
Inflation Reduction Act. These investments are a pillar of 
America's future, and I am committed to making sure that they 
endure. Careful oversight by Congress, OIGs, and others will 
help maximize their impact because when it comes to Federal 
research funding, good government is good policy.
    I am grateful to the witnesses for testifying here today 
and for the work that you do.
    Once again, Chairman Obernolte, it is my great hope that 
through our oversight efforts this Congress, we can find common 
ground in support of American science. I believe we can. And I 
will work with you to do so. I yield back.
    [The prepared statement of Mrs. Foushee follows:]

    Thank you, Chairman Obernolte, and thank you for leading 
today's hearing. I'm very pleased to serve beside you this 
Congress as the Ranking Member of the Investigations & 
Oversight Subcommittee.
    Science Committee oversight of the federal scientific 
enterprise is crucial. I look forward to working with you in a 
bipartisan fashion to support the incredible work that 
scientists inside and outside of government are doing every day 
to confront the challenges of the 21st Century and to maintain 
American leadership in science and innovation.
    I am a strong supporter of federal scientific research. And 
I believe the federal government is irreplaceable in its 
ability to deploy resources on a vast scale to fund 
breakthroughs in basic and applied science.
    But with that singular role comes a responsibility to use 
taxpayer dollars effectively. Through the work of their 
offices, the Inspectors General testifying here today are 
helping to uphold core principles of good government that we 
all share. That is why I am proud to support their work and 
eager to hear their perspectives on strengthening the integrity 
of federal scientific programs.
    I am proud to represent North Carolina's Fourth 
Congressional District, which is one of the nation's leading 
hubs for scientific research. Led by research universities such 
as Duke University, the University of North Carolina-Chapel 
Hill, and North Carolina Central University, as well as 
innovation centers like Research Triangle Park, my district 
understands the power of science to generate innovation, 
transform industry, and create jobs.
    Federal science agencies such as NSF, DOE and EPA are 
important participants in this research ecosystem. North 
Carolina's Fourth is home to the world-class EPA lab, where 
federal researchers at EPA's Office of Research and Development 
provide the scientific underpinning for crucial, health-
protective regulations.
    Agencies also fund programs and initiatives at local 
institutions in support of a wide range of cutting-edge 
scientific activities, such as DOE's Triangle Universities 
Nuclear Laboratory Center of Excellence and NSF's Research 
Triangle Nanotechnology Network.
    So, I have a keen interest in ensuring that federal 
research programs are managed well and adhere to best practices 
in using the funds that are entrusted to them. The researchers 
in my district are some of the most brilliant people you will 
ever meet, and they deserve to know that the federal agencies 
working to support them are upholding the same rigorous 
standards that they apply to their own work.
    I also want to emphasize that support for rigorous 
oversight does not, in any way, signal a lack of support for 
investing in federal research at the levels we need to maintain 
American preeminence in science and technology. Indeed, the two 
priorities go hand in hand.
    The last Congress made critical investments in federal 
science through landmark legislation like the CHIPS and Science 
Act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and the 
Inflation Reduction Act. These investments are a pillar of 
America's future, and I am committed to making sure they 
endure.
    Careful oversight by Congress, OIGs, and others will help 
maximize their impact, because when it comes to federal 
research funding, good government is good policy. I am grateful 
to the witnesses for testifying here today and for the work 
that you do.
    Once again, Chairman Obernolte, it is my great hope that 
through our oversight efforts this Congress, we can find common 
ground in support of American science. I believe we can, and I 
will work with you to do so.
    I yield back.

    Mr. Obernolte. Thank you, Ranking Member Foushee. I 
completely agree with you, and I think we will follow--find 
that common ground.
    Chairman Lucas' opening statement will be submitted for the 
record.
    At this time, I'd like to recognize the Ranking Member of 
the Full Committee, Congresswoman Lofgren, for her opening 
statement.
    Ms. Lofgren. Thank you very much. I want to thank Chairman 
Lucas, Chairman Obernolte, for holding this hearing today. I'm 
a big fan of the Inspector General concept. You do good work 
helping us to find issues that need improvement. And given the 
large investments that we made in science in the last Congress, 
it's important that we take a look at how those programs are 
being administered.
    The investments in Federal science agencies are going to 
bring about new discoveries on the shoulders of impressive 
accomplishments in the past. I'll just note that the Department 
of Energy will continue leading us into a clean energy future, 
building upon the incredible breakthroughs in fusion energy 
that we saw at the--in the last year and, frankly, the last 
years.
    The--as I said, the Inspectors General play an important 
role. We've provided additional funding because with your 
additional responsibilities will come additional work. If--some 
challenges may be difficult because some of these agencies may 
be standing up completely new endeavors. It won't be the same 
old, same old. And I'm confident that the IGs will take that 
responsibility and that new challenge seriously and be 
successful.
    Now, the fact that I support rigorous oversight does not 
mean that I am suspicious or unhappy about the investments that 
we made in the last Congress. It's important that we did that. 
And we did it on a bipartisan basis. But investments made in 
the CHIPS and Science program in particular, are--we need 
oversight. We need oversight to make sure that those 
substantial investments are making the best possible use of 
taxpayer dollars. I know that we will do this on a bipartisan 
basis. And I want to thank the witnesses for being here, as 
well as thanking our bipartisan science group for once again 
working together for science advancement.
    I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Lofgren follows:]

    Good morning, and thank you to Chairman Lucas and Chairman 
Obernolte for holding this hearing today.
    Inspectors General are a crucial part of a healthy, 
functioning government ecosystem. Congress entrusts federal 
agencies with taxpayer money to steward our national 
priorities. The 117th Congress, especially, saw the passage of 
a number of banner pieces of legislation. I'm proud that these 
bills--CHIPS and Science in particular--made heavy investments 
in our scientific enterprise. Congress charted a path for 
American scientific leadership, and now agencies are 
implementing those ambitious plans.
    The landmark investments will allow federal science 
agencies to bring about new discoveries on the shoulders of 
their impressive accomplishments. The Department of Energy will 
continue leading us into a clean energy future, building upon 
their incredible breakthroughs in fusion energy. The National 
Science Foundation will support a strong, diverse STEM 
workforce that will foster the talent we need to maintain 
global leadership. NASA will bring humans back to the Moon 
while keeping our eyes on Mars, advancing human exploration 
capabilities.
    All the while, the Offices of Inspector General will play a 
critical role in ensuring the billions of dollars authorized 
last Congress are properly spent. The funding increases give 
our federal science agencies substantial resources to fulfill 
our national goals. OIGs' oversight of newly established 
programs will serve as necessary guideposts, offering decades 
of experience and lessons learned to initiatives still in their 
infancy. Recommendations from our panel's Officeswill ensure 
existing programs are able to scale up their activities to best 
utilize increased funds.
    The 117th Congress's legislative efforts provided many IG 
offices with additional funding to ensure they have the 
resources to oversee their home agencies. I hope the Offices 
are carefully considering how to best use that money. Today, 
we'll hear from our witnesses about what challenges they face 
in ensuring their oversight efforts are top-notch. Meeting the 
increased oversight needs in part will require a larger 
workforce, which is easily addressed by additional funding. But 
some challenges may be more complicated. Perhaps a constituent 
agency is standing up a program unlike any it's had before, 
meaning there is minimal precedent for oversight within the 
agency's OIG. Maybe new initiatives involve inter-agency 
collaboration that will require more cooperation among IG 
offices. And maybe the cutting-edge priorities put forth by 
Congress will necessitate new metrics by which to judge federal 
science agencies.
    As Ranking Member Foushee said in her opening statement, 
rigorous oversight goes hand in hand with supporting strong 
investments in federal research. I want to be clear that my 
emphasis on the need for robust and effective OIGs does not 
indicate a skepticism of increased funding for science 
agencies. Federal programs are strengthened by the 
recommendations of OIGs. In cases of waste, fraud, and abuse by 
recipients of grant money, taxpayer funds are recovered by the 
work of those appearing before our Committee today.
    The investments made in CHIPS & Science enjoyed bipartisan 
support. Likewise, I believe all of us here today--on both 
sides of the aisle--support strong oversight that will 
facilitate the best use of taxpayer dollars. Thank you to the 
witnesses for your important work, and for appearing before us 
today to educate us on your efforts.
    I yield back.

    Mr. Obernolte. Thank you very much, Ranking Member Lofgren.
    We will now move to our witness panel. All of our witnesses 
here today are extremely accomplished and have participated in 
government oversight for years, so welcome to all of you, and 
thank you very much for being part of our panel today.
    Our first witness today is Mr. Paul Martin, who is the 
current Inspector General for the National Aeronautics and 
Space Administration (NASA). Mr. Martin, you are recognized for 
5 minutes.

           TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE PAUL K. MARTIN,

            INSPECTOR GENERAL, NATIONAL AERONAUTICS

                AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION (NASA)

    Mr. Martin. Thank you, Chairman Obernolte and Ranking 
Members Foushee and Lofgren and Committee Members.
    While undoubtedly innovative and inspirational, NASA faces 
longstanding challenges with its contracting and project 
management that have led to substantial cost and schedule 
growth in many of its programs. This morning, I plan to 
highlight three challenges that NASA must address to achieve 
its ambitious aeronautics, science, and space exploration 
goals. The first, developing comprehensive and accurate cost 
and schedule estimates. NASA has struggled for years to develop 
reliable lifecycle estimates for many of its multibillion 
dollar programs, including Artemis and the James Webb Space 
Telescope. For Artemis, NASA lacks a comprehensive cost 
estimate that accounts for all program costs, an omission that 
contributes to a lack of transparency into the funding required 
to sustain the program. Through our audit work, the OIG 
developed just such an estimate, and we project that NASA will 
spend $93 billion on Artemis from 2012 through 2025. In 
addition, we reported a cost of $4.1 billion per launch for at 
least the first four Artemis missions, an expense we found 
unsustainable. NASA must accelerate its efforts to make its 
Artemis-related programs more affordable. Otherwise, relying on 
such an expensive single-use rocket system will inhibit NASA's 
ability to sustain its exploration goals for the Moon and Mars.
    The second challenge, project management. Our oversight 
work over the years has identified multiple examples of project 
management deficiencies. Specifically, our June 2022 report on 
development of Mobile Launcher 2 (ML2), the ground structure 
required to launch larger variants of the SLS (Space Launch 
System) Orion system, found that NASA is likely to spend over 
$1 billion dollars on ML2 or more than 2 1/2 times more than 
initially planned, with final delivery at least 2 1/2 years 
late. We determined that the project's substantial cost 
increases and schedule delays are attributable primarily to the 
poor performance of Bechtel, the project's contractor. However, 
NASA's management practices also contributed to cost increases 
and schedule delays.
    And challenge three, choice of contracting vehicles and use 
of award fees. NASA has struggled over the years to make the 
most appropriate contracting decisions with its programs. 
Development contracts such as those for the SLS core stages, 
boosters, and engines, and the Orion capsule were sole-sourced, 
eliminating the potential benefits of competition, and 
competitive follow-on awards for the production contracts for 
these programs proved infeasible. Moreover, NASA has a history 
of paying overly generous award fees to contractors, fees that 
are often inconsistent with the quality of their performance. 
For example, in October 2018, we reported that issues driven 
mostly by Boeing's poor performance resulted in a 2 1/2 year 
schedule slip and $4 billion in cost increases for development 
of two SLS core stages. However, between 2012 and 2017, NASA 
paid Boeing $323 million in award, milestone, and incentive 
fees, of which we questioned nearly $64 million.
    We had similar concerns with Lockheed's performance 
developing Orion. In July 2020, we reported that Lockheed 
received nearly all available award fees over a 9-year period, 
even though the program was experienced $90 million--$900 
million in cost increases and schedule delays of more than 3 
years. We calculated that NASA paid Lockheed at least $27.8 
million in excess award fees.
    To its credit, NASA is taking steps to improve management 
of its major programs. For example, the agency has decreased 
the use of award fee contracts from 42 percent in 2020 to 28 
percent just 2 years later. In addition, NASA is exploring ways 
to make its lunar mission sustainable by transitioning several 
programs to fixed price contracts and increasingly utilizing 
public-private partnerships.
    We look forward to sharing the results of our oversight 
work with this Committee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Martin follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Mr. Obernolte. Thank you very much, Mr. Martin.
    Our second witness today is Ms. Allison Lerner, who is the 
current Inspector General for the National Science Foundation. 
Ms. Lerner, you are recognized for 5 minutes. The microphone, 
please.

         TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE ALLISON C. LERNER,

                       INSPECTOR GENERAL,

               NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION (NSF)

    Ms. Lerner. There we go. Chairman Obernolte, Ranking Member 
Foushee, and distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you 
for having me here today. I appreciate this opportunity to 
discuss the National Science Foundation Office of Inspector 
General's efforts to combat fraud, waste, and mismanagement.
    My testimony today will focus on three key areas: Our 
oversight, addressing the strength and integrity of NSF 
programs and internal controls, our efforts to hold people 
accountable for wrongdoing and to use insights from our 
investigations to strengthen internal controls, and our 
collaborative approaches to ensure stewardship of NSF funds and 
prevent wrongdoing.
    On the first point, we use a robust risk assessment process 
to focus our work on programs and institutions that appear to 
be at highest risk. And we use flexible audit contracts and 
approaches to ensure maximum impact of our limited audit 
resources. We also seek ways to amplify the impact of our 
audits, including a recent report on promising practices from 
our external audits, which shares ways for all members of the 
NSF recipient community, not just those we audit, to improve 
their stewardship of Federal funds.
    Recent examples of our work include our report summarizing 
key issues from our audits of recipients of the Established 
Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), which is 
helping NSF build the award management capacity and capability 
of institutions that have historically received limited Federal 
research funds, and our recent summary of Federal OIG findings 
and recommendations relating to Other Transaction Agreements 
(OTAs), which identified risks inherent to OTAs for NSF to 
consider as it develops OTA policies and procedures for the new 
Technology, Innovation, and Partnership Directorate.
    Moving to the second point, we use our in-depth experience 
fighting grant fraud to protect NSF funds and to hold 
wrongdoers accountable. We use multidisciplinary investigative 
teams to enhance the thoroughness and success of our cases, and 
we pursue criminal, civil, and administrative remedies, 
including governmentwide suspensions and debarments to hold 
individuals who misuse NSF funds to account. We also provide 
insights based on our cases to NSF so it can tighten controls 
to prevent fraud in the future.
    Because awardees who misuse NSF funds are often misusing 
research funding from other Federal agencies, we lead two 
cross-government working groups focused on research security-
related grant fraud and fraud in the Small Business Innovation 
Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer Programs 
to strengthen the whole-of-government's ability to hold 
individuals who misuse research funds accountable.
    Finally, we use collaborative approaches to ensure the 
effective stewardship of NSF funds and prevent and address 
wrongdoing. Such actions include our robust outreach program, 
which helps NSF recipients identify ways to prevent fraud and 
improve their award management environments, and our deeply 
collaborative working relationship with NSF's Chief of Research 
Security, Strategy, and Policy, with whom we work to confront 
research security-related challenges.
    As I close, I'd like to highlight two legislative 
initiatives that could strengthen our ability to hold 
individuals who misuse NSF funds accountable. The first reforms 
the Program Fraud Civil Remedies Act to make it a stronger tool 
to recover fraudulent expenditures and deter individuals from 
committing small-dollar fraud. And the second would protect 
Federal funds by creating a mandatory statutory exclusion for 
those convicted of violating certain felony fraud statutes, 
ensuring that they don't have access to government funds for 
the period of that exclusion.
    My office will continue to use all our audit and 
investigative resources to protect taxpayer funds and safeguard 
the integrity of NSF's operations and its investments in 
science. We look forward to working with NSF management, the 
National Science Board, and Congress to achieve this goal.
    This concludes my statement, and thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Lerner follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Mr. Obernolte. Thank you very much, Ms. Lerner.
    Our third witness will be Ms. Teri Donaldson, who is 
currently the Inspector General for the Department of Energy. 
Ms. Donaldson, you are recognized for 5 minutes. The 
microphone, please.

         TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE TERI L. DONALDSON,

         INSPECTOR GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY (DOE)

    Ms. Donaldson. Good morning, Chairman Obernolte, Ranking 
Member Foushee. Thank you for having me here today.
    I'd like to begin my comments by talking about some of the 
huge risk factors associated with the newer funds moving to the 
Department of Energy, which the Ranking Member alluded to 
earlier. So just by way of context, in Fiscal Year 2022, the 
Department of Energy's annual budget was $44.3 billion. When 
you combine the funds authorized or appropriated under IIJA, 
IRA, the CHIPS Act, and $1 billion dollars to support solar 
projects in Puerto Rico, that number goes from $44.3 to $478 
billion now within the portfolio of the Department of Energy. 
These are historic and unprecedented numbers.
    I'd also point out to the Committee that the money is 
moving quickly. So we already have $62 billion that is on the 
move. It is either out the door or the subject of funding 
opportunities and moving out the door. So where you have a huge 
amount of money that is moving quickly, there are immediately 
new risks. Associated with these statutes, we have 71 brand new 
programs. By definition, brand new programs are utilizing 
untested internal controls, creates enormous risk. Over 1/2 of 
these funds will move to State, local governments, and tribes. 
It is not yet clear whether those entities are ready to receive 
funds in these unprecedented volumes.
    So a couple of other things to point out about the 
Department of Energy. Even prior to these three bills, the 
Department of Energy was the leanest Federal agency on the 
block with over 90 percent of its dollars moving through to its 
contractors, so something of a passthrough agency. So I noted 
when I took over this job a little over 4 years ago, the volume 
of reports all concluding that the Department of Energy lacked 
appropriate resources for oversight. And essentially, all of 
those included the Department acknowledging that it lacked 
appropriate resources for oversight. So it is against that 
landscape that all of this new money is now going to be 
distributed. The Department of Energy received in the IIJA a 
cap for most of the IIJA programs of only 3 percent for 
oversight, a little more flexibility in IRA, which is positive. 
But I would point out that those oversight numbers are largely 
utilized to move the money out the door because they're 
classified as administrative expenses, most of which are to 
help the programs get money out the door. Only a small 
percentage will actually be for oversight, which is making sure 
that the funds landed where Congress intended them to land. So 
the Department is arguably under-resourced for oversight even 
in connection with the new funds.
    My shop is dramatically under-resourced to conduct 
oversight. So--and there's details in my written testimony, but 
when I came on board, my shop was already trailing the other 
CFO Act (Chief Financial Officers Act) agencies under-resourced 
historically. All these new funds came along, and now my shop 
is so dramatically under-resourced that I feel compelled to 
mention this anytime that I'm on the Hill. So my shop received 
zero additional funding in connection with the CHIPS Act, zero 
additional funding in connection with the $1 billion for Puerto 
Rico, and we received only small numbers in connection with 
IIJA and IRA. So it's all detailed in my testimony, but it's 
something that will make it very difficult for us to conduct 
the audits, inspections, and investigations that are going to 
be so needed as we turn the corner into spending these massive 
amounts of money.
    I always say that all of the coordination and planning in 
the world--and we are doing a lot of that right now. We've had 
over 27 meetings with the Department since IIJA passed. But all 
of the coordinating and the planning in the world is not a 
substitute for people. You have to have the money to conduct 
oversight, so that's probably my most important theme of the 
day.
    The Department of Energy is also behind in the world of 
data analytics. Congress has been expressing its interest in 
that area since 2017. The General Accounting Office has made 
specific recommendations to the Department of Energy, that it 
be implementing data analytics, acquiring transaction-level 
detail. It has not yet done that. And that's unfortunate 
because now we have these big amounts of money that will be 
moving through, and data analytics is still only in its 
earliest stages at the Department of Energy.
    And that concludes my comments. I look forward to your 
questions. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Donaldson follows:]
   [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Mr. Obernolte. Thank you very much, Ms. Donaldson.
    Our fourth witness this morning will be Eric Soskin, who is 
the current Inspector General for the Department of 
Transportation (DOT). Mr. Soskin, you are recognized for 5 
minutes.

           TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE ERIC J. SOSKIN,

                       INSPECTOR GENERAL,

               DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION (DOT)

    Mr. Soskin. Chairman Obernolte, Ranking Member Foushee, and 
Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to testify 
on preventing waste, fraud, and mismanagement at the Department 
of Transportation. I'm pleased to be joining IGs Martin, 
Lerner, Donaldson, and O'Donnell today to discuss how our work 
helps safeguard taxpayer dollars while improving the efficiency 
and effectiveness of government programs. In our oversight 
activities, we routinely collaborate with partners across the 
Federal Government, including with the other OIGs represented 
here today, as well as with the Department of Justice (DOJ).
    For Fiscal Year 2022, DOT's budget authority included 
approximately $355 billion to fund programs and operations 
through grants, contracts, and other means, including just a 
small portion, about $1.5 billion dollars, dedicated to 
research and development. Congress has also authorized $660 
billion for DOT through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs 
Act, or IIJA, along with $106 billion in COVID-19 relief 
funding. As such, as IG Donaldson was referencing, the 
Department now manages and must oversee much higher fund totals 
than ever before. This in turn increases the risk of fraud and 
mismanagement.
    To help prevent the loss of Federal dollars, our office 
investigates allegations of fraud, waste, and abuse affecting 
DOT programs, contractors, grantees, and regulated entities. In 
Fiscal Year 2022, procurement and grant fraud investigations 
represented about 36 percent of our caseload. High-risk 
categories of fraud included bribery and corruption, 
overcharges for labor and materials, fraud related to 
Disadvantaged Business Enterprises, or DBEs, and bid-rigging. 
For example, as an outcome of a recent investigation by our 
office, a North Carolina engineering firm was sentenced to $8.5 
million dollars in fines and restitution. The firm was 
convicted of rigging bids related to DOT-funded projects that 
facilitate drainage around highways, roads, bridges, and 
overpasses.
    Strong internal controls and oversight are what's required 
to prevent such fraud, including effective procedures to 
identify and assess risks. In response to the Fraud Reduction 
and Data Analytics Act of 2015, DOT developed a fraud risk 
management implementation plan. This plan formalized the 
structure of DOT's fraud risk management processes and included 
fraud in the Department's assessments of improper payment 
risks.
    However, DOT must also consider risks beyond improper 
payments, both financial and nonfinancial. For example, some 
fraud can have safety consequences and other consequences such 
as limited competition. We are currently evaluating DOT's fraud 
risk assessments for its surface transportation programs, 
including those funded by IIJA in an audit we announced last 
year.
    A number of strategies can help mitigate the risks posed by 
fraud to DOT programs. It is critical to educate staff, 
grantees, and contractors on how to recognize, prevent, and 
report potential procurement and grant fraud. This is 
particularly important because of the extent to which DOT, like 
the Department of Energy, has its grant funding flow from 
States to subrecipients and contractors who have less direct 
contact with the agency, as well as to new recipients and 
subrecipients who may have less experience managing Federal 
funds.
    Our Office of Investigations conducts outreach to increase 
such awareness, but this outreach does not reach all 
stakeholders who may be knowledgeable about fraud-related 
activities. For example, prime contractors play essential roles 
in obtaining DBE participation and overseeing it. DOT and its 
grantees must do their parts to ensure contractors know their 
responsibilities to recognize and report suspected fraud. And 
such outreach is just one step in ensuring that each recipient 
of Federal funds commits in its culture and structure to 
preventing fraud.
    Strengthening oversight is also vital to detecting and 
preventing fraud, waste, and mismanagement. Oversight at the 
DOT operating administration level and program level is the 
focus of much of our audit work, and we have found that DOT 
faces challenges in monitoring grantees' documentation to 
ensure they use funds as intended. An example of that was in 
our recent oversight and audit report of FAA's (Federal 
Aviation Administration's) Cares Act grants. And to its credit, 
DOT has already taken steps to address the recommendations we 
made in that report.
    Nevertheless, opportunities remain to enhance DOT's 
oversight and safeguard Federal funds. Our office is committed 
to supporting DOT and meeting its mission while strengthening 
its processes to prevent fraud, waste, and mismanagement on 
behalf of the American taxpayer.
    This concludes my prepared statement, and I'm happy to 
answer any questions you may have.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Soskin follows:]
   [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Mr. Obernolte. Thank you, Mr. Soskin.
    Our final witness today will be Mr. Sean O'Donnell, who is 
the Inspector General at the Environmental Protection Agency. 
Mr. O'Donnell, you're recognized for 5 minutes.

         TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE SEAN W. O'DONNELL,

                       INSPECTOR GENERAL,

             ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (EPA)

