[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] good morning to this roundtable of the secretary of affairs will come to order. I want to welcome our participations we will call them, witnesses, where we have the honorable elaine duke, claire brady, george scott and john kelly from dhs, as well as the office of Inspector General. This roundtable is to discuss the attempt to reauthorize dhs, the house is past their bill and they had a memorandum of understanding to consolidate that entire process under the department or committee of Homeland Security in the house and its been a little more messier here in the senate which is not unusual in the Commerce Committee was taken up in past authorization of tsa and coast guard and we have a number of components and my staff keeps telling me the summer of 40 or percent and that is what we are here to talk about today. I think its accurate to say that with the house authorization does is and this is what we do in these authorizations is take what dhs currently does and could buy it and record take recommendations and by reading your testimony its pretty pleasing to see how many of the recommendations the department has made over a number of administrations to improve their operation. Lets also admit this is not been an easy department to establish and operate. Twentytwo agencies, missions and develop that unity of mission and we helped in the congress in working on some of the authorizations of that efforts and but were trying to codify these things and there are a key changes and or new departments that want to codify the countering weapons of mass distraction office and i think we want to figure out some way to focus the mission and do renaming and we talked about do we do that on a must pass piece of legislation or authorization and theres a great deal of desire to do it but its a matter of how to be get this effort signed into law and couple items need to be worked out. Authorization for fema grants and what we do with federal protective service and we continue to have those discussions and maybe that is something we can determine and come to conclusion with voting in a market. My last point is i do want to talk about the one glaring mission out of the house authorization and maybe its controversial but something i think the department really needs is a very serious look at the jurisdiction that you are responsible to and in my breathing weve got this little chart of all the committees and a number got because no one can me knows i think how many committees and subcommittees do have that responsibility to report to and have jurisdiction over you but some of your information is pretty interesting in the number of hearings that dhs personnel have participated in empire conferences as 289, 219 and 113 and 211 of the hundred 14 congress and witnesses in the 400 levels briefings in the thousands and 4000 the hundred 11th congress over 4000 and we have Agency Responsibility in reporting to us and transparency in all those types of things but it needs to be more streamlined. One thing we are suggesting is drilling im not quite sure of any way of doing this and im open to other ideas but establishing some kind of commission to work with house committees and Senate Committees to reduce the burden because from my standpoint i would picture the department is focusing on its primary mission which is keeping america safe and secure. With that, i do ask unanimous consent to my Opening Statement be entered in the record and then i opened it to senator mccaskill. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Im a little confused as to why this is roundtable instead of a hearing. I hope someone can speak to that. This is a demonstration that prides itself on getting rid of senseless regulation and im being told reason we did this is because he didnt have time to get this when approved by omb. Is that right . Is that why it is not a hearing . Its a conversation between staff and dhs will be the best format to have this discussion to prepare for a markup. To pass this authorization into me its not a big difference one way or the other. Well, you know, i think its important the reauthorization of dhs. It rises to the level of a hearing but you and i may just have a disagreement about that. I was under the impression it was something that the department didnt have ample opportunity to prepare for a hearing because of the approval of omb that it was just a choice of the chairman then you and i have a difference of opinion on whether or not this rises to the level of the hearing. Ive got a number of things id like to take time to talk about and i wont have time to talk about all of them and obviously i continue to be concerned about acquisition and how well the department handles acquisition. We see press about the most egregious examples and obviously the recent one we have a contractor who clearly has a very troubled history with federal government yet we entered into a contract with him to deliver meals and clearly they did not deliver on the contract and did not perform under that contract. I think weve got to drill down about debarment and suspension and why that is such a hard thing to do in the federal government. I can assure you my colleague the chairman that if it was his company and if it was a private business and you had someone that was a supplier and they screwed up time after time and you know what that business would do . They stopped doing business with them. But the federal government never seems to do business with anyone who screws up and i dont get it. I would like us to get to the bottom of that. I also obviously have questions that i will spend some time on and im very concerned that the privilege dispute in the it reports. This is groundbreaking and unprecedented and it is very, very bad. I want to get to the