Hearings to examine sunshine week, focusing on bringing secret government spending to light.

The Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship to order. Happy Sunshine Week, folks, here we are. It's the time of year when we celebrate more sunshine in our lives and in our government. But while we may be getting a little more sunlight every day, Washington still seems to be in the dark. The government demands to know exactly how much money all of you earn so it can tax every single cent. Yet once Washington gets its hands on your money, it's anyone's guess where it is even going. For the past two decades, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act has required government expenditures to be publicly available on a searchable website, usaspending.gov. This website is invaluable to the oversight work I do every day, tracking how taxpayer dollars are being spent. But tens of billions of dollars are intentionally being omitted from the site every year. Another law passed 15 years ago requires Washington to make an annual list of programs describing the cost, purpose, and results of each program. Turns out government agencies don't even know how many programs they are running or if they are accomplishing their stated goals. More than 2,600 programs have been identified to date. But that doesn't include foreign aid and defense programs, which haven't been tallied yet. If Washington doesn't know how many programs there are and if they are actually working, how can the government guarantee your money is being spent properly? Simple answer is it can't. Folks, without transparency, there is no accountability. That's why I've authored a number of laws to shine more light on Washington spending. And as a result today, agencies from the Small Business Administration to the Pentagon must put public price tags on projects paid for with your tax dollars. A similar law applies to funding from the Departments of Health and Human Services, Education, and Labor. This information is intended to allow taxpayers to decide for themselves if the price is right. Here is an example of how SBA and taxpayers are supporting the work of our friends at the Iowa Center Women's Business Center. These folks are helping women who are trying to start or grow a business in our state, where women now own 43 percent of all businesses. As you can see from the price tag on the center's website, taxpayers are providing $150,000 of the costs to make those services available. Shouldn't every taxpayer-funded program, project, or product provide a similar price tag? Unfortunately, even where this transparency has already been promised, it isn't always happening. For example, right here, the Navy sunk tax dollars into conducting octopus hypnosis. But you'll put yourself in a trance reading through the results trying to find the cost. Why? Because it's not included. The Army is spending taxpayer money on monkey mind reading. But the cost is anyone's guess. While I'm sure we're all looking forward to learning what's on the minds of monkeys, I already know what's on taxpayers' minds. They are fed up with Washington hiding how the money they work so hard to earn is being spent, only to learn it's being wasted. Well, folks, sunshine is the best disinfectant for discouraging wasteful spending. That is why I appreciate SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler for quickly getting her agency into compliance with my COST Act. While the Pentagon has been required to disclose the cost of research and development projects funded with tax dollars since 2021, the previous administration did little to make that happen. I am announcing today that the department's Inspector General will investigate the matter so taxpayers won't have to resort to mind reading or hypnosis to find out how defense dollars are being spent. One thing I've learned during my time in the Senate is there is more to making a law than just passing a bill. Oversight is absolutely essential to making sure the law is carried out. And effective oversight requires access to information. I want to recognize the hard work of the offices of Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office for assisting my work and standing up for taxpayers. I also want to express my deep gratitude for the work of Open the Books and the White Coat Waste Project, who turn transparency into real-world results that benefit all of us. I've learned the hard way that exposing inefficiencies and fighting waste doesn't make you many friends in Washington, D.C. So I salute you for your thankless work and I extend the gratitude of the taxpayers in Iowa who could not have better friends standing up for their interests in Washington. Before recognizing the Ranking Member for his opening remarks, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record statements from nonprofit taxpayer watchdog and transparency groups in support of more openness in government, including Citizens Against Government Waste, US Right to Know, the National Taxpayers Union, and we'll enter these into the record without objection, so ordered. And I now recognize Ranking Member Markey for his opening statement.