    Mr. O'Donnell. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Obernolte, 
Ranking Member Foushee, and Members of the Committee. I'm Sean 
O'Donnell. I am the Inspector General for the United States 
Environmental Protection Agency. I would like to thank the 
Committee for inviting me to testify about the EPA Office of 
Inspector General's efforts to protect American taxpayers from 
fraud, waste, and mismanagement.
    Although relatively small, our office has averaged nearly 
60 reports a year for the last 10 years, yielding a return on 
investment (ROI) of over 300 percent. And we are on pace to do 
even better this year. Indeed, during the last year, my office 
has risen to the challenge of overseeing critical EPA programs 
from identifying cyber vulnerabilities in America's water 
sector to reporting potential waste in the EPA's wood heater 
changeout programs, and there's more to come. For example, we 
are auditing the nearly $50 million that the city of Jackson 
received for Mississippi's Drinking Water State Revolving Fund 
(SRF). And we've already uncovered evidence that the EPA may 
have instructed States to ignore single audit findings such as 
those for the city of Jackson when making award decisions.
    Following enactment of the Infrastructure Investment and 
Jobs Act, we immediately began conducting oversight, starting 
with our inaugural IIJA oversight plan released in April 2022. 
Since then, we have published nearly a dozen oversight 
products, as well as created an interactive webpage. And we 
have seven projects in progress and six more planned, covering 
such things as supply chain concerns and SRF capacity issues. 
Finally, our investigators are employing every tool available 
to us to fight fraud, from task forces to data analytics.
    But we have our work cut out for us. For context, in any 
given year, the EPA manages around 6,000 grants, totaling 
approximately $21 billion. Furthermore, through various 
infrastructure programs, the EPA has funded over $230 billion 
in water projects, and now the EPA faces the task of managing 
$100 billion from the IIJA and the Inflation Reduction Act.
    There are four areas where we can help the EPA meet these 
challenges. The first and arguably most important relates to 
whistleblowers. From my very first day as Inspector General, I 
have encouraged whistleblowers and worked to vindicate their 
rights. This includes holding annual National Whistleblower 
Appreciation Day panels that draw more than 1,000 attendees. 
But encouraging and protecting whistleblowers is a 
responsibility we share with the EPA. Last month, we identified 
the need for the EPA's terms and conditions to specifically 
address whistleblower responsibilities. And we are working to 
partner these new provisions with an official policy 
implementing statutory protections for recipient 
whistleblowers.
    Encouraging and protecting whistleblowers at the EPA starts 
with the EPA. We have recently reported on the EPA's failure to 
share whistleblower allegations of misconduct with us, 
particularly when related to science. We are working with the 
agency to ensure that we are promptly notified of these 
allegations, and we will continue to work with it to ensure 
that it has policies protecting its whistleblowers.
    The second area we are focused on is raising fraud 
awareness among EPA staff and stakeholders. Since the enactment 
of the IIJA, our investigators and auditors have conducted 
around 170 fraud or cybersecurity briefings, reaching nearly 
4,000 attendees. And we recently identified the need for the 
EPA to implement best practices in alerting grantees to the 
consequences of fraudulent conduct and in reporting such 
conduct to the OIG.
    A third area of focus is ensuring the OIG access to agency 
and grantee information. To facilitate audits and 
investigations regulatory provisions augment our subpoena 
authority by allowing us access to recipients and their 
records. A best practice we have identified is adding OIG 
access provisions to the EPA's terms and conditions.
    Finally, we are concerned about systemic issues related to 
the EPA's grant management. We found that the EPA's various 
offices stored grant files in disparate ways from electronic 
media to paper files, and an EPA working group found that the 
agency uses 55 data bases to store data from around 100 grant 
programs. From an oversight perspective, it hinders our ability 
to conduct effective oversight, limiting our ability to, for 
example, analyze historical data and suspicious trends. It 
also, from an administrative standpoint, hampers the EPA's 
ability to comprehensively and consistently manage grants.
    The EPA OIG is leading the fight against fraud, waste, and 
abuse. Moreover, we are doing so despite a decade of flat and 
declining budgets. Recognizing the need for IIJA-focused 
oversight, Congress provided us with dedicated funding. We are 
grateful for this support, and we're putting it to good use. 
However, we did not receive IRA funding to carry out IRA-
focused oversight. On a positive note, the agency supports a 
reprogramming of funds for the OIG, converting some existing 
IRA dollars to dedicated oversight funding. I'm hopeful that 
Congress will recognize the value in doing so and take timely 
action.
    I thank you for your support and look forward to answering 
your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. O'Donnell follows:]
  [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Mr. Obernolte. Well, thank you very much, Mr. O'Donnell, 
and thank you to all of you for your testimony.
    We'll now move to the Member question-and-answers portion 
of our hearing. And I will go first by recognizing myself for 5 
minutes.
    I'm sure that everyone followed with increasingly distress 
and horror the shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline recently, 
where a loss and compromise of a single password resulted in a 
vital part of American infrastructure being shut down for 
several days, which disrupted oil supplies to the entire 
Eastern United States. It was interesting to see that that was 
caused by the compromise of a single password. So I was very 
alarmed when recently I read a report from the Department of 
the Interior (DOI) who conducted an investigation into their 
password security. And what they found was that over 20 percent 
of the passwords used in the DOI system were able to be easily 
hacked. They found that the most commonly used password was the 
word ``password'' followed by the numbers 123456. And in fact, 
almost 5 percent of the passwords in use by users on the DOI 
system were some variation of the word password. So, 
unfortunately, looking at our experience with consumers across 
the country, that behavior is not surprising. But in light of 
what happened at Colonial, I think it is very disturbing. I'm 
wondering if any of you have conducted similar investigations 
into password security at your agencies? I don't see any 
volunteers, so I'd like to ask you briefly if you'd be willing 
to undertake that task because I think it's one that, you know, 
would not be difficult to accomplish but could potentially be 
very important. And, Mr. Martin?
    Mr. Martin. Be happy to take that----
    Mr. Obernolte. Thank you.
    Mr. Martin [continuing]. Under consideration.
    Mr. Obernolte. Ms. Lerner?
    Ms. Lerner. As would I.
    Mr. Obernolte. I appreciate that. And, Ms. Donaldson?
    Ms. Donaldson. Yes, in fact we already do----
    Mr. Obernolte. The microphone, please. Thank you.
    Ms. Donaldson. We actually do a lot of work in the area of 
cybersecurity. So in Fiscal Year 2021, we identified over 
42,000 vulnerabilities across 12 sites at the Department of 
Energy. We still have 23 open--or 38 recommendations open from 
that work, and we will be issuing 35 new recommendations 
shortly, so we do a lot of work in that space. And some of that 
does cover the password-related issues. So there's a lot more 
work to go with the Department of Energy.
    Mr. Obernolte. Well, I'm glad you're focused on it. I know 
it's frustrating to have open recommendations but keep pushing 
because that's how we get them closed.
    Mr. Soskin?
    Mr. Soskin. Chairman Obernolte, our information technology 
and cybersecurity audits group, on a rotating basis, looks at, 
among other things, the cybersecurity of the Department's 
operating administrations. Our recent reports on the Federal 
Motor Carrier Safety Administration found similar security 
vulnerabilities to what you're describing with passwords. And 
our audit of the Federal Transit Administration's cybersecurity 
found shortcomings in its use of multifactor authentication, 
which as you all probably know from your use of bank accounts 
and other things that you personally secure, is better than 
relying solely on a password. We continue to do that work, and 
we are heartened by the Department's efforts to address our 
open recommendations. And we look forward to continuing to work 
with the Department's new Chief Information Officer and 
relatively new Chief Information Security Officer as well.
    Mr. Obernolte. Well, thank you, Mr. Soskin. Thank you for 
the good work.
    Mr. O'Donnell?
    Mr. O'Donnell. Thank you. For the last 2 years, we've 
identified cybersecurity and in particular cybersecurity of the 
critical water infrastructure as a top management challenge. We 
will continue to do so. And I'd be happy to have my staff come 
and meet with your staff to discuss the work we've done, 
including on passwords.
    Mr. Obernolte. OK. Well, that's good. I'm in particular 
interested in the issue of passwords for two reasons: One, 
because it is such an easily solved problem if we elevate 
awareness of the issue; and second, because the consequences of 
failure to solve it can be so severe.
    The second thing I'd like to ask about is something I 
mentioned in my opening statement regarding the metrics for 
evaluating the success of the Office of the Inspector General. 
Your agencies represent such a wide variety of roles and 
responsibilities. I think it is very hard to come up with one 
universal metric for each of you to use to evaluate the 
performances of your office. So I'm wondering what metrics you 
either use or would suggest that we use to evaluate whether or 
not an IG is doing a good job in overseeing their agency. 
Anyone ever thought about that?
    Mr. O'Donnell. Yes, sir. So--and I'm sure my colleagues 
would tell you every type of oversight is different. For us, I 
have built into the performance metrics of my entire staff, 
timely and relevant work, high quality, timely work. But as an 
office, of course, we look at ROI. And as I said, for us, it's 
been, you know, around 300 percent for the last 10 years. We 
also look at the number of reports that we issue, but then 
there are those nonquantifiable ones. And as a former IG once 
shared as I was commiserating about some tough responses from 
the agency on some of our reports, he said, you know, when 
you're catching flak, you know you're over the target. And I 
kind of take that as a measure, too. When we're catching flak 
from the agency, we know we're doing good work.
    Mr. Obernolte. So you mentioned return on investment. How 
do you calculate that?
    Mr. O'Donnell. We do it through the various forms potential 
monetary benefit, questioned costs, identified waste, and then 
of course returns to the government through fines, restitution, 
and the like.
    Mr. Obernolte. And investment? Do you actually track the 
manpower on each one of those investigations and assign a 
monetary value to it?
    Mr. O'Donnell. We do. We do track the cost. In fact, I 
personally have a dashboard in my office where I get to see how 
many hours are billed to every project so that I can make sure 
that they're done efficiently.
    Mr. Obernolte. Interesting. And you mentioned timeliness 
and relevance. How do you track those?
    Mr. O'Donnell. We do it--first of all, I think time and 
relevancy are hand-in-glove, also quality. For me it's quality 
and it's getting measured, and, again, how quickly we respond 
to emergencies. How quickly are we responding to environmental 
emergencies for which we need to do oversight. For example, we 
just noticed an inquiry into the fuel spill at East Palestine. 
That's an example of me seeing my staff being timely and 
relevant to the issues that are affecting the EPA.
    Mr. Obernolte. Sure. Well, I see I'm out of time. But I'd 
like to do some more thinking about this issue because it's 
difficult for us to do our oversight unless we have a metric by 
which we're evaluating you. And your roles are so diverse. I 
think that this is an important topic. So I thank you for your 
answers.
    At this point, I will yield 5 minutes to my distinguished 
colleague from North Carolina, Mrs. Foushee, for her questions.
    Mrs. Foushee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Inspector General Lerner, I'll direct these first questions 
to you. The National Science Foundation has a significant 
presence in my district. In the latest fiscal year, NSF awarded 
nearly $85 million to Duke University and the University of 
North Carolina at Chapel Hill alone. NSF also supports cutting-
edge research initiatives in the district such as the Research 
Triangle, Nanotechnology Network, and the Athena Institute for 
Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research. I would like to learn 
more about how oversight from NSF OIG helps to strengthen the 
kind of research investments that are so important to districts 
like mine. So my first question is how does oversight by the 
OIG benefit major research institutions that receive awards 
from NSF on a regular basis for scientific research?
    Ms. Lerner. Happy to answer that. One of the great things 
that our audit work does is dig into how people who receive NSF 
funds are using that money. And we take the results of what we 
find in our audits and we deal with not just with the issues 
and problems that we found at the institutions that we've 
audited, but we use our outreach program to share what we found 
with the research administration community and the research 
community so they can see what problems they might have and try 
to solve them in their agencies, even though we aren't there to 
audit them. So we try to get--to amplify the impact of our work 
by pushing it out and getting it to not just the people that we 
audit, but to the people that are in other agencies that can 
improve their programs based on what we found.
    Mrs. Foushee. Thank you. And how does the OIG approach its 
oversight of research initiatives that span multiple research 
institutions and public, private, and academic stakeholders? 
Are the important distinctions in how the OIG evaluates these 
kinds of investments?
    Ms. Lerner. You know, I think we follow risk. And so when 
we--if we see a collaborative effort that has greater risk 
because of the nature of it, that will receive more attention 
from us. If it's an established program, it's less likely to. 
One of the areas that we're focusing on, you know, right now is 
the development of new programs in the Technology, Innovation, 
and Partnership Directorate that are new to the agency, new to 
the academic community, and bring greater risks with them. So 
we are we are constantly trying to keep a finger on the risk 
environment and target our resources where appropriate.
    Mrs. Foushee. And finally, how do the relationships that 
you build with stakeholders in the research community improve 
your ability to conduct oversight of NSF? And what can you do 
to develop those relationships even further?
    Ms. Lerner. One of the things that I've learned in 13 years 
in sitting in this role is that, you know, IGs can't make 
anyone do anything. We want to try to convince people through 
the strength of our work, but the strength of our relationships 
matter. And the--you know, the benefit of having strong 
relationships with our agency and with the community that we 
audit is we can learn from them, too. And they can come to us--
especially when the pandemic hit and academic community--the 
academic community, like the Federal Government had to switch 
to a virtual environment, we were able to reach out to our 
network of people that we knew and get a sense of how they were 
responding to that change and how that might affect the risk 
environment. So we can learn from them, they can learn from us, 
and everyone has benefited.
    Mrs. Foushee. And thank you. With the rest of my time, 
would anybody else on the panel like to add your observations 
to these previous questions?
    Well, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Obernolte. The gentlewoman yields back.
    Congressman Posey, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Posey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Ms. Donaldson, has Department of Energy research grant 
funding and loans been used to generate actual commercial 
production by American companies?
    Ms. Donaldson. You know, I would point to the work being 
done at the national labs to say that much of their spectacular 
work has a commercial application, as well as the work that the 
NNSA (National Nuclear Security Administration) labs do. So I 
would say, yes. That's not the type of thing that is tracked by 
my office so I couldn't quantify that for you.
    Mr. Posey. OK. So do you think their office has a measure 
to--a system to measure research to commercial production?
    Ms. Donaldson. They probably have multiple systems because 
there's so many different programs, but I would imagine they're 
doing some tracking, at least in some of those programs.
    Mr. Posey. Yes, can you get back to me on what they're 
doing and kind of----
    Ms. Donaldson. I certainly can.
    Mr. Posey. Thank you. Mr. Martin, when the space shuttle 
was winding down, NASA ramped up the number of firefighters 
that they had at Kennedy Space Center. Now with a launch 
cadence increasing from 57 last year to 97 this year, NASA is 
decreasing firefighters at the Kennedy Space Center. Can you 
tell me why? I mean, I was told there was a study on it. Then I 
was told there was no study.
    Mr. Martin. Yes, Congressman, I was unaware of that 
situation until staff brought it to my attention yesterday. I'd 
be happy to look into it.
    Mr. Posey. OK. I have that commitment?
    Mr. Martin. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Posey. You'll get back to me. Thank you.
    Mr. Martin. I will.
    Mr. Posey. Now this question is for each of you from left 
to right. I will start with Mr. Martin. How many investigations 
and audits has your office conducted within the last year, No. 
1? How many of those by percentage involve China? Just roughly 
swag it. And did any of the China-related investigations 
require coordination of activities across other agencies or 
other inspectors general? And were any of these cases referred 
to the DOJ?
    Mr. Martin. Sir, I will start. Investigations ongoing 
during the past year, 482 for the Office of Inspector General 
at NASA. How many of those by percentage involve China? 
Approximately 10 percent. And does any of the China 
investigations require coordination? I coordinated with several 
my colleagues here at the table, including NSF and DOE. And a 
goodly number of our cases were referred to the Department of 
Justice and are under prosecutorial consideration right now.
    Mr. Posey. Thank you.
    Mr. Martin. Yes, sir.
    Ms. Lerner. The statistics that I have are for 5 years, so 
I can get back to you on the 1 year other than I can say we 
worked 175 investigations in the past year, many of those 
related to China. I can--about 45 percent of our investigative 
