Government Accountability Office Improvement Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
As you know, the Government Accountability Office is a legislative branch agency that investigates how the Federal Government spends taxpayer dollars. Often called the ``congressional watchdog,'' the GAO investigates instances of waste, fraud, and abuse in the Federal Government. My committee has direct jurisdiction over the GAO.
Congress must have current information on how Federal programs are performing in order to both legislate and effectively conduct meaningful oversight.
H.R. 1162, the GAO Improvement Act, will enhance the GAO's ability to serve Congress primarily by ensuring the agency has access to key data warehoused in the executive branch.
This bill ensures that the GAO has access to the National Directory of New Hires, which is used to verify eligibility for Federal programs, to detect or prevent fraud, and to identify improper payments.
H.R. 1162 will ensure the GAO has the ability to obtain agency records and to administer oaths to witnesses when auditing accounts and investigating fraud.
It will allow the Comptroller General to seek judicial remedy to enforce GAO's right to information under the law.
GAO has an exemplary record of protecting sensitive government information, including national security documents. The committee is confident that GAO, a nonpartisan portion of the legislative branch, will continue to vigorously maintain confidentiality regarding information it obtains.
I want to note that the language in this bill was included in previous versions of the DATA Act that was approved unanimously by the House in the last Congress.
I want to additionally thank the ranking member, Mr. Cummings, for his partnership in this issue. No matter which of us holds the gavel, we together know that the information we base our decisions on, the information critical to the American people, has a balance of time that we must realize must be sooner and not later.
The ranking member and I absolutely support this bill in its current form because we know that fresh information is critically important if we're to make our decisions well timely.
With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
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