Hearing – Inspectors General for the Department of Transportation and the Department of Housing and

The subcommittee will come to order. Today we are pleased to welcome Brian Harrison, Acting Inspector General of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Mitch Behm, Deputy Inspector General of the Department of Transportation. Thank you for appearing before us today, both of you, and for your service as you lead these two critical offices. One of our fundamental roles as members of the Appropriations Committee is to make sure that departments and agencies we support perform their mission for the benefit of the American public. We rely on your offices to assist us in that effort. When you find instances of waste, fraud, and abuse at your agencies, it helps us better refine our appropriations. When you find programs operating successfully, it always gives us confidence in continuing our funding for such activities. While we have not yet received the President's fiscal 2027 budget, I want to highlight the funding we gave your offices in 2026. We provided 113 million to the DOT OIG and 144 and a half million for the HUD OIG to ensure you can meet your mission. We look forward to learning about your fiscal 2027 needs in the coming weeks. This hearing comes on the heels of Congress appropriating record funding for many DOT accounts and activities and HUD's housing programs. As such, the work of the IG remains very critical. We can look at your investigations to inform the current work of the departments. For example, FAA's air traffic control modernization effort received 4 billion in the fiscal 2026 bill. That's a billion dollars in IIJA funding and 12 and a half billion from the one big beautiful bill. We've all invested interest in the success of this investment. We cannot repeat the past mistakes and failures of the NextGen where schedule delays and cost overruns were routine, benefits not fully realized. As another example, the cost of maintaining housing assistance for vulnerable citizens continues to increase, requiring more than 66 billion in fiscal 2026, an increase of nearly 6 percent or 3.7 billion over 25. We have to modernize HUD's oversight tools to root out fraud and ensure that each dollar goes as far as possible to house Americans who need support. I look forward to hearing more about your audits and investigations and getting your insights on where congressional attention might be directed. With that in mind, again, we welcome you to the panel here today, and I'd like to recognize my dear, dear friend, Mr. Clyburn, the ranking member of this subcommittee, for any opening comments he'd like to make. Jim, the floor is yours.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you so much for your great leadership of this subcommittee. It is great to be back in this room as we begin our hearing season for the fiscal year 2027 cycle. I am pleased to join you in welcoming our witnesses, Mr. Behm and Mr. Harrison. Thank you for joining us today. I'll keep my opening statement relatively brief so we can proceed to the questions. But I do want to underscore a few concerns. This oversight hearing is an important opportunity for us to examine the key management challenges facing the Department of Transportation and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Many of these issues are not new. I believe that recent actions by the Trump administration are cause for heightened concern. From appropriations to labor, we have seen this administration seem to show a blatant disregard for following established law. Compounding this problem is the federal hiring freeze they have imposed. I believe arbitrary hiring restrictions could permanently threaten core government functions, including those within your own organizations, if left in place. The GAO has noted that such across-the-board hiring freezes are counterproductive. It's impossible to effectively run complex departments without a strong workforce. Many of you know this is my first elective office. I've been here for north of 30 years. But for 30 years, I ran state and local governments. And so I am deeply concerned about the lack of transparency within the departments and conflicting reports we continue to see from DOT, HUD, and partners on the ground. Oversight is a key function of Congress. But it is especially integral to the work of the Appropriations Committee. Ensuring we have independent Inspectors General is critical for this subcommittee to conduct effective oversight and make informed funding decisions that ensure our limited federal dollars are wisely spent. While I appreciate your interim leadership, I will note my concern that the White House has yet to submit nominees for Senate-confirmed Inspectors General at either department more than a year after the firing of the former Senate-confirmed IGs. This is not an effective way of running government, and particularly a nonpartisan watchdog agency which deserves the full public vetting, transparency, and permanency of its leadership. Once again, I thank both of you for being here today, and I look forward to learning more about how HUD and DOT intend to meet their management challenges and how we can work together to improve their mandates and make their programs more accessible and affordable for all our citizens. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

Thank you, Mr. Clyburn. This morning we'll begin with DOT's Deputy Inspector General Mitch Behm. Mr. Behm, your full written testimony is included in today's record, and now I'm pleased to recognize you for five minutes.

Chairman Womack, Ranking Member Clyburn, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify today regarding our oversight of the Department of Transportation's programs and activities. I'm pleased to be here alongside my counterpart, Brian Harrison, the Acting Inspector General for the Department of Housing and Urban Development. I greatly appreciate this subcommittee's continued support for our work and mission. By providing independent, objective audits and investigations on behalf of the American public, our office is essential to ensuring DOT delivers a safe, efficient, and modern transportation system. Using only a small fraction of DOT's resources, our work has recovered significant amounts of improper payments while identifying cost savings and program improvements. In fiscal year 2025, we achieved a return on investment of $25 for every dollar appropriated to us. Unique to many OIGs, we also focus a significant portion of our work on safety. Today my testimony covers three key oversight areas: enhancing safety, curbing fraud, waste, and abuse, and advancing modernization. First, DOT should continue to prioritize safety improvements. Our recent work on aviation safety shows FAA can strengthen its oversight of air carrier maintenance while addressing inspector staffing shortages. For example, we've reported that FAA inspectors have not sufficiently addressed systemic safety hazards at multiple air carriers. Another urgent challenge is hiring and training enough air traffic controllers to manage our airspace. Many critical facilities have been below their staffing targets by at least 15 percent. In addition, DOT is making progress reducing fatalities on our nation's highways. But the department can still improve data collection and better measure the effectiveness of roadway safety initiatives. For our nation's railways, FRA can more effectively target its limited inspection resources while ensuring rail workers have the rest and track protection they need. Second, DOT's oversight must also focus on curbing fraud, waste, and abuse. This includes addressing risks related to the department's multibillion-dollar infrastructure investments, as well as programs whose funding rapidly increased, such as MARAD's Port Infrastructure Development Program. DOT will also face challenges meeting new streamlined requirements for contract and grant processes. As our work in this area has shown, oversight weaknesses expose DOT to risks like improper payments, questioned costs, and other noncompliance. It is also critical to hold those who abuse the system accountable. Our investigations continue to uncover crimes ranging from bribery to Buy America violations. This highlights the importance of broad outreach to better detect and prevent fraud. Third, DOT is working to advance large-scale efforts to modernize our national airspace system. Last year, the Secretary announced the department's 30-plus billion-dollar initiative to build a brand new air traffic control system. Our work on the predecessor initiative NextGen spanned over two decades across 50 audit reports. FAA's longstanding challenges with cost growth, schedule delays, and design uncertainties present many lessons learned. Yet, FAA has not released a new comprehensive plan that anticipates and addresses risks. Safely integrating technologies into our nation's airspace is another challenge. FAA is working with government and industry stakeholders to determine how much to regulate a rapidly growing commercial space industry. FAA has also taken steps to approve more complex drone activity, including operations beyond visual line of sight. But as we have reported, the agency can enhance program targets and data to further advance its goals. Finally, DOT must protect the IT systems that are critical to transportation safety and reliability. However, our reports show that the department continues to face significant exploitable vulnerabilities and has yet to address a substantial backlog of security weaknesses. In closing, we remain committed to improving DOT's effectiveness and efficiency and will keep the subcommittee informed of our work. This concludes my prepared statement. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you. Now I'd like to recognize HUD's Acting Inspector General Mr. Brian Harrison. Mr. Harrison, your full written statement is included in today's record, and it's now my honor to give you five minutes. The floor is yours.

