Transcripts For CSPAN3 Politics And Public Policy Today 20160419

Security, certainly the military has used forms of encryption for decades. But can we can you give us a contemporary snapshot of how encryption used by government or nongovernment users protect us against cyberattacks today . We can start over here, please. I will answer the question, but im not at all the expert in this space. I think the other panelists are much more expert than i am in the notion of encryption and protecting our infrastructure. The one point i will say that i tried to emphasis in my Opening Statement is that we shouldnt forget about some of the changes that are happening in terms of the way that infrastructure can be accessed. I think we sometimes lose sight of the fact that phones themselves now are used as authentication devices. If you can break the encryption and get into the phone, that may be a very easy way to get into the power grid, to get into our transport systems, into our water systems. So its not just a question of the firewalls or the access. Its what is the instrumentality that you use to get into those things that we have to be concerned about. I believe fundamentally that security is on the same side as privacy and our economic interest. Its fundamental in the National Security community. Its also mandated by law to protect all sorts of other data in other infrastructures and systems such as financial services, health care records, so on and so forth, such that even folks who might not gain an advantage by having strong encryption available like admiral rogers, the director of the nsa, and james clapper, the director of national intelligence, are on the record saying that they believe its not in the u. S. s best interests to weaken encryption. Anyone else wish to comment . I mean, encryption is used in protecting critical intrastructure the same way its used in protecting other aspects of our society. It protects Sensitive Data when its being transmitted and stored. Including on mobile devices and over the internet and so on. I just want to add that Critical Infrastructure systems are largely based and built upon the same components that were using in consumer and business devices as well. There arent, you know, Critical Infrastructure systems essentially depend on mobile phones and operating systems that you and i are using in our daytoday life. So when we weaken them, we also weaken the critical inf infrastructure systems. Could i just add briefly that i actually thought mr. Sewells answer was pretty good. And whats critical about those systems that we rely on to protect our Critical Infrastructure is when we find flaws in them, we have to patch them quickly, we have to fix them quickly, as mr. Yoran said, the systems are kaunls kntly being looked at. Im concerned if we end up imposing requirements on our security infrastructure on our encryption tools, if we impose requirements, the process of identifying flaws, fixing them, putting out new versions rapidly, is going to be slowed down. To figure out whether those comply with whatever the surveillance requirements are. I think thats the wrong direction for us to go in. We want to make these tools as adaptive as possible. We want them to be fixed as quickly as possible. Not be caught in a whole set of rules about what they have to do and not do to accommodate surveillance needs. Thank you very much. Thank you, mr. Chairman for allowing me to participate. Appreciate it, and ill yield back. I thank you. I asked unanimous consent that the letter from cta be admitted to the record. I would ask unanimous consent, ms. Eshoo has a letter we would like to have put on the record. I also ask unanimous consent the contents of the document binder be introduced to the record. Without objection, they will be entered to the record with any redactions stamped. I want to thank all the witnesses and members that participated in todays hearing. I remind members, they have ten Business Days to submit questions to the record. Thank you so much. We look forward to hearing from you more and well get you together. Thank you. Meeting adjourned. Our live coverage of the president ial race continues tonight. For the new york state primary. Join us at 9 00 eastern for election results, candidate speichers and viewer reaction. Taking you on the road to the white house on cspan, cspan radio, and cspan. Org. Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard a case about the president s plan to halt deportations for some undocumented immigrants with children who are in the country legally. The Supreme Court releases audio of the oral argument on friday. You can hear it friday night on cspan at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. The campaign 2016 bus continues its travels to visit winners from this years student cam competition. Our bus recently visited Spanish Springs hospital in nevada to recognize justice beth for her third prize documentary. Our bus and crew then headed to california to meet with student cam winners in that state, including a visit to Correia Middle School in san diego where congressman scott peters took part in the ceremony. And in elhombah, judy chu joins family and classmates to honor members for their winner documentary on Social Security called a sense of security. A special thanks to our cable partners, charter, comcast, cox, and Time Warner Cable for helping to coordinate these Community Viz tsdz. Remember, every week day this month on cspan, be sure to watch one of the top 21 winning entries at 6 50 a. M. Eastern before washington journal. President obama delivers his last speech at the white house Correspondents Dinner a week from saturday. And coming up this saturday, cspan takes a look at some of his previous speeches from past dinners. No one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than the donald. And thats because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter. Like did we fake the moon landing . What really happened in roswell . And where are biggy and tupac . All kidding aside, obviously, we all know about your credentials and breadth of experience. For example, seriously, just recently in an episode of Celebrity Apprentice at the steakhouse, the Mens Cooking Team did not impress the judges from omaha steaks. And there was a lot of blame to go around. But you, mr. Trump, recognized that the real problem was a lack of leadership. And so ultimately, you didnt blame little john or meatloaf. You fired gary busey. And these are the kinds of decisions that would keep me up at night. Cspans look at the president s past speeches from the white house corresponds dinner is saturday night on cspan at 10 00 eastern. The special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction says a Pentagon Program to stabilize the economy in afghanistan is inefficient and poorly managed. He testified before the House Armed Services subcommittee on oversight and investigations last friday. Welcome. Im delighted to convene this hearing. Overseeing the investment of taxpayer dollars is extremely important. Its one of the core responsibilities we assume as representatives of the people. I know Ranking Members fear and others of this committee find this obligation equally significant. In the years since september 11th, 2001, the department of defense has been in a fight against emboldened terrorists. Congress met the increased National Security demands by significantly enhancing the departments base budget and the overseas Contingency Operations fund to address new threats and meet new requirements. Since 2010, congress has slashed defense spending by 1. 3 trillion, however, and today, were realizing significant negative impacts within the department of defense based on those decisions. Readiness of all our armed forces is at an alltime low. Our fair force is smaller and older than when it was conceived in 1947. Our navy has fewer ships to meet an ever increasing operations tempo. Our ground and amphibious forces have still yet to recapitalize and reset from past years of compat operations and most unfortunate is that our standing among our partners is allies leaves many questioning u. S. Commitment and resolve to navigate through the multitude of emergent security challenges we face as a nation and leader of the free world. China is rising, russia is resurgent and emboldened. Iran is beginning to flourish militarily from a good deal they g got from our nuclear negotiations. North korea consistently acts out against its neighbors as it tries to achieve nuclear capability, and extremist ideologies are spreading through the northeast and other parts of the world at alarming rates. In addition, my service on this committee, im also privileged to serve on the house Budget Committee. Many other members of the Budget Committee and i are concerned about the combination of these emerging threats and the desperately low levels of funding were dephovoting to defense against the current and developing National Security threats. The picture is clear. These threats cannot go unaddressed, and our National Defense is in need of more resources to insure our National Security and the common defense is secure. At the same time, it would be very difficult for anyone in this room to dismiss our countrys current 19 trillion in debt and as representatives of those who are ultimately on the hook for that debt, the taxpayers, we will be neglectful not to investigate and scrutinize how their tax dollars are being spent. We need to be able to look our colleagues and our constituents in the eye, to sincerely assure them were doing everything we can to oversee wise investments. That brings us to the heart of our hearing today. Were here to examine a number of cases coming from the later stages of operations in iraq and afghanistan to investigate how taxpayer dollars were spent and determine what if any changes need to be made Going Forward to assure the people their tax dollars are being spent responsibly. Nation building is not a core responsibility of the department of defense. Yet as major combat operations in iraq and afghanistan began to subside in 2010, the department shouldered much of the po posthostility responsibility. Primarily because it is large enough and has the ability to provide immediate resources and capabilities. Consequentially, the department of defense established the task force for business Stability Operations, first in iraq, and then again in afghanistan in 2010. With similar and parallel goals to support the transition away from war. What is known as phase four and phase five efforts. The task force case studies we plan to discuss today include the afghan compressed natural Gas Infrastructure project, the italian cashmere goat project, and