Well, thank you, Madam Chair, so much and I love the name Sunshine Week. By the way, I'm the author of the law that moved daylight savings time from the last week of April to the first week of March. So we took the hour of daylight from 5:15 in the morning and moved it to 7:15 at night. So for the last two weeks, you've been walking, you've been going home and it's daylight out there. It's sunshine. And you're welcome, everyone, because we know that's really the beginning of spring when the hour is in the evening and you can go home in it. And that's kind of my gift to everyone, that smile on the corners of your mouth that turn upwards knowing that you're going to be able to go home, you can start playing soccer or softball or taking your walk or gardening because it's there. Now, as opposed to that, the Trump administration has said that their administration is the most transparent in our history. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth because this administration loves darkness. They want it to be 5:15 in the morning, you know, at all times, where people just can't see what is going on. And in the past year, the Trump administration has spent all of their time operating in the shadows, operating in darkness, purging essential programs, disappearing databases, firing nonpartisan federal staff, including those that respond to Freedom of Information Act requests. This administration has tried to silence the truth, ban facts, coerce reporters into staying silent. And just this past weekend, the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, or as I call it now, the Federal Censorship Commission, he threatened to revoke broadcasters' licenses over reporting on the Iranian conflict. So it's an illegal war in Iran isn't evidently enough for the administration, it now seeks to wage an all-out war on reality. Don't report on the skyrocketing energy prices. Don't report on all of the casualties. Don't report on the fact that the Straits of Hormuz are now shut. Don't report on that. And now even Joe Kent, the administration's top counterterrorism official, who has some problems of his own, but he couldn't stomach the lies and resigned yesterday in protest. More often than not, we do not hear about this administration's actions straight from the horse's mouth. Instead, we learn about these actions after the damage is already done. So at best, it's unacceptable, at worst, it's a deliberate series of cover-ups that benefit Trump and his MAGA minions, not the American people. So last month, thanks to court filings, we learned that the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, employees agreed to turn over sensitive Social Security data to a right-wing political advocacy group peddling conspiracy theories of voter fraud. Last week, thanks to a courageous whistleblower, we learned of allegations that a former DOGE employee put millions of Americans' Social Security numbers and sensitive financial information on personal thumb drives intending to share them with his private employer. And recently, thanks to a lawsuit, we learned that DOGE employees asked ChatGPT to choose which federal grants were so-called DEI and should be cancelled. No steps to prevent bias or discrimination were taken, just write an algorithm and just send it throughout the federal government, figure out who deserves and who doesn't deserve a grant. This is a deeply flawed process that DOGE employees used to cancel 1,400 National Endowment of Humanities grants because the grants specifically addressed women and minorities. Bad algorithm, bad outcome for women and minorities. None of these grants were secret, nor were they controversial. This is not an open and transparent government. Instead of shining light on actual waste and fraud and abuse, the Trump administration is once again playing political games and leaving the American people in the dark. No sunshine. No transparency. We still don't know what DOGE did at the Small Business Administration because the committee has never been briefed after repeated requests. If this administration were serious about transparency, it would not conceal information about the donors for Trump's $400 million gold-plated ballroom. If this administration were serious about ethical spending, it would not have allowed Kristi Noem to spend $200 million on two private jets for herself and 220 million on an ad campaign. If this administration was serious about fiscal accountability, it would have halted the record $95 billion end-of-fiscal-year spending the Pentagon blew through last September. Those taxpayer funds weren't for services, service member salaries and benefits. The Pentagon swiped the taxpayers' credit card to pay for deals with outside contractors, giving $6 billion to foreign governments and foreign-owned businesses and buy high and luxury items like furniture, including a $100,000 grand piano. That's not music to the ears of the American people when it comes to transparency and accountability. The administration that believes in transparency should welcome oversight and it would be opening its books, brief this committee, maintain the independence of Inspectors General rather than purging its ranks and replacing them with hand-picked MAGA loyalists. Oversight is not obstruction. This committee has a responsibility regardless of party to demand answers on behalf of small businesses and working families we represent. Congress and this administration must flip the switch, shine sunlight wherever waste, fraud, and abuse exist, and I look forward to today's hearing with this great witness panel that you have assembled.

Wonderful, thank you, Ranking Member Markey. I did not know that you authored that bill. Thank you. Some people would argue against you, but I'm totally okay with it, so thank you.

But most of those people come from farm states. Yeah, and I appreciate your open-mindedness because I had to hear over and over again from farm state senators how cows operate on God's time. Yes, and I used to tell them, cows don't know what time it is, okay? Let's move the hour, wake them up later and they'll still get the job done. But it was fascinating to learn more about farm state and their relationship to...

I don't know any cows that wear watches. So I don't think it matters to them, but thank you. I do want to extend a warm welcome to all of our witnesses and I am thankful that you took time out of your busy schedules to share your expertise and insight with our committee today. I will now introduce our first witness, Mr. Justin Goodman. Mr. Goodman is the Senior Vice President of Advocacy and Public Policy at White Coat Waste, a nonprofit, nonpartisan government watchdog organization. He is a subject matter expert with over 20 years of experience investigating, exposing, and stopping government waste. White Coat Waste was the first to uncover that Dr. Fauci funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and I've been honored to work with them to try and stop unnecessary and cruel animal research. Next, Mr. John Hart is the CEO of Open the Books. With a mission to put every dime online in real time, Open the Books is the premier government spending transparency organization. Before joining Open the Books, he served as the communications director to the late U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, where he worked on landmark transparency legislation that put federal spending online. His work at Open the Books includes oversight reports on improper payments, government waste, and exposing COVID fraud. Our third witness, Mr. Jeff Arkin, is the director of strategic issues at the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, in Washington, D.C. Mr. Arkin oversees GAO's work on federal budget issues, states' and localities' use of federal grants and other financial assistance, and the quality, transparency, and usefulness of federal spending data. He joined GAO in 2002 and spent over a decade leading reviews, excuse me, leading reviews of tax policy and administration. His work for GAO identifying ways to improve tax compliance resulted in billions of dollars in additional federal revenue and other improvements to the federal tax system's operation. And thank you again for being here. I now recognize Ranking Member Markey to introduce his witness.

Thank you so much, and I'm pleased to introduce Dr. Joshua Miller, who serves as Congress Watch director at Public Citizen, where he leads a team advocating advocacy on AI, healthcare, financial services, taxes, and government oversight. He previously served in investigative and legislative roles working with Congress and multiple inspectors general, including supporting oversight efforts at the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform. His academic and professional career has been impeccable and centered on executive branch responsiveness to the needs of all communities and strengthening transparency and accountability in government. So we welcome you, Doctor.

Thank you. And now we will go into opening statements, and first I will recognize Justin Goodman for your statement. Now I'll explain the lighting system in front of you. Green means you're good to go. Yellow means you have a minute left, so start wrapping it up, please. And then red means time to conclude. So with that, Mr. Goodman, you are recognized for five minutes.