Chairman Womack, Ranking Member Clyburn, and members of the subcommittee, I'm honored to be here with you today. Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to my statutory obligation to keep you fully and currently informed about the problems and deficiencies relating to the administration of the U.S. Housing and Urban Development's programs and operations, and importantly, the necessity for and progress of corrective action. The men and women of the Office of Inspector General are hard at work delivering high-quality investigations, audits, and evaluations focused on preventing and detecting fraud and abuse and promoting the economy, efficiency, and effectiveness across HUD's programs and operations. We also continue to faithfully and expertly discharge our duties of resolving and appropriately referring allegations of whistleblower retaliation. The President has declared a war on fraud, and Secretary Turner has prioritized the protection of taxpayer funds at HUD. We, the seasoned oversight professionals at HUD OIG, welcome this leadership emphasis to our everyday mission that we are privileged to perform in service to the American taxpayers. This added emphasis serves as a force multiplier in our ongoing efforts to defeat fraud in HUD's programs and operations. I thank the subcommittee for its long-standing support of the OIG through our annual and other appropriations, and I welcome your continued support in our efforts to meet our important statutory calling. As we shared publicly earlier this year, our efforts have produced results. In fiscal year 2025, our audits and evaluations produced more than $227 million in questioned costs, $43 million in recommended funds put to a better use, $29 million in audit collections, and nearly $80 million in restitutions and judgments stemming from investigations. Additionally, individuals who chose to fraudulently attack HUD's programs and operations found themselves held accountable. In fiscal year 2025, our investigations resulted in 90 individuals charged for mortgage fraud schemes, public corruption, and other crimes, and 85 convictions, pleas, and pretrial diversions. The OIG did not stop with these results. Addressing the need for and progress of corrective action, the OIG secured 153 suspension and debarments and closed 349 recommendations, including four that we deemed a priority for HUD. We continue to make available on our website our recommendations dashboard, transparently offering you, other members of Congress, HUD leadership, and the public the ability to monitor our progress in assisting HUD with needed change. I am deeply proud of the OIG team that produced this work while simultaneously joining in the whole-of-government effort to reexamine our own internal business operations, staffing, and processes. Though we saw a reduction in staff this last year, I am proud to say that the quality and quantity of our work remains consistently high. This is a testament to the very dedicated professionals on our team who understand that economy, efficiency, and effectiveness equally applies to the OIG's programs and operations. With continued efforts to reshape and realign our workforce and smartly deploy technology, I am confident we will emerge as a stronger and even more seasoned team prepared and determined to do our part to defeat fraud at HUD. Finally, I would like to take a moment to recognize in my testimony Deputy Inspector General Audra Dorsch, who later this month will conclude 32 years of service to our nation. She is not the type to seek spotlight and is not here today, but I know she is watching, and she deserves our gratitude as she enters a well-deserved retirement. This concludes my opening remarks, and I welcome your questions.

Thank you. We're going to proceed into the Thank you. We're going to proceed into the questions, and we're going to adhere to the five-minute rule, alternating sides and recognizing members in order of seniority as they were seated at the beginning of the hearing. We're going to try to move quickly so everyone can get their questions in, and my admonition to all of my colleagues up here on the dais is to be mindful not to filibuster as much as you can prevent it so that we can get more questions answered, and we'll have a very successful hearing. So I'm going to recognize myself on the first round of questions. Mr. Behm, Mr. Harrison, while this hearing will mainly focus on the critical oversight you provide, it is my hope that you're getting all of the help that you need from the administration, that is, and the agencies you oversee. As you know, these authorities are provided to you by law, such as the IG Act of 1978. So to that end, I have a few important housekeeping questions. One, do you have any issues getting, and I want an honest answer here, okay, do you have any issues getting prompt, timely access to staff, personnel, or documents when conducting investigations from the agency which you oversee? Mr. Behm.

No, sir.

Mr. Harrison.

No, sir.

Do you have your own IT systems with a firewall between your files and the agency that you oversee?

Yes, sir.

We do also.

And it works.

Yes, it does.

Okay. Are you ever concerned that you cannot be transparent with Congress or the public as you would like to be?

No, sir.

No, sir.

None. Okay. That's a good start. As I highlighted in my opening statement, the FAA received $17.5 billion this year for ATC sustainment and modernization. The Federal Aviation Administration has never received more than $4.2 billion in a given year for these purposes in the past. That's a lot of money. This amount of funding provides substantial opportunity for the FAA to modernize their infrastructure and systems, but it also increases the likelihood of fiscal waste. So I look back on the failures of NextGen, an effort that received more than 15 billion over the past 20 years to meet stated goals, compounded with runaway costs and never-ending timelines. In fact, funding provided for fiscal 26 will close out several NextGen activities that began decades ago. The IG completed 50 audit reports scrutinizing NextGen. As you evaluate the current processes FAA is using to measure success and mitigate risk, in your opinion, is the FAA better positioned for success during this new modernization effort?

I would certainly hope so. As you stated, as...

Hope is never a method. Never a method. I learned that in the Army a long time ago. So like you said, we have to be certain.

We can't be certain. Only the FAA can be certain, but certainly the, like you said, mentioned 50 reports with many others in the pipeline and many others planned, and the 200-plus recommendations we've provided have certainly given the FAA some lessons learned that they can follow, such as ensuring that they develop effective long-term plans, that they oversee the major acquisitions effectively, that they continue to work with industry, that they focus on increased sustainment and maintaining steady operating costs, and obviously managing complex system interdependencies. Interestingly, obviously, you're all aware that they've brought on an integrator company, Peraton, which obviously we have planned audits in the future to take a look at how effective that's been. Our hope is that that will actually provide that type of oversight and look that they need as they continue along this B-Next, excuse my pronunciation, over the years, and obviously we'll be keeping on top of them.

What kind of risks do we face with the prime contractor method of carrying out this work?

Well, obviously, I think it's a similar risk that the FAA has dealt with in the past, you know, where they have entered into very large contracts with sole that ultimately are continued on a sole-source basis, and at a certain point, you get so far along with one entity and you don't have a chance to take a step back and look at what's going on and whether something needs to be modified or changed. The hope is having this overseeing entity, because obviously there's going to be many, many subcontracts to the companies that are ultimately implementing the variety of systems to make this interdependent system work, hopefully that will provide a benefit.

I sure hope that in the course of carrying out your work that your eyes are wide open and that we're looking for opportunities to make it successful, but at the same time prevent the potential for misuse and abuse. I'll come back with some HUD questions in another round. Mr. Clyburn, I recognize you for five minutes.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am particularly concerned, Mr. Chairman, about the so-called deferred resignation program. Now, it is my understanding that the Department of Transportation has lost over 4,000 employees. Now, I mentioned earlier, I've spent about half of my professional life here in the Congress. Another half I've spent running something, running state and local agencies. And what I do know, that the most efficient form of government is one-person rule. It's the least effective form of government. And it seems to me that what we need to do is balance those two entities as we try to go out and serve the American people. Has there anything been done by your office to examine the impact, both efficient and effective impact, of losing 4,000 employees?