portfolio right now, our research security-related matters, 
many of which relate to China. And we, as I noted in my opening 
remarks, lead a cross-government working group that's focused 
on these sorts of research security investigations with the 
goal of improving the government's efforts, especially in 
situations where there are multiple agencies affected by a 
particular researcher's failure to disclose their 
relationships. So we are deeply involved in that and will 
provide further information for you for the record.
    Mr. Posey. Thank you.
    Ms. Donaldson. Mic is on so there's that. In Fiscal Year 
2022, the Office of Investigations worked on 320 ongoing 
matters. Thirty-four were grant fraud cases, over one-third of 
those were research security matters related to countries of 
concern. And all of those pertain to China.
    Mr. Posey. How many were referred to DOJ?
    Ms. Donaldson. The bulk of our cases do eventually get 
referred to DOJ. We made a total of 61 referrals in this 
timeframe, not all research security-related.
    Mr. Posey. OK.
    Ms. Donaldson. But over half of what we work on goes to the 
Department of Justice.
    Mr. Posey. Thank you.
    Mr. Soskin. In this fiscal year, we have 447 complaints 
plus investigations in our inventory. As I mentioned, only a 
small fraction of the Department of Transportation's funding 
pertains to research and development, and consequently, a 
smaller share of our investigations relate to China. I do not 
have numbers on that for you, but we could get back to you with 
that.
    As with the Energy OIG, most of our investigations 
ultimately end up in consultation and referral to the 
Department of Justice. And I don't have a specific number on 
referrals either.
    Mr. Posey. Thank you. Mr. O'Donnell?
    Mr. O'Donnell. Yes, thank you. And I'll give you as good of 
numbers as I can but of course offer to come back and give 
clarity. We had in the last Fiscal Year 176 cases opened. The 
majority of those I would say, the bread and butter, were 
either lab fraud or grant fraud. Some small number involves 
China. And I must say that for IG Lerner, her office is really 
the leader for us in helping us identify China-related cases. 
But our work has recently resulted in a report we just issued 
encouraging the EPA to include grant terms and conditions 
provisions that require grantees to disclose any foreign 
sources that they get after they've received a grant. And of 
course, like my colleagues, most of our cases get referred to 
the Department of Justice.
    Mr. Posey. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My time has 
expired.
    Mr. Obernolte. Thank you, Mr. Posey.
    I now recognize the Ranking Member of the Full Committee, 
Ms. Lofgren, for 5 minutes. Oh, then we'll go to Ms. Bonamici.
    Ms. Bonamici. Thank you so much, Chair Obernolte and also 
Ranking Member Foushee. Thank you to the witnesses as well.
    I appreciate the Office of Inspectors General and the goal 
of promoting transparency and accountability and protecting 
public trust. Ambitious funding for science policy, including 
research and development, is intended to lead to evidence-based 
decisionmaking and informed agency practices and with strong 
oversight by your offices. We know when taxpayer dollars are 
used efficiently and effectively, and, importantly, when 
policies are implemented as intended.
    I have a two-part question for you, Ms. Lerner. Your office 
published a white paper last month about the complexities of 
investigating and adjudicating sexual assault and stalking in 
the United States Antarctic Program. And I have worked a lot 
with NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) on 
this issue, so I appreciate the careful consideration of both a 
complicated legal environment and also the imperative that 
responders and investigators be properly trained in a trauma-
informed approach. And I hope that NSF, the prime contractor, 
and other stakeholders use this document as they work to 
address sexual assault, which is a criminal matter. But some of 
the issues raised in your white paper should also be considered 
in noncriminal matters such as sexual harassment, which is 
treated as a violation of the code of conduct. So what are the 
takeaways from the white paper that are also applicable in 
noncriminal contexts?
    Ms. Lerner. I think that ensuring that there is trust in 
the environment and there is not a fear of retaliation so that 
people can come forward with concerns is essential, whether 
you're dealing with a criminal violation or sexual harassment. 
And it's imperative that NSF and--take action and ensure that 
the contractors and subcontractors down there are creating an 
environment where people feel that they can bring these matters 
forward. So that's first and foremost, one, what has to happen 
there.
    There also needs to be clarity about what rights people 
have. We are in the process of conducting an inspection of 
what's happening in McMurdo and Antarctica. And what we're 
seeing is there--that there--you know, people don't understand 
where they can go when they've been assaulted or harassed, and 
we are going to produce products to help improve that because 
it's essential to create a workplace that the people deserve.
    Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. And the second part of the 
question is that it's likely that in many cases of sexual 
assault in Antarctica and other remote places, there may be 
sexual harassment, as well as sexual assault. So one of those 
is a crime and another is a violation of the code of conduct. 
Some of the survivors of assault may choose not to file a 
criminal charge, but they still deserve a remedy and a safe 
environment. So when instituting better systems for intaking 
and adjudicating sexual assault, how can the institutions such 
as NSF guarantee that allegations of sexual harassment are 
treated with the same support and investigation that someone--
and resources that someone who alleges a crime may have?
    Ms. Lerner. One of the things that we think is critical 
right now is that complaints go to an independent, trusted 
third party for assessment, and then that victims, if they 
choose to pursue criminal redress are able to pursue that. If 
not, that there are strong and trusted mechanisms for handling 
matters administratively, and we are going to be providing 
input----
    Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. We have a lot of conversations on 
this Committee about diversifying----
    Ms. Lerner. Yes.
    Ms. Bonamici [continuing]. The workforce, so we need to 
make sure that employees are safe.
    Ms. Lerner. Yes.
    Ms. Bonamici. Mr. O'Donnell, I have a question for you as 
well. The EPA website states, quote, ``The Portland Harbor 
Superfund site was added to EPA's national priorities list in 
December 2000.'' Well, that was 23 years ago. So there has been 
some progress made, but sections of the Willamette River remain 
contaminated by heavy metals and industrial chemicals, posing 
risks to human health and the environment and affecting 
economic growth in the area. So what role does the EPA Office 
of Inspector General play in ensuring the successful execution 
of superfund site cleanups? And how does maintaining rigorous 
oversight contribute to the effectiveness and accountability of 
this important environmental restoration project, which has 
been going on for decades?
    Mr. O'Donnell. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I don't 
have my eye specifically on the Portland superfund site, but 
it's one that I will definitely look at and get back to you on.
    Ms. Bonamici. I appreciate that.
    Mr. O'Donnell. Since I have been at the OIG, I have begun 
the process of instituting inspections of superfund sites and 
brownfield sites because, for me, it is very important that we 
have boots on the ground looking at what's going on. So it's 
one thing to do accountability from afar. It's another thing to 
be right there, see what's happening, talk to the people who 
are there. We are doing that now down in Alabama. We are doing 
it in Missouri as well. And this is a portfolio we intend to 
expand.
    Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. I know your Region 10 folks have 
been involved, but 23 years, that's from the time that it was 
actually listed and added to the priorities list, 23 years ago. 
And needless to say, the costs of cleanup are not getting any 
lower. I'm sure they're significantly more as time goes on. So 
I appreciate your willingness to follow up on that.
    And I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Obernolte. Thank you, Ms. Bonamici.
    Congressman Babin, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Babin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, all of 
you IGs, for your expert testimony. It's very, very helpful.
    Many of the more controversial problems facing research 
agencies can be mitigated by ensuring agencies conduct their 
own due diligence and compliance audits. And two that come to 
mind are the duplicative Small Business Innovation Research 
grants, SBIR; and two, grantee connections to entities with 
known foreign economic espionage interests.
    Ms. Lerner, when you testified before this Committee in 
2009, you indicated that duplicative funding in which companies 
obtained payments from multiple SBIR agencies for the same work 
is the most frequent violation that we have found in SS-in 
NSF's SBIR program.
    Mr. Martin, a NASA IG report from 2009 also found that, in 
analyzing investigations conducted by NASA OIG and others, we 
found that SBIR award recipients received multiple SBIR 
contracts for essentially the same research and provided 
duplicate deliverables or questionable research products.
    I understand a task force was established at the Council of 
Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency to address this 
issue over 10 years ago. However, under the Federal Managers 
Financial Integrity Act and Office of Management and Budget 
requirements, agency managers are required to establish 
effective internal controls themselves.
    So to the panel as a whole, what is the status of 
interagency SBIR duplication oversight? Is this taskforce still 
active? If not, why is it not? Has the problem gone away or are 
the agencies doing a better job of conducting these compliance 
audits themselves? Do you have data to support either of these 
conclusions? And can you provide historical trend data related 
to SBIR grant duplication, audits, and findings for the record?
    So, Mr. Martin, if you would respond first, I would 
appreciate it.
    Mr. Martin. Sure. Actually, if I could kick it to Allison 
first.
    Mr. Babin. OK.
    Mr. Martin. She's the chair of the group, and then I'll 
supplement her.
    Mr. Babin. OK. Thank you.
    Ms. Lerner. Thank you. And what I can say is that the group 
that we started after the hearing in 2009 is alive and well and 
had its most recent meeting just last month. It brings together 
agents from across government to--who are working these sorts 
of cases to highlight opportunities to work together, but also 
to figure out how to work better. And, you know--and to 
pursue--when we pursue cases, use the best set of facts and 
have the strongest possible outcome as a result of that. I'm 
happy to provide you with more detail about the specifics of 
what that group has accomplished. I'm really, really proud of 
it.
    Mr. Babin. Thank you very much. And if y'all could keep it 
just as brief as you can, I may not have time to do my other 
questions.
    Mr. Martin. Sure. I would just say there's tremendous 
coordination and cooperation within the IG community to address 
these cases, but I still don't think there's a singular source 
that would indicate duplication of effort by a grantee that 
they're going to DOE for funding to NASA. We don't have that 
solution yet.
    Mr. Babin. Yes. OK. Thank you.
    Ms. Donaldson. Yes, sir. It is definitely----
    Mr. Babin. Ms. Donaldson.
    Ms. Donaldson [continuing]. Still a problem for the 
Department of Energy. We still see those cases coming through. 
I think the answer lies in acquiring that transactional-level, 
recipient-level data and having a robust data analytics 
approach to the problem, much like what track has done on the 
pandemic spending. And I think a lot of the agencies are 
excited about that prospect but not yet far enough along to be 
able to do it and share that information, have a data-driven 
approach.
    Mr. Babin. Thank you. Mr. Soskin?
    Mr. Soskin. In our handful of research and development-
related cases, we too have seen the need to coordinate with our 
OIG partners because they frequently involve cases where a 
grantee is seeking funds from multiple sources for the same 
work.
    Mr. Babin. Mr. O'Donnell?
    Mr. O'Donnell. Thank you. Our SBIR cases are worked here, 
many of them with my colleagues here in their offices. With 
respect to the EPA, I've already spoken to our concerns with 
respect to its grant management practices generally. I think 
those concerns extend to their ability to conduct audits inside 
of their programs.
    Mr. Babin. I knew--I know that you're all familiar with the 
Wolf amendment named after Frank Wolf. Mr. Martin, does the 
Wolf amendment prohibit NASA from issuing research grants to 
individuals with connections to Chinese universities, 
especially institutions with known connections to the PLA 
(People's Liberation Army) or malign foreign talent recruitment 
programs?
    Mr. Martin. Yes, sir. That is my understanding.
    Mr. Babin. OK. Several high profile cases involving NASA 
researchers with connections to China were unsuccessfully 
prosecuted in recent years, and some of them because of the 
confusion over the existing law. And I was just wondering if a 
separate provision in the CHIPS and Science Act passed last 
summer requires all grant applicants to certify that they are 
not a party to malign foreign talent recruitment programs? 
Very, very quickly.
    Mr. Martin. Yes, that has proved helpful, the 
certification.
    Mr. Babin. Yes. OK.
    Mr. Martin. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Babin. All right. Thank you very much. And I'm out of 
time. Thank you.
    Mr. Obernolte. Thank you, Mr. Babin.
    I will now yield 5 minutes to the distinguished 
Congresswoman from Colorado, Ms. Caraveo.
    Ms. Caraveo. Thank you, sir. And thank you for--to the 
witnesses today for being here. Americans certainly deserve 
full transparency and accountability of our science agencies, 
so I appreciate and support the work that you all do.
    I wanted to briefly highlight a program that I recently 
learned about, the National Science Foundation AI Institute for 
Student AI Teaming, which is being led by the University of 
Colorado at Boulder. The institute is dedicated to transforming 
classrooms into more effective, engaging, and equitable 
learning environments to help realize the grand challenge of 
education for all by leading the Nation toward a future where 
all students, especially those with identities that are 
underrepresented in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and 
mathematics), routinely participate in rich and rewarding 
collaborative learning experiences.
    As a Latina in STEM and as the aunt of a young STEM 
enthusiast, learning about programs like these serve as a 
reminder of how critical funding and oversight for our science 
agencies is now and for generations to come.
    So for Inspector General Lerner, has your office learned--
has your office recently assessed NSF's efforts to enhance 
inclusivity amongst agency grant recipients and research 
initiatives? And if so, can you please share some of your 
findings?
    Ms. Lerner. At this point, we don't have any recent work on 
that topic, but it is an area that we have included in our 
management challenges. And as we formulate our audit plan for 
the upcoming year, we will hope to focus some resources on 
that.
    Ms. Caraveo. I appreciate that plan, and I'm looking 
forward to what you find there.
    As a follow up for the rest of the panel, do your offices 
have any plans to conduct any further audits related to 
inclusivity in any portion of NSF's research agenda?
    Mr. O'Donnell. I will----
    Mr. Martin. Go ahead, Sean.
    Mr. O'Donnell. I pushed it first.
    Mr. Martin. Did you win? Go ahead.
    Mr. O'Donnell. Yes. So for us for the last 3 years, 
environmental justice--and that's what matters at the EPA. 
Environmental justice has been a challenge that we've 
identified. And I will tell you, I have personally spoken with 
the head of the Office of Environmental Justice and External 
Civil Rights to make the point that the $3 billion that they 
have to give through the IRA is not about who the recipient is. 
It's about who the beneficiaries are. Environmental justice is 
about the beneficiaries, and we need to make sure that we have 
the internal controls that are protecting the funds that 
achieve the goals of those programs.
    Mr. Martin. Congresswoman----
    Ms. Caraveo. Mr. Martin, yes?
    Mr. Martin [continuing]. Just to note that the Office of 
Inspector General at NASA just recently opened an audit looking 
at the effectiveness of the agency's STEM efforts. They invest 
about $108--excuse me, $108--$108 million per year in STEM, and 
so we're going to assess the effectiveness of their efforts.
    Ms. Caraveo. That's great, in particular, given that my 
niece is Latina, and she is interested in a future at NASA, I'm 
glad to hear about those plans.
    And speaking of NASA, I did have a kind of separate 
question for you, Inspector General Martin. Based on your 
office's work, do you believe NASA's management of contractor 
performance has improved in--over time? Colorado has a big 
aerospace industry with several NASA contractors based out of 
the State, and so this interests me.
    Mr. Martin. I think it ebbs and flows. It's program-
specific, the effectiveness of their contract oversight and 
project management.
    Ms. Caraveo. And what are kind of future plans for 
oversight of it?
    Mr. Martin. Well, the IG's Office, we're involved in all 
the major programs, particularly the high-profile programs 
involved in the Artemis missions----
    Ms. Caraveo. Perfect.
    Mr. Martin [continuing]. The rocket, the capsule, the 
ground infrastructure. We're keeping tabs on all of those.
    Ms. Caraveo. Wonderful. I appreciate that, and I yield back 
my time.
    Mr. Obernolte. Thank you, Ms. Caraveo.
    We'll go next to the gentlewoman from Oklahoma, Mrs. Bice. 
You're recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Bice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for the 
witnesses for being here.
    First, Ms. Donaldson, you shocked me with your numbers that 
you stated earlier that Fiscal Year 2022 DOE spend was $44 
billion, and because of the programs that were passed last 
year, you're looking at a $400 billion budget for the 
Department of Energy. And not as frightening, given that a lot 
of those dollars are grant dollars.
    And my first question is for any of the panelists, and that 
is do you believe that there is an issue with the grant 
awarding process, given that we have so many instances of grant 
fraud that have been identified through your through agencies? 
And the reason I bring this up is an important one. I'm 
extremely excited to be a Member of this Committee for my 
second term, but I'm also a new Committee Member on the 
Appropriations Committee. And as I recall, Congress has the 
power of the purse. And I believe that we have abdicated that 
responsibility to agencies through this grant awarding program, 