bottom of it and i also will put my written statement in the record to have great attendance this morning and i think everyone has questions for the two questions and i will ask my written statement to be put into the record. Again, it is my understanding you each have an Opening Statement. That start with the honorable elaine duke purchased deputy second secretary of Homeland Security. Thank you. We have just one opening okay. Okay. I will give one Opening Statement for the department. Thank you for having both of us here today. Claire grady, as undersecretary for management as our chief management officer, and i is the deputy secretary and acting as chief operating officer and theres a strong linkage to that and hopefully for the two of us we can cover all the areas today. You have been great partners and we are looking forward to having some open and honest dialogue. For dhs the purpose is clear. Its even clearer now with the threat against our country and we welcome an authorization act that would give us updated authority or updated support and updated accountability even for the country which we support. We recognize that we have to ensure that we carry out the mission on behalf of the country and that we are serving even our employers are 240,000 employees right. Missing passage of the authorization act would be helpful in executing executing our authorities and responsible is. Over the past year at dhs have been working on a unity of effort at dhs and this is critical and hopefully we have time to talk about it today. Its looking at how we as the headquarters operate to enable and support the headquarters and i see three roles for the headquarters elements. Leading a community of practice, seeing subject matter servicing the headquarters. I think your proposal, mr. Chairman, consolidating some of committees would be a great parallel to what we were trying to do in headquarters and streamline it better. Weve made great progress and we have to do more in this area. What we are looking for an authorization bill overall is something that does what you say and codify some of the efforts we are making already. It doesnt go so far as to dictate and legislate areas that really would be difficult to change or take away essential possibilities of the secretary and leadership of the department. We do feel like areas in an authorization bill that would help us with personnel things such as hiring retention and separation and flexibility and management of our employers would be helpful and we can discuss those and level of detail either now or in subsequent discussion with you in the Ranking Member later. Also, the Department Cyber structure security we do have the senior official performing the duties of the undersecretary, chris, is with us today. Hes here to talk about [inaudible] area and weapons of mass instruction. We look forward to coming up with agreements that or providing you information that will help you form your authorization bill. Thank you. Mr. George scott is managing director for the us accountability, and assisting. Thank you, chairman johnson and ricky member mccaskill and members of the committee. Im pleased to be here today to discuss opportunities to strengthen the dhs. Over the past 15 years we have committed arrange appointments the operations while making significant progress in addressing transfer the department and strengthening its management functions. In fact we now consider d just be a model for how other agencies should work to address the highrisk issues. That said there are key areas where the Department Needs to continue to improve. Reauthorization provides the opportunity to collect on the progress the government has made and how to best align the dhs missions roles and responsibilities to better counter new and emerging threats to the woman. I like to briefly discuss specific examples where we think legislation to reauthorize the department would help. In terms of Departmental Organization codifying the roles and response abilities of the National Protection and programs directorate would help strengthen the adjust focus and responsibilities on Cyber Security. Also, renaming the office to better reflect those responsible these would be a positive step. In the area of protecting critical and Structure Congress required dhs to evaluate the assistance and information it provides to stakeholders regarding Cyber Security protections particularly those sectors that work for the department on a voluntary basis. It is important for dhs in the congress to better understand what extent those efforts are yielding positive results. While the department has made progress addressing Management Issues including receiving an opinion on five consecutive years significant challenges remain and in particular, the department continues to struggle with its Financial System modernization efforts in additional oversight is warranted. Dhs also needs to continue to develop financial workforce with the skills necessary to hold strong internal control environment in the congress could require the department to develop a competent strategy for doing so. Finally, no discussion on the department would be complete without Acquisition Management. The department has taken a number of important steps in response to improve oversight acquisitions. For example, in reestablishing the joint council codifying the role of the jrc as recently proposed by senator mccaskill in ensuring that the department continues to fall sound acquisition practices will help increase accountability for the billions of dollars that the department spends each year. This concludes my statement i look for to answering any questions you have. Thank you. Thank you. Our final participant witness is john kelly, acting [inaudible] good morning, chairman johnson and Ranking Member mccaskill and and