So currently during our ongoing audits, obviously at each individual audit, as we look at each individual program, looking at the workforce is a portion of that audit and a portion of that oversight. We have planned work to look more, I think what you're talking about, more in a global perspective of how the impact of the loss of so many employees over such a short period of time has had and the expertise that goes along with that. Obviously, when you lose that many people, you don't lose that many people in equal amounts in equal spaces, you know, the way that you would ultimately like for it to occur. So we anticipate kicking off, like again, a more global audit looking at the department as a whole. But rest assured, when we look at each individual audit and each individual group, and obviously, like for example, we know that FTA and highways were far more affected than other operating administrations. So as our audits in those areas move on, you know, clearly looking at the impact of the loss of staff will be a significant portion of our audit scope.

So am I to understand you being hopeful about that? Or are we getting any kind of results that we can ascertain whether or not the service that this Congress is attempting to deliver to the American people is being effectively delivered? Now, if you're looking at it, that's good. But what are we doing to determine whether or not this has had a positive impact or a negative impact on delivering the needs that the American people have? Now, as it relates to HUD, I'm hearing from people all over how expensive housing has become. I saw a study the other day that indicated that the age of first-time homebuyers now over 40. Over 40. Most of us were getting ready to retire at that age. I retired from state government at 52 after 30 years. I can't imagine myself having to wait to be 40-something years old to provide a home for my children. What impact do these cuts have on HUD? I would really be interested today in hearing from HUD as well as from the department on the impact of this so-called deferred resignation program, which everything I hear indicates to me that it has been all about getting rid of staff in up here, sending all kinds of money out to contractors on the ground, most of whom fall into the category that you just explained of being fraud and abuse. No waste, because they've been making effective use of that money. But fraud and abuse has multiplied as a result, according to my information. Can you speak to that from HUD's perspective?

I can. The audit work plan that we've published for your all's benefit shows that we are going to have a wide-ranging look at HUD's programs and operations throughout FY 2026, and our past work demonstrates a commitment to finding root causes for why inefficiency, effectiveness, or uneconomical actions have been taken. We won't shy away. We have found in the past that staffing has contributed to inefficiencies and ineffectiveness, and in our work going forward, if that is a root cause, we will most certainly highlight it.

My time has expired. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Now recognize the good chair from Jacksonville, Mr. Rutherford.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Harrison, I'd like to kind of follow up on that. I know you've had some great success with the ghost tenant program, you just talked about that. And that's clearly fraud, and I'm really glad to see your background in federal investigations because that's what it's going to take to root out a lot of this fraud is understanding how to manage a criminal investigation. So I really appreciate that. Can you talk a little bit though, you mentioned the system to follow up to prevent improper payments like the Do Not Pay program that determines eligibility so that we're not paying contractors that we're not supposed to pay and we're not paying tenants that we're not supposed to pay. Yet, so the ghost tenant is fraud. Not utilizing the Do Not Pay system is employer. Now, what that makes me wonder is, going back on my law enforcement career, is how many people do we have in, of those that you've arrested, were any of those HUD employees who were approving these payments when they were in the Do Not Pay system, but they weren't checking it? Because that was one of the things that you alluded to in your statement, that there's not full compliance with following those checks before sending out the funds. Can you speak to that issue?

Improper payments is a concern at HUD, and a lot of our work has been targeted historically at that, and in this coming year, we're going to be focusing some of our work with improper payments looking for fraud. As one of the professional staff put it, we're going hunting for fraud. What frustrates that is when there are not internal controls in place that prevent it, because what we do know to be true in a fraud environment is that detection is harder than prevention. So considering that as a truth at HUD, we're frustrated by the lack of available data, the lack of data infrastructure that allows for a more efficient examination of how dollars are being executed at HUD.

So let me follow up and ask you this. Is there, when an employee fails to use the Do Not Pay check for eligibility, are there disciplinary actions that are taken against those employees? Because they're the ones that are allowing this $212 million to be paid improperly. And I wonder sometimes how much of that is them working with a fraudster to accomplish the fraud against HUD.

There's a gap between the individuals that are executing payment at HUD and then the recipient, and then even the sub-recipients and the sub-recipients of the sub-recipients who are actually benefiting from that funding. It's important to note that the department allowed to...

But let me stop you there. The eligibility, though, goes back to the DNP, correct?

It does, sir. And with DNP, HUD allowed the computer match agreement to expire this last year. They have now reconstituted that agreement, and that is promoting compliance with DNP, which most certainly is that first step towards preventing fraud, is not paying people that aren't entitled a payment.

Right. Okay. Very good. Thank you. I have a very quickly, if you could talk about CDBG disaster relief grants and how significant are the fraud risk in HUD's disaster recovery programs following major disasters? And is HUD making meaningful progress in strengthening data coordination and oversight? I know that with 50 states, 50 different collection methods and all of that going on, how difficult is it for you to locate that fraud?

You've most certainly put your finger on the problem. With CDBG-DR, there is a, it changes each time there's a disaster, and that inconsistency frustrates both the monitoring by HUD and the oversight work by the OIG. We believe, and it continues to be our position, that CDBG-DR funds should be codified to promote that consistency. Ultimately, we need to simplify, streamline, and standardize the process so that monitoring is more effective and then the oversight work that attaches to that monitoring is more effective.

Thank you. And I may be reaching out to you about I think a fix for that very problem. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Rutherford. Mr. Quigley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you both for being here. As co-founder of the Congressional Transparency Caucus, appreciate the work IGs play. It is concerning that the president has not nominated someone to serve as a permanent IG for DOT or HUD. But aside from that, I'd like to follow up on the ranking member's issue related to staffing, particularly at HUD. The substance of the performance challenge report that you provided us for HUD, obviously a critical mission at HUD. Only 25 percent of the people who need housing assistance in the United States are receiving it. In Chicago, the housing choice voucher waitlist is closed because wait times are five to 15 years. So obviously the need is there, and we need to spend the money wisely. But the persistent housing quality problems highlighted in the report are a challenge in Chicago. But at the same time, one of the core problems laid out in the IG report is staffing shortages. You can't address the important issues that relate to housing if you're continually slashing qualified, experienced staff with institutional memory. If the secretary were here, what are your recommendations with the relationships to staffing and the ability of HUD to get its work done?

There's certainly a relationship between staffing and technology and a balance between them with respect to effectiveness and efficiency. Obviously, a heightened emphasis on building a stronger data infrastructure will allow HUD to execute more efficiently. As I said earlier, it will continue to be a highlight of our work that if we find that a root cause is contributing to a particular failure at HUD and that root cause is staffing, we'll highlight that in that instance. I don't know that I have an answer to speak across the entire department, because it requires us to do targeted work to determine what is causing a particular failure and then what we think the recommendation is that should follow that failure.

The Trump administration has paused grant funding for a number of transportation infrastructure projects, New York, New Jersey, Chicago. Giving your office's mandate to prevent waste, fraud, abuse, has the OIG evaluated the fiscal and operational impacts of those pauses on state DOTs and local governments, particularly because things are getting more expensive and when the pauses are there, those projects aren't going forward, things are costing more, there are supply chain issues impacted by tariffs and the like. Have you analyzed those, the impact of those pauses?