Good afternoon, Chair Ernst, Ranking Member Markey. White Coat Waste's mission is to find, expose, and defund government animal testing, which costs taxpayers roughly $20 billion each year. We believe taxpayers have a right to know how their hard-earned money is being spent so they can hold their government accountable for wasteful spending and animal abuse. I'm honored to testify today about how transparency tools, though imperfect, have helped us identify and eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse in programs funded by the SBA, NIH, and other agencies, and even spare dogs like rescued lab beagle Oliver behind me here from painful experiments. Some of our work with Senator Ernst shows exactly why transparency is so critical for congressional oversight. In 2022, using federal spending transparency databases, White Coat Waste uncovered how Dr. Fauci's division of the NIH awarded a $1.8 million small business innovation research contract to develop a seasonal allergy drug. We suspected it funded animal tests, but because of deficiencies in reporting requirements, we had to submit a FOIA request for more details. The FOIA records confirmed that the NIH-approved SBIR contract budgeted for a series of drug tests on six-month-old puppies. The FOIA records also revealed that the company admitted internally that the NIH-funded dog tests were unnecessary. We shared the documents with Senator Ernst's office and were very grateful that she fired off a letter to Dr. Fauci. Within weeks, he personally responded. He admitted that the NIH reviewed and approved the SBIR contract for dog testing. He also stated that the dog tests his team greenlit were now being canceled following further scrutiny. In fact, the drug reached human trials without any testing on dogs. Using tools like FOIA and USAspending, we literally saved puppies. More recently, using the same transparency tools, we uncovered that wasteful SBIR spending on dog testing is widespread. We identified at least $86 million in SBIR funding awarded by the Trump NIH to drug companies for other unnecessary testing on dogs. Unfortunately, it is impossible to pinpoint the total amount because of disclosure deficiencies on federal databases, as the GAO has documented. Still, we've shown that in these SBIR-funded tests, puppies as young as three weeks old are being injected with and force-fed experimental drugs. Some are even injected with fentanyl, cocaine, and have their skulls drilled into. Tens of millions in SBIR funding continues to be wasted on dog tests even though the FDA has stated, quote, "it does not mandate that human drugs be studied on dogs," end quote, and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary has stated, quote, "why are we testing every single drug on dogs, usually beagles? It's sad and it's unnecessary," end quote. This wasteful SBIR-funded dog testing persists even though Senators Paul, Booker, and Schiff enacted a law in 2022 removing the FDA's outdated animal testing mandate. White Coat Waste investigations have also exposed Trump NIH officials' numerous false claims that they stopped funding beagle testing and have prompted bipartisan congressional calls for action. Taxpayers are so upset about the NIH's deception, they're flooding Secretary Kennedy's phone lines. Instead of thoughtfully responding to public concerns about NIH-funded beagle abuse, yesterday, HHS defiantly changed one of its phone messages to play a recording saying, quote, "thank you for calling Domino's Pizza," end quote, before sending taxpayers to voicemail. Torturing puppies with our tax dollars isn't funny, but people at HHS apparently think it is. Many SBIR-funded companies wasting tax dollars on dog tests have also violated longstanding transparency laws requiring them to disclose their federal funding. Documents White Coat Waste obtained through FOIA show that one biotech company started and run by Moderna's billionaire co-founder recently received a $1.2 million SBIR contract to test an experimental weight loss pill on dogs. It also violated the law by not disclosing this funding. This is why we need Senator Ernst's COST Act. Another transparency success story is White Coat Waste investigation that exposed and prompted President Trump to end taxpayer funding for the Wuhan lab. Our FOIA requests and lawsuits secured records showing that NIH and USAID did fund gain-of-function animal tests in China that Biden and Trump agencies both say likely caused COVID. Senator Ernst and others have had to go to great lengths to compel agencies to release records that the public has a right to see under the law. The records we obtained also support Senator Paul's allegations that Fauci lied under oath when he denied the funding, and the Biden HHS even cited the documents when it debarred Wuhan's lab partner EcoHealth from federal funding. Our investigations have also identified potential COVID fraud by EcoHealth, NIH's foreign beagle supplier, and others. In closing, Sunshine Week reminds us that transparency is not an abstract principle. It is a practical tool that protects taxpayers, strengthens oversight, exposes waste, and can even save puppies. When the government turns on the lights, waste and abuse have nowhere left to hide. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I look forward to answering your questions.

Thank you very much, Mr. Goodman, and welcome to Oliver as well. It's great to have him here. So thank you so much. Next, I will recognize Dr. Miller for five minutes of testimony. The floor is yours, Dr. Miller.