the task force utilized in afghanistan. But not all in prudent spending decisions occur during Contingency Operations. For example, as the department of defense Inspector General reported there have been problems with the aviation spare parts supply chain. While its extremely important that we scrutinize the departments purchases to insure theyre smart and reasonable, its just as important that we use all means necessary to get our taxpayers money back or Exchange Parts from venlders who may have supplied part that did not meet contractualquirements or technical specifications. If our airmen receive the wrong or defective parts, we must make it right by the taxpayer. Again, i reiterate the importance of hearings such as this one. We live in a world of vast expanding threats that require a robust and full response. If were going to use hard earned tax tallers to fulfill our obligation to provide for the common defense, we owe it to the taxpayers to rigorously scrutinize how the dollars are spent and the qualifications of those making spending decisions. I look forward to exploring and learning more about these certain highprofile case studies which as department of defense investigators have reported, may have benefitted from more exacting standards of how those investments are made. I turn to the subcommittee Ranking Member for any opening remarks she wishes to make. Thank you, madam chair. And i thank our witnesses for being here today. I want to especially thank mrmr. Mr. Shop, and ms. Wicecarver for the services you provide to our country. Todays hearing includes discussing a herd of cashmere goats. Yes, goats. Dod spent millions of dollarsen a project involved shipping male italian goats to afghanistan to be meated with female afghan goats in order to make cashmere. Too bad many of the female goats were already infected with a disease that could have wiped out the entire herd. Too bad that only two of those fancy italian goats are still usable in the project. I think we can safely say that manufacturing warm, fluffy sweaters are not the key to economic recovery in afghanistan. Nor is it in dods expertise. But thats not all. Dod also wasted money on an unused coal storage facility, an unsustainable business incubator, and one of the most expensive gas stations in the world. The special Inspector General for afghan reconstruction estimates the gas station alone cost 43 million. Now, we can quibble about how much it really cost, but in the end, it cost over 43 million. And a gas station in pakistan, similar to the gas station, cost only 200,000. Today, we are going to discuss two dysfunctional dod programs that are desperately in need of oversight and budgetary common sense. The first is dods illconceived and badly executed uaaid knockoff. The task force for business and Stability Operations. Tfbso for short. Starting in afghanistan in 2010, tfbso was supposed to Catalyze Economic Development in support of the military. But according to sigar, they have received more complaints, more complaints about fraud, waste, and abuse over the last two years than any other organization operating in afghanistan. Even compared with the old boondoggles in afghanistan, the short sightedness and sheer absurdity of the projects is mind boggling. Theyre tailor made ammunition for critics of our misadadventurer here. Well also discuss poor practices which put our service men and women at risk. At the core of this hearing is what do we have to show for our money . For tfbso, i can say the answer to the question is not much. Heres what we got for the nearly 1 billion, nearly 1 billion spent at tfbso activities. A defunkt cashmere goat farm, private villas for staff, and an outrageously expensive gas station. Is that it . We dont know since the pentagon apparently no longer possessed the expertise to address the question. Were there any successes or sustainable accomplishments from tfbso, or should we have left Economic Development to uaa. I. D. And the state department instead of using the military as untrained aid workers . As they recently said, tasking dod to do development is, quote, like giving the Postal Service the mission to run our drones in afghanistan. Unquote. The dod igs report is equally damming on aviation, and the problemed associated with defective parts. For example, the dod ig found defective tiedown straps used to attach oxygen hoses to pilots helmets remained there after the air force reported they should be recalled. The flaw was severe. The ties did not hold the hose to the mask, which could have caused the loss of oxygen to crew members during flight. The frightening part is these defective ties may still be in dla inventory. This and other poor oversight and procedures are projected to have cost taxpayers 12. 3 million in unrecovered funds over just six months. Unfortunately, this is old news. Past dod ig reports have found that the dla has regularly overpaid for spare parts and badly manages their bloated inventory. Today, i would like to know what the dod has learned from the sigar reports, has oversight and coordination been improved or will it be improved . Or does the dod tend to go on wasting taxpayer money on italian goats and defective spare parts . We have to remember that we have many competing uses for funding. And wasted funds hurt our troops and their readiness. This is the kind of stuff that belongs on last week tonight with john olver. Not as a subject of a congressional hearing. On behalf of the department of defense, i apologize to the american taxpayers for the wasteful spending thats gone on, and with that, i yield back. Thank you. Im pleased to recognize our witnesses. I want to thank them for making the time to be with us. Today, we have mr. John sopko, the special Inspector General for afghanistans reconstruction. Ms. Jacqueline wiwicecarver, an mr. Charlie lilli, the Deputy Director of aviation and head of aviation contracting activity from the Defense Logistics Agency. Thank you all for being with us here today. So well begin now with your Opening Statements. Mr. Sopko. Thank you very much. Cha chairwoman, Ranking Members and members of the subcommittee im pleased to be here to discuss sigars activity in afghanistan and our review of dods task force for business Stability Operations known as tfbso and three specific aspects of that operation that the chairwoman asked me to look at or to comment on. The first one dealt with the construction of a compressed Natural Gas Program in afghanistan. Tfbso spent approximately 43 million to construct such a gas filling station in afghanistan. The project was intended to take advantage of afghanistans natural gas reserves and reduce the countrys reliance on expensive imported gas. However, sigar has been unable to find any evidence that tfbso considered the myriad potential obstacles to the success of the project, including the lack of a natural Gas Transmission and distribution infrastructure, the cost of converting gas powered cars to run on compressed natural gas, as well as the lack of a market. As a result, the project failed. The second project you wished us to discuss has to do with tfbsos spending of 150 million or approximately 20 of their overall budget, on providing private villas and security for their staff while in afghanistan. To date, again, sigar, as well as the office of the secretary of defense policy shop, have been unable to find any evidence that tfbso conducted a cost benefit analysis of quote unquote living on the economy. Rather than in u. S. Government facilities in afghanistan. In fact, in a memo from june 2011, then tfbso director Paul Brinkley directed all tfbso personnel in afghanistan to move back to u. S. Military bases by august of that year. It remains unclear to this day as to why mr. Brinkleys directive went unimplemented for another two years. The third issue you wished us to address has to deal with goats. And as i think Ranking Member spiers and congresswoman has mentioned, you may wonder why im talking about goats, and the Armed Services committee and not the agriculture committee. But tfbso spent millions of dollars to bolster afghanistans cashmere industry. The purpose of the program was to breed lighter haired afghan goats, which would yield a higher price on the international market. To do so, tfbso paid to have nine italian goats and ten tujeek goats imported to afghanistan. Ultimately, this program also failed, because it was overly ambitious, poorly staffed, poorly managed by tfbso, and in essen essence, what they tried to do in a couple years would normally have taken decades. It also, as i said, was a failure. Tfbso and these three instances apparently lacked effective oversight, project development, and execution. In addition, our comprehensive review of tfbsos operations in afghanistan have identified three broader challenges. Tfbso did not have a clear strategy. Secondly, it lacked a focus and consistent management and leadership team. And lastly, it did not coordinate its efforts with other u. S. Agencies. One may ask why does any of this matter now . Tfbso has closed its doors. The money has been spent. And to be quite honest with you, i doubt if well recover any of that nrly billion dollars. However, you have to remember theres 12 billion still in the pipeline. This is money thats been authorized and appropriated to be spent in afghanistan. We have also promised a decade of support at 6 billion to 8 billion a year in afghanistan. So despite these commitments, management, the management available to oversee these massive efforts has decreased. This means that learning from past experiences is more important than ever. If we are to protect future taxpayer dollars. Before the u. S. Contemplates similar endeavors either in afghanistan or elsewhere, several questions must be answered. And the most fundamental being, should dod be tasked with Economic Development operations during future Contingency Operations . Sigar will continue to do its part to help answer these questions about the task force as well as other questions about our operations in afghanistan and im happy to answer any questions at your pleasure. Thank you, mr. Sopko. Ms. Wicecarver. Thank you, and good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you to discuss our audit of the Defense Logistics Agency aviation process, to obtain restitution for contractors that provided defective spare parts. We audited dlas product quality deficiency reporting process, a product quality deficiency report identifies problems in parts design, workmanship, specifications, material, and other nonconforming conditions. Our first two audits focused on the dla aviation supply chain. An ongoing audit is on the dla land and maritime supply chain. Today, i will discuss the second report on dla aviations processes to obtain restitution from contractors for defective parts. I request the report be submitted for the record. Based on our sampling of 65 items for 269 stock numbers contractors supplied defective parts, and dla did not recover at least 12. 