We don't currently have any audit work ongoing regarding those pauses, whether it's to, like you said, throughout the country. It's something that we'd be happy to discuss with committee staff with regards to considering a future audit there. We did recently complete an audit on the FTA's Capital Investment Grants program, which is a discretionary program where we identified some concerns related to reliance on attestations from CEOs rather than actual oversight, but obviously doesn't necessarily specifically address your question. Something we'd definitely be looking to look at.

I appreciate that. The DOT IG announced in August 2025 they were initiating an audit in response to the DC crash at the request of several committees and members of Congress to address FAA's oversight management of the airspace surrounding DCA and policies and procedures to oversee. I don't think there's been a preliminary report or update from IG, is that correct? And where are we with that?

That's correct. The hope is to get a final report out this fall. This fall, hopefully we'll have a final report out.

Is there anything you can reveal at this time and talk about what preliminary findings we've had?

Not yet. Not until we're able to share it with the auditee, which won't be until later this summer.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Ms. Bice.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you both for being with us this morning. Mr. Behm, I want to start with you. One of the DOT's most successful government-industry partnerships is the FAA Contract Tower Program. And there's 266 smaller airports participating in the important air traffic safety program, including six in Oklahoma, one of which is the Wiley Post Airport in Oklahoma City, which is in my district. Contract towers support business aviation, DOT flight training operations, and military readiness and flight schools across the country. Mr. Behm, the DOT IG's office has issued numerous positive audits of the contract tower program dating back to 1998. Can you give us a brief update on the program, including the audit required in the 2024 FAA reauthorization legislation that you expect to release very soon?

Yeah, that's what I was going to say, really, similar to Congressman Quigley's question. We have a current another audit ongoing related to contract towers and related to the air traffic controllers there. As you've said, generally they've been positive and the recommendations that we've had, the FAA has been responsive to. So again, our hope is to get that audit report out hopefully sometime this summer.

Fantastic. Mr. Harrison, moving to you. In HUD's FY 2026 top management challenges, a top priority listed is modernizing the grant funding. And you kind of touched on this a little bit earlier with the CDBG-DR program, but HUD awards large amounts of money to state and local governments as well as private organizations. Can you describe some of the challenges that HUD faces and the OIG recommendations that you've given to ensure that grantees and sub-grantees are spending the funds intended and the oversight HUD can exercise in that realm?

The issues that I highlighted with disaster recovery equally apply across the grant universe at HUD. The challenge at HUD, in my estimation, is that we decentralized the execution of the funds and we don't have the data infrastructure in place to actually know where the money is spent. In my submitted testimony, I highlighted that auditors, evaluators, and special agents who are looking at particular grant funding have to go out and ask recipients of grant funding where a money was spent. That equally is the challenge at HUD as they attempt to monitor it. This, in my view, is unacceptable. HUD will not be able to perform its mission successfully and account for improper payments until it increases its data infrastructure, and we believe that the early indications that we see with Project HUGS is that it is a solution of the size to meet the problem of the size.

Don't you believe, though, that by improving data infrastructure in an agency like HUD would actually be a cost savings to taxpayers? There may be a significant upfront cost, but you'll be able to have much more transparency into the grant process, therefore reducing the amount of fraud that could potentially occur in these grant and or awards that are being given.

I agree. I agree.

Thank you. Mr. Behm, one more question for you. Thank you. Mr. Behm, one more question for you, and this is sort of, I think, important work that has been highlighted across the country, but certainly in my home state of Oklahoma. A January release from your office discussed a Massachusetts man who was convicted for his role in CDL fraud. Yesterday, in a subcommittee hearing in the House, the commissioner from Oklahoma for public safety was on the Hill testifying about CDL arrests of individuals who should not have had a CDL license and actually had felony charges against these individuals as they were crisscrossing the United States. It's become increasingly concerning to me the number of CDL states issuing outside of federal regulations and the dangers that this presents across the country. Can you discuss the work your office is doing with Homeland Security Investigations Document and Benefit Fraud Task Force and the recommendations that have been made to stop this?

Sure. Well, first of all, we work very closely with Federal Motor Carriers. We're on multiple, I guess I would call them task forces or working groups, where obviously Federal Motor Carriers is focused on the enforcement and the regulation, and we're focused on the criminal activity. When it comes to CDL fraud, reincarnated carriers, cargo theft, all the sorts, we are all over that. I would just say that, again, there's a line to be drawn as far as what the department, what Federal Motor Carriers' responsibility is versus ours. And when it comes to partnering with our fellow law enforcement agencies, to the extent that an allegation is made and, for example, we recently worked in a joint arrest with Homeland Security to the extent that an allegation that's been made that violates, again, immigration laws comes to task, we're working with them. So I think all I would say to you is that we work very well and very closely across both law enforcement as well as across the down the hall with Federal Motor Carriers. And it's clearly a big problem and a big focus of the administration and has been a big focus of ours for many years.

Perfect. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

But you say you work closely with them. The question is, to your satisfaction, i.e., like on cargo theft as an example, are you finding willing partners, willing to prosecute, willing to hold people accountable? Because ultimately that's the only real deterrent that we're going to have. Are you satisfied?

Absolutely. More than satisfied. The coordination has been great.

Very good. Ms. Torres.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for following up on that. Are we doing enough on cargo thefts? It's something that I am very committed to working on with anyone on this committee. Mr. Behm, Mr. Harrison, thank you for being here today in your roles as Acting Inspectors General. The Trump administration is already preparing, as you may know, a supplemental funding request for the Iran war that Trump has started as of last Friday night, Saturday morning. We are hearing that the President's decision to start this war is costing American taxpayers an estimated $1 billion per day, per day. Yet, it has been over a year and the Trump administration has failed to take steps to request an emergency supplemental for California, a donor state, after the devastating Los Angeles wildfires in January of last year, which left 31 people dead and displaced over 100,000 Californians. California's initial request was over, again, a year ago. And the Trump administration has not brought up a single request for the over $34 billion California needs to recover. There should be, this should not be a mention of any supplemental that does not include disaster aid for families that lost everything that they owned to a fire. Mr. Behm and Mr. Harrison, will you commit to providing a report to my office on how disaster funding from HUD and DOT has been distributed, including the amounts and timing that have gone to states since January 20th of 2025?

Certainly. I think I believe we actually have an ongoing report.

Okay. Thank you.

And we can certainly work with you to find answers.

Thank you so much. I appreciate your collaboration on this issue. Second question, President Trump and his administration have made it clear that he wants to punish states like California just because our voters didn't support him. In January 2026, a court hearing, at a court hearing, a judge wrote that the Trump administration, and I quote, "freely admit that they have made grant termination decisions primarily, if not exclusively, based on whether the awardee resided in a state whose citizens voted for President Trump in 2024." OMB has also confirmed that they are reviewing funds in 14 Democratic states, including California, to try to force states that rightfully oppose the President's agenda to comply. Whatever happened to states' rights? This is just so unjustified. And just yesterday, California, Colorado, Illinois, and Minnesota challenged the administration in court yet again for their threats to cut $900 million in transportation funding and withholding $1.3 billion in disaster relief. Mr. Behm and Mr. Harrison, once again, will you commit to investigating the unlawful cuts and withholding of funds at HUD and DOT for California and other states?