Yes. Thank you, Chair Ernst, Ranking Member Markey, and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Joshua Miller and I serve as director at Public Citizen, where our team works to strengthen government accountability and expose corporate corruption. I also have fond memories of working with this committee while advocating for small businesses at one of the nation's leading CDFIs, helping entrepreneurs access responsible capital, especially during PPP. Before that, I served in investigative and legislative roles at GAO and several inspector general offices. In those roles, I worked with Congress to strengthen housing support programs and evaluated fines and penalties for foreign corrupt practices, money laundering, and sanctions violations. I also provided investigative support on white-collar criminal cases and helped facilitate the data necessary to find missing and exploited children and violent fugitive felons. And finally, I'm a political scientist with an expertise in unitary presidential power and the institutions that make our government work most effectively. All of these experiences will shape my testimony today. Like many Americans, I'm deeply concerned about the blatant and rampant fraud and corruption we're seeing in the federal government today. This president walked into office focused on dismantling oversight, immediately firing 17 inspectors general, and over 75 percent of appointed IG roles are still vacant. This was shocking because inspectors general are not just there to track dollars and cents. They uphold the health, safety, and well-being of the American people. It was the Inspector General's Office that took action to protect children from lead exposure in subsidized housing. It was an Inspector General's Office that uncovered failures to protect our troops exposed to toxic burn pits. It was an Inspector General's Office that uncovered failures to protect our troops' body armor and discovered FEMA's trailers with high levels of toxic chemicals. And it was an Inspector General's Office that uncovered nursing homes failing to manage dangerous infections. So when the president fires inspectors general to hide his corruption, the real impact will not be felt here in Washington, D.C. It will be felt by the American people. But it is not just the firing of inspectors general that is the problem. The greatest fraud you can perpetrate against the American people is using their personal data and information for wealth, influence, or political power. And that is what we're hearing with the so-called DOGE initiative, as we are hearing reports that DOGE personnel remove Social Security numbers from the Social Security Administration. Now, in other times, this would be treated like the outrage it is. But fraud is so rampant that it's just a footnote to larger stories of corruption. So it's at moments like this that I cannot help but think about 12 Easters ago, when President Obama sparked a national controversy by wearing a tan suit. Now, as a presidential and political historian, I support any outrage and accountability as a healthy check on any president perceived as violating our norms. But the only thing I'm asking is that we keep that same energy that produced that tan suit outrage. When the defense secretary breaks norms and spends millions of dollars on crab legs and steaks, bring the tan suit outrage. When the DHS secretary breaks norms by spending $200 million on ads featuring herself riding a horse, bring the tan suit outrage. And when the president himself breaks norms, selling his policies on energy, AI, and healthcare to whichever corporation invests in his crypto pyramid or ballroom, bring the tan suit outrage. Let's make accountability tan again because accountability should not be red or blue, Republican or Democrat. Our outrage should be at corruption, no matter who commits it, whether it's Biden or Trump, Bush or Obama. But let's not stop at outrage. Let us take the next steps and pursue reforms. Reforms that turn norms into ironclad law with real opportunities for accountability. Reforms governing the selection and removal of inspectors general's office and creating a process similar to that of GAO. Reforms that protect taxpayer data from the type of abuse we have seen recently. Reforms that empower inspector general offices to investigate large-scale fraud and corruption while to prevent corporations and government officials from misappropriating billions of dollars. And reforms that protect all consumer and oversight agencies, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the only agency dedicated to protecting Americans from being scammed by Fortune 500 companies. Because the purpose of oversight is not simply to expose corruption. It is to protect the American people from it. And if we are serious about restoring trust in government, then restoring real accountability must be our next step. Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.

Thank you, Dr. Miller. And we'll move to Mr. Hart. Thank you. You are recognized for five minutes of testimony.

Madam Chair Ernst, Ranking Member Markey, and distinguished senators, thank you for the invitation. It is truly an honor to testify during the Sunshine Week of our 250th anniversary. Our founders were onto something when they wrote transparency into the Constitution. We may remember from chemistry class that biological life is carbon-based. Carbon is the building block of life. Our civic life is transparency-based. Transparency is the building block of our other freedoms. That's why it appears in Article I, Section 9, Clause 7, before the Bill of Rights, because without transparency, our freedoms come apart. But secrecy can subvert sunshine. Secrecy happens in part due to human nature. Accountability is uncomfortable, and ignoring problems is easy. Fixing systemic inefficiency requires hours of unglamorous and tedious oversight work, as you all know. But it can be easier to mow the flower bed instead of pulling the weeds. But as flawed humans, the problem runs deeper. Author C.S. Lewis wrote a famous study of corruption called The Screwtape Letters, which is a dialogue between a devil, Screwtape, and his apprentice. In one famous exchange, Screwtape says, "It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds. In reality, we do our best work by keeping things out." Government secrecy is insidious. Lewis and philosophers and theologians through the ages have long observed that for evil to succeed, it must disguise itself as good. Now, in some blatantly authoritarian countries like Iran and Russia and China, evil doesn't need a disguise. Rulers can thwart truth and transparency by turning off the internet. But in our system, the slope to corruption is more gradual and subtle. The enemy of truth and transparency is not a pack of lies or brazen secrecy, the enemy is tribalism. Political tribalism provides the warmth of association, community, and camaraderie, all good things, but it often comes with the permission structure that allows for selective illumination. A transparency for thee, but not for me. It keeps inconvenient facts out of sight and mind. But when both tribes permit partial secrecy, we're on our way to total blindness. Tribalism is incompatible with the founders' vision of transparency. There are no Republican facts or Democrat facts or conservative facts or liberal facts, there are only facts, data, and evidence. And the recent debate about Lobstergate that one of our reports provoked is a case study. We looked at $93 billion in year-end use-it-or-lose-it spending at the Pentagon. And the left condemned Secretary Hegseth for ordering lobster while omitting the fact that previous Democrat administrations did the same thing. The right defended Hegseth for boosting troop morale with surf and turf, but they largely ignored the fact that we just spent 10 times that amount on furniture and literally 2,000 times that amount, about $50 billion, in just the last five days of the fiscal year. And to put that in context, Israel, our close ally, spent $35 billion on defense for an entire year. We spent more in five days with use-it-or-lose-it. See, both sides committed sins of omission. It was hecklers versus cheerleaders. And in Washington, there is widespread collusion to not acknowledge enormous problems, like use-it-or-lose-it and our unsustainable debt. So Senator Ernst, as a combat veteran, you understand troop morale and all facets of this debate. So thank you for having the courage to fix the real problem with use-it-or-lose-it with your End-of-Year Fiscal Responsibility Act. So anyone who is concerned about Lobstergate should support your bill because it's a real fix. And you've been a leader in so many other areas. Your Stop Secret Spending Act would close a loophole called Other Transaction Agreements, or OTAs, that are literally concealing billions in spending. I'd call these Orwellian Transaction Agreements. And we've also worked together to stop $1.3 billion in going to China and Russia of taxpayer money and grants. And you've signaled your commitment to working with us and your colleagues on legislation to bring us closer to real-time transparency, which the founders would have written into the Constitution if they had access to today's technology. And I'm pleased to report that today, Representatives Josh Brecheen, a Republican from Oklahoma, and Jimmy Panetta, a Democrat from California, have introduced bipartisan legislation in the House to do just that. The Expedited Transparency Act builds on the success of Coburn-Obama from 2006, which created USAspending and put all government spending online for the first time. So in the scope of history, transparency is radical and revolutionary. State secrecy is the norm. And technologies like AI can tilt the scales in either direction. At Open the Books, we're working to create super-intelligent citizens because we believe the best way to thwart a surveillance state is with a surveillance citizenry that can track government spending. So thank you again, and I look forward to your questions.