you know, across the board. And we're finding fraud, taxpayer 
fraud across the board. So I'd love maybe a little bit of 
insight about those grant programs that you all are overseeing. 
Open to anyone.
    Mr. Martin. Do you want to run down the line?
    Mrs. Bice. Quickly, sure.
    Mr. Martin. Yes, I think what--yes, I think we've seen 
historically that the grant oversight capacity at our 
individual agencies is way underfunded, and so they don't 
conduct--because of the bandwidth issue, the contracting 
officers at the agency don't have enough hours in the day. 
They're pushing the money out they annually appropriated each 
year.
    And second, we've seen that some universities don't conduct 
appropriate due diligence over the grants that are coming to 
the faculty and the researchers at their universities.
    Ms. Lerner. I think there's no one-size-fits-all answer, so 
I'll just give you the perspective from NSF. In the 13 years 
that I've been there, I've seen real improvements in the amount 
and sophistication of the oversight the agency provides to 
its--of its recipients outside of my office, but they are 
still, you know, hard-pressed because of the limitations on 
funding that they have for that to touch as many things as 
would be ideal. But real progress has been made, but progress 
remains.
    Mrs. Bice. Anyone additional wanted to comment on that, or 
I can move forward? Because I do have another question.
    Mr. O'Donnell. I would just briefly add, and I want to 
amplify some concerns, the IIJA gave the EPA $60 billion. Most 
of that is going through familiar funding mechanisms like State 
Revolving Funds. And so what we see are capacity issues at both 
the distribution and the recipients. But the IRA gave the EPA 
over $40 billion for entirely new programs that are going to 
entirely new recipients. And unfortunately for us, I think the 
biggest risk is Congress didn't fund oversight of this. And I 
gave one example recently of the Environmental Justice Office, 
which went from 12 components of about $12 million to now one 
component with $3 billion, and that's----
    Mrs. Bice. And no oversight.
    Mr. O'Donnell. I'm going to steal a term from Teri 
Donaldson. That's faster money to newer recipients and we are 
very concerned about that and the ability to do effective 
oversight of it.
    Mrs. Bice. Thank you for that, appreciate it.
    To pivot for a moment, this is going to be directed at Ms. 
Donaldson. Secretary Granholm was a former board member of 
Proterra, which was an electric bus company before joining the 
Department. It is listed on her ethics agreement as a covered 
relationship for the first year under the Federal regulations 
and 2 years under the Biden ethics pledge. She was required to 
divest her stock within 6 months of becoming Secretary. The 
obligations require Secretary Granholm to be recused from 
matters involving Proterra or those that could directly and 
predictably benefit them. Yet she was personally involved in 
the DOE's SuperTruck 3 program that ultimately saw the 
Department hand out $80 million under the program. At least 
three of these recipients of SuperTruck 3 grants announced 
personally by her at a public event with the words of $80 
million are companies with ties to Proterra. Were you aware of 
this?
    Ms. Donaldson. I was aware of part of that. I'm not sure 
that all of what you just said was familiar to me.
    Mrs. Bice. OK. Daimler, for instance, received $25 million 
in SuperTruck--in a SuperTruck 3 grant. The company has made 
multiple large investments in Proterra and created exclusive 
partner partnerships between Daimler Commercial Vehicle 
divisions and Proterra. While announcing its deal to go public, 
which involved in investment of more than $400 million from a 
group led by Daimler Trucks, Proterra described the company as 
a strategic partner. Do you think there's a conflict of 
interest there, Ms. Donaldson?
    Ms. Donaldson. I think whether or not there's a conflict 
would depend on applying the law to it. So depending on the 
timing of that--so if you divest and then participate, there 
may not be a conflict. So we do occasionally get items like 
that in the door. We lay out the legal framework. And then the 
answer emerges on the other side, sometimes based on timing.
    Mrs. Bice. But this was--some of this information, 
admittedly, you are not aware of. Is that correct?
    Ms. Donaldson. That's--I--part of that. I was not aware of 
the detail of it.
    Mrs. Bice. OK. My time has expired. Mr. Chairman, I yield 
back.
    Mr. Obernolte. Thank you, Congresswoman Bice.
    We'll go next to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania, Ms. 
Lee. You're recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Western Pennsylvania, where I serve, has a rich history of 
relying heavily on the hard work and dedication of its 
workforce. Every dollar we spend is hard earned. So it feels 
silly that we're here trying to scrutinize funding that will 
support further American leadership in scientific innovation 
and deployment when last time I checked, the Department of 
Defense has consistently failed its annual audits. I want to 
address how strong worker protections through the IGs at 
agencies like the ones you represent will support further 
American leadership in scientific innovation and deployment.
    So my first question is directed to Mr. O'Donnell. With the 
investments of the IRA, how does your office help to ensure 
that your agency is operating efficiently and effectively, 
while also upholding their commitment to worker protections?
    Mr. O'Donnell. So, as I mentioned, we did not get any 
funding to oversight IRA spending. I can tell you that with 
respect to IIJA spending, we already have planned a project on 
the agency's decisionmaking with respect to Build America, Buy 
America (BABA) provisions. And when we start doing inspections 
of project sites, it will include BABA checklists, Davis Bacon 
protections, and the like. These are, I think, critical when 
the government is paying for something. The government wants to 
get what it's paid for, and we believe that, too.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you. Can you discuss more about the success 
of your agency's human resources policies and practices that 
financially reward whistleblowers and support of the protection 
of scientific energy--or integrity? Excuse me.
    Mr. O'Donnell. Thank you. Scientific integrity is always an 
issue at the EPA because I think, unlike a lot of agencies, it 
does science and it makes decisions based on science. In a 
series of reports, we've raised concerns about the agency's 
scientific integrity policy and I think, more importantly, its 
practice of not reporting allegations of scientific integrity 
or loss of scientific integrity to us. We have to find these 
sort of coincidentally.
    And so we are working with the agency to--as it's revising 
its scientific integrity policy, to make sure that it 
recognizes the unique, independent, and objective role of the 
EPA OIG in investigating those allegations. So that for us is 
very important.
    And then with respect to whistleblowing, I can tell you 
that I am instituting a policy, a program at the EPA OIG under 
5 USC (United States Code)--I want to say 4712, but please 
don't quote me, where we will reward EPA whistleblowers, 
employees who come to us with identifiable cost savings of 
fraud, waste, and abuse.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you. Finally, for you, Mr. O'Donnell, can 
you discuss how existing protocols supported and strengthened 
the investigations by your office of the Newton County 
superfund site?
    Mr. O'Donnell. Can I get back to you on the Newton 
superfund site? We have looked at a number of superfund sites. 
For us, a big thrust of that is in communicating to 
stakeholders in the community on the risks. And in fact, I can 
tell you, we are releasing a report. It's on the 35th Avenue 
site in Alabama, but it really speaks to the EPA's ability or 
lack of ability to speak to the cumulative risks that are 
involved in a superfund site, air, water, land.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you. Ms. Lerner, how do you ensure that 
agency leaders are held accountable to make directorates like 
the new Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and 
Partnerships more efficient in their formulation and 
implementation?
    Ms. Lerner. We engage early and often, especially when word 
of the new directorate, you know, came through. We watch the 
agency's efforts. We--and we ensure that the thoughts of 
efficiency and effectiveness and actions that can help prevent 
fraud are at the front of their minds as they plan. And we 
provide proactive advice as we can, like the Other Transactions 
Authority report I mentioned earlier. So we engage early and 
often with them, as appropriate, while maintaining our 
independence.
    Ms. Lee. OK. In fact, very quickly for Mr. Soskin, from the 
financial impact of procurement and grant fraud investigations 
since 2017, how can oversight be improved to ensure as much 
funding as possible reaches our communities through the various 
programs and grant opportunities like the EPA's Clean School 
Bus program, and what steps are you taking to address any areas 
for improvement?
    Mr. Soskin. One of the findings in our recent audits of the 
Department's oversight of its procurement and contracts is the 
need for the Department to hire and retain and effectively 
train contracting officers and contracting officer 
representatives so that they have enough to pay attention to 
each of their procurement initiatives and so that they have the 
training required to provide oversight of those initiatives. 
And so in connection with their procurement that's an important 
element for the Department to pay attention to.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you. Thank you to the panel. And thank you, 
Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Mr. Obernolte. Thank you, Congresswoman Lee.
    We'll go next to the gentleman from New York, Mr. Williams. 
You are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Williams. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    On April 5, Mr. Obernolte and I sent a letter to the 
Secretary of Energy, and we're requesting more information 
about the rampant culture of stock trading and total disregard 
for the conflict-of-interest laws. As I look over our letter, 
just to quote that hundreds of Department of Energy employees, 
including one-third of the Department's senior employees, 
continue to hold stocks and other assets related to their 
official work, despite receiving notices from ethics officials, 
and there are literally hundreds of violations and thousands 
and thousands of transactions.
    Inspector General Donaldson, I'd like to acknowledge your 
testimony before the House Oversight Committee this week. And 
you mentioned the size and scale of the increased funding to 
the DOE also in your opening comments today. I'm interested in 
how that may have played a role here. Specifically, this 
expanded budget, how exactly in your opinion has this 
contributed to this increase in conflict-of-interest trades and 
potential ethics violations?
    Ms. Donaldson. Well, first, I would point out that the 
conduct that you're describing may not constitute an ethical 
violation. So the Department of Energy's regulations of these 
activities focus on a specific matter. So if you're employed at 
the Department of Energy, you can in fact hold stock for a 
particular company, as long as you don't work on a matter that 
impacts that company directly. So it's focused on the matter, 
not on the holding of the stock itself. And then there's a 
recusal mechanism. In the event something comes in front of 
you, you recuse and step away from it.
    Mr. Williams. My understanding from the reports--and thank 
you for that clarification. But my understanding from the 
reports is that there do appear to be a number of cases where 
matters before specific even leaders and employees of the 
Department of Energy did hold stocks that would put them in a 
pretty clear conflict. Could you comment about your 
investigation and maybe your response to Mr. Obernolte and I's 
letter?
    Ms. Donaldson. Yes, we do work on investigations that look 
like this, but the way this process works is that those 
notices--these were mentioned in The Wall Street Journal 
articles--are sent out prophylactically. So if you hold stock 
in Exxon, you may get--and you're employed at the Department of 
Energy, you will get a notice that says, make sure you're not 
working on anything impacting Exxon. It's not a notice that you 
violated the law. It's sort of a prophylactic, be careful sort 
of notice. So I think there's some confusion in what those 
notices actually mean----
    Mr. Williams. So----
    Ms. Donaldson [continuing]. Which is inflating those 
numbers a bit.
    Mr. Williams. OK. So when I was a junior banker very 
briefly, the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) certainly 
regulated our ability to make trades or to hold stocks related 
to any of the transactions that we might be working on. And 
this was just part of that--I guess part of the banking 
charter, and there's a whole compliance organization around 
that to ensure that kind of compliance. And so literally, I 
could not even buy or sell stocks as an employee of the bank 
without prior approval. It seems in this case that, you know, 
either the rules and laws need to be clarified or strengthened 
or perhaps there's room for additional investigation. Which 
direction is your office going with these--with this news 
report and with the letter and information that we've 
requested?
    Ms. Donaldson. Yes, we are in fact launching a project 
looking at conflict-of-interest protections across Federal 
agencies because different agencies have different regulations 
with different impacts. So it is possible that there are--well, 
there are, you know, different sorts of ways of approaching it, 
and some are more layered and some do focus on the holding of 
the stock if your agency participates in regulating that 
entity. So there's different ways to come at it. We don't have 
a project that I can tell you what the results are yet because 
we're just launching that, but it is an area that interests me.
    Mr. Williams. Any comment about Mr. Obernolte and I's 
letter, its receipt, and actions being taken in your office?
    Ms. Donaldson. It's an--again, it's an area that interests 
me. I am not aware of sort of a specific volume of cases that 
violate these rules. We have a pretty steady flow of 
allegations coming in. Some of them turn out to be a problem, 
and some turn out to be notices that were innocently sent and 
aren't a problem.
    Mr. Williams. There's--and I know my time's up. There's 
various degrees of smiles on your colleagues' faces, which 
indicates that perhaps the information that I need is--you're 
not able to really comment on at this time, so I will--my 
time's up. Thank you.
    Mr. Obernolte. Thank you, Congressman Williams.
    Next, we'll go to the gentleman also from New York, Mr. 
Bowman. You are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Bowman. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, 
everyone. Thank you so much for being here, and thank you for 
your testimony.
    I would love to see Science, Technology, and Innovation 
Centers built all over this country, particularly in 
historically marginalized rural and urban communities. And I 
believe that the CHIPS and Science Act gives us the opportunity 
to do that. However, there's a lack of infrastructure in place 
for some of the historically marginalized communities to 
identify, track, and then go after the resources that are 
available as part of the CHIPS and Science Act.
    My question is for everyone, and we can start to my left 
and go all the way down the line. Do your offices intend to 
assess how well agencies ensure equitable access to Federal 
funding opportunities? And what do previous audits tell us 
about how agencies can be better at this?
    Mr. Martin. So specifically, NASA did not receive any CHIPS 
Act funding on that. But you know, NASA has its 10 centers 
across the country, Huntsville, Alabama; Johnson Space Center, 
et cetera, where the bulk of their, you know, civilian 
workforce and many of their contractors are. So I'll pass to 
the folks who actually got CHIPS funding.
    Mr. Bowman. All right. Thanks.
    Mr. Martin. Thank you.
    Ms. Lerner. NSF did receive CHIPS funding, and it has many 
projects underway to address the issues that you raised. And I 
know that those will be the focus of our audit oversight in the 
future.
    The work that I can point to right now that we're--we've 
done that's trying to improve people's ability where--in--the 
ability of institutions that have received limited funds from 
Federal research agencies is our work looking at the EPSCoR 
program and trying to help NSF help its recipients do a better 
job of managing their money and managing their subrecipients, 
some of whom have even less experience than they do in managing 
Federal funds.
    Mr. Bowman. Thank you.
    Ms. Donaldson. Yes, sir. So the Department of Energy has 
been authorized to receive funds under CHIPS, but it has not 
yet been appropriated. They're going to be getting it in 
smaller allotments through the appropriations process. So I am 
situated more similarly to the first IG who answered this 
question.
    Mr. Soskin. DOT, like NASA, did not receive any CHIPS Act 
funding. We are aware of our department's ongoing efforts to 
expand its grants to University Transportation Centers and 
include more UTCs in those programs. I anticipate that's one 
activity by the Department that will result in greater 
geographical reach. I would also note that the statutory 
requirements in many of the Department's grant programs include 
both a rural and an urban breakdown, as was referenced in your 
question.
    Mr. Bowman. OK.
    Mr. O'Donnell. While EPA did not receive CHIPS Act money, 
it obviously received money across the board, IIJA and IRA. And 
of course the issue of environmental justice animates almost 
every aspect of what the EPA does. And I think if you looked at 
our reports, you'll see that many of them, even when they're 
not directed toward environmental justice, like, for example, 
our cybersecurity report, we still do touch on what are the 
consequences to communities like you say. So, for example, in 
cybersecurity, we found that it was a smaller, rural type of 
ones in disadvantaged communities that have not made it. And, 
you know, our portfolio on this issue on the EPA's ability and 
its subrecipients to make sure that disadvantaged communities 
participate is quite vast. And, you know, I'd be happy to have 
my staff meet with yours to share with you our great work in 
this subject.
    Mr. Bowman. Absolutely. I appreciate that. Thank you.
    My next question is for Inspector General Lerner. Last 
year, your office highlighted the need to address barriers and 
growing research capacity for emerging research institutions as 
a top management challenge. This is especially important for 
artificial intelligence. When large language models have 
shifted the landscape of cutting-edge research from 
universities to private labs backed by cloud giants, the 
National AI Research Resource (NAIRR), which NSF and OSTP 
(Office of Science and Technology Policy) are collaborating on, 
is an opportunity for us to level the playing field and 
democratize who can conduct cutting-edge AI research. How do 