Yes.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Our work in disaster recovery will continue. It's a major area of concern for us.

So you will work to, you commit to investigating the unlawful cuts?

I never start with the premise that something is unlawful. That would be a lack of professional judgment to do so.

Okay. So will you commit to investigate the cuts and withholding of funds at HUD and DOT for California and other states?

We will continue to focus on disaster recovery.

Okay. I'm going to yield back to the chairman and hope that we can get a second round. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Ciscomani.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Mr. Behm, for being here, Mr. Harrison, for your testimony and for the work that you do. Your work is critical in protecting American taxpayers and rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in our agencies. Mr. Harrison, I'll start with you. I represent a district that is home to nearly 80,000 veterans. And as a member of both the Veteran Affairs Committee and also this committee, veteran homelessness is a key priority to me. The HUD-VASH program is one of the federal government's primary tools to combat veteran homelessness. Yet we continue to see troubling low utilization rates in many jurisdictions, including in my home state in Arizona. So can you explain why HUD-VASH vouchers are going unused when veterans in our communities are still in need of stable housing? And as a second part on that, are there any recommendations you have for HUD to increase the utilization rates?

As a veteran, I appreciate the focus on our veteran community. We have looked at this issue in the past and we have seen instances where HUD has not fully executed the funds available to it, and this is certainly one of those areas. In our past work, we've done some surveys with public housing authorities, and the feedback we received from them is that the difficulty with the execution of these particular vouchers was that there's too high of a cost of housing or availability of housing. Those were the two top conditions. But beyond that, our work has drilled down into the partnership with VA. HUD relies upon VA to make referrals for this program, and it's our observation that the bar may be set too high. They're focusing on chronic homelessness when in fact they could be focused on homelessness.

So going into your recommendations, so that's one. What else could be done on that? So it's something that we need to work on with VA directly on the standard of that, you would say?

I believe it's both. HUD and VA leadership need to connect together to place emphasis on this program.

That, thank you for that. And love to talk more about that on more recommendations you may have on that. We just, you know, our brave men and women who have served our nation, ask yourself, thank you for your service, should never go without a roof over their heads. And that's the priority here. I look forward to working with you on that. Now, I'll stick with you for this round, Mr. Harrison. I share, and others have expressed this as well as the chairman has, concerns about the improper payments. So let me just, you know, dig in on that a little more. Are there any Arizona-based grantees that HUD OIG has identified as high risk for improper payments due to weak internal controls?

No, there is not.

Thank you for the agency's attention on this. This is highly critical and important, as you've seen from the questions here today. This is one of the top concerns for us on that. Taxpayer dollars must be used wisely and not abused either intentionally or unintentionally. It's our job to be monitors over that. So thanks for the work on that. And I have a minute and a half here left. Mr. Behm, I recognize that the department inherited a substantial discretionary grant backlog, particularly following the surge of funding under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and I appreciate the work being done to address this. That said, the Arizona Department of Transportation has raised concerns to my office about unclear notices of funding opportunities, limited transparency in evaluating criteria, and delays in award notifications as well, all of which complicate long-term project planning. From your oversight perspective, have you identified ways DOT could improve clarity and consistency in its NOFO guidance and evaluation process? And are there best practices that the department could adopt to provide states with more predictable timelines for award decisions so that they can plan and obligate funds more efficiently?

So as we're required by law, we work with GAO to make sure that we're coordinating work and there's no overlapping work. So unfortunately, with the response to a specific answer to your question, this is something, an area that GAO has taken the lead on and they have several projects completed and underway. That being said, in meetings that I've had on a recurring basis with the Secretary's Chief of Staff, it's my understanding that they are currently working on and ready to launch new criteria related to the discretionary grant program that they hope will provide some more clarity, better guidance, and I think some smoothness to the process.

I'll circle back with GAO, but this is a long-standing issue for maybe other states as well, but definitely for us. And it can save money, it can be more efficient, it can get these projects going faster and serve the public in a quicker way. So I look forward to working with you on that. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the time. I yield back.

Thank you. Mrs. Watson Coleman.

Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen, for being here today. I guess I have some process questions because I think you have two very important departments that impact quality of life, survivability, things of that nature to so many people. Mr. Behm, you mentioned something about a sole source contractor working with your department. What was the name of that contractor?

It was several contracts that the FAA had entered into with related to the NextGen, the prior air traffic control modernization. And it's really a matter of follow-on, you know, they enter into a contract and then they have option years that can be extended essentially sole source. So that's really what I was referring to.

So is there a name? Did you give a name?

I'd have to get back to you on the specific...

I thought you gave a name.

What's that?

I thought you had shared a name.

Oh, no, I mentioned Peraton, who is the... they're the lead integrator for the new, brand new air traffic control system.

So what is their function?

Their function is to essentially be an entity that provides oversight over the entire program.

That's what I want to understand. So what's their relationship to your office?

They are a contractor of FAA whom we audit.

Okay. In your office, how many people are employed?

Currently, it's closer to about 330.

Okay. Mr. Harrison, the same question to you. How many people are employed in your division under you, supposedly?

Our current staffing is 432, and then we have a number of contractors that support us also.

I guess my question to you all is that you've got very convoluted systems, very complex systems. What precipitates your involvement in what goes on in your department? Is it a complaint? Is it your general oversight? What is it? How do you get involved?

Well, obviously we have audits and investigations. The investigations on the criminal side, most of it is responsive, reactive, not proactive. We get complaints, we get a lot of referrals from within the department. They're frankly our best customers, I guess you'd say. Lots of hotline complaints and so forth, and other referrals from other law enforcement.

Do you do any proactive stuff in the department?

On the investigation side, we do. Like I said, we're doing some work with Federal Motor Carriers related to that. We do quite a bit of outreach to state and local governments identifying what they need to look for when it comes to fraud. But obviously when it comes to criminal, it's usually reactive.

Thank you. Mr. Harrison, could you respond to that?

Yeah, my answer is very similar. We of course have our statutory hotline and that does feed work. Our Office of Investigations is leaning heavily into looking at different ways to proactively develop investigations. That's often hampered by lack of access to quality data.

So Mr. Harrison, you mentioned, and correct me if I misunderstood, that there were somewhere between 90 or 85 criminal concerns in HUD, convictions, I don't know what. Do you remember saying that? Okay. I want to know who they are. Are they in the system? Are they the tenants? Are they the landlords? Are they somebody else? Are they employees? What percentage of those complaints...

My answer is yes, it's all of those. And we would have to get back to you with respect to percentages to have an appreciation of the nature of the defendants in our cases.

My concern is that sometimes the tenant is at the end of the chain and somehow gets caught up in it and doesn't get his or her housing that they need. And so I would very much like to know to what extent the people that were most vulnerable, people we're supposed to be looking out for, are being negatively impacted. Could you tell me why there are so many outstanding requests for Section 8 housing? Is it an issue of money that we don't give the department?

In many instances, it's the lack of availability of actual available homes for people to move into.

In New Jersey, we find that it's also a big problem with having reached a cap in the Section 8 housing, which is less than the need. How is that determined and corrected?

Earlier you said something that's important is obviously funding does play a role. The public housing authorities will always say that they need more money to do their job well. I would have to get back to you with a more detailed answer.