Thank you, Mr. Hart. And last but not least, we will go to Mr. Arkin, and you are recognized for five minutes for your testimony.

Chair Ernst, Ranking Member Markey, and members of the committee, thank you so much for inviting me to speak at today's hearing. The federal government is one of the world's largest and most complex organizations, and access to quality data on the broad array of federal programs and spending is important for policymaking, oversight of federal dollars, and fostering public trust in government. My remarks today will highlight aspects of GAO's large body of work on the federal government's efforts to improve the quality, transparency, and accessibility of information on federal programs and spending, as well as challenges that require additional attention. I'll start by discussing USAspending, which has been talked about before. It's the government's official public source of federal spending data. And over the last two decades, both Congress and the executive branch have taken steps to improve the quality and transparency of spending data available on the website. However, GAO continues to identify challenges that make it difficult for policymakers and the public to have access to complete and reliable data on the website. For example, not all types of federal awards are consistently reported to USAspending. We found that federal agencies were not consistently reporting spending on Other Transaction Agreements, which are a particular type of award that provides more flexibility than a standard contract or grant. And as an example, we identified over $77 billion in Other Transaction Agreements that the Department of Defense awarded over the last five fiscal years, and that information was not reported on USAspending. One reason why federal agencies may not consistently report Other Transaction Agreements on the website is that federal law neither explicitly includes nor excludes them as a type of award that agencies are required to report. And we suggested that Congress amend the law to include Other Transaction Agreements among the types of awards that agencies must report. Enacting the Stop Secret Spending Act, which Chair Ernst introduced, would be consistent with that suggestion. Next, I'll turn to improper payments, which are payments that federal agencies make that should not have been made or that were made in the incorrect amount. Improper payments have been a persistent challenge for the federal government. Agencies are required to determine which of the programs they administer are susceptible to significant improper payments and publish estimates on those programs. For example, for fiscal year 2025, federal agencies reported a total of $186 billion in improper payments. However, GAO has long reported that the improper payment estimates do not include certain programs that are susceptible to improper payments, and as a result, the total reported amount of improper payments does not represent the full extent of government-wide improper payments. Another source of publicly available information on the federal government is the Federal Program Inventory website, which OMB is required to develop and annually update. And in recent years, OMB has made progress towards developing a complete inventory. However, in a report we issued earlier this month, we found that the inventory does not yet include all programs, such as defense or foreign assistance, and it does not provide all required information, such as each program's contribution to its agency's mission and goals. We made 17 recommendations to OMB related to implementing a complete inventory and enhancing its usefulness. Finally, I will touch on our work on the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, which requires federal agencies to provide the public with access to certain government records, either by request or through what is known as proactive disclosure. We have reported that federal agencies face persistent challenges processing FOIA requests within required timeframes, and we have found weaknesses in some agencies' policies and processes to comply with proactive disclosure requirements. We've made various recommendations to address these challenges, which would help fulfill FOIA's goal of improving public access to government information and help promote principles of openness and accountability in government. This concludes my prepared remarks, and I look forward to any questions you may have.

Wonderful. Thank you again to all of our witnesses. We'll move into questions and answers, and I will now recognize myself for five minutes for questions. Again, thank you all for being here today. I started my political career years ago as a county auditor in Southwest Iowa. And Mr. Hart, you bring up the issue of use-it-or-lose-it, and we battled this even at the lowest local level. We had county agencies that were out there trying to spend as much money as they could in September because they believed the Board of Supervisors wouldn't approve an increase in their budget the next year if they hadn't spent all of that money. So I know that that's what happens in the federal government. That is not the way we should operate. It is very sloppy to do it in that manner. So thank you so much for bringing that up. We can talk about that more in a little bit. But Mr. Arkin, your testimony today included the jaw-dropping news that the Pentagon, again going back to this, spent over $77 billion on those OTAs, or other transaction agreements, and that the information is not available on searchable public websites like USAspending.gov. Thanks to the great work of GAO, a bipartisan group of us in Congress introduced the Stop Secret Spending Act to ensure that OTAs are reported on USAspending.gov just like all of the other government spending. So Mr. Arkin, GAO found that tens of billions of dollars of Pentagon OTAs are not being included for inspection on that website. Another GAO study released last year found the Pentagon cannot assess the extent to which OTAs are delivering capabilities for warfighters. There's just simply no record available to search. Would greater tracking and transparency improve the ability to measure and improve the effectiveness of those OTAs for both taxpayers and service members?