you think public institutions like the NAIRR or other programs 
that were created or expanded as part of the CHIPS and Science 
Act could help NSF address disparities in research capacity?
    Ms. Lerner. I believe that there are many things that those 
institutions could do sharing their real life experience of 
trying to bring new people into this immediate and growing 
conversation will help NSF do a better job at dispensing its 
funds. So I think that the strong connections that NSF has with 
institutions will make both entities' response to this new, you 
know, growing area of interest stronger.
    Mr. Bowman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Mr. Obernolte. Thank you, Congressman Bowman.
    We'll go next to the gentleman from Tennessee. Mr. 
Fleischmann, you're recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I wish to 
thank all of the panel. I know your job as Inspectors General 
is extremely, extremely difficult and important, so thanks to 
each and every one of you.
    Well, as you may or may not be aware, I am the Chairman of 
the Energy and Water Subcommittee on Appropriations. I've been 
privileged to ask to come back to the Science Committee by the 
Chairman, so glad to serve here. I just have one question. And 
I do believe, General Donaldson, you've--may have already 
touched on this, but--in your previous answers, but in your 
testimony, you stated that Congress has authorized $67 billion 
for the Department of Energy through the CHIPS and Science Act, 
as well as appropriated $62 billion in the Infrastructure 
Investment and Jobs Act. Please describe, if you will, the 
actions your office is taking to prevent fraud and waste in 
these programs. Thank you.
    Ms. Donaldson. So one of the actions we're taking is to be 
over here and talking to appropriators so that we can be more 
appropriately funded to do the work. But while that is going 
on, we've launched a large-scale data acquisition and 
monitoring project which will generate leads for audits and 
inspections. We've had approximately 30 meetings with the 
Department. We're not allowed to consult or advise, but we ask 
a ton of questions, a lot of them about the 71 new programs. So 
we're actively in the coordinating and planning. Mr. Soskin and 
I chair the group of Inspectors General that received funding 
under IIJA, so we meet every month with the other Inspectors 
General, share best practices. So we're doing everything that 
we can, given our underfunded status.
    Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you for your answer, and I'll yield 
back.
    Mr. Obernolte. Thank you, Mr. Fleischmann.
    We'll go next to the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Frost. You 
are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Frost. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We're a nation 
recovering from a pandemic, facing threats abroad, and managing 
an existential climate crisis. Such big problems require big 
solutions and solutions that can't just be left up to the 
States. Our Federal agencies can take on these challenges, and 
I want to thank you all for your dedication to ensuring that 
the billions of dollars flowing through these agencies move as 
efficiently and effectively as possible to the important 
projects they fund.
    For example, in--Ms. Lerner, in your testimony, you 
mentioned that NSF funds over 12,000 grants involving over 
350,000 researchers. I'd like to know what steps does--what 
steps do your office take to ensure the legitimacy of those 
researchers?
    Ms. Lerner. NSF has a first-class process for reviewing 
proposals that come in, for investigative--for merit. They have 
two principles, intellectual merit and broader impacts that 
they focus on. And so their focus is on the quality of the 
research presented. There are vetting rules, you know, that 
relate to NSF's own internal employees. But the focus of the 
awards that NSF makes is on the research that's proposed.
    Mr. Frost. Got you. Thank you. You know, my State of 
Florida has received over 1,700 of those grants, which include 
almost 200 alone for the University of Central Florida (UCF) in 
my district. Go Knights. One grantee in my district, Dr. Mindy 
Shoss, who my office recently connected with, Professor Shoss 
is an industrial psychologist, teacher, and researcher at UCF-
go Knights--where--when the FBI (Federal Bureau of 
Investigation) reported a 400 percent increase in cyber attacks 
in 2020, Professor Shoss actually used this grant from NSF to 
analyze employee behaviors for weak spots. And this was 
research that could secure an incredible amount of personal and 
commercial data. All of that came from a $170,000 NSF grant.
    Cybersecurity also means America working toward 
technological independence. And we can thank that CHIPS and 
Science Act for addressing the semiconductor shortage while 
creating 44,000 jobs in just 6 months. That includes 200 
semiconductor jobs just south of my district in Kissimmee at a 
really cool place I recently just visited called NeoCity, which 
is a growing technical hub in central Florida. Sensitive 
research and technology has to be safeguarded.
    And so, Ms. Lerner, in your testimony you mentioned working 
with NSF's Chief of Research Security. Could you elaborate on 
how your office works to protect sensitive scientific 
information?
    Ms. Lerner. Absolutely. We work closely with the CRSSP 
(Chief Research Officer for Research Security, Strategy, and 
Policy) as she's referred to, to address issues, allegations 
relating to foreign affiliations that were undisclosed in NSF-
funded research and other research security matters. And the 
CRSSP handles the management aspects of those. Our office is 
there to look at potentially criminal behavior. And so--because 
sometimes complaints come to us that need to go to her. 
Sometimes things come to us that need to come to her that need 
to go to us, so that's why we work really carefully together.
    Mr. Frost. Thank you. Mr. Martin, I've made multiple trips 
to Cape Canaveral. I was born and raised in Orlando. I grew up 
standing in my backyard seeing shuttles and tons of different, 
you know, things go into space. And I also grew up seeing the 
Cape's transformation through the success of NASA's successful 
public-private partnerships, partnerships that have revitalized 
Florida's Space Coast, while delivering benefits for Americans 
across the country from better weather forecasting to rural 
internet access. I actually just saw the TEMPO (Tropospheric 
Emissions: Monitoring Pollution) launch, which was really 
exciting.
    Mr. Martin, how does your office work to make sure that 
sensitive, valuable aerospace technologies move securely within 
these partnerships and also within partnerships with other 
international space agencies?
    Mr. Martin. So first off, go NASA. No, we have excellent 
cooperation with NASA's security force. And we do--as you 
pointed out, we do a lot of work and increasingly with our 
international partners. And so we are key on security for both 
the Kennedy Space Center itself and also vetting any 
international visitors to NASA facilities.
    Mr. Frost. Got you. Thank you so much, Mr. Martin. Yes, go 
NASA. If you want to send a Member to space, let me know. And, 
you know, I'll say--it was a program.
    President Biden's Fiscal Year 2024 budget includes millions 
for underfunded IG offices. And, you know, I'm sure we could 
all agree with the President that we need more funding for our 
IG offices to ensure that this money is being spent correctly 
and efficiently, and that's the work y'all have been doing. I 
appreciate you coming in today. You've saved the taxpayers 
hundreds of millions of dollars and insured that the money's 
going toward the big solutions that we need with the big 
problems we're facing. Thank you so much. I yield back.
    Mr. Obernolte. Thank you, Congressman Frost.
    We will go next to the gentlewoman from New York, Ms. 
Tenney. You're recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Tenney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member, for 
having this hearing. And thank you to the witnesses for coming 
in today and for what you do to try to provide some oversight 
for spending.
    And this is--the inflation that is being felt by Americans 
in my district is very real. I--upstate New York, we have--are 
the highest taxed State in the Nation now. We've taken over the 
Chairman's State as No. 1. We have huge costs. We're facing 
catastrophic energy policy in my opinion that's coming to the 
State, and that's being felt by our farmers in the largest 
agricultural district in the Northeast, the largest dairy 
district in the Northeast, and only three nuclear power plants 
left in the entire State with emission-free baseload power to 
try to sustain us when we go to a zero fossil fuel-based system 
in New York very soon.
    But we are facing $31 trillion in debt. The Federal 
Government has lost hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, 
as you noted, to fraud, abuse and waste. And I was looking 
through some of your reports here. While most of this, I 
understand, doesn't come under this Committee's jurisdiction, 
we have the unemployment payroll protection plan. Those are 
under the COVID-administrated funds and SBA (Small Business 
Administration), $7 billion in military equipment left to the 
Taliban, among many of these other things.
    But as was recently discovered in the Department of 
Energy's Office of Science failed to--that they failed to 
report $56 million in awards to for-profit research 
organizations. Further, hundreds of Department of Energy 
employees, including a third of senior employees, hold stock in 
companies directly under their jurisdiction, leading to 
potentially conflicts of interests. In addition, the 
Environmental Protection Agency recently noted that its PFBS--
and I know those are their perfluorobutane sulfonic--I can't 
put the word out there--acidity--toxicity assessment did not 
follow scientific integrity standards, rendering the report's 
contents unusable. And then, to top it all off, the EPA has 
been unable to track the impact of its pandemic grants, calling 
into question its ability to conduct basic due diligence and 
track the fraud, abuse, and waste with those funds.
    With the Inflation Reduction Act, which Mr. Fleischmann--
and you indicated it was $62 billion, the $67 billion 
infrastructure bill, and all of these moneys going into in a--
de facto in a sense, a slush fund for the Biden Administration 
to implement the Green New Deal. And let me be clear, the IRA 
was touted as the Green New Deal, the biggest climate--the 
biggest green energy bill ever in the history of the United 
States before they talked about the Inflation Reduction Act. 
Apparently, inflation is tough to get rid of when you keep 
spending.
    But it is more important now that Congress does something 
about stopping this wasteful spending. And there's no greater 
obligation on our part to look to you as our Inspectors General 
to say we have to control and figure out what's going on with 
taxpayer dollars, especially where we have such high taxes and 
such high inflation.
    So I have a number of questions. I want to open this up to, 
I guess, some--maybe Ms. Donaldson on this teleworking policies 
that have impacted the prevalence of fraud, abuse, and waste, 
have they impacted waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars? 
And has it changed your oversight capacity by not having people 
in the office to actually see and touch and be there to make 
accountability?
    Mr. Obernolte. Could you turn your mic on?
    Ms. Tenney. Your mic on, yes, thanks.
    Ms. Donaldson. Yes, thank you. Sorry. The Department of 
Energy has just initiated a study of the impacts on 
teleworking, so we don't have any published materials to talk 
about.
    Ms. Tenney. Well, let me ask you, what's your personal 
opinion on that? I mean, do you think people should be coming 
back to work, or do you think that we need to continue this 
telecommuting now that the pandemic has been declared over by 
our President some time ago?
    Ms. Donaldson. Well, I can tell you what's going on in my 
shop, and I think it's working well. So we do allow maximum 
teleworking but encourage people to come in more often than 
those requirements. And we have a lot of people coming in 3, 4, 
and even 5 days a week. So we're seeing--even though it's not a 
forced march, we're seeing a migration back to the office, 
which I think is very valuable.
    Ms. Tenney. But has this impacted your ability to do 
oversight? Because in your documents here, you've outlined 
there's a number of issues we need help with.
    Ms. Donaldson. Yes, I would say the greater impact is that 
I don't have the funds to hire people. My existing staff are 
working very hard in a maximum teleworking capacity.
    Ms. Tenney. Thank you. Mr. Martin, I just wanted to ask on 
NASA, and thank you for the work that you do and for putting 
this out, but we have seen the methodologies and some failures 
in project management, which were indicated in one of the 
reports. For example, the James Webb telescope took 20 years to 
build, it was supposed to be $1 billion, ended up being $10 
billion. How do we solve this issue? And I think I'm running 
out of time, but if you may answer. Is there a methodology we 
could change or use to make NASA more efficient, more 
effective, and accountable to the taxpayers? And we love what 
you do, but I'm just--this is a huge issue.
    Mr. Martin. It is a huge issue. And NASA has been 
struggling, frankly, for decades. I think they need to do 
best--better cost estimation at the front end. You mentioned 
the James Webb Space Telescope, pitched as a $1 billion, 10-
year project, morphed into a $10 billion, 20-year project. And 
let me make a point. The fact is $10 billion worth of Webb 
Space Telescope, it may be worth $10 billion, but when you 
pitch it as a $1 billion project and manage it and it balloons 
$9 billion, you've pushed out other science that could be 
undertaken, other opportunities for space exploration, so NASA 
contract management and project management.
    Ms. Tenney. My time has expired. But maybe offline you 
could just give me an answer of what--how we can improve the 
methodologies of NASA to make it more efficient and to meet 
some of the targets that we have. Thanks. Thank you very much. 
Thank you to everyone.
    Mr. Obernolte. Thank you, Congresswoman Tenney.
    We'll go next to the gentleman also from New York. Mr. 
Tonko, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Tonko. Thank you. And I thank Chair Obernolte and 
Ranking Member Lofgren for hosting the hearing today and 
certainly to our witnesses for your appearance.
    I believe that big problems absolutely require big 
solutions, from the climate crisis that was ignored for about 4 
years and crumbling infrastructure to our global 
competitiveness in advanced manufacturing, the American people 
need for us to lead. And so in the 117th Congress, that is 
exactly what we did, lofty investments for lofty challenges, 
monumental pieces of legislation, once-in-a-generation 
investments that were signed into law by President Biden. And 
now we have passed the baton to our distinguished panelists to 
finish the job on behalf of all Americans. My colleagues and I 
in Congress will be watching and doing our part to make certain 
your agencies have the necessary support to make the most of 
these landmark pieces of legislation.
    Let me begin with scientific integrity. I believe that it's 
a cornerstone of Federal scientific activities and something 
that I've made a priority during my time in Congress by 
authorizing the Scientific Integrity Act. What do you all 
believe is the appropriate role for OIGs in defending 
scientific integrity in Federal agencies and responding to 
alleged violations of agency scientific integrity policies? And 
this is a question for each and every one of you. Who would 
like to start? Mr. O'Donnell?
    Mr. O'Donnell. I will start. As I said earlier, EPA is an 
agency that relies on science in making its decisions. It does 
science internally, and I think that its struggles with 
allegations of loss of scientific integrity, which are well 
documented in part by us.
    One of the hurdles that we experienced at the EPA is that 
we are not finding out about allegations of loss of scientific 
integrity except by coincidence. During our review of the PFBS 
toxicity assessment, we find out that senior officials in the 
agency know that there were allegations of misconduct, but we 
were not told about it. They saw this with respect to dicamba, 
ethylene oxide. It is a recurring problem.
    We have been working for the last 2 years with the agency 
to try and make clear our role. And I believe agency policy 
speaks to this, that we are the only independent agency or a 
unit in the agency that can guarantee the confidentiality of 
witnesses and whistleblowers that come to us, and that the 
agency needs to remember to bring us those allegations as 
quickly as possible because--I say this to them all the time. 
The American people need to believe you're acting with 
integrity, not just that you are, but they believe it. And they 
believe it because we act independently to show that you're 
acting with integrity.
    Mr. Tonko. Mr. Soskin, do you have any comments in that 
regard?
    Mr. Soskin. Yes, we are dedicated to pursuing any and all 
allegations that are brought to us and fall within our 
jurisdiction, particularly related to fraud or of criminal 
activity. And while the Department of Transportation is not 
principally a science agency, we did highlight in our top 
management challenges report this year the important need for 
the Department to make its decisions related to its safety 
mission, and promotion of innovation in our transportation 
system, based on good data and to be robust in its processes to 
identify and acquire the data that it needs to make sure its 
decisionmaking is data-driven.
    Mr. Tonko. Thank you. Ms. Donaldson, please?
    Ms. Donaldson. Yes, so the Office of Inspector General 
primarily is in a responsive mode, so we respond to specific 
allegations. I don't have any ongoing projects that look at 
scientific integrity writ large. So an allegation comes in, 
we'll look at it, decide what's happened, criminal, civil, 
whatever it may be.
    Mr. Tonko. Thank you. And Ms. Lerner?
    Ms. Lerner. So NSF funds research, but none of our 
employees actually conduct science, so we don't have specific 
scientific integrity responsibilities. But we do conduct 
oversight of people who receive NSF funding. We conduct 
research misconduct investigations when there are allegations 
of fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in NSF-funded 
research. And that's how we promote research integrity.
    Mr. Tonko. And thank you. And, Mr. Martin, please?
    Mr. Martin. Right. I think we're much more similar to Ms. 
Donaldson, IG Donaldson. We're in a reactive mode. When 
allegations are raised at the Office of Inspector General, we 
coordinate closely with the Department itself.
    Mr. Tonko. OK. And perhaps since Mr. O'Donnell had the most 
to say on this topic, how can the OIG coordinate with 
scientific integrity officials and other agency leaders to 
preserve scientific integrity and enhance scientific integrity 
best practices?
    Mr. O'Donnell. Thank you. As I said, for the last 2 years, 
we've been working with the Scientific Integrity Office to try 
and institute coordination procedures exactly like you are 
speaking to, to ensure that we're notified of these. And I 
understand for my colleagues, for them, it's mostly reactive, 
