It has taken the bureau ten years of careful planning and preparation to make this census successful, but there is still much more work to be done. The census begins in january of 2020 in remote alaska and then in march everywhere else and between now and then the bureau has to finalize its communications campaign, conduct Robust Community outreach, finish hiring trusted local staff and perform final testing for dozens of critical i. T. Systems. As outlined in our constitution, the purpose of the census is to count every person in the country, but given the chaos and the confusion and the administration has generated as a result to include an untested citizenship question, the bureau has significant work to do to restore public trust in the census and to ensure that the Response Rates do not decline as a result. We need to make sure that everyone is able to respond to the census though the new online form or in whatever way they can including people without good internet access. People in minority communities and in rural areas and those who live on reservations from fair representation in congress to the effective use of taxpayer dollars, each and every american has a personal stake in the results of the 2020 census. I look forward to working with you to make sure the count is accurate and that it is Cost Effective and is on schedule. Thank you, mr. Chairman and thank you to each of our witnesses. It is the tradition of the committee so if you would stand and raise your right hand. Do you swear the testimony youll give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing, but the truth so help you god . Please be seated. Our first witness is the honorable steve dillingham. Mr. Dillingham currently serves as director of the u. S. Census bureau and previously he was with the bureau of statistics and bureau of transportation statistics. Mr. Dillingham . And the 2020 census. We appreciate your continuing interest and your strong support. The census clock is ticking and we are more ready than ever to conduct a complete and accurate count. We thank the president and the attorney general barr and commerce secretary ross for developing the path forward for enhancing the nations data and protecting confidentiality and we also thank our 2020 census partner numbering in the thousands and soon to be hundreds of thousands and i will highlight the road ahead and our increased readiness. The census first count will begin in six months in remote areas of alaska. The nationwide count commences in just nine months, march 2020. It is my opinion, one shared by professionals at the Census Bureau, that we have in place a plan to conduct the census accompanied by the plan to execute it and we now enter the alevel highperformance execution phase. Regarding the president s executive order we are carefully reviewing it. First steps include implementation and we began that upon issuance such as planning an interagency working group. And we will update the secretary and this committee on our progress. The message of the 2020 census is clear. It is easy, safe and important. It is easy because of improvements in new technologies and people may complete the census any time anywhere, we have internet, phone and paper selfresponse options. Our language assistance can reach 99. 6 of the population. We will have trained enumerators to follow up with those who are late in responding. This will be the first census ever where we expect most people to submit their data electronically and efficiently. The census is safe. Census dat da data remains secure and stringent laws with criminal penalties of of imprisonment. Employees take a lifetime oath to protect confidentiality and the census takes the highest standards of protecting confidential data. It will not be shared with any agency or anyone. The census is more important than ever as the Ranking Member just described, census data is needed for aportionment and redistricting. It is used for federal, state and local governments to develop policies and allocate billions of dollars for programs and services reaching millions including the 29 billion that you mentioned in your statement, Ranking Member. It is used daily by people in making decisions that affect business, communities and quality of life. Some recent innovations include new technologies for enhancing address canvassing and hard to count populations, a doubling of Partnership Specialists to work with communities and new technologies to support censustaking processes. These and other nguyen investigations and timetested operations have increased our confidence that we will deliver a complete and accurate count on time and on budget. Our priority is to reach hard to count communities. I continue to visit hard to count communities across the country. They exist in all states. I have seen local partners reaching people in those communities in better ways. Counting children has been a perennial challenge. We are making improvements by working with others ranging from pediatricians to the public schools. We have dedicated efforts to reach American Indian and alaska native communities including the Navajo Nation roughly the size of west virginia. We have plans to reach the homeless and others. Everyone must be counted and Partnership Specialists from local communities with different backgrounds help this process and we also have an integrated Research Base and Outreach Campaign that resonate with diverse communities. Cybersecurity is paramount. We have a welldesigned and tested cybersecurity program. Data is encrypted at every stage. We work closely with the department of Homeland Security and the Intelligence Community and Industry Experts to identify and respond to threats. We manage risk, assist with oversight and test systems for security, functionality and