Thank you for the question. Yes, absolutely. And I think I'll talk about two different things. I mentioned the legislation that's been introduced which would require OTAs to be reported. We believe that is an important thing to improve transparency for this type of agreement or award, which is not a contract or not a grant, but still is functioning in a similar way. It's providing financial information to a non-governmental institution or organization. And secondly, what we found is these OTAs are often used for prototypes within the Department of Defense to test a new technology or product, and sometimes that can then move to the production phase. And that can also be through an OTA or a regular contract. And what DOD hadn't been tracking or hasn't been tracking is what happens, how many of those are moving to a regular production contract. And we feel like that's something that they need to do to get a sense of, are these OTAs working? Are they doing what we envision they're designed to bring non-traditional contractors into the acquisition space for the department? But it's really hard to tell if you're not tracking it.

Checks and balances, absolutely. Thank you. Checks and balances, absolutely. Thank you. And Mr. Hart, keeping with this theme of OTAs as well, how would agencies reporting tens of billions of dollars of OTAs on usaspending.gov help organizations like Open the Books shed light on wasteful spending across the federal government?

Yes, Senator, that is an essential step. I mean, there is no reason at all for these transaction agreements to be in effect. It is a profound violation of the spirit of the Constitution. Again, in my opening statement, I talked about the founders wrote it into the Constitution that Congress should publish a regular statement of accounts, and that exists before the First Amendment. So free speech is vitally important, but we cannot speak if we cannot breathe. And so whenever there is a move to create a new section of spending that is secretive, regardless of who is in power, we need to stop it and call it out. And I commend you and the committee for focusing on it.

No, thank you. And Mr. Goodman, in 2022, four years ago, I authored a provision that made it into law called the COST Act, which requires SBA grantees to disclose how many federal tax dollars they used, what percentage of their costs were federal funds, and how much was financed by non-governmental sources. How will this increased transparency improve your ability to identify and stop wasteful spending?

Taxpayers have a right to know how their money is being spent, and they should not need a data science degree to navigate a federal database to figure that out. And it also should not take watchdogs like us to be able to give taxpayers basic information like a highway sign that says your tax dollars at work, showing you that you paid for that program. If you see a press release or a news report about monkey mind reading or octopus hypnosis, yes, that is silly science, but you also should be able to get a sense of whether that is senseless spending at your expense. And I think what the COST Act does, it gives basic transparency to taxpayers all across the spectrum who have a right to know how their money is being spent.

Wonderful. Thank you. And now I will recognize Ranking Member Markey for his five minutes of questions.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And Mr. Hart, I love the Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis. I just loved it. By the way, for everyone here who was not a freshman at Malden Catholic when I had to read it, you were probably at a Catholic school too. It is how a senior devil learned how to teach a junior devil how to corrupt humanity. So for the purposes of our discussion, that is Donald Trump as the senior devil, trying to corrupt humanity. So just in February of 2025, one of his first orders was to suspend the enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Suspend it. Which they did. Then six months later, they issued the new rules, and it was a watering down of all of the requirements. What could go wrong with his family and friends roaming around the world cutting business deals, other than a watering down of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act? In fact, there is one-third fewer prosecutors now at the agency than there was when Trump took, when the senior devil took over, trying to create a climate of corruption. So even this morning, New York Times reported that the Trump administration bypassed regular procedures to award $13 million in contracts to the company that organized Trump's destructive democracy-threatening rally on January 6 of 2021. Those contracts made a minor federal contractor into the government's highest-paid event planner. Seems like exactly the kind of thing that we should be looking at in Sunshine Week. New York Times has given us an agenda. Dr. Miller, how does secrecy in government decision-making create opportunities for corruption, for favoritism, or the misuse of taxpayer funds?

Yes, transparency is absolutely essential. Without transparency, Congress loses its eyes and ears into the executive branch, and the American people lose its protections from abuse. And so it is absolutely essential that the American people know what the government is doing in its name.

Yeah. So if there is one principle that everyone should know when it comes to transparency, what would you say is the one lesson this committee should draw from your testimony?

Absolutely, that government spending should be transparent and that Congress is in control of the purse, not OMB, DOD, or the President.

And can you elaborate upon the risk which DOGE presents to this transparency ethos which you are recommending be adopted across the government?

Yes, just the basic functionality of DOGE is highly problematic. To get access to government data, each federal employee is required to have a security clearance. I was required to have a top secret. And so the fact that we have so many unvetted folks accessing sensitive data is actually a threat to the American people.

Yeah. And could you elaborate upon the safeguards an IG, a real IG, or other legitimate agencies would use to protect Americans' personal data, which has been compromised across our government under the Trump administration?

The first thing an IG will do, as I said, is require you to have a security clearance to access the data. Then they will restrict the data based on a need to know, meaning you only get level of access based on its necessity for you to do your job. And then you have to follow a set of privacy rules and access control thereafter.

Yeah. So DOGE got access to the Social Security data, which is basically our lives. How much everyone earned, their age, everything. It is pretty much an X-ray of each family. So DOGE got access to that private Social Security data. So what has it resulted in, in terms of DOGE's exposure of the corruption in our society?

You know, at this point, the impact is still unset, but we do know that it has put the American people at risk for all sorts of malfeasance.

So have they identified widespread fraud after gaining access to all of that information?

Not to my knowledge, Senator.

