Presidential Appointment Efficiency and Streamlining Act of 2011

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I congratulate Senators Schumer and Alexander and Collins and others for working through this bipartisan legislation. It is nice to actually have a piece of legislation we can work on together, in this case to help streamline the appointment process for some of these lower level positions. I congratulate them for their work.

I do, however, have an amendment that I think makes an important correction. I have discussed this with both Senator Alexander and others. I think they understand and they tend to agree that this amendment is important.

Under this bill, the Presidential Appointment Efficiency and Streamlining Act of 2011, three important Presidential appointments within the Department of Defense that are currently Senate-confirmed positions would no longer be subject to Senate confirmation. These positions within our military departments are aimed at a very important goal; that is, to attain better stewardship of taxpayer dollars by our military. I am talking about specifically the Assistant Secretaries of Financial Management for the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force.

It is no secret that during these tough budgetary times, when 43 cents out of every dollar that the Federal Government spends is borrowed money, and we are looking at an impending debt ceiling vote sometime probably in July where we are going to be asked to vote to increase the debt ceiling because we have maxed out the Nation's credit card, there is no doubt in my mind we are going to be looking at all sources for budgetary cuts and elimination of waste and overspending. I do not suggest for a minute the Department of Defense should be exempt from that kind of scrutiny. In fact, I think it should be scrutinized. But it is important, if we are going to make sure that every dollar of taxpayer money being spent by the Department of Defense for our security is being spent efficiently and well, that the best way we can do that is assure that professionals who are skilled in financial management at the various departments of the Navy, Army, and Air Force are in place and subject to appropriate oversight by the Senate.

These officials oversee financial management processes that involve more than $300 billion in taxpayer money. These are, in fact, the budgets of the military services themselves. None of the military services are currently able to render a clean audit opinion, something that Congress has said must change and will change by the year 2017. But we have been working on the sad reality that, frankly, the Department of Defense has been spending so much money that it doesn't even know where all the money is. We need to change that. We need to increase transparency and accountability.

The only way we are going to be able to do that and to put them in a position to produce that clean financial audit is by making sure that the correct type of professionals, well-qualified professionals, are in place.

Under the fiscal year 2000 Defense authorization bill, the Department of Defense is going to be required to produce those auditable financial statements no later than September 30, 2017. I think most people are going to be shocked to find out that the Department of Defense cannot do that today, but in fact that is the sad reality. Yet it is my understanding the Department of Defense is not currently on track to meet this requirement of the law despite the fact that we are 6 years away from that deadline. Removing the officials in charge of accomplishing this objective from Senate oversight would make it even less likely to happen.

In accordance with the Chief Financial Officer and Federal Financial Reform Act of 1990, the so-called CFO Act, these three Assistant Secretaries have been designated as the chief financial officers for their respective branches of the military service. As such, this law invests them with certain financial management functions.

These Secretaries formulate, submit, and defend the budgets of these military branches to Congress. They also oversee the proper and effective use of appropriated funds to accomplish missions and provide timely, accurate, and reliable financial information to enable leaders to incorporate cost considerations into their decisionmaking and provide reporting to Congress on the use of appropriated resources.

This is a high standard and, unfortunately, one that is not being met today, but one that Congress must, in the exercise of our stewardship over tax dollars and making sure that every dollar is spent efficiently in a nonwasteful way--this is a high standard we must insist is met.

I believe removing these key positions from the Senate confirmation process will inadvertently undermine the effort to reform financial management at the Department of Defense. I am not alone. We received informal comments from the Department of Defense Comptroller saying that while they agree in principle with S. 679, this underlying legislation with which I also agree in principle goes too far by eroding the status and ability of these financial managers to manage these dollars.

I ask unanimous consent that the comments received from the DOD Comptroller be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.

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