but for us, we are proactive. We hold whistleblower events. We 
speak to scientific integrity issues to the agency, and we 
remind employees that we can help them if there are allegations 
of misconduct. And in fact, I stood up an administrative 
investigations directorate that is absolutely full in its 
docket with scientific integrity allegation issues. And so when 
we speak on those issues, we really are being, I think, 
proactive in the future.
    Mr. Tonko. And have they been longstanding?
    Mr. O'Donnell. The complaints?
    Mr. Tonko. Or the concerns that you expressed today, have 
they been longstanding?
    Mr. O'Donnell. Oh, those concerns are very longstanding.
    Mr. Tonko. OK. Thank you. I yield back.
    Mr. Obernolte. Thank you, Mr. Tonko.
    We will go next to the gentleman from Indiana. Mr. Baird, 
you are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Baird. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I appreciate all 
the witnesses being here today, appreciate your testimony.
    And so the questions I have deal with the office--Ms. 
Donaldson, I'm going to direct this to you--conduct oversight 
on classified programs at the Department of Energy. But 
instead, the oversight of classified programs at the Department 
of Energy is conducted by an internal unit known as the 
Enterprise Associates. And so your office conducts oversight of 
Enterprise Associates, essentially, to grade their work. So can 
you please explain to us how your office does not conduct 
oversight if you believe that this should be changed?
    Mr. Obernolte. Microphone, please.
    Ms. Donaldson. Sorry about that. So at the Department of 
Energy, we do split this work. But--so my shop does the 
cybersecurity reviews on the non-class system. And then the 
Office of Enterprise Assessments does very similar work in 
connection with the classified systems. The way that we 
interact, we do conduct oversight of the Office of Enterprise 
Assessments, so there's a series of meetings reviewing the 
work. So it's more tightly woven than you might think.
    Others have asked me whether or not my shop should take 
over the cybersecurity reviews for the classified system. Right 
now, as underfunded as we are, that would be a challenge, but 
that's certainly possible in the future.
    Mr. Baird. Can you give me some idea how often you do that? 
Is this an annual review? Is it an annual review or periodic or 
whatever?
    Ms. Donaldson. So it works in two ways. There is a required 
annual review, and then there are whatever other projects we do 
along the way that are designed and done in parallel to the 
annual review.
    Mr. Baird. Thank you.
    Ms. Donaldson. You're welcome.
    Mr. Baird. So, Ms. Lerner, I'm going to move to you next. 
You know, the Antarctic is not claimed as a territory by any 
nation. Therefore, international implications exist in the 
implementation and enforcement of laws. Can you provide the 
Committee with the main international challenges that have 
arisen surrounding this issue?
    Ms. Lerner. At this point, I think the two that I'm aware 
of deal with, you know, if a criminal act occurs in Antarctica, 
you know, who has jurisdiction over the investigation of that, 
whether--if it occurs in a U.S.-funded research base, is that 
the United States' responsibility, or are there other nations 
that could exert responsive--you know, over--responsibility for 
that investigation?
    And the second issue is if someone is found to have 
committed a crime and needs to be removed from Antarctica, 
typically they're--they leave Antarctica and travel out through 
New Zealand. And there are challenges of moving a prisoner 
through New Zealand that need to be worked out.
    Mr. Baird. So could you elaborate a little bit on your 
relationship with the United Nations in that regard?
    Ms. Lerner. I have none. I'm happy to talk to anyone about 
these matters, but this would be, I think, more NSF's 
responsibility as the manager of the program to engage with, 
you know, all the Department of State, the United--you know, 
and the Government of New Zealand and sort these issues out.
    Mr. Baird. Thank you. Let's take a different approach. The 
main law enforcement officer is deputized through the special 
deputy marshals?
    Ms. Lerner. Yes.
    Mr. Baird. Has the IG coordinated with the Deputy Marshals 
Service? And can you provide the Committee with more details on 
the relationship of NSF and OIG and how that maintains a 
relationship with the Marshals Service?
    Ms. Lerner. We have a strong relationship with NSF, and in 
fact, NSF supported our sending a team of three, one auditor 
and two investigators, down to Antarctica in February. And, 
among other people, they met with the station manager, who is a 
Special Deputy U.S. Marshal. So he is responsive to us when we 
have questions. He does not work for us. His responsibility in 
investigating crimes is to coordinate with the Marshals Office 
and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Hawaii.
    Mr. Baird. One last quick question, does--is there a U.S. 
Marshal in the area all the time in Antarctica or----
    Ms. Lerner. The only person with a connection to the 
Marshals Service on a regular basis is the deputy--is the 
station manager. There are no other U.S. Marshals folks on a 
regular basis in Antarctica.
    Mr. Baird. Thank you all very much. My time is up, and I 
yield back.
    Mr. Obernolte. Thank you, Congressman Baird.
    We will go next to the gentlewoman from Michigan. Ms. 
Stevens, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Stevens. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Sexual harassment and assault creates a hostile environment 
for women in science and affects their ability to achieve their 
full potential. Ms. Lerner, this Committee held a hearing in 
December of last year about sexual harassment and assault in 
the United States Antarctic Program (USAP). An NSF-commissioned 
report described harrowing stories about what scientists and 
contractors have endured and the failure of the agency and of 
Leidos, the prime contractor to hold perpetrators accountable.
    I'm glad to see the OIG is engaged. Last month, your office 
released a white paper describing the law enforcement-related 
difficulties in Antarctica. Can you briefly summarize why 
Antarctica poses unique challenges when dealing with crimes 
committed to the continent?
    Ms. Lerner. Absolutely. I mean, let's start with just its 
general isolation. It's more like being on the Moon than being 
anywhere else on the planet. And it's about as challenging to 
get there, although not as expensive. Not as expensive, I'll 
give you that. Beyond that, the mass of people with folks down 
there complicates who's in charge when it's a noncriminal 
matter. From a criminal perspective, having a deputy--a station 
manager who's deputized as a U.S. Marshal, is, you know, we 
think, not the most effective way to provide criminal avenues 
to victims of crime.
    For anything that's not criminal, the fact that you have 
some NSF employees down there, some contractor employees, some 
subcontractor employees, and then scientific researchers from 
the United States, and then a whole passel of people that come 
through McMurdo in particular from other nations, you know, 
brings great complexity----
    Ms. Stevens. Yes.
    Ms. Lerner [continuing]. To the process.
    Ms. Stevens. So in NSF's testimony at the December hearing 
indicated that the agency is considering significant changes to 
the structure of the USAP contract to address the findings of 
the SAHPR (``Sexual Assault/Harassment Prevention and 
Response'') report. So how do you think the OIG might be able 
to play a part in investigations in a revamped U.S. Antarctic 
Program? And do you think the OIG should have a presence on the 
ice?
    Ms. Lerner. We are open to doing that. After reading the 
SAHPR report, I sat down with my head of investigations and 
said I think we have--we've never done this, but we've got to 
look at this. And we are absolutely open to doing that. In 
fact, my head of investigations is down at the Federal Law 
Enforcement Training Center right now taking training on 
investigating sexual assaults.
    Ms. Stevens. Excellent. And so this Committee has and will 
continue to engage in active oversight over sexual assault and 
harassment in the Antarctica, and we're eager to review future 
work from your office. Any preview that you can give us of 
forthcoming work that will come from your office on this topic?
    Ms. Lerner. Absolutely. We have an inspection that we're 
working on that'll focus on reporting and investigating sexual 
assault in what we've learned about that. And I think our next 
area of focus is going to be on reporting and investigating 
sexual harassment. And we're also looking at safety and health 
issues that came to our attention during our time onsite. So we 
will have, you know, ongoing work in this area for some time.
    Ms. Stevens. Thank you. And, Mr. O'Donnell, under the prior 
Administration, our Federal science agencies faced a crisis of 
scientific integrity. This was a topic of conversation before 
we headed into COVID-19 and certainly after in your office has 
certainly done some very significant work in confronting 
attacks on science, and you've issued reports. This is 
something that Mr. Tonko and I have also worked on together. 
What lessons did you learn from the recent 4-year crisis of 
scientific integrity? And what steps can you and other OIGs 
take to ensure that you are equipped to deal with similar 
problems in the future?
    Mr. O'Donnell. Of course, this is generalized, but I think 
some of the lessons we learned were that it was important to 
communicate to EPA staff, EPA scientific staff, that there is a 
mechanism for reporting allegations of misconduct, and that by 
reporting to the OIG, their confidentiality can be protected. I 
know that if we go back to the time period of which you speak, 
our scientific integrity office would often express their 
frustration and the inability to protect confidentiality. And 
of course, I'm always reminding them that we are by law the 
only entity in the EPA that can protect confidentiality.
    Ms. Stevens. Do you have the resources you need?
    Mr. O'Donnell. As I said, I created an Administrative 
Investigations Directorate of about six lawyers and two 
investigators. Their docket is so incredibly full right now 
with complaints that, I promise you, for every new investigator 
we could get, we would take on four more cases.
    Ms. Stevens. It's the investigation of the investigations.
    Mr. O'Donnell. Yes.
    Ms. Stevens. Thank you all so much for your testimony today 
and your time.
    With that, Mr. Chair, I yield back.
    Mr. Obernolte. Thank you, Congresswoman Stevens.
    We'll go next to the gentleman from Georgia. Mr. McCormick, 
you are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. O'Donnell, in a report in April 13 of this year, the 
EPA OIG discussed their concerns on whether foreign gifts could 
be linked to federally funded awards as there is no post-grant 
award reporting requirements for the EPA research grant 
recipients to disclose foreign support. Thank you for bringing 
this issue to light. I think it's important. Are there any 
other concerns similar to this that you could identify today? 
And have you seen any instances where foreign adversaries such 
as China, Russia, Iran, or anybody else benefited from grant 
money awarded by the EPA?
    Mr. O'Donnell. So I think I spoke to this earlier. Our 
Office of Investigation prioritizes these issues, and we wanted 
to bring to light to the EPA the fact that it doesn't 
memorialize a requirement to identify post-award support from 
foreign actors. And that report speaks to some of the issues 
that we had seen where we had seen support from foreign actors, 
but I think we were unable to prosecute those cases. And again, 
those are ones we worked collaboratively. I believe those came 
from the Department of Education, working with NSF OIG. And so 
we will continue to work with the agency to make sure that they 
institute that. As far as the technology loss, we haven't yet 
assessed that.
    Mr. McCormick. Thank you. Mr. Martin, according to your 
2022 annual OIG report, the individual Artemis missions have 
estimated $4.1 billion-per-launch costs. According to your 
reports, this obviously having an impact on the lifetime--or 
lifeline for the Artemis program launches. The question I have 
for you is what can be done at NASA or by Congress to improve 
the efficiency and speed of the program and how we reduce cost 
per launch?
    Mr. Martin. Yes, as I indicated, NASA is focusing on that. 
Again, part of what was the sole source contracting nature that 
underlies the rocket known as the Space Launch System and the 
capsule known as Orion, in fact, Congress directed that NASA 
use the old contractors that were involved in what was known as 
the Constellation program. It was a previous Administration's 
return to the Moon. So that, I think, put NASA behind the 8-
ball at the outset. And then as I've indicated, both contract 
management and project management have kind of gone off the 
rails at different times, and we've seen incredible substantial 
increases in the cost and in the schedule to these programs.
    NASA compounds those with its use, we find inappropriate at 
times, of excess award fees to the contractors even when the 
programs are slipping years behind and hundreds of billions of 
dollars over cost. So----
    Mr. McCormick. So to drill down on that, that's actually a 
really interesting point that I wasn't aware of. Do you think 
that that's a NASA problem or a congressional oversight problem 
or a combination thereof?
    Mr. Martin. I would assume it's a combination of both.
    Mr. McCormick. OK. That's good to know. What do you think 
we can do to improve the condition of the International Space 
Station? And this withdraw of Russia coming out of there in 
2024, is that going to impact that also?
    Mr. Martin. We've done a significant amount of audit review 
looking at the future, both the economy in low-Earth orbit that 
NASA is trying to promote, low-Earth economy. But it has a 
decided end of life. Right now, ISS operations have been 
extended until 2030 via the CHIPS Act. I think by 2030, you 
kick the tires, it's going to be ready to be deorbited, which 
is going to be a very expensive, very complicated activity to 
do itself, to deorbit that safely.
    Mr. McCormick. Is it a useful facility, though, from 2024 
to 2030? If we extend it--and you just mentioned the 
decommission without really any discussion of replacement, 
which has to be the next piece of that also.
    Mr. Martin. Right. It's an absolutely essential part of 
NASA space exploration efforts. NASA needs, the country needs a 
low-Earth orbit destination to conduct microgravity research, 
both on the health of human astronauts but also on technology 
demonstration, so it's critical. And what really concerns us 
the most, obviously, the safety of the occupants of the 
International Space Station at the current time, but what we're 
concerned about is when it is decommissioned in 2030 or 
whenever, that there's not a gap, that there is something to 
follow, that NASA has that ability to conduct this critical 
low-Earth orbit research.
    Mr. McCormick. And to your knowledge, do we have any plans 
to realistically have that replaced on time?
    Mr. Martin. NASA has a plan. They're going commercial, 
which I think makes a lot of sense, but I am--we--our office is 
still concerned that there is going to be a gap, which I think 
is going to be highly detrimental.
    Mr. McCormick. OK. Thank you. I yield.
    Mr. Obernolte. Thank you, Congressman McCormick.
    We'll go next to the gentleman from Illinois. Mr. Casten, 
you are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Casten. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thanks to 
everybody for taking the time today.
    Mr. O'Donnell, I'd like to start with you. A couple of 
weeks ago, your office issued a report called--the title was 
``The EPA's January 2021 PFBS toxicity assessment did not 
uphold the agency's commitments to scientific integrity and 
information quality.'' I see you nodding. You've read it 
thoroughly. In that report, it said, quote, ``During final 
clearance, a political appointee from the previous 
Administration directed that a last-minute review be conducted 
of the uncertainty factors used to calculate toxicity values, 
resulting in scientific disagreement that caused delay, 
confusion, and significant changes to the near-final peer-
reviewed work product.'' There was a recent Guardian analysis 
that went on--an investigative article that went on to say that 
the EPA career employees who, during the previous 
Administration, had meddled in agency science to weaken 
toxicity assessments had never been reprimanded, never been 
fired, and flagged that there was a continuing problem 
affecting EPA, specifically an unwillingness to address 
influence--industry influence on career staff.
    I want to start just by asking if you agree with or want to 
add any color to what the Guardian reported based on your 
report about sort of the backward-looking analysis, is this an 
ongoing problem?
    Mr. O'Donnell. It is an ongoing problem. As I said, I have 
stood up a group devoted to investigating allegations of lost 
scientific integrity. It has been one of our top management 
challenges for the last 3 years. And that report speaks to the 
continuing issue. And I think what for me is most disheartening 
about that report is that the agency disagreed with every 
single one of our recommendations to try and improve the 
scientific integrity protections.
    Mr. Casten. In your view, is there--and maybe this is the 
answer to that concern. Is there an ongoing problem with 
industry influence, and is there something we need to do about 
that?
    Mr. O'Donnell. Issues of industry influence? Well, that 
exists far beyond science. Remember, the EPA does a lot of 
science. It does a lot of rulemaking. And for us, this touches 
on it, not just on the conflicts of interest with respect to 
the science, but with respect to the rulemaking, and it's an 
issue that does lie for us now, even now.
    Mr. Casten. Are there things you're watching for as a sign 
of improvement or that we can do to help you hold them 
accountable and make sure we do hold them accountable for the 
concerns you flagged from the past Administration?
    Mr. O'Donnell. My staff meets with the Scientific Integrity 
Office regularly. We are trying to improve that relationship. I 
will meet with the Deputy Administrator tomorrow to talk about 
this specific issue. And it's my hope, and I believe their 
commitment to improve things, but I'm happy to keep you 
posted----
    Mr. Casten. OK.
    Mr. O'Donnell [continuing]. On how things are going for us.
    Mr. Casten. OK. Thank you. Moving to Inspector General 
Donaldson, the DOE's Environmental Management (EM) Program, as 
you know, is responsible for all things nuclear waste, cleaning 
up contaminated sites, safe storage. No need to go on. You 
understand all those issues. The GAO (Government Accountability 
Office) has fairly consistently had that DOE Environmental 
Management Program, which I think has about a $7.9 billion 
budget, on their high-risk list for some time. I wonder just in 
the--first question is just do you agree with GAO's assessment 
that the DOE's Environmental Management Program needs 
improvement?
    Ms. Donaldson. I do.
    Mr. Casten. In 2020, there was a GAO report that said that 