Yeah. Do you have a sense of how much DOGE has cost taxpayers? Do we have transparency on that?

Any ranges between $40 to $81 million, but those are public reports.

Wow. That is a, is that the ballpark figure, from 40 to 80? I mean, that is not Fenway Park, if you are looking for a ballpark figure. That is more like Yellowstone Park. Come on, Trump administration, give us the number. You know, let us know. That kind of range allows for a lot of fraud, you know, when you when you cannot pinpoint what that number is. And if you could, what do you think should be the standards that are applying to DOGE in terms of their transparency, the ethics that should be infused into that quote-unquote agency?

From the beginning, I am not for sure that DOGE should have been deployed into the federal agency. But now that it has, we need to just make sure we are allowing the Inspector General's office to produce oversight over their work.

Great. Thank you, Mr. Miller.

Thank you, Ranking Member Markey. We will now recognize Senator Shaheen for five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and Senator Markey for holding this hearing, and thank you to all of our witnesses for being here. Since Senator Markey raised the issue of DOGE and their effectiveness, I wanted to follow up on that because we are here to talk about the value of transparency in government spending, especially because it is a way for not only taxpayers to know what is going on, but to expose inappropriate spending. DOGE was the focus of that effort at the start of this administration. They pledged to have maximum transparency, that is a quote. And while they boasted about a lot of very large savings in their public dashboard that they said totaled $215 billion, those numbers simply are not accurate. In fact, the 13 largest contracts on that list are all inaccurate. Can I ask each of you if you have looked at the list that DOGE has posted, and do you have any comments on the accuracy of that list and what it means when we provide inaccurate information to the public? Mr. Goodman.

Thank you, Senator. I have actually found the list to be incomplete in my searching. I have heard that projects were cut that were not on the list of cuts. I have heard that projects were still active that were on the cut list. So actually, it has been, there has been a lot of inaccurate, misleading information spread by the press, but also, I think, the DOGE folks who have not been forthcoming, maybe do not have the ability or the tools necessary to actually track what is going on. So it has been frustrating because I think there is a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government and government spending. We all agree on that, I think, on this panel. And I think we have a right to know what the government is doing about it, if they are slashing programs that do not deserve it, or are they getting rid of programs that we all agree do not deserve public support. So I think there absolutely needs to be more transparency about those type of decisions.

Dr. Miller.

I will follow up with you. We have a democratic accountability team that are tracking those things, so we will follow up.

So you do not have, you do not have any assessment based on what you have seen to date?

So the assessment that we have is, as follow up on what he said, is that the information that the government has provided has been inefficient or has not been a good way to be able to assess actually DOGE's activities.

Mr. Hart.

Yeah, we have looked at this very closely, and I would just say that when I worked for Senator Coburn, we talked about cutting a trillion dollars in spending, and I would argue we actually did it over a long period of time. We cut spending $150 billion during sequestration, which happened in the wake of the financial crisis. He served on the Simpson-Bowles Commission. We enacted an earmark moratorium.

I remember the Simpson-Bowles Commission.

Yeah, yeah. Coburn, we are going way back.

I supported that effort. And I do not think that is what we got from DOGE, however.

Well, no, I think there is a long way to go. And we got rid of $140 billion in savings through earmarks, and then we worked with GAO to identify duplication savings. That saved $725 billion over 15 years, according to their data. So what I have seen is, there is a lot to look at and there is a lot to cut. And when you think just to take a 50,000-foot perspective, we spend $5 trillion on healthcare in the country overall, $2 trillion through government programs. The Pete Peterson Foundation estimates maybe a quarter of that is not spent effectively. So in that area alone, there is hundreds of billions of dollars in waste. And so I wish they would have leveraged Elon Musk's star power more effectively to shine a light on the systemic problems in government inefficiency.

Well, I don't disagree with that. I've sat on as ranking member on the Foreign Relations Committee and the fact is one of the first things they cut, as you all know, was USAID. And while I think there were some excesses in USAID, the reality is there was no transparency about the way it was cut and there are significant implications to the results of cutting all of our foreign assistance for other countries. Since I'm almost out of time, I want to make another point because we're talking about spending, but one of the other issues we ought to be talking about with respect to Sunshine Week and transparency are policies. We are engaged right now in a war in Iran that follows a military action in Venezuela that precedes what the president is talking about with respect to action in Cuba. And we have not had one public hearing on the decision-making around the policies on this Iran war. All of the information has been classified, which means that those of us who have attended those briefings, and I know the chairwoman has attended those briefings as has Senator Hirono because I've been with them on some of those because we all sit on the Armed Services Committee. And yet there is nothing that I have learned in those briefings, unless it's been publicly reported, that I can tell my constituents about why we're there, what the end game is, and what we hope to accomplish. And that is a travesty in terms of the amount of money that's being spent on this war, the implications to the American public that there has not been one public hearing. So I think for the record that needs to be said because it's a huge oversight that does a disservice to the American people. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Senator Shaheen. Senator Hirono. Thank you, Senator Shaheen. Senator Hirono, you're recognized for five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd like to begin by associating myself with the comments made by Senator Shaheen just now. And as we sit here today to talk about Sunshine Week, sounds good, but I question the seriousness of this effort to bring sunshine into government spending, basically because we have a president who by any measure has been the least transparent of any president in recent history. And then we look at what happened to DOGE. Why are we so focused on DOGE? Because they were the people who were supposed to bring about the effort to cut waste and fraud, etcetera, but instead DOGE ended up costing us money and there's very little to nothing about what DOGE was doing that was transparent. And at the same time, the DOGE employees, whoever these people were, what qualifications they had to even undertake any of the kinds of efforts that DOGE was supposed to focus on, what they did with their access to millions of personnel records. To this day, I do not know what these people did or plan to do with all of this information. We have a president who basically engages in self-dealing and pretty much we are not far wrong in thinking that whatever he does is intended to help himself and his family, and that is why he has made in just the period of time in which he has held office, $4 billion. He is $4 billion richer than when he took office. So when we talk about transparency, we talk about accountability, where's the accountability in a president who engages in the kind of self-dealing that we see from this president and the chaos in accepting a $400 million jet, in destroying half of the White House, and accepting hundreds of millions of dollars in donations and contributions from entities, many of whom are waiting decisions relating to their businesses, their interests, by the White House. So I just feel like saying, please don't make me laugh with this effort at transparency. I do want to ask Mr. Miller one question though. If you were to describe what DOGE is up to, how would you describe DOGE?