Okay. I'm going to yield back now, Mr. Chairman, and I think I'm going to hang around for a second round. Thank you so much, gentlemen.

Well, you're most welcome to hang around. Mr. Strong.

Thank you, Chairman Womack, Ranking Member Clyburn, for holding these hearings today. I thank our witnesses for being here and for all you do and your hard work. My district in North Alabama is blessed to be experiencing significant economic development and population growth. The growth is being driven by the robust federal investments in Space Command, Golden Dome, FBI, the Marshall Space Flight Center, as well as across Redstone Arsenal. Currently over 138,000 people from across North Alabama and as far as Southern Tennessee commute to Huntsville every day for employment. This number is expected to sharply increase in the coming years. It is crucial that our state and federal highway system receive the investments needed to support increased road and bridge capacity, and I stress capacity. It is vital that all federal agencies root out waste, fraud, abuse, and we must hold accountable those who take advantage of the system. In fiscal year 2025, DOT obligated over $140 billion in grants and contract funds. Mr. Behm, what happens when taxpayer dollars are dished out to these magnitudes without any risk monitoring or proactive oversight throughout the life of the grant?

Well, depending on what the type of grant it is, that's the level of oversight that again that the federal government provides. So obviously a lot of the formula funding, which is the bulk of the funding that comes from Federal Highways to each of the states, it's really far more reliant on the states to ensure that the funds are being used as they are intended to be used according to their state transportation infrastructure plan. But that being said, you know, Federal Highways has a significant role to ensure that these states have those internal controls and plans and so forth in place.

Thank you. How does your office ensure DOT grant programs are responsive to high growth areas and are not just going to those bridges to nowhere projects?

I mean, obviously a lot of that is more policy questions rather than audit questions. But that being said, obviously when it comes to reviews of discretionary grant programs, the key what we would look at again, although like I explained to Congressman Ciscomani is that GAO has been taking the lead on those discretionary grant programs, but again, the discretionary grant programs, it's a matter of are they following the criteria that they set in place.

Thank you. North Alabama is also home to significant drone operations and testing. The safe integration of beyond visual line of sight drone operations is a top priority for the FAA, Congress, and the Trump administration. Mr. Behm, how can the FAA better leverage lessons learned from operational environments such as those in Alabama's 5th District to ensure the real-world data informs safe drone operations?

Yeah, I think that you hit the nail on the head. The key what we have found in our audit work of drones and FAA's oversight of them is that they've been, for example, approving increasing numbers of the beyond visual line of sight, the BVLOS operations. However, you know, what we've also identified is that it's still difficult for the participants to meet the metrics and requirements to participate. And then additionally, what we've found is that the agency is not using the data that they have in order to inform these rulemakings. So for example, the experiences that they've had in Alabama, it's important to use those to learn to apply to drone operations throughout the country.

Thank you. Mr. Harrison, your office has made clear that HUD's grant management system is fragmented and disorganized, creating inconsistent oversight and financial integrity risk. What is your office doing to ensure that criminals who seek to scam, swindle, and defraud can no longer take advantage of the HUD system and to establish long-term mechanisms for oversight, accountability, and transparency for the agency?

Our office continues with its efforts to engage in strategic outreach with the grantees that are executing funds. This relationship allows for us to receive referrals from them concerning fraud. Beyond that, and speaking more broadly to the issue of grant management, the lack of available subrecipient data is continuing to be a significant challenge. We simply don't know who has the money, therefore we don't know the relationships between the people that are spending the money at the recipient, subrecipient, and subrecipient level. This is a heightened area of emphasis for us, and I alluded to earlier some of our proactive efforts. We're attempting to reconstruct those records on the investigative side and on the improper payment side currently in the two largest programs, tenant-based rental assistance and project-based rental assistance. We have undertaken to actually perform the estimate of improper payments. And while my staff has certainly encouraged me not to mention numbers, when those numbers come out later this year, I think it will get your attention.

Thank you, Chairman Womack. I yield back.

Mr. Espaillat.

Thank you, Chairman Womack and Ranking Member Clyburn. Mr. Behm, we've heard from Mr. Quigley about infrastructure projects in Chicago area and of course we read about the Gateway project in New Jersey, which I think is a national security related project. The Northeast Corridor from Boston to Virginia is so fragile that any problem there will somewhat paralyze rail going up and down from New England to Virginia. And yet this project proposed to provide 90,000 union jobs in addition to the jobs that will have been created by the project in Chicago, in the Illinois area. In my district, you have the Second Avenue Subway, which will connect the biggest transportation desert, East Harlem, to the rest of the world. That would also create another 70,000 jobs. It seems to me that the administration is killing jobs. 100,000 jobs, over 100,000 jobs easily in these three projects, union jobs for that matter. And so I want to know what your office is doing regarding Second Avenue Subway. We know that Gateway was resolved in the courts favorably, but what are you doing, if anything, to address withholding funds for the Second Avenue Subway project?

So as I said to Congressman Quigley, we currently do not have any work underway related to the funds withheld or the concerns surrounding funds withheld from various projects, but we would be happy to discuss with you and the committee and the committee staff to the extent that there would be like a request for us to conduct that kind of work.

I would like to see that. This is a sloping economy, inflation continue to rage, unemployment, and these projects could really provide oxygen to the economy, but the administration continues to consistently block the creation of jobs. And that is a problem. My second question is on March 2024, Mr. Behm, the DOT announced an industry-wide periodic review of U.S. airlines and their management of passenger sensitive personal information. This is passenger data that's being sold or shared without a subpoena or any kind of court order by the airlines to DHS agencies. What is your office role in oversight and ensuring that the agency is not improperly sharing personal sensitive data with other executive branch agencies such as DHS?

I'll have to get back to you on that, Congressman.

Two strikes, Mr. Behm. The third one and you're out. Mr. Harrison, earlier this month, HUD released a proposed rule that would prohibit families with mixed immigration status from receiving housing assistance or living in HUD housing programs like public housing and Section 8. This is going to split up families. Has the OIG assessed whether this rule would increase evictions, homelessness, or emergency housing costs for local governments? And what oversight risk might arise if large numbers of families lose assistance simultaneously?

As I understand it, that proposed rule is open for notice and comment and therefore we're not engaging in any oversight of a proposed rule. As a general principle, we need a final rule and then we need a body of evidence to measure against in order to form a professional judgment on the effect of it. So I can't speculate in this forum about what the effect of it will be because I don't know what the rule is yet.

I hope that the result is not to split families and throw people out out of their homes. If grandma's status is irregular, but the rest of the family are U.S. citizens or legal holding green card holders, I hope you don't throw that family out. But Mr. Behm, I want to get back to you quickly and hope that the sharing of personal information, passenger information, is not compromised. That is critical. When I take an airplane, I don't want my data shared with anybody unless I give a permission. Do you agree that's a basic principle that we should adhere to?

Yes. Yes.

Thank you so much. I yield back.

On the subject of strikes, let's we're still in spring training, okay? The season really hadn't started yet.

I don't know about that, Chairman. Seems to me they struck out.