scalability. External oversight and accountability and support are valued. First, the bureau is committed to assisting this committee and others in congress and addressing matters of interest or concern, oversight is deeply appreciated. Second, we appreciate the work of the Government Accountability office and the departments Inspector General in our preparations. I discussed the 2020 sense us of being gao high risk with the comptroller general. I discussed the 2020 census of being gao high risk with the comptroller general. The designation is appropriate in light of the scope, complexity and importance of the nations. We are committed to they from except program and the office of Inspector General to discuss issues, concerns and to see advice. Third, we appreciate the Financial Support that we received from congress. We appreciate your support from all sources. Recently the i. G. Expressed her interest in working with us to promote the safety of personnel. Commerce components have expressed a desire to work as well as have other agencies including the department of health and Human Services and the peace corps. We thank members of congress and others who are assisting with our hiring recruitment and who serve as trusted voices. The 2020 census is clear. It is easy, safe and important. As we enter the highintensity sprint, goals are being met. We are on budget, our systems are safe and secure. We are following best Business Practices and have the right people in the right positions doing the right things. I am confident that we are more ready than ever. Canvassing begins next month. The time is now, the duty is ours and while much work remains to be done we remain on track to achieve and accurate count. Thank you for your support and i look forward to your questions. Country women or citizens of we thank the president and the attorney general barr and commerce secretary ross for developing the path forward for enhancing the nations data and protecting confidentiality and we also thank our 2020 census partner numbering in the thousands and soon to be hundreds of thousands and i will highlight the road ahead and our increased readiness. Chairman johnson gao is pleased to be here today to discuss the census for the 2020 head count. As you know, in recent years, we have identified a number of operational, i. T. , cybersecurity and other challenges that raise serious concerns about the bureaus ability to conduct a Cost Effective enumeration. In february 2017 we added the 2020 census to gaos list of highrisk Government Programs and it remains in our highrisk list today. My remarks this afternoon will focus two such challenges and implementing Design Innovations aimed at controlling costs and developing reliable cost estimates that better account for risks and inform annual budget estimates. My colleague, nick marinos will then discuss the challenges the bureau faces in implementing and securing critical i. T. Systems. The bottom line is that as a countdown to census day grows short, the bureau has made progress towards mitigating some of the risks facing the census and we are encouraged by the Commerce Department and the Census Bureaus leadership commitment by the Cost Effective enumeration. Still, the census may cost as much as 15. 6 billion, a 3 billion increase over the bureaus original estimate and significant uncertainties lie ahead. For example, with respect to the Design Innovations, to help control costs while maintaining accuracy, the bureau will use new procedures and technology for 2020 including greater use of automated Data Collection methods, administrative records in terms of Data Collected by enumerators and verifying aerial imagery and other procedures rather than by going door to door as done in past numerations and allowing households the option of responding via the internet. These innovations show promise for controlling costs and they also introduce new risks in part because theyve not been used extensively, if at all, in prior enumerations. As a result, testing is essential to ensure that key i. T. Systems and operations will function as planned. However, citing budgetary uncertainty, the bureau scaled back operational tests in 2017 and 2018. Without significant testing across a range of geographic locations, housing types, living arrangements and demographic groups, operational problems can go undiscovered and the opportunity to refine procedures and systems can be lost. Another risk factor is the reliability of the bureaus 2020 life cycle cost estimate. In august 2018 we found that although the bureau had taken steps to improve its cost estimation process compared to prior versions, it still needed to implement a system to track and report variances between actual and estimated cost elements. The bureau released an updated version of the cost estimate last night. We plan to review it for any changes as well as the extent to which the bureau implemented our open recommendations. In short, while the bureau and department of commerce have taken important steps to keep preparations on track, additional steps are needed. For example, as of june 2019, weve made 106 recommendations related to the 2020 census. Commerce has generally agreed with these recommendations and has generally taken actions to address many of them. The bureau has implemented 74 of the recommendations and 31 remain open. Going forward, to help ensure a Cost Effective head count, in the months ahead, continued leadership any strong oversight is needed to be sure that the bureau continued to implement our recommendations, that key components and systems work as required, that the operations stay on schedule and management functions follow leading practices. This concludes my prepared remarks. I will now turn it over to my colleague nick marinos who will