members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me to discuss this reauthorization act and to address new emerging threats. Since its establishment dhs has progress in addressing challenges to a competent mission. However to fill its final mission a success protecting and securing our nation dhs must continue to from challenges that hinders its efforts. Over the last few years weve issued numerous reports that address the challenges that face dhs. Many of us challenges congress addressed in hr 2825, the reauthorization act. Implementation of our recommendations and your legislation dhs can continue to improve its operations and reduce fraud, waste and abuse. However if the department ignores these challenges will be difficult for dhs to effectively and efficiently address new emerging threats to the lands. In our last two annual reports in the Major Management and performance challenges we highlighted two of the most significant longstanding challenges. First, dhs leadership must commit itself to ensuring dhs operates more as a single entity rather than a confederation of components. The Department Leadership must also establish and enforce a strong control environment and internal is relatively weak and affects all aspects of the departments mission. It includes border protection, immigration enforcement, protection against terrorist attacks, natural disasters and Cyber Security. Fortunately, the dhs authorization act reinforces the need for the Department Unity by streamlining oversight, accountability and eliminating redundancy. Another important area is Acquisition Management in the fiscal year 2017 and dhs spent more than 33 billion on contractual services, supplies and assets. Thus dhs Acquisition Management system is critical in filling its mission. However implementing a system is inherently complex. Dhs annually spend tens of billions of dollars on a broad range of assets and Services Including ships, aircraft, surveillance towers, Nuclear DetectionAgreement Financial and Human Resources and systems in Information Technology systems. To its credit dhs has improved some of the acquisition process is however challenges remain. Provisions of the dhs authorization act which strengthen the role of the undersecretary of management implement efficiencies across components and a sure oversight accountability just safeguarding billions of taxpayer dollars. Dhs must also strengthen aviation security. Nowhere is the asymmetric threat of terrorism more evident than the area of aviation security. Tj tsa cannot afford to miss a single genuine threat without potentially catastrophic consequences and the terrorist need only to get through once. Detection on luggage and people requires technology and welltrained transportation security officers. Work is identified vulnerabilities in screenings operations and be conducted nine covert Penetration Testing audits on passenger baggage and screening operations. I cannot provide the results in an unclassified setting but can characterize them as troubling and disappointing. Tsas failures were caused by commendation of technology and human error. Mps that he is a leadership understands the gravity of our findings and moves to address them. We recently audited the federal air Marshals Service contributions, tsas security and although the detailed results are classified they can say that some of the funding could be discontinued and reallocated to higher priority areas. Finally primary focus of dhs is the integrity of abruptly 240,000 department in place. The vast majority of dhs employers and contractors are honest and hardworking public servants. Much of our investigated caseload shows corruption on dhs law impeachment personnel and government contractors. The dhs authorization act implicitly grants the oit refusal we suggest the act explicitly grant that write to us. Inspector generals play a Critical Role in ensuring honest and effective government. The American Public must of fundamental trust to Government Employees be held accountable for crimes and serious misconduct by an independent factfinder. Mr. Chairman, this concludes my comments. Welcome to answer questions. One of the reasons i like this roundtable approach is it allows the flow of questioning and we can stay on one topic. I want to approach us as we do have a timer set for five minutes. I think the light goes off when theres one minute left and then the red light goes off when your time is up. I do want to accept or not necessarily encouraged but if you have a followon question that is pertinent to what another member is asking so we can cover the topic right then and there as opposed to 15 minutes half hour later bring up the topic and rehash it. Raise your hand but again i want to discipline, one shot, a member on a topic and has to be pertinent. Again, that will add to the discussion. Other for my questioning and turn it over to senator mccaskill and see if this works. Im a little confused about the process here but we will forge ahead. Itll be good. If this will be a roundtable i sure hope are not cutting people off from been able to ask as many questions as they want. No. Okay. Lets start with the thing that concerns me because of my work with the ig community is a former auditor. The Inspector General conducted an extensive review of the implementation of the present probably in. The cooperation roadblock when the Inspector General released its findings but only did it take months for the department to respond to the Inspector General regarding privileged so the report would be released but the department decided to assert the privilege that has never been used before. Invoking a deliberate process privilege and now the irony is that your invoking a deliberate process purpose in the travel ban if there was ever anything that wasnt deliberate it was that