3 million in restitution for those defective parts. We found dla aviation missed opportunities to hold poor performing contractors accountable, scomr for dod to receive the appropriate restitution. Dlas shortcomings in pursuing and obtaining restitution left defective parts unaccounted for in dod inventory, negatively impacted more fighters and safety and readiness. To pursue and obtain property contractor restitution, the dla needs to complete four steps, either independently or with assistance from other designated p personnel such as users or contract management agencies. Dla did not insure that contractors responsible for defective parts were contacted and restitution was pursued. Dla did not adequately research dod inventory to remove and to identify and remove defective parts. While dla usually searched its own depots for defective parts, it rarely notified dod customers to search their inventory for defective parts. Dla did not always return defective parts to responsible contractors to receive replacements or provide instructions to dod customers or dla depot holding defective parts. And did not follow up to insure that the instructions provided were properly implemented. Finally, dla did not properly track and maintain oversight of defective parts, returned to contractors to insure that appropriate restitution was received. In most cases, a failure to successfully complete any one of these steps prevented or limited dlas ability to pursue and obtain appropriate restitution for the defective parts. I would like to share two examples. One which congresswoman spier talked about, where the safety was jeopardized. First, the Maintenance Squadron in Edwards Air Force base issued a deficiency report in tie dow straps causing the straps broke causing loss of air to air members. These straps valued at 1 per 100 straps were considered crucial and were used to attach oxygen hoses to pilots helmets. They investigated the deficiency report and determined the contractor was responsible for the defect. The contract had delivered 52,314 tiedown straps on the contract. In response, dla searched its depots and located 16,701 of the defective tiedown straps. The remaining 36,613 of the tiedown straps were unaccounted for in the supply system. The second example, we reviewed a deficiency report investigation for the c5 aircraft that had defective copilot control wheels. Valued at about 36,000 each. The 436 Maintenance Squadron at Dover Air Force base in delaware initiated this deficiency report and stated that the improperly manufactured parts prevented the control Wheel Assembly from being properly installed. The deficiency report further stated that continuously changing the component caused a work stoppage hampering the ability to complete the required maintenance. They determined that the contractor had proved had provided 30 defective control wheels. The contractor replaced three control wheels and agreed to replace the other 27 upon receipt. Although dla instructed its depots to ship the control wheels to the contractor, it could not produce any evidence which asked that the control wheels were ever shipped or the restitution was received. For both examples, dla did not notify other customers who purchased the remaining defective parts and request a search for dod inventory. We made five recommendations in our report to dla to address the deficiencies identified in the odd lt. The director of dla agreed with the recommendations and stated dla would complete corrective actions. We did not receive formal written response outlining the status of the corrective actions. However, a dla official informed us several actions were planned or in congress. This concludes my statement and i will answer any questions you have regarding the audit. Thank you. Mr. Lilli. Good morning, chairman hartzier. Im charlie lilli, the Deputy Commander of the defense logist logisticsa logisticsavation. Of dla aviati. A field agency of the department of defense carved out logistics defense agency. Dlas mission is to provide effective and Global Solutions to valued customers. Were a Global Enterprise with nearly 5. 1 million lines through nine supply chains that provide ever conceivable item to military sources including food, medical supplies and Weapons Systems repair parts. Dla is relieved from 1,340 platforms and access to materiels and swelling grated from 1. 2 stock items. We delivered repair parts valued at roughly 4. 2 billion for those items for more than 4,500 unique suppliers. On average we receive about 2,000 deficiency reports annually. Of those about 20 , or 480 reports represent constructive material. We take very seriously our responsibility to identify defective parts from entering into the supply chain and ensure were a good steward for taxpayer dollars. We appreciate this opportunity to discuss the 2016 dod ig report to obtain process restitution from contractors that provide deficient spare parts. We concur with the recommendations. We agree that the oversight in management control of this Program Needs to be strengthened. And have taken aggressive action. Our First Priority was to ensure that the defective parts are removed from the supply chain to mitigate any impact on the safety. To that end, we immediately reviewed the entire population of product deficiency reports received at dla aviation over the last 24 months and have taken the necessary action to segregate and freeze the defective stock until proper disposition can be determined. In addition, we alerted the customers about the potential for defective parts and provided them with disposition instruction. As a result of our findings as a result of the findings documented in the draft report published in october we updated our desktop guides based on best practices across dla enterprise. These guides provide stepbystep procedures to ensure that materiels dispositioned as required. We conduct the training with all requires. And the new procedures implemented in the updated guides. We developed a plan to pursue restitution of any government and funds that the government is entitled to and well execute that plan over the next six months. Finally, were stopping both first line and senior oversight procedures, corporate met tricks and a surveillance program. As an enterprise of director of logist operations initiateded a review of all distinguish nancy reports discovered since january 2014 to validate removement of deficient items from inventories. In addition, drs established an enterprisewide supplier restitution working group consisting of Cross Functional Team members who will thoroughly evaluate the requirements for enhanced oversight of the process. Examining from a process and systems perspective. What changes would be required to improve visibility and facilitate the resolution of these cases. Madam chairwoman, distinguished Committee Members we have gained valuable insight from the dod ig and we appreciate any feedback that improves our support to our work and strengthening our management controls. As a remired navy flight officer, as the father of two daughters, both naval officers, one currently deployed in the middle east. And the fatherinlaw of a d22 pilot also deployed to the middle east, i assure that no one takes this position more seriously than i do. Thank you for your opportunity to testify today. I welcome your questions. Thank you to all the witnesses for your testimony. This is very, very important, not only to National Security, but to the lives of servicemembers. I want to start with miss wicecarver and mr. Lilly, because were talking about two areas of waste and inefficien inefficiencies that we want to discuss. One was from the past as mr. Sopko indicated. The program has ended but we have lessons there. And we want to talk about that for the future. But i want to start with you because this is something that is currently going right now as we have pilots in the air and we have planes flying, we want to make sure that the parts in those planes are up to the specifications they need to be and no war fighter is in danger. Ms. Wicecarver, it has appeared that the defective parts dl assessment received from the vendors made it into the Services Supply chain. Did your team find any instances in which any of the defective parts were installed in any end items as Replacement Parts for repair or returned to service . Madam chairwoman, we did not find as a result of this but we know they were in the supply chain because they left 36,000 plus straps in the supply chain. We know its there. We dont know if theyd been in a flight put in. Customers were not notified. But i believe they are in the supply chain and should be pulled. So, mr. Lilly, what are you doing to try to find the 36,000 potential parts still out there . The way we go about identifying parts that in the customers inventory is provide what we call a supply alert. Each inventory has a screening which is responsible for alerting them to potential deficiencies of the parts. Were to have them notify and coordinate the materiels to the defense depots. As a result of the audit, when alerted to this incident, we went back and ensured that that notification was sent. And we sent an additional notification to once again reinforce the fact that we have this potential it will be dependent now, though, and well dont work with the services to try to identify the parts that are in the inventory and pull them back. In addition to all of this, in in 2008, this particular its a zip tie. A small about twoinch piece of plastic. Ziptie that you put on to hold that host to the helmet. Those zip ties were identified with several other sizes of zip tie in 2008 as a potential problem and in 2008, the inventory in dla warehouses was frozen and has been frozen since that time and in 2008, those particular zip ties were included in a larger suspension where our customers were notified. So weve back in 2008 those by the way, those particular products have remained in litigation since 2008. That litigation was finally cleared in 2014. The result of that litigation was that the customer representative that faced the department of defense for that company was disbarred. No longer available or allowed to do business with us. And we refine that company and received 400,000 back for the die efficient material. Thats good. Didnt you just complete your audit fairly recently . Yes, maam. In february 2015 i mean, 2016. Were in april of 2016. You just released this in february. I understand, mr. Lilli, youve only had a couple of months to start making corrective action. We appreciate your commitment to doing that and steps youve taken. What procedures will you follow to track this 36,000 ties that are out there that are defective . So, youve sentence sent the alert. How will you know whether they have turned them back in or recovered them . Is there a checklist . How will have you assurance that this has been taken care of . As a result of the audit, weve taken several steps to improve and strengthen our processes. One of the steps weve established is the creation of a position we call the product efficiency report coordinator. We have now assigned one person, an individual who is going to be responsible for monitoring pqdrs from the day that they are established in the system, to the day that the material is actually returned back to the system as repaired or refunded to us. And so this person will be responsible in this particular case for now picking up that tracking to ensure that number one any material thats identified in the Inventory System is returned to us and that we then send it in this case because of the low dollar value and the unavailability of a manufacturer to repair the ties that will be destroyed and get a refund for this. Now, i understand youve only had two months to get starts on this. But how will how much of the 12. 