Well, and remember and now in the new rules, there can be an appeal of the strike call. So go to the ABS system. We're going to continue with another round and I would respectfully ask the members maybe to keep their questions to maybe three minutes to be respectful of everybody's time and the lunch hour. And I'll recognize myself again. I was budget chair in 2018, so I drafted the 2019 budget and the subject of improper payments came up then as we were attempting to pass a budget that would pass muster and improper payments was just a topic thrown out there that had hundreds of billions of dollars attached to it. And ever since then, I've been amazed at how easily the term improper payments just flows off the tongue as if it's something that is expected. And my guess is is it because federal funds are involved, taxpayer money is involved, if you want to look for waste, fraud, and abuse, just go where that money is flowing because that's where the professionals go to to get a payday. So for both of you, what are the trend lines on improper payments? And I know they the the term improper payments means something different in the area of housing as maybe it does in the area of transportation, but still, public money destined for a specific purpose to certain qualified people that doesn't go to those people and instead goes somewhere else fits that definition. So what are the trends right now? Are we making progress?

I hesitate to use the word help, but I can say that the conditions right now at HUD are different. One of the principal factors in fraud risk management is tone at the top. And we see something different happening at HUD with Secretary Turner's emphasis on fraud. It is easy for me to get an audience and talk about fraud with any anyone on his leadership team. The reinstitution of Do Not Pay is a concrete step taken forward. The project HUDs and project vouchers, we believe, are squarely fit the size of the problem, but we do have concerns behind that that the project management of those must promote the solution that we all want to see.

What about on the DOT side? It's usually involving contracts and the like.

Right. Right. And I think what something that you said, you hit the nail on the head, improper payments can mean a wide variety of things. So obviously there's the improper payments that are truly fraud. And then there's the improper payments that according to the definition created by GAO is a, you know, somebody made a little incorrect mark somewhere which so ultimately there wasn't as though someone was defrauding the government, but that it wasn't fully documented. So I think that what I would say with regards to over the last 10 plus years, the Department of Transportation has been doing a much better job. And obviously we have outside outside contractors, the the big essentially accounting firms that that conduct these types of reviews on a on an annual basis. So it's something that we're continuing to look at.

Yeah, well, you know, as an appropriator, I can tell you that anytime that you give an agency an account flush with money and particularly if it's happening in a fiscal year where you're already four or five months into the fiscal year, that provides a recipe, I think, for not being totally accountable for all of the all of the outlays. And I'll leave it there. Mr. Clyburn.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am tempted and would like to have some answers about the impact of HUD losing over 4,000 employees and your office losing what, 52 employees under this deferred program and the impact that's having on your ability to address issues like the one I'm particularly concerned about at this moment, and that is the implementation and administration of fair housing laws. I'm particularly interested in people who are veterans, people with disabilities, and the complaints we continue to get about this. I've written a letter to HUD asking for response. I think Senator Warren has written a letter or or has shared a whistleblower complaint about this. And as one who's about to celebrate the 47th anniversary of his 39th birthday, I'm concerned about seniors and whether or not they are being treated fairly. All complaints in our office indicate that there's something amiss with the administration of the fair housing programs. Are you all looking into this?

We did receive the complaint and we are generally concerned about how staffing can impact HUD as a whole. With respect to the fair housing, there has been changes in staffing and we have examined whether those are lawful exercises of discretion in doing so. And what we found in even in the whistleblower complaint is that they are speculating about the future impact of staffing. They may be right, but in the OIG, we have to be careful about resting our conclusions on evidence of that and not enough time has passed to understand the impact of changing how they're approaching the mission. And once a certain amount of time has passed where we have the evidence where we we can do a comparative analysis to the historical prosecution of that mission, we'll be capable of doing so at that time.

Well, I'm a little bit concerned about this passage of time because I do believe the time itself is neutral. The question is the effective use of that time. Are you filling this passage of time with any activity to get us an answer to this question? We can sit back and wait for the next 10 years and time will be passing. But what are you filling that time with?

I don't mean to suggest we're going to wait 10 years.

Well, not only 10, even if you wait 10 months. You telling me there's been not enough passage of time. What does that mean?

We have to gain an understanding of how the mission is being executed.

Well, is there enough activity on your part to try to find answers to these questions within that passage of time?

Yeah, there's two layers of discretion that attach here at the department. First is where are the attorneys that are going to prosecute this mission? Having a centralized function at headquarters is not required by statute. They are permitted to have that function performed elsewhere within HUD. The second layer of discretion is which cases the department seeks to pursue that it feels are meritorious. We're not in a position to examine the lawful exercise of discretion. What we are in a position to do is see the effect of that lawful exercise of discretion. Currently, we don't have any ongoing work on this particular topic, but I expect that we will in the future.

Okay. Let's be hopeful.

Mr. Rutherford.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Behm, if I could ask just real quick, you mentioned the audit of in your written testimony, you mentioned the audit of FMCSA concerning their oversight of state CDL programs. Can you tell me when that's expected to be out?

Yeah, that's that was just recently started, so I would say optimistically the end of the year.

End of the year. Okay. And I want to talk about the 20 en route control centers, one of which is Jacksonville Center. ATC staffing has been a major focus of Secretary Duffy, the FAA, myself since I've been up here. When I speak to those controllers, I hear experiences from them about the difficulties with overtime responsibilities, the inability and lack of flexibility for time off, and then just the general stress of that en route center work. And you mentioned that they were 15 percent below staffing levels. Now, I know that the OIG spent a lot of time dealing with or looking at this issue. Can you please talk a little more about that move and what is it that the OIG is looking at? Can we expect some audits in this field as well?

We've done a whole body of work related to air traffic controller, mostly related to training and staffing. Obviously, it's the determinant on the administration and the department in how to accelerate that. So I think that there's been a good push and some improvement related to opening the, you know, certain schools up to providing more air traffic controllers into the system. But ultimately, it's a very difficult nut to crack because in particular, a lot of the critical facilities where they're which is where these are 15 plus percent, you know, below where they would like to be. For example, I think New York TRACON and Miami is shy of 60 percent of capacity. So, you know, and then but then like I said, a lot of what we're doing focus now is more on ensuring that once you have an influx of junior air traffic controllers, are they getting the training that they need? And what does it count if you have a if you've just now fully staffed a TRACON or an en route center with, you know, now you're at full capacity, but it's 50 percent trainees, is that really full capacity? So there's a lot of work to be done and obviously it's a very important issue.

Thank you. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back and thank you for the second round.

Mrs. Watson Coleman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Harrison, I just want to make a point, I'm not sure there's a question in this. But Congressman Clyburn has continuously asked you about how the performance is today, whether or not you're doing HUD is doing what it needs to be needs to do, and you keep saying, well, we haven't had enough time to collect the information. I think we know what happened last year and we know what happened a year before and the year before that. We should know what's happening in real time and based upon what we know, we ought to be able to make some intelligent inference about whether or not we're meeting our mark and delivering the services. So I would like for you to rethink that and not recognize that we need 10 more months or eight more months or seven more months to tell us whether or not we're meeting our mark now. And that's what I wanted to say about that. Mr. Behm, I got a question for you. Remember the ridiculousness associated with whether New Jersey and the region was going to get the gateway money only if we named the tunnel after the current president? Were you at all involved in that?

No, ma'am.

Would you be involved in that kind of thing?

Unlikely, except to the extent that it crossed into a potential audit related to withholding funds.

All right. So moving forward, if the president wants to hold up federal money to a project until certain conditions are met that are totally unrelated to the intent of the project, you wouldn't have any involvement?