45 of their recommendations related to the high risk area 
remained open, including recommendations pertaining to things 
like ensuring that costs and schedule estimates met best 
practices, incorporating project management best practices. 
That was 2020. Has there been any improvement in your view 
since that time?
    Ms. Donaldson. I'm not sure I could comment on that 
comfortably without actually going back and looking at those 
specific recommendations and then getting an update from the 
Department.
    Mr. Casten. OK.
    Ms. Donaldson. Nothing immediately comes to mind as an 
informed response.
    Mr. Casten. OK. Well, in that case, then would you like to 
add any color to your initial response? I do. I recognize this 
is not a wedding. But----
    Ms. Donaldson. Right.
    Mr. Casten [continuing]. I need more color.
    Ms. Donaldson. So we work very--we've worked very closely 
with the General Accounting Office, so we review all--we 
deconflict our work. We talk to them about what they're doing. 
They've done a lot of work in this space, and they have had the 
EM program on that list for a very long time. And it's due in 
part to that being the largest environmental liability known to 
man at this point in time, possibly even planet Earth-wise, so 
it's a tremendous amount of money. And it's managed in little 
snapshots called annual appropriations, which make it very hard 
to conduct efficient cleanups. And then across that complex, 
you also have consent agreements that are complicated, involve 
multiple parties, and so in order to improve your plan at a 
particular site, you have to go back in front of a district 
court judge and modify your consent agreement. So there's a lot 
of baked-in risk and turmoil managing this huge environmental 
portfolio.
    Mr. Casten. And I don't know if you meant it this way. Are 
you suggesting that if we maybe did more than just 1 year 
appropriations, some of these problems would go away?
    Ms. Donaldson. That observation has been made by many 
folks, and there's a lot of common sense to that.
    Mr. Casten. I've heard that in a few other of our programs 
as well every once in a while. Well, if there's anything--in my 
next election, I'm going to run for king, and I'll fix that. 
Barring that----
    Ms. Donaldson. Great, good.
    Mr. Casten. Barring that, anything we can do to help, 
please let us know, and thank you all for your service.
    Ms. Donaldson. Appreciate that.
    Mr. Obernolte. Thank you, Congressman Casten.
    We will go next to the gentleman from Georgia. Mr. Collins, 
you're recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Inspector General Soskin, I think it's safe to say that the 
Department of Transportation is currently a mess because Pete 
Buttigieg is focused on his left-wing social agenda more than 
building and maintaining our Nation's critical infrastructure. 
There's a case in point. While Ohioans in East Palestine were 
fleeing their homes and worried about their health, Buttigieg 
refused to visit, but he found time to go on TV and say that 
there are too many White people working in the construction 
business. And a few days ago, he basically said that the roads 
and car accidents are racist. In your work reviewing the 
Department's decisionmaking about grants and procurement, has 
the Secretary's radicalism on social issues affected how the 
Department is making decisions?
    Mr. Soskin. Our views of the Department's grantmaking and 
procurement have focused on a number of challenges that the 
Department faces, and many of those relate to DOT's efforts to 
administer the large volumes of pandemic oversight or pandemic-
related and Infrastructure Act funds. GAO has done some 
reporting on the decisionmaking in discretionary grant 
programs, following up on work that we have done over time. 
Ultimately, the Department's success and failure in these 
programs is the responsibility of department leadership, and 
we're optimistic that if our recommendations are embraced, 
these funds will be administered to the benefit of the Nation's 
transportation system.
    Mr. Collins. Right. But I think making a decision on how 
you appropriate those funds out, it should be based on the 
ability to do the work and not based on a social agenda. So 
that's what I was wondering, if you were looking into that side 
of it.
    Mr. Soskin. We don't have any current work looking at the 
decisionmaking criteria in the discretionary grant programs.
    Mr. Collins. I'd like to switch gears just a little bit 
then. I seem to remember a previous Cabinet Secretary during a 
previous Administration being forced to resign for taking 
private jets, just like Secretary Buttigieg is doing. Are you 
currently looking into Buttigieg's travel choices? And if so, 
is there any indication of any waste or abuse? Do you see a 
double standard with how Secretary Price was treated versus 
Buttigieg?
    Mr. Soskin. Earlier this year, we announced an audit of the 
Office of the Secretary of Transportation's compliance with 
regulations and policies for executive travel on FAA's 40 
aircraft, which are used for multiple purposes, including the 
Secretary's travel. At this time, that work is ongoing, and 
it's too soon to share any findings.
    Mr. Collins. Do you have a estimation when you'll have that 
available?
    Mr. Soskin. At this point, I don't have an estimate for 
you.
    Mr. Collins. How long does it normally take to do something 
like that?
    Mr. Soskin. We set as our goal for timely audit completion 
an 11-month time period. Frankly, we haven't been successful in 
always meeting that timetable. But one of our priorities and a 
priority of our new principal in overseeing our audits is to 
make progress on the timeliness of our audits.
    Mr. Collins. All right. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield 
back. That's all I got.
    Mr. Obernolte. All right. Thank you very much, Congressman 
Collins.
    We are awaiting questions from one final Member, so out of 
a courtesy, we will give him a couple more minutes to get here. 
And rather than sitting here in silence, I will exercise the 
Chair's prerogative and ask an additional question of Mr. 
Martin. Chairman Lucas----
    Mr. Martin. Or we could wait.
    Mr. Obernolte. That was a nice try.
    Chairman Lucas and I sent a letter to NASA a few weeks ago 
expressing some concerns about the remote work policies at that 
agency. Specifically, we had been alarmed to discover that, in 
the first several months of this year, over 50 percent of NASA 
employees were apparently working remotely instead of working 
onsite. And to be clear, I'm not an opponent of remote work, 
and I know the Chairman is not either. However, it's undeniably 
true that there are many circumstances at NASA that either 
require or certainly would be much more productively 
accomplished by people that are there at the job. I understand 
that the agency responded to our inquiry this morning. And 
although we are still digesting that, it seems like they are 
verifying that the salient points that we raised in our letter 
are true.
    I'm wondering, have you conducted any investigations 
related to remote work policies at NASA? And are you concerned, 
as we are, about the potential for reduced productivity as a 
result of those policies?
    Mr. Martin. Sure. So no, we have not conducted any 
investigations regarding overall agency remote work policies. I 
will say that being part of the NASA conversation during COVID, 
NASA was coming out of COVID and was leaning pretty 
significantly into workplace flexibilities. Back then and now, 
they were pushing this down to the center-based decision or 
project-based decisions about what the proper cadence of onsite 
versus telework was. I think it needs--personally, and what 
we're trying to do at the OIG ourselves, is mission focus. 
There are certain occupations, certain roles, and certain times 
during certain projects where onsite work is absolutely 
critical and essential. We have a computer crimes laboratory 
that's staffed in person every day because of the equipment and 
because of the sensitivity of the information. That has to be 
onsite work. And certainly, if you're involved in a NASA flight 
project where you're bending metal in a cleanroom, you need to 
be onsite.
    So I do have concerns. We're going to incorporate these 
types of questions and these types of issues into our ongoing 
audits that we do across the agency.
    Mr. Obernolte. All right. I appreciate that. We're going to 
continue our oversight as well. And again, this isn't out of 
any sense that we are anti-remote work. But certainly, there 
are disciplines that we have identified in our research, 
including, for example, space hardware mechanics where it's 
hard to understand how remote work could be done effectively. 
So I appreciate you continuing to work with us on that.
    And we're going to buy another minute or two here. Ms. 
Donaldson, I was really, really interested in the part of your 
testimony where you talked about the incredible increase in the 
research budget at DOE that's been placed on your agency by 
recent Federal legislation. In a way, it's an embarrassment of 
riches, right, because it's great that we've got these 
resources to do this research that we've long wanted to do, but 
I was not maybe sufficiently aware at how under-resourced the--
your office was to deal with this influx of, you know, what is 
obviously an increased need for oversight. Can you go into a 
little bit of detail about what kind of resources you need and 
would think appropriate to be able to conduct the oversight 
that you think is necessary. Microphone, please, if you would.
    Ms. Donaldson. I can. So I can tell you how I approached it 
to determine, you know, what amount of resources would be sort 
of a first installment. So I looked first at how other 
Inspectors General were funded, just the CFO Act agencies. 
Independent of the new legislation, I found myself at the 
bottom or arguably second to the bottom on that list for 
historic underfunding. Then I looked at the new funding streams 
and I looked again to how other Inspectors General impacted by 
those funding streams had the--how they had fared. And again, 
my shop had fared at that point completely at the bottom of 
that list. So we did some additional benchmarking and 
discovered that .35 percent puts you sort of in the middle of 
the pack for Inspectors General, middle to low end----
    Mr. Obernolte. So, I'm sorry, .35 percent of----
    Ms. Donaldson. Of the agency's----
    Mr. Obernolte [continuing]. Grant funding----
    Ms. Donaldson. Correct.
    Mr. Obernolte [continuing]. Awarded to an agency being----
    Ms. Donaldson. That's right.
    Mr. Obernolte [continuing]. Steered to the OIG?
    Ms. Donaldson. Yes, that's right.
    Mr. Obernolte. OK.
    Ms. Donaldson. So there's a--it's a good way to do it 
because, if you think about it, it allows you to do those 
audits, inspections, and investigations so you're growing with 
the portfolio of the agency. So I think that's a common metric 
that IGs look at, you know, more money going out. And then I 
looked at all the risk factors at the Department of Energy, and 
there are a lot of risk factors, so much of the funding going 
to the States, those kinds of things. But I still kept that 
number pretty modest at the .35. And then in the materials I 
always caution that that does not include a huge number for the 
loan portfolio. So it's my intention----
    Mr. Obernolte. I'm sorry, the what portfolio?
    Ms. Donaldson. The loan portfolio----
    Mr. Obernolte. OK.
    Ms. Donaldson [continuing]. Which is about half of the 
money going to the Department of Energy, so we'll be coming 
back for a second installment. So as it is now, we're about 
$180 million short in our base budget and over $300 million 
short in connection with IIJA, CHIPS Act, IRA, and the 
legislation for Puerto Rico, big numbers.
    Mr. Obernolte. Sure. Well, you know, a couple things I 
think become clear to me as a result of this discussion. You 
know, No. 1, perhaps there's an additional metric we ought to 
be looking at to figure out whether or not our Inspectors 
General are adequately funded based on the amount of activity 
that they have to oversee. And also, I think that we here in 
Congress need to be more mindful when we are awarding grant 
funding of making sure that we simultaneously award your 
offices the relatively modest in comparison amount of money 
that you need to conduct oversight of that funding.
    But, I mean, let me ask you this just playing devil's 
advocate. I think it would be very difficult in your position 
when Congress really radically varies the amount of grant 
funding available to your agency from year to year. How would 
you staff up and down your agency in response to that? I think 
that would be very difficult to manage.
    Ms. Donaldson. It presents some challenges, but it is 
doable. So the Department of Energy is now quadrupling in size 
and faced with that exact same challenge. So one of the things 
we would do similar to what they're doing is hire more people. 
But we have another little tool in our tool bag, which is the 
use of accounting firms to do some of the audit and inspection 
work so you can retain those entities to do focused work on 
internal controls and other things and then do some good for 
the mission, and then just simply let those contracts expire or 
don't utilize those contracts, you know, later in the process. 
So we have some built-in flexibilities.
    Mr. Obernolte. All right. Well, that's good to hear. And 
hopefully, we'll be able to work together to make sure that you 
don't face a similar shortfall in the future.
    Ms. Donaldson. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Obernolte. I will yield now to my colleague, the 
gentleman from California, Mr. Issa. Sir, you are recognized 
for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Issa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you so much 
for your indulgence with the other Committee's markup.
    I'm going to start with a question that you wouldn't expect 
probably. Mr. O'Donnell, would you be aware if anyone at EPA 
currently worked for the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) and 
was undercover at your agency?
    Mr. O'Donnell. I think because of things that happened 
about a decade ago, there was a time it seemed like we were 
looking for nothing else. I would be surprised at this point if 
there were.
    Mr. Issa. Well, I don't want you to be surprised. So I 
would say that in each of your agencies, knowing--since the 
agency head must be informed by statute of anyone who's 
embedded, I would ask each of you to go and find out whether 
erroneously, as happened a decade ago, they believed somebody's 
with the CIA when in fact they are not. And I only say that 
because, fool me once, he went to jail, but he's out now, and I 
would really appreciate that question not going by the wayside 
because it's--as esoteric as it is, it really happened, as you 
know.
    On another note, Dr. Lerner, the--you're aware of an NSF 
award of about $130,000 in 2022 to the University of Virginia 
to conduct climate change research with a Beijing-based company 
in Tsing Hua University?
    Ms. Lerner. That's not ringing a bell off the top of my 
head, but I can certainly learn more and get back to you.
    Mr. Issa. I'd appreciate it since, hopefully, during the 2 
years I left Congress, we stopped providing aid at the Trade 
Development Agency to China as a developing nation. And 
hopefully, we now are at a position where any funds which are 
directed toward research in China would be scrutinized for 
whether they're absolutely necessary.
    Along that line, are you familiar with programs known as 
WiseDex?
    Ms. Lerner. I've just recently become aware of them.
    Mr. Issa. And you're aware that its job is funding the 
fight against misinformation?
    Ms. Lerner. That's what the articles I read indicated.
    Mr. Issa. And are you currently exploring that?
    Ms. Lerner. I am happy that--you know, our office, because 
of the focus of our work, we don't have the scientific 
expertise to assess scientific determinations NSF makes, but we 
have a history of looking at situations like this to see if 
appropriate processes were followed in making the award and if 
any other concerns exist.
    Mr. Issa. So notwithstanding that--figuring out what 
misinformation, disinformation, and mal-information are since 
those are revolving terms, as you know, it's not about the 
science. The question that I would have for the IG is, on what 
basis did Congress allow for particularly the second one, which 
is this program--and I'll just read it to you--strategically 
corrects misinformation described by the NSF? Now, as it's 
defined or described, that's in the eye of the beholder, so the 
criteria for how they determine misinformation would seem to be 
within the expertise of your agency.
    Ms. Lerner. We will certainly look at that situation.
    Mr. Issa. And then one of the questions is for each of the 
panelists, are you currently involved in an investigation or 
any investigations as to whether the agencies you oversee are 
in fact suppressing speech or in any way interfacing that would 
cause the promotion of or the reduction of certain information 
being available to the public?
    Mr. O'Donnell. As I mentioned earlier, we have an 
Administrative Investigations Directorate that deals with 
subjects like this with censorship and suppression. And while I 
won't speak on any particular investigation, I can assure you 
their docket is quite full.
    Mr. Soskin. I'm not aware of any investigation work in this 
area, and it doesn't have an obvious link in my mind to the 
work of the Department of Transportation.
    Ms. Donaldson. Yes, we do have a volume of retaliation 
cases year in and year out, whistleblower retaliation cases. I 
don't have anything in the portfolio that suggests a link back 
to, you know, the most senior leadership.
    Mr. Issa. OK. And, Dr. Lerner, of course, you do have them, 
and we'll be looking at them.
    Mr. Martin. We don't have NASA. In fact, we have more 
websites at NASA pushing on information than any other 
government agency.
    Mr. Issa. OK. And then in closing, hopefully--something I 
heard on CNBC not long ago after people became aware that 
Hunter Biden's laptop was real and not misinformation or 
disinformation, as it was originally marketed by our government 
to be, I heard them say, science is never settled. And 
hopefully, as your agencies explore science, they will take the 
same attitude that you should never eliminate somebody's 
contradictory view on any basis while, in fact, science is 
never settled. Thank you.
    And thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Mr. Obernolte. Thank you, Congressman Issa.
    That concludes our Member questions. I want to thank all of 
our panelists for bearing with us and for being so engaged in 
the discussion. I think you can judge by the amount of interest 
that we had from our Members and the number of quality 
questions that we got how interesting a topic we all found this 
to be, so I thank you very much. We'll have to do this again in 
the future.
    The record will remain open for an additional 10 days for 
comments or written questions from Members. This hearing is 
adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 12:30 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

                                Appendix

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                   Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
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