3 billion dollars million dollars. 12. 3 million estimated worth of restitution that is recoverable from defective parts, how much of that do you anticipate that well be able to get . And how will we know as members of congress how much of that has been recovered . We are conducting a comprehensive review of all of the pqdrs we have on file. Currently we have gotten through half of them. There are 1,077 total over that time period. Weve gone through half of them and determined that for those pqdrs, weve recovered 3. 5 million as part of our normal process. Those are things that had been recovered before the audit. Thats not to say theres a lot of material out there. We completely agree that where our process broke down is after the alert. We didnt have a good mechanism to track as has been pointed out in the hearing, the followon return to the supply system and back to the vendor. We have 500 now pqdrs were working as a result of our comprehensive review. We have a lynn by lynn, stepbystep procedure, to go and take each one of the 500, we have invent in the system that will require for us to discuss with the suppliers that provided them a restitution plan whether that be that will ship those 500 items back to the supplier for repair and then returned to us. Whether theyll pay us to fix them internally in our organic deposes or just pay it back. We intend to continue that progress through august of this summer. Very good. I know i have other questions for all of you, mr. Sopko, but im going to let my colleagues ask their questions and move on and then well come back to another. Miss speier. Thank you, madam chair, deputy Inspector General wicecarver, this is not the first report thats been done on dla to suggest that they are not doing their job, is it . No, maam, weve issued several reports. How many . We have 16 reports that we issued over a number of years on the parts and inventory area. And in your estimation, has dla been responsive to these reports . Theyve tried in the most part, yes. And in your review this time, you looked at just a few parts, wasnt it, just about 65 parts that you arbitrarily picked out of the 5 million . We actually did a statistical sampling and came up with 65, thats so that we could get our arms around, if you will, what were going to audit and try to do them in a timely manner. And so we do statistical sampling so we can project the across a whole of the parts. You took 65 and of those 65, you were able to determine that at least one in particular was so defective that it could put at risk those pilots flying planes because this part had been determined to be defective when . These straps . I dont recall. Id have to take that for the record exactly when the Edwards Air Force base Maintenance Group found it. Id have to take that back. But was it a year ago, do you think . Three years ago . I think and i in 2012, mr. Charlie says. 2012 were made aware this is a defective part and place our pilots at risk. And by happenstance, deputy specter wicecarver does this statistical sample which includes these straps and finds out it is still in the supply chain. That to me is frightening. How long have you been in your post, mr. Lilli . Three years. So certainly it was already deemed defective when you came into your post, correct . Correct. And nothing had happened relative to this item until the Inspector General did a report and now you are taking steps . Do we need a report from the Inspector General to get the department of defense dla to take defective parts out of the supply chain. No, maam, we have procedures in place. Why didnt these get removed . As i stated, in 2008, all of these parts were frozen in inventory what does frozen mean . It means that we code them its a code in our Distribution System computers that prevents any issuing of that material so if a customer requisitions it, its from dla stock and not allowed to be issued and theres no way it could happen. So, what what i mentioned earlier was in 2008, this part along with several other parts manufactured by the same company was frozen in stock. There were 16,000 of those straps issued before the first quality deficiency report was received. Those were in the customer inventory. We alerted in 2008 the all supply customers of the fact that these straps and other sizes in addition were at potential defective parts and at that time that material was screened and the material should have been returned back. If a sailor or soldier or airman had some stock in their bin and missed the lot screening, thats possible. Maybe that material stayed in the supply system, but once again, as a result of the audit, we reissued those notifications to ensure that and ask our Service Partners to go and search their inventory to ensure that nothing that this material would be removed, if possible. Mr. Lilli, i dont have a lot of confidence in dlas response, generally. I think the fact that the Inspector General has done all of these reports and there are still problems should make us all pause. As it relates to the 12. 3 million that is due the taxpayers in restitution for these faulty parts, i would like for you to report back to this committee on a regular basis until we know confidently that restitution has been sought and received for all of these defective parts. Inspector general sopko, you said in previous congressional testimony that data was missing from the hard drive provided by dod and forensic accountants were reviewing to determine if the data had been manipulated. Has that review been concluded . Yes, it has. And although we cant tell if it was manipulated, we think we dont have all of the data. And it could just be that the reports are so poor at tfbso that they dont just dont have the data. When the tfbso program wasnt doing well for a number of years, and yet it was on autopilot it seems to me based on your report, from your perspective, how do we prevent the wasteful spending of almost a billion dollars on a program like tfbso when, you know, a quarter of the way through, half of the way through, its clear that its not working . You know, thats a very good question. And i dont have a great answer for it. Reports were filed with congress. Im not certain that those reports were accurate and were truthful and really reflected what was going on. And im certain having worked in congress myself as a staffer, you are inundated with reports. I dont even know if anybody even noted those reports. I think a critical problem you had with tfbso, was that it was a knew mission for the department of defense, and nobody planned for having extra oversight over that new mission. And it was almost like a perfect storm. That Program Reported to the secretary of defenses office. Now the secretary of defense has many things on his plate but operating a billion Dollar Program is usually not something hes going to focus, or shes going to focus on. Later they moved it down to the deputy secretary of defenses for reporting. Again, he doesnt really run daytoday operations. It was reporting to the wrong spot in dod. Lastly, they moved it down to report to the policy shop, the undersecretary of defense for policy. Again, may be very good in policy, but normally, the policy shop does not oversee the daytoday operations of an agency. And i think that was one of the critical problems. And nobody really read the reports and the warning signs i know somebody House Armed Services committee raised concerns about this Program Early on, and then some of the legislation raised those concerns. But apparently it fell through the cracks. Well, we somehow sometimes think were doing our job when we put report language in. And then they dont report to us. And nothing transpires. This gas station that cost 43 million, the one in pakistan cost between 200,000 and 300,000, we then actually equip some afghan vehicles so that they could take cng, correct . That is correct, maam. What a hair brain idea when to retrofit these vehicles is equivalent to the salary for an afghani for a year. That is correct, maam. And again, it goes back to common sense which this program didnt have. Cost benefit analysis do a cost benefit analysis and it doesnt seem anyone did a real cost benefit analysis on this program. You would have seen there were inherent problems. Everyone had written you have to have an infrastructure in place. There is no infrastructure in afghanistan. You have to have a market. There is no market. And that is just a repetition weve seen through almost all of the tfbso programs. My last question, in your comments, you said this is one of the worst programs you have investigated in afghanistan, i believe you said, the most waste, the most fraud. When were you first made aware of it . I think i started to hear complaints almost when i started the job four years ago, but it was a relatively Small Program in comparison. Remember, weve spent 113 billion here. So we had put it on our audit schedule a couple years ago and we came out with our first audit, i believe on the mineral section and then we did two audits in that. So, its been in our view for at least two or three years. Again, thank you both Inspector General sopko and and deputy Inspector General wicecarver for your great service. I yield back. Thank you madam chair and mr. Lilli, thank you for straightening out what i was discussing with mr. Conway over here, and that at a penny a piece it sounded like a zip tie to me, something most of us probably have. You can walk down to a walmart oc or cvs or certainly any Hardware Store would have them. And so 523. 