Not not directly, no.

Okay. So we can look for more to come. Thank you. I yield back.

Mrs. Bice.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Harrison, you mentioned in earlier testimony the public housing authorities. And I was surprised to learn when I became a member of this subcommittee the vast number of PHAs that exist across the country, 3,300 plus is my understanding. Do you think that there is a concern or a challenge with trying to manage funding that are going to so many entities that are also maybe not able to report the information that they are issuing the grants through your office properly?

The number is exceptionally high. I've heard estimates as high as 3,700, the most recent was 3,600. That you said 3,300 highlights part of the problem.

We don't even know is part of the problem.

That there's there's different numbers out there certainly demonstrates the problem. The money goes out from HUD and HUD knows how much money it's giving to the PHAs. It's a game of estimation and guesstimation to figure out how to reconcile money appropriately. And that is because it is a completely non-transparent environment once it hits the grantee because we don't have access to how that money is being spent, which requires an audit or monitoring of that particular money. What we've seen when we go out to large public housing authorities or even medium-sized ones is there's often a difficulty even for us to be able to reconcile the funding. That is why we are highlighting in our work this next year to go to public housing authorities and look at their financial management controls and learn better how they're doing business. Then when that is considered alongside the future of project vouchers, that will give us a better ability to be more efficient in first stopping payments that shouldn't go out, but then also just more efficiently tracing the transaction to where it went and utilizing that data to have better targeted audits and proactive investigations when we see anomalies in data.

Are you able to audit these PHAs yourself?

We certainly are and we certainly have. We've looked at their fraud risk management practices, which we have found to be lacking, much like the fraud risk management that is lacking at HUD, but for the same reason is that it is incredibly difficult to come into compliance with these laws when there's just not data infrastructure capable of doing so efficiently.

Do you believe that there is a need to codify some of the policies and procedures as it relates to these grantees that would make it more transparent?

I don't know if codification is the answer, but it is a routine finding in audits that grantees are confused by the instructions. And that certainly frustrates us when it comes to an audit because we have to pay due attention to complaints by grantees and sub-recipients of those grants that they don't understand the instruction. And sometimes that's validated in our audit. So clearer instructions, consistent instructions, and then holding people to those standards, we believe is important to the success of HUD.

Perfect. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield.

Mr. Ciscomani.

Thank you, Chairman. Two quick questions, but hopefully we can get through them in three minutes. In Arizona, we're seeing a rapid expansion of autonomous vehicles. Mr. Behm, this is for you. From trucks to cars, how prepared is DOT to oversee autonomous vehicles overall?

I think obviously we're still at the early stages. So the key from I think the department is creating the the policies and regulation before they actually, you know, move into, you know, I think the the phase two of what ultimately is approved, permitted, and so forth. But it's I think I would say it's still early days, especially from where we sit as far as auditing. You know, generally with regards to auditing a policy that is still like in its nascency is is sometimes premature. So we haven't done a lot of work in that regard yet, but clearly it's on our radar.

Yeah, I hope that it's it's a priority. There's, you know, definitely moving in that direction. Arizona has been we have specific companies in state that do this for both semis, but also for cars. And I think it's an area where where policy needs to catch up with technology here and what we're seeing more and more of. So more than on your radar, I hope that we that we dig into that because our state calls for that. Last half of my last allotted time here, how effectively is DOT coordinating with border agencies to ensure efficient freight movement through ports of entry in specifically in Southern Arizona, but you could expand it, but I'm interested in Arizona specifically.

So I'm not certain with regards to how closely, you know, the the department is coordinating with Department of Homeland Security in this case, CBP, whoever it may be. Again, when when we are, you know, involved in an operation in particular on the criminal side, you know, we make sure that we're coordinating with with law enforcement. But that's I think perhaps maybe a better question or we can get back to you after we speak with Federal Motor Carriers about that.

Yeah, that partnership is definitely key as on on train and rail specifically, we see some of that, especially areas of the port of entry where there's a lot of security, there's a lot of wall, there's a lot, you know, the infrastructure is there and rail and freight freight need tends to be sometimes a preferred avenue for for criminal activity. So I do want to see some coordination on that. But that's all for now. Chairman, I thank you, yield back.

Thank you. Mr. Strong, bring us home.

Mr. Mr. Behm, President Trump has made it clear that professional drivers operating on American roads must be able to speak speak and understand English. How is your office monitoring and enforcing compliance with the executive order to prevent rampant dangerous CDL fraud and abuse we saw in the Biden administration?

So again, we just recently initiated an audit related to CDLs and the knowledge and skills tests that are required. Again, our audit will be focused on the Federal Motor Carrier's oversight of that rather than the states themselves. And again, I think the key, something that I said earlier, that it's the Federal Motor Carrier's is responsible for the enforcement of of those those laws.

Thank you. My family has owned a fleet of 45-foot Prevost buses for more than 40 years. I have a or had a CDL passenger endorsement. Legitimate commercial driver's license is essential rules of the road. You must understand and know the English language, signage, understand turning radius, stopping distances, and also understand you cannot do a U-turn with an 80,000-pound vehicle and a 45-foot trailer in the middle of the interstate. Mr. Behm, another issue affecting safety is the severe nationwide shortage of safe trucking or truck parking. When truck drivers can't find parking, they're forced to park on the highway shoulder or exceed hours of service limits, creating dangerous driving conditions. How significant is the truck parking shortage as a safety risk, and what accountability measures exist to ensure federal infrastructure dollars are being used to address this problem?

Yeah, that's something that we recently added to our 24-month audit plan, which is what we prepare every year, so it's on our radar to take a look at, but haven't conducted any audit work there yet.

Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Glad you mentioned truck parking, because this committee just put $200 million into the DOT's accounts for specifically truck parking, and we're going to be anxious to see how that money is allocated and how we are reaping the benefits. That will tell us whether or not we're on the right track or whether we need to pull back and go in a different direction.

Mr. Chairman, I commend you for your efforts. I know in that process you were relentless to be sure that that 200 million was not pulled out of there, and that's the reason that I listed it. Thank you, and I yield back.

Had a lot of help from this subcommittee and my ranking member, Mr. Clyburn, and I'm grateful for that. Want to thank both of you gentlemen for being here with us today, Deputy Inspector General Mitch Behm and Acting Inspector General Brian Harrison, along with your staff for your participation. Your work is important. We appreciate your service to the public. Committee staff will be in touch regarding any questions that we might have for the record. And with that, Mr. Clyburn, thanks again.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to just say that Mr. Rutherford just spent a little time in South Carolina, and I've been trying to get you to come.

Was he lost?

But he got found. You know, I've been thinking a little bit today. South Carolina has two mottos. The one that's most popular and people know is, while I breathe, I hope. And I live by that motto. But we have a second motto, which this hearing has reminded me a little bit of today: prepared in mind and resources. I'm very hopeful that we are prepared in mind and resources to get the job done that needs to be done for the American people. And with that, Mr. Chairman, looking forward to your visit to South Carolina soon and enjoy what Mr. Rutherford just enjoyed down there. Mr. Strong, you can come on over too. Thank you all so much.

Look forward to it. Actually in South Carolina three weeks ago.

Very good.

And with that, this hearing is now adjourned. Thank you.