discuss the risks facing the i. T. Cyber and cyber efforts. Mr. Marinos . Thank you for inviting gao to discuss the bureaus efforts to prepare for the 2020 census. As robert mentioned our most recent highrisk report highlighted a number of i. T. Related challenges facing the bureau. These included i. T. Systems readiness and cybersecurity. The bottom line is that these challenges still remain today and we believe its important for the bureau to overcome them prior to the 2020 census. Starting with systems readiness, the bureau plans to rely heavily on i. T. For the 2020 census including the 52 systems it plans to produce over the course of multiple stages of census operations. And many of these systems will be deployed multiple times in order to add needed functionality over the course of 16 operational deliveries. The bureau has delivered the first group of systems to support early hiring of training and in the next few months well see key testing and production deadlines for many additional systems. However, our ongoing work has determined that the bureau is at risk of not meeting key i. T. Milestones for five upcoming operational deliveries. These include deliveries of internet selfresponse, something the bureau relies on for a significant portion of the census and recruiting and hiring for peak operations which includes hiring hundreds of thousands of temporary employees to assist in counting the population. The bureau needs to closely monitor the schedule risks in order to ensure that theyre all delivered on time. Regarding cybersecurity, the bureau is working hard to assess security controls and gain the proper sign off to ensure that each system is ready for operations. Although a large majority of the 52 systems have received at least an initial authorization to operate, significant work remains. According to the bureau, nine systems will have to have their security controls reassessed to account for Additional Development work prior to the 2020 census and five systems are still awaiting that initial authorization. Id like to note that weve been encouraged that the bureau is coordinate closely with the department of home land security on cyber issues. Dhs has provided this assistance through Cyber Threat Intelligence and information sharing and through conducting incident management and vulnerability assessments among other activities. All of these internal and external assessment efforts including recent evaluation performed by the Commerce Departments office of the Inspector General are vital especially since the majority of the systems that will support 2020 operations contain personally identifiable information. At the end of the day, however, they will only be as valuable as the corrective actions the bureau takes in response to them. We recently made two recommendations to the bureau calling for management attention in this area. The first call for the bureau to address the security to do list in a timelier manner and to establish a more formal process for tracking and completing actions in response to dhs assessments. The bureau reported that it is working to implement the recommendations. If fully implemented, the bureau will be better positioned to ensure that the assessments will have improvements to the cybersecurity posture. In summary, we are running short on time before key census operations begin. Moving forward, it will be critical for the bureau to devote enough attention and effort to completing i. T. System Development Activities and implementing cybersecurity improvements in a timely and prioritized way. Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. I want to thank all of the witnesses. Mr. Dillingham, just real quickly, you sounded pretty confident which i like to hear. There are still issues and concerns. Would you start off by just addressing some of the issues raised by gao in the testimony . I think we do agree and we agree with the recommendations and they say were making progress, and the faster we make progress the better. At the same time, one of the things that were doing at the Census Bureau, your concerns generally represent potential risks and were engaged in Risk Management at the bureau and all sort of ways with our i. T. Systems and with our cybersecurity and with our operations, as well. So in general what i would like to say we are managing the risks. This is a mammoth operation. There are many parts to this operation and we have a great team in place and were making a lot of progress in managing our risks. There will be risks throughout the census the 2020 census and there will be risks in the Census Bureau continuing. As a matter of fact, i think the guidance from gao is very helpful because it really reinforces the need for Risk Management. So in general, let me say that we agree that there are risks and we are managing those risks and were making progress and we will continue to make progress. Id like to just get a response out of gao. Youre obviously laying out these issues. Youre never going to mitigate all risks. Are you fairly confident that we will be able to move forward and have an accurate census . Whats your level of confidence . I think its encouraging that the bureau has agreed with the recommendations weve made. Our recommendations have been focused on process improvements. We have acknowledged the establishment of a Risk Management. In particular, with respect to Cyber Security, weve seen the bureau take many actions to assess what are the highest risk areas and take actions for them. Our process improvements are really aimed at recognizing the fact that theres limited time until census day, limited resources. So the importance of really ensuring that priority is placed on the highest and most critical vulnerabilities and improvements that are needed. What level of con