14 worth of zip ties by my calculation, 52,314 at a penny a piece. Im sorry youre getting brow beaten over a zip tie or 52,000 of them to be honest with you. I wonder how much money this has gone on over the zip ties since 2008, is that right . Correct, sir. We have five members of Congress Staff is, we have three of you here, and were talking about zip ties. I mean, if i put one on something and it breaks, i would simply put two of them on the next time if it wouldnt hold. And i mean, the people that i know that work in the air force that are pilots that get our men and women and aviators ready to roll, they are smart enough to know if one zip tie wont work, maybe you use two. If you use a different size one. Is it possible to calculate how much money the government has spent and taxpayers have spent over 523 worth of zip ties . In trying to find them. Oh, i cant answer that. We could probably come up with an estimate. Its a lot of money. Would you agree you could buy a zip tie at any Hardware Store out there . Well, sir, this you can get those zip ties at any Hardware Store but because of regulations and processes we have to do, we buy them from qualified sources probably wouldnt go to lowes. Wed have to follow it. Youre right, its the same type of zip tie thats out there. And i just wonder yeah, how much as a private business owner, i would never spend 10,000 or 100,000 or however much money has been spent from 2008 to 2014 over 523 worth of zip ties. Im somewhat taken aback that were even discussing zip ties. Anyway, mr. Sopko, the full financial audit for tfbso activities, has this begun, and if so, when can we expect that audit to be complete . And is it going to go so far that its going to identify parts that are a penny apiece and maybe how much money was spent trying to find zip ties . Well, i dont think were going to be looking at zip ties. Youd agree, obviously, someone has spent an awful lot of money more money has been spent searching for the zip ties than the zip ties cost . It appears that way, sir. Remember, im not doing the zip tie investigation. On tfbso, we were asked by senator ayotte on the senate side to conduct a financial audit, as well as a Program Audit. The Program Audit i believe has were putting that together, and if it hasnt started, its about ready to start. And were going to just you know, a Program Audit is a little different than a financial audit. The financial audit, i dont believe weve started that yet. Weve also been joined, asked by senator grassley to conduct both of those. So theres a lot of interest on the other side. I look forward to seeing that. And ill yield the remainder of my time. Im under a minute. Thank you, gentlemen. Now we go to ms. Graham. Thank you, madam chairwoman. Thank you all very much for being here today. My question is in the category of Lessons Learned. Inspector general sopko, you mentioned in your written testimony that a major source of tfbsos issues in afghanistan is that it didnt implement any changes based on the experience in iraq. That is correct. Is there now a formal system for capturing Lessons Learned and what are your recommendations for ensuring that they are incorporated into future protocol . Some agencies of the government have a formal structure to capture Lessons Learned. The department of defense is probably the best one for doing that. And the various agencies of the department of defense. So the air force, the army, the marines, will be doing their Lessons Learned. And hopefully those will be applied. The biggest problem we see, congresswoman, is that theres no whole of government approach to Lessons Learned. If one thing we learned in afghanistan and iraq, its not only the dod is going to be there, state departments going to be there. A. I. D is going to be there. And our allies. And no one is doing that. And actually, we are doing that at the recommendation of general allen. I remember him coming over and saying laying that out to me. He says, dod will do a pretty good job, but the next time we do this, when youre going to a provincial reconstruction team, there will be spots for a. I. D. And state and all the other government entities, but nobody has that jurisdiction. Dod will do what theyre doing, but nobody is doing the whole of government. So were actually embarking upon that at the suggestion of general allen and other people. And were hoping to do that. The other thing i would seriously consider is neither state nor a. I. D. Have the system of doing Lessons Learned in their budget as well as the staffing to do it like dod does. And thats going to be an inherent problem. I would agree with you. In every facet of life, you need to learn from the past and do better in the future. Well, thank you, i guess. Mr. Lilli, i would ask the same question of you. Its not your fault, by the way, i understand, Inspector General. Is there a formal process by which dla has incorporated Lessons Learned into its processes and procedures . As a result of our audit, we learned a lot. And we have five recommendations that were implementing. As he mentioned earlier, weve taken and reviewed all the pprs to make sure that we recover all the money, and well report back as asked. Weve also frozen and made sure that stock is frozen so that it cant be reissued and alerted our customers. Weve also established some new procedures as a result of that. So what well be doing is creating that position called a pqdr coordinator in our supply center that will then track from the beginning to the end every time we receive, to ensure that we alert our customers as fast as possible, to ensure that the material is received and sent back to the suppliers for restitution. Weve also established some first line supervisor and Senior Leader oversight to include check lists that have to be signed as we go, to ensure that that process is done correctly. In addition to that, we have some corporate metrics now that we track the opening and closure of each one, the total age of each of those pdqrs. That is provided to the coordinator, myself and the attorney general, once a week. Well be tracking that to ensure that doesnt happen again. Those Lessons Learned from that audit and this review have been provided to the headquarters. As i mentioned earlier in testimony, the dla director has established a working group to take a look at the entire process across dla. And through that working group well take the lessons we learned, incorporate them into the overall review, and then come up with a total revision of the process that will hopefully be better and will allow us to have tighter control and execute our responsibilities for stewardship in a better manner. Thank you for that. I hope, mr. Inspector general, that we can learn from these lessons. And we need to be working together so we dont repeat the mistakes of the past. I dont know where to start with putting that in place. But it seems to me that when were working, as the United States of america is working overseas in various countries, all aspects of our country need to be working together to make sure were doing it efficiently and effectively. So im out of time. If you want to respond. I agree wholeheartedly with you. And hopefully our Lessons Learned program will help in that process. But remember, theres a difference between lessons observed and Lessons Learned. There are a lot of reports on the shelves, but very few people sometimes read them, and theyre not put into doctrine and put into the training. Before somebody goes back out to afghanist afghanistan, whether hes a Foreign Service officer or an a. I. D. Officer or a captain in the marines, he should be given a document which tells him what have we learned from afghanistan before, what have we learned from iraq, what have we learned from other experiences. And that is what people keep coming back to me. I mean, we do these audits. We do these reports. And i have been approached by many people in the administration and on the hill saying, what was does it mean and how do we do it . So i understand the frustration, and thats why weve this Lessons Learned program, weve put together and brought in some very bright people and trying to get buyin from the various agencies. Thats what general allen encouraged us to do. Were following on his guidance. Hopefully it will help. Great. I remain everhopeful. I appreciate it. Thank you. I yield back what time i do not have anymore. The ladys time has expired. Thats one of the reasons were having the hearing as well today, mr. Sopko, is so that we can flesh out the concerns we have had and learn as we go forward. Mr. Conaway from texas. Thank you. Just to make sure. Im a cpa, and my license is still current, so im one election from being back in public practice. I spent a lot of years auditing. Mr. Sopko, when you come to a circumstance like this filling station, gas station, it just absolutely makes no sense in hindsight. Did you have access to documents that were prepared and put in place and the decisionmaking processes that were there to come to these conclusions . When you have a circumstance that makes no sense, we typically dont have all the facts available to figure out how the decisionmakers, who unless you want to project malfeasance on them, were working to do the right thing. And did you look at how they got there and what the rationale was for it . To be honest with you, congressman, we did not have full access to the records. Okay. So the billion dollars spent, all of it was wasted. Is that your conclusion . No, not all of it. We did build a gas station. Thats a waste. But it was built. Okay. How well is it functioning today . Well im sorry. Im just trying to figure out. Theres 100 error. Did you find any successes whatsoever in the deal . We found a few successes. Okay. But the problem is, you know, we measure inputs, outputs, and outcomes. The output was you got a gas station. The output was you actually got 400 taxi drivers, i believe about 400, got their cars converted at u. S. Taxpayer expense. Theyre very happy. Im not trying to defend this deal. Im just trying to make sure that we understand the circumstances. Miss wicecarver, total dollars spent over your audit, not you personally, but your auditing, how much money was spent by the dla over those 16 audits that you reference to, total dollars spent . Trillions . Not a trillion, no, sir. We had about 300 just as an example, my dustup audit stat stuff, you do a statistical sample in order to find the error rate. Yes, sir. You found the error with the zip ties. Your overall conclusions on your statistical sample, what is your error rate . 