I would describe DOGE as a ill-fitted attempt to reduce government spending and a outfit that may have put taxpayer data at risk.

Well, do you think they had any kind of a blueprint or any anything that guided what they were doing?

I think they were trying to move fast, fail fast, but unfortunately I think that they put the American taxpayers' data at risk.

So would a word like chaotic efforts, would that be a pretty accurate way of describing what they were doing?

Yes, because decisions around programs should always follow certain protocols.

How about total lack of accountability? Would that describe how DOGE behaved?

That is an accurate description.

Now we have a regime that doesn't even bother to comply with court orders. Do you have any suggestions on how we can look to a regime that would actually abide by court orders? Do you have any suggestions on what we can do, what we in Congress can do to ensure accountability along those lines?

I think a long-term strategy is we have to make accountability bipartisan again, recognizing that we owe it to the American people to ensure that whoever is president, that they are doing the right things in their name.

Well, that would be nice, but on the other hand, we don't have that kind of apparently bipartisan goals for accountability. So short of that, is there some kind of an institutional or some change that we can make to force the administration, the regime, to comply with court orders?

I think some of the things that we could do is we could ensure that we're strengthening and protecting the Inspector General's office. They do have investigative authority and also their arrest power, so I think it's important to strengthen the institutions that we have.

Okay, that's pragmatic because we also have a regime that got rid of a lot of the IGs. And that doesn't help when we want independent agencies and entities and individuals to look at what government is doing and to call attention to the lacks thereof. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. And I would like to be clear as the Senate DOGE Caucus Chair, that under the Trump administration, we have been charged with rooting out fraud, waste, and abuse. And during the pandemic, and I'll just use this as an example, and I'll focus it on the Small Business Committee, the Small Business Administration. But during the pandemic and under President Biden's administration, SBA loans were given out like candy. So let's not forget that the individuals who used Barbie dolls for their photo identification were approved for SBA loans. And that's unacceptable. It doesn't matter Republican, Democrat, that should be unacceptable. And in March, it was announced that because of DOGE's work at SBA, they uncovered more than 5,000 SBA loans where equivalent to millions of dollars in those loans where they listed the borrower as 11 years old or younger. So what I hope my Democratic colleagues aren't saying is that we should ignore the billions of dollars in waste, fraud, and abuse. Again, I don't care what administration. If there is waste, fraud, and abuse, we should be ferreting that out. But what we saw under the Biden administration, they did try to sweep it under the rug. I've been like literally like Oliver on a bone with this because we aren't trying to recollect those dollars that went out the door. I would like to see my SBA Fraud Enforcement Extension Act passed, and if it is not passed by early May, those fraudsters who defrauded and collected improper payments from this program may escape justice. But right now that bill is being blocked by my friends across the aisle.

Madam Chair, excuse me, I don't think I used up all of my time, so if you don't mind, just nobody is talking about hiding fraud and waste that is actually going on and you don't get to that by eliminating every IG in the Department of Justice office that will do just that. Thank you.

Senator Hirono, you did actually use all of your time. So the fraudsters who defrauded the federal government will get away with it if we do not enact this extension. I don't know why Democrats would block the bill when it means that we would recoup improper payments that went out to people that literally were committing fraud against the federal government and against all of you as taxpayers. So I'm going to quickly ask Mr. Arkin, if my bill is not passed by early May, they will get away with this. If the statute of limitations expires, how will that affect the government's ability to hold crooks accountable and recover any stolen cash?

Yes, if the thanks for the question, if the statute of limitation expires, which it will soon, then the SBA or prosecutors will not be able to recoup that fund, they'll have to stop their work on any potential fraud that they've been investigating. And we've been supportive of that extension, so particularly for the two programs, the Restaurant Revitalization Fund and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant, I can't remember what it's called, Operators Grant, to extend those to 10 years as has already happened for the PPP.

Yes, thank you. And I do appreciate all of the thoughts today. I think it's been a really important conversation to have everyone here and sharing the work that your organizations do. There is a lot more that we should be doing in the federal government and again, just want to stress this, it shouldn't matter between a Democratic administration or a Republican administration. We need transparency and we need to be accountable to our taxpayers for all of those dollars that are going out the door. So again, I want to thank you so much for being witnesses today and sharing your thoughts. I ask unanimous consent that the record of today's hearing remain open for two weeks for members to submit questions, revise and extend their remarks, and submit additional information into the record. And without objection, so ordered. And with that, thank you all again, Happy Sunshine Week. The Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship stands adjourned.