GPRA Modernization Act of 2010

Floor Speech

Mr. CUELLAR. Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1781, I call up the bill (H.R. 2142) to require the review of Government programs at least once every 5 years for purposes of assessing their performance and improving their operations, and to establish the Performance Improvement Council, with the Senate amendment thereto, and I have a motion at the desk.

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Mr. CUELLAR. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, H.R. 2142, the Government Efficiency, Effectiveness, and Performance Improvement Act, will do just what the title of the bill says. This bill will make the Federal Government more effective, more efficient, and improve the performance of Federal agencies.

This bill is a sweeping move to increase transparency and accountability by requiring Federal agencies to establish performance goals that can be measured and reported to Congress and to taxpayers. No one can afford to waste money, especially not the government and especially not now. It's time that we put a new system in place to review the results of each Federal program and evaluate its effectiveness.

The message is simple: Better information yields better decisions. This legislation will help Congress invest in what works, fix what doesn't, and eliminate wasteful overlap. This will make our Federal Government more results-oriented.

This is a commonsense bill that received wide bipartisan support. The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform approved H.R. 2142 by voice vote on May 20, 2010. The House passed the bill by voice vote on June 16, 2010, and the Senate amended the bill and passed it by unanimous consent on December 16, 2010.

H.R. 2142 modernizes the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993. We have learned a lot in the past 17 years. It is time to apply these lessons so that agencies and Congress have the information needed to make good decisions. H.R. 2142 improves the 1993 law by requiring agencies to identify ambitious goals and to perform frequent performance reviews. With this bill, we can hold agencies more accountable by requiring them to consider input from Congress and members of the public when developing program goals. The public can now have input for the first time. Just imagine that. The general public will have a say-so in developing Federal agency goals.

Some changes were made to the bill during consideration by the Senate, and I support those changes, which I believe will enhance and strengthen the bill. Under the Senate amendment, OMB is required to develop a Federal Government performance plan that addresses program efforts across agencies. OMB is also required to work with agencies to develop Federal program priority goals that cut across different agencies and measure

progress toward meeting those goals. This will help agencies avoid duplicating efforts and become more efficient. Duplication and overlap at a time when so many Americans are struggling to make ends meet isn't just a waste of resources; it's shameful. The Senate amendment also establishes the position of chief operating officer in the 24 biggest agencies.

Key provisions for the bill approved in the House are still intact, such as the establishment of performance improvement officers at each agency and the establishment of the performance improvement council. These provisions codify an Executive order issued by President George W. Bush.

Also, as in the House-passed bill, OMB and agencies are required to improve the transparency of performance reviews by making the results available online.

Senator Coburn added an amendment making changes to the bill that requires for increasingly stringent requirements for agencies that do not meet performance goals, which can ultimately end up, for a nonperforming agency or program, with budget reduction or even elimination.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that implementation of the bill, as amended by the Senate, will cost about $15 million a year. This bill does not have any mandatory spending requirements, and it does not violate PAYGO. Also, CBO, as you know, does not estimate the cost savings that would have been generated by this bill. Agencies will save money by identifying wasteful practices. Consolidating and eliminating unnecessary reporting will also save taxpayers' dollars.

H.R. 2142 will make the government more cost effective because it would require agencies to evaluate their performance. This will allow agencies to identify waste and inefficiencies and change what isn't working. This is what successful corporations in the private sector do regularly, and this is what the government should do also.

President Bush's top performance management official wrote in a letter supporting this legislation in a bipartisan way, ``I led performance improvement efforts during my tenure in the George W. Bush administration. Additionally, while a Republican staff member in the legislative branch, I oversaw agency efforts to measure and improve their performance. The provisions of this bill would have greatly enhanced these efforts had they been in place at the time.''

This is a timely, commonsense bill, and I urge all Members to join me in a bipartisan way in supporting this legislation.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. CUELLAR. Madam Speaker, again, I want to thank the ranking member. The letter was written by Robert Shea who worked with President Bush. It was written in June of this year. Mr. Shea still supports the bill as it has been passed by the Senate.

Again, when the bill first passed here, this was a bill that did get some changes. I believe the major change that the gentleman is referring to is a provision that he authored that would have required agencies to evaluate performance goals twice a year. Those provisions added significantly to the cost of the bill. And when this bill first passed the House, it had a $150 million cost. By taking those provisions, it was reduced down to $75 million, which is $15 million a year.

This is a bipartisan bill that updates the 1993 legislation. The original cosponsors include myself, several other Members, including Congressman Platts and Congressman McCaul. And in the Senate, Senate supporters that we have are Voinovich; Collins; Warner, who took the lead on this, Akaka, Senator Lieberman, and basically Senator Coburn who had an amendment. So this is a bipartisan bill. It will not add a single penny to the deficit. In fact, it will save taxpayers' dollars. I urge support of it.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. CUELLAR. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for being brief. I appreciate his consideration.

I wrote my dissertation on performance-based budgets in a comparative study of 50 States. I added about 99 percent of all the performance-based budgeting in Texas right before President Bush was the Governor there.

I know this legislation, and this legislation is probably the largest change we have had since 1993. Members, this is a bipartisan bill supported by both Democrats and Republicans in the House and the Senate. So, Madam Speaker, again, I urge all Members to support H.R. 2142.

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