90 to 95 , sir. So 95 of what dla spent, they spent wrong . Of the sample that we collected. So did you expand your sample . No, sir. Why not . Because we had enough of no. I want to make sure i get the record straight here. They spent half a billion dollars . Not on this not on these parts, sir. No, no. Why would you do a statistical sample if youre not trying to extrapolate that over the bigger youre fought going to look at that all the parts, is that what youre saying . How many parts in your universe, maam . 269. And you audited 65 of it . Yes, sir. Okay. And of that, youre saying that of those 269 parts that you audited, 95 of the money spent was spent incorrectly . We werent talking about the dollars spent. We looked at actually the product deficiency reports they were reporting and how it all equals dollars and cents, i understand that, but i would have to go back to the record specifically what it is were talking about. We just projected of the 269 parts, your conclusion would be that 95 of those parts were deficient . No, sir. We had 95 confidence rate on our sampling, is what im saying. No, maam. Thats not what you said. My question was, what was the overall projected error rate within the overall universe. You said 95 . I understand that 65 is representative of the whole. What im asking, of the 65 that was wrong, that you found wrong, how much of that you say is in the full universe of 269 parts. Of the 65 that you audited, how many of those had problems . Im sorry. How many of those had had audit deficiencies that brought this conclusion that the zip ties were out of whack. Well, we have many examples in our report of the audit. Ill have to take it for the record. I guess i dont understand. Are you an auditor yourself . Yes, i am. Why would you use a statistical sample of a universe . Whats the point of statistically sampling rather than looking at the whole universe . Timeliness. Of the report so we can get the evidence out to the agency. Isnt it to look at a small sample, if you dont have any errors in that small sample, youre 95 confident that the rest of the university is okay . Isnt that a better estimate aches of why you statically sampled something. You picked 65 on a statistically sound basis. So we dont have to look at all 229. We looked at the 65 and the error rates in the 65 leads us to believe that the universe of 269 is either good or bad. So what im trying to figure out is, you found the error with this one part, however insignificant it might be. But because it was statistically picked, it has a greater significance to the overall conclusions. If you cant get the Little Things right, youre not going to get the big things right. So you look to 65, you got at least one, zip ties, which you had a problem with. What else did you find among the 65 that you then projected to the greater inventory . As i said, we found many of the 69 that had problems. Okay. I dont have no, maam, i dont have a clue what the word many means. 65. We got a discrete universe of items looked at. For the record, would you please get back to us with a better explanation on whats the value of the statistical sample was. If youre not going to use it from a statistical sample was, why wouldnt you look at the top ten most expensive parts . And look at those as opposed to looking at zip ties. You only picked zip ties because youre trying to get all right. On the failure of the zip ties, and i know im passed my time, mr. Lilli, did the zip tie fail when it was snugged up against the when did it fail, and what did that failure result in . When we use the words war fighters are put at risk, those are pretty inflammatory words, those are words we ought to Pay Attention to. Help us put in context, theres an air hose coming off the helmet, going to somewhere in the cockpit. You snug it up with the zip tie. What was the point of failure . Sir, actually the failure was discovered as they were putting the zip ties on the hose itself. So in the routine maintenance, i read the pdqr that was submitted and in the routine so the point of failure is known before the helmet goes on the pilots head and before he takes off, off the ground . In the case of this particular pdqr, exactly right. Well, if we cant use, from a statistically valid standpoint, miss wicecarver, if you cant project the audit of the zip tie to a greater use than what appears to be the case, then i would have to agree with my colleague that we may have missed the boat. I would rather you look at the top ten most expensive parts of your 269 rather than i yield back. Im sorry. Im a little frustrated. I yield back. The gentlemans time has expired. Thank you, madam chairwoman. Let me just follow up on the previous line of discussion. I was in the military for 26 years. And i often would call them lessons identified, not Lessons Learned. And when you say the military is the best at it, we have some significant shortcomings. Were good at having conferences and maybe writing things down. But because of some of the things that were identified even in here because of high turnover and, you know, motivated people trying to bring their own bright ideas into the new assignment, we are reinventing the wheel all the time in the military. When i read the testimony, and we look at the details of these failures, it is just infuriating to me, honestly. My last assignment was at u. S. Africa command. We were intended to try to have a whole of government combat and command. We had members of usaid on staff. We would often see, how we, the military, want to go in there and fix everything, whether its a disaster, whatever, even if we have no no idea what were doing. Our job is to fight and kill people and break things, and we find ourselves in these situations where were doing things totally outside our competencies for a variety of reasons. Its infuriating to see after all weve learned, were still doing stupid things like this. A waste of taxpayer money. Our readiness, our personnel. Its infuriating to see this much money wasted in the department of defense for bright ideas that absolutely failed. What i dont even understand, it isnt about Lessons Learned, its about, were stove piped on the front end, we dont have the same chain of command, we dont have the same funding lines. So we can have a little love fest as were coordinating things but in reality we dont have the same title and lines of funding. And so i dont even get like what the authorities were that allowed them to do this. Can you just explain to me how the pentagon thought this was a good idea and under what authorities they had to do this as opposed to letting the lead federal agencies and those that are experts in these areas taking the lead . Congresswoman, i experience and feel your anger. And the absurdity of some of these things. If it wasnt the fact that we lost nearly 2300 lives in afghanistan, most of what we found could probably appear on comedy central. Its ridiculous. I cannot believe some things i have uncovered. And i am outraged too. I worked on the hill for 15 years for sam nunn and i thought i saw some really boneheaded moves. This is the ultimate bonehead. This is the ultimate. I wish i could answer your question on the authority because the authority is kind of mixed on the tfbso. It started in iraq really not to do contracting, just to sort of fix things with the industry. Then it morphed into a contracting role. And initially, the secretary of defenses general counsels office raised concerns that this whole thing was illegal. Right. Whats the funding stream . Is this oco money . I believe it was oco money. How are we using oco money to build villas and gas stations . This is were trying to find it. We still havent found theres a memo issued by the office of the secretary of defense. This is why im so frustrated. And your colleague has hit the frustration point. This program didnt disappear in 1944. This isnt like something that harry truman ran. This program went out of existence less than a year ago, and i could not find a soul in the department of defense who could explain any of these questions. I call this a rare case of amnesia in the department of defense. I had to fight to get those records, which congresswoman speier asked me about. The amount of records i got for tfbso are fewer than one of my staff has on her cell phone, the gigabytes. So this is the most bizarre investigation ive done. And ive gotten so much pushback from the Defense Department on this 1 billion program. Now, we have looked at some of the major parts of this. But i follow the lead of your colleague. Were not you know, theres many more billions of dollars that have been wasted and at stake. So we did not want to focus on tfbso. I did not want to turn this sigar into the tfbso Inspector General. Theres many more problems out there. But every time we open a rock or uncover a rock, something crawls out which just sort of you cant understand. This is a mystery to me, how this program got into action and why it survived. So if there were no authorities for spending this money, what accountability is happening . If somebody is illegally spending taxpayers money, where is the accountability on that . It was added to, if im not mistaken, to the authorization act. So it was authorized at one time. Initially it came from oco. I think it was, and i dont want to misspeak, i would have to ask my colleagues. Yes, fy11, im told, service authorized in the nda, prior to that. Whats interesting is that in fy11, thats when the head of the organization basically says, we ought to shut the thing down, it cant operate. And that was ignored. Right. And then theyre spending more. I know im out of time. How can we make sure here, and ill follow up for the record, that Something Like this never, ever, ever happens again . Everybody needs to stay in their lanes. Fight and win americas wars, military. Usaid does Economic Development. We need to make sure this never happens again. I would love to follow up on that. And im out of time. Well try. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you. I want to talk about the authority. There was brian mckuuan, the Principal Deputy under secretary of defense for policy who was invited to attend today, and due to a family prearranged activity he wasnt able to be here. I believe he appeared before the senate Armed Services committee. But i did submit his testimony, which i have read. And in there it talks about how in fiscal year 2014, congress made an amendment to a law, you know, authorizing for this program to continue. So i think congress has a role in this as well. So, you know, we need to certainly, as members of congress in the future, have a very Important Role in the future in deciding whether we do Something Like this again or how we apply these Lessons Learned. Thats one of the reasons were having this hearing today, to go back and say, hey, did it work, is it wise, and should we ever do that again. I did want to also ask you, mr. Sopko, about the amount of money spent. Because in mr. Brian mckuuans tell that i have read here, he says there was 800 billion, there were obligated, 600 billion that was dispersed. So i would assume the department of defense would say that they spent around 600 billion on this, rather than the 1 billion that is being thrown out today in this hearing. So which is it . How much would you say is more accurate for how much was spent on the program . 800 million was obligated, but only 600 was i say only, thats still a lot of money. Our review was, as you said, 822 million was authorized, and 759 million was obligated. How much was disbursed of that . How much was spent . Were actually doing the audit. We dont have that number. Okay. So thats just something for us to be aware. But that is still a tremendous amount of money. Secondly, we havent talked about the villas. I wanted to ask you about that. Your testimony states that tfbso spent 150 million to reside and operate out of the villas. And you brought a picture of those here for us today. Did the tfbso use funding to build the villas or did another Government Agency do the construction . No, the villas were not built by us. These were all rentals. We rented the villas from afghans. What time period does the 150 million cost cover . Well, for almost as long as they were there. As soon as they came over from iraq, they pursued using it on the economy like that. And until although the director brinkley said to bring them back in august of 2011, they continued in the villas until i believe the end of the program, which would have been the end of 2014, if im not mistaken. It seems like i read perhaps in mr. Mcewens testimony, three years . That would be about right. So 50 million a year. That included the security as well as you talk about a lot of the amenities that were in there, which the 27inch flatscreen tv, queensize bed, menus for the catering of two entries every night, options onsite. So certainly not what i would think our soldiers would be eating and how they would have been living over there. I know its not quite the same. How do you account for Paul Brinkley, the first director, saying that this, the task force should move back into our military facilities, and not continue living in the rentals and yet that was ignored . Were trying to get to the bottom of that. We dont have an answer. We have his memorandum, which he says, because of security reasons and also because of management problems, he wants to bring everybody back, and he orders them i think by august of 2011, everyone will move back onto military bases. But we have no further information as to why that was ignored. And thats again a problem we have with tfbso. The records are so abysmal, its hard to figure out what they did and why they did it. Okay. As regarding the natural gas facility, the gas station, you just said a minute ago, you have to have a market and there is no market. And i think those are very wise words, before you do any of these projects, there needs to be marketing analysis done. And it wasnt done. You look at the list of the projects that were done there, and average businessmen or women here in missouri well, here in the United States or from my state, missouri, would just probably say no, this isnt wise that we invest here, we move forward. I wanted to mention since mr. Mcewen isnt here, in his testimony, he says, to be sure, the average afghan does not own a vehicle. So i think the department of defense also is, you know, bringing up that point. Now, he does say in there, though, that you had a question to the department of defense about whether the station was still operating. And he says, my staff contacted the operator of the station by email on november 15th of last year. The operator indicated that the station was working normally, that 230 cars had been converted, and that every day approximately 160 cars obtained fuel from the station. Do you think that is accurate . It is still open, it is operating, there are some cars that the taxpayers here in america paid for that are using it . It would make sense that they would use it. I mean, we gave them a free conversion kit. We converted their car for free. And using the compressed national gas is cheaper than using gas from afghanistan. The question is, is it sustainable. I mean, those are happy taxi drivers, just like there are happy goats in afghanistan. But is any of this sustainable . And that the purpose of this program wasnt to make a bunch of taxi drivers there rich at u. S. Taxpayers expense. Youve got to go back to the documents. And we do have some of the documents as to what the purpose was. And they didnt obtain it. So i go back to it. The input, we know how much was spent. The output was, they did do a gas station, they did convert cars. But the outcome was to create a market, and all over northern afghanistan, and that never occurred. And the reason is because no one ever looked, there was no infrastructure. Okay. So i just wanted to clarify, because earlier in this hearing you said the project failed, in your opening comments, but yet you would not say i mean, it is operating. So youre just using that terminology just based on yes. What it was supposed to accomplish. For the record, we should, due diligence, clarify it. I wanted to get into the testimony of the department of defense that was submitted regarding the cost, because i know you and the department of defense have been disagreeing on that. The number 43 million costs of the compressed natural gas station has been used. So did the gas station itself cost 43 million alone . Or was that the cost of the entire compressed natural gas station Infrastructure Project that also included refurbishing the existing pipeline, purchasing new pipeline for installation, for funding . I will a say that in mr. Mcewens testimony here that he submitted, he says the cost for the entire project was 5. 1 million. And that is for actually the infrastructure. And then he alleges that you extrapolated the consulting cost over the entire country and projected all of the overhead, the 30 billion overhead costs for that. You and i may be summarizing not adequately summarizing what hes saying there. But i would like for you to kind of share what your thoughts were on how you arrived at the 43 million cost. Is the cost really accurate . How do you disagree or not with what the department of defense alleges it only cost . Well, i havent seen mr. Mcewens testimony, but i remember testifying with him before. The approximately 43 million number is not sigars number. We did not compile that. We found that in the records we uncovered. And it was records prepared by a contractor for tfbso. We spoke to the contractor. He prepared an Economic Impact assessment for tfbso, was paid 2 million by tfbso to do it. In his report, when we interviewed him, he is the one who gave us the number. He broke the number down by direct costs, indirect costs, subject Matter Expert costs, overhead costs. Those were his numbers that he got from tfbso. So first of all, those are the department of defenses numbers, not ours. Secondly, when we interviewed him, he said and gave us records about a back and forth between his office and tfbso over the preparing of the Economic Impact assessment. Many times, that assessment was reviewed and approved by tfbso way before we came in to do the audit. As a matter of fact, the director of tfbso approved those numbers. The director actually changed other numbers related to the gas price but never changed that 43 million number. This is the best number we have. We acknowledge that the records kept by tfbso are abysmal. We actually interviewed a comptroller employee who mr. Mcewen sent over to try to review the records. And he said he thought the number was wrong but he couldnt come up with a better number either because the records are in such poor shape. So were stuck with this number. But ultimately the taxpayer paid u. S. Taxpayer paid 43 million. Whether it included the gas station, whether the overhead numbers are correct or not, its the best number we can come up with. If we can find a better number, well report it. So far no one has given us a better number. Thank you for that explanation. Ranking member speier. Thank you, madam chairwoman. I am not interested in quibbling over whether it was 10 million or 43 million, when we know in pakistan they built it for 200 or 300,000. The real question is, does tfbso belong in the department of defense . Should the department of defense be engaged in doing Economic Development . And i think the examples that mr. Sopko has provided us make it clear we should not be in this business within dod and the not part of their expertise. Now, i do want to point out, i think that brian mcewen tries his darndest to try and defend the program. But in the end he does say, and ill quote, i am skeptical that the department of defense is the natural home for this mission of promoting Economic Development. So regardless of why he goes about trying to defend it, he comes to the conclusion that we shouldnt be doing that. And mr. Sopko, as our Inspector General on Afghanistan Reconstruction, has done an extraordinary job, i think, over these number of years, pointing out why we fail. And to everyones point that has been made here, just pointing out is not good enough. Weve got to clean it up. And my concern is that we see a problem, we have enough evidence, and we dont shut it down. It continues to operate on auto pilot. Now, to mr. Scotts comments and also to others, i think in fairness to ms. Weisscarver, it wasnt just the zip ties that they looked at. In her report she talks about the defective copilot control wheels for the c5 aircraft valued at 35,000 each. The investigation determined that all 30 parts provided on the contract were defective, and that the contractor was at fault. Dla aviation searched the dla distribution depot inventory in march 2014 and identity that 23 of the remaining defective control wheels were being stored at the dla distribution depot in warner robbins, georgia. Dla instructed the dla distribution depot to ship the parts back to the contractor. However, dla aviation officials did not respond to our inquiries about the 23 control wheels and dla transaction data showed that the defective control wheels were never shipped from the dla distribution depot in warner robbins. According to dla aviation, could not produce any evidence that it received restitution for 23 of the 27 defective parts valued at 825,000. In addition, dla aviation did not notify the other customers who purchased the remaining four of the 27 defective control wheels. So it wasnt just zip ties. We were looking at more expensive equipment. And there is a problem with defective parts not being returned to the contractor and that restitution is not recovered. Now, ms. Weisscarver, this is just one area in dla. Isnt it true youre now working in another area as well, and could you tell us about that . Yes, maam. We have some ongoing audits on price reasonableness. We have some on inventory. Both those areas we have worked in the past, and we are working in the future on. Isnt there one youre doing about marine parts thats under way . We are looking at the land and maritime area in dla, the same type audit, if you will, just on a different area, land and marine maritime. Besides the zip ties and these wheels, are there other examples of parts that were in the chain, the supply chain that restitution was not sought and that were continuing to reside in the supply chain . Yes, maam. We have about six other examples in the report, switch and bracket part, and the other one was there are several of them, we have pictures. Thats in the full report that i put for the record. I yield back. Thank you. Mr. Scott . Thank you, madam chair. Sir, you testified on the zip tie issue that they were identified prior to being put in flight, so no crews ever lost oxygen or anything along those lines from those zip ties . Thats correct, sir. The report that i have before me reads, causing loss of oxygen to aircrew members during flight. It doesnt say potentially. It says, causing loss of oxygen to aircrew members during flight. I ran up to my office. This is a zip tie. This is what were talking about. Its a single use item. When you do any type of work on the helmet, you would cut the old zip tie off, i would assume, and replace it with the new one, and if the new one didnt hold, you would grab another one from the bin and put another one on it. Is that pretty much the way yes, sir, thats the way that i think the problem is, one is, i think your people should be commended for identifying the problem prior to it being put in flight. So thank you for that. I know youve got a lot of family in the military, and if im not mistaken, spent some time yourself there. Im glad to have you in the position youre in. I will tell you the idea that this is that 36,000 of these are specialized aviation parts is ridiculous. And i hope you dont spend any time or waste any time looking for them. I hope you just get rid of them if they dont work and you can go buy some more somewhere. Youve got to have the flexibility in anything that you do to discard things that are just not worth more than a penny. It doesnt make sense to spend dollars tracking them down. No private business would do that. The other thing ill tell you is, ill get the facts on the c5, i know those people well. Robbins air force base is in my district. Those are very skilled people that work in that facility, and i have no doubt that if a part needed a minor modification, they have not only the tools but the talent to make a minor modification to anything that may have come in. And i will seek that out and find that myself. But i would like to know this, maam. When you the zip ties, you identified that as 36,000 potential problems. Are the 36,000 zip ties identified as 36,000 potential problems . No, sir. What i said was they were left in the inventory. Well, i would yield the remainder of my time. But i think that disposable parts, disposable parts that are worth a penny apiece shouldnt be part of the what did you say . [ inaudible ]. I prefer home depot being a georgia company, but i agree with you. The reason it costs so much to do anything for the government is because we micromanage every aspect of what the people at the dla do. With that, i yield the remainder of my time. Thank you, gentlemen. I think weve had a very good productive discussion today. Our job is oversight, to investigate how the taxpayer dollars are used. And we want to and while were advocating for more money for our National Defense because we see all the threats in the world and the needs and the cuts that have occurred and our readiness in jeopardy and modernization not where it needs to be, at the same time we need to make sure every dollar that is spent and authorized from this committee to the department of defense is spent wisely. And we need to make sure that our men and women in uniform are safe. And so i appreciate your appreciate your work, mr. Sopko. I appreciate, you know, the Lessons Learned, that we are learning. And i agree with my colleagues as well as the gentleman, mr. Mcewen from the department of defense. I was going to bring up that same quote in my closing statement here, that we need to question whether the department of defense should do this again, should take on this mission, because there clearly was perhaps some mistakes made over there and some money that was spent that could have been spent more wisely. And so thank you for your work there. And thank you as well, ms. Weisscarver and mr. Lily, for what you do. We want to make sure that parts im familiar with the Farm Equipment business, and theres parts and service. And its important when theres a defective part, if it is something that i appreciate my colleagues comments about zip ties, i think theres a lot of wisdom in that too, we ought to have common sense mixed in here. But if there are major parts that could endanger our war fighter, we need to make sure theyre returned, not put back onto the airplanes or whatever the equipment is, but also that restitution is made. If theres a warranty, we need to turn that in, get the money back for the taxpayer. Or if its a major part with a consequence that we could have it replaced it needs to be followed through. Thank you, mr. Lily, for the efforts you are going to make. And i look forward to the reports that ms. Spear requested. And i agree with it, to keep us apprised of how this is going. Thank you all very much for participating. This hearing is adjourned. [ inaudible ]. Our live coverage of the president ial race continues tonight for the new york state primary. Join us at 9 00 eastern for election results, candidate speeches and reaction taking you on the road to the white house on cspan, cspan radio and cspan. Org. Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard a case about the president s plan to halt deportations for some undocumented immigrants with children who are in the country legally. The Supreme Court released audio of the oral argument on friday. You can hear it friday night on cspan at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Sunday night the hit Broadway Musical hamilton based on his biography of alex der hamilton. He said i was reading your book on vacation in mexico as i was reading it, hiphop songs started rising off the page and hamiltons life is a classic hiphop narrative. I was thinking what on earth is this guy talking about. I think that lynn quickly picked up the fact he had on his hands and said to me on the spot because my first question to him was in hiphop be the vehicle for telling this kind of very large and complex story. And he said ron, im going to educate you about hiphop and he did on the spot and started pointing out that hiphop you can pack more information into the lyrics than any other form because its very, very dense and rapid. He started talking about the fact that hiphop not only has rhymed endings but internal rhyme and word play. Started eddiucating me on the devices that are important to the success of the show. Sunday at 8 00 eastern and pacific on cspans q a. The head of the centers for disease controls office of Public Health and preparedness last week said more money is needed ed ted t ed ted to figh. The money appropriated by congress is insufficient to combat the spread of zika and testified before the Governmental Affairs and Homeland Security committee along with Public Health officials from the department of health and Human Services and the agriculture department. Good morning. This hearing will come to order. I certainly want to thank all the witnesses for taking the time to attend, for taking the time to write your thoughtful testimony. We appreciate it will all be in the record. This is an important hearing, our second hearing on this subject. We had governor ridge and senator lieber man here earlier with their blue ribbon package on biodefense. The take away is we have no Central Authority to kind of accumulate all the data, accumulate the budgets, and really direct potential activity in the event of a significant outbreak. We dealt with ebola, avian influenza, hearings on both of those, now the zv. In wisconsin we have something i cant pronounce it, elizabeth kingya, might have got that right. Now its taken infected about 59 people already 18 people in our state. I appreciate the work that the cdc has done on that responding quickly to a letter i sent sounds like you really are taking that seriously and trying to find what is the common cause, very interesting i guess in many respects. This is an important hearing. I ask consent to my opening written statement be entered into the record. But as any hearing, the main goal of these things is to lay out a reality, so we all understand what were facing here and when it comes to the different types of biothreats, these can be very serious and maybe the good news about all of them is, the same types of procedures and processes and kind of Management Structure can be put in place to respond to any of them. The threats are changing as we see the different type of pathogens and biological threats i listed out. Appreciate all your work and efforts in this. Appreciate you coming here. Turn it over to the senator. Thanks. I understand one vote at 10 30. Do you want to keep rolling or recess for the vote . It would probably be nice to keep rolling if we could. You and i will trade off. Thanks. So when the vote starts, i will leave with the chairmans concurrence and go vote right away and you guys can keep talking and then well start asking questions. Thank you all for coming. Mr. Chairman, thanks for bringing us together. This is an even more important hearing given whats going on with the zika virus. But as the chairman has said, last fall we convened the hearing to examine a report on this blue ribbon channel chaired by a couple of our good friends, Joe Lieberman and tom ridge. One of the main points in their report was somebody in the administration, one senior person to lead it, we thought