[House Hearing, 115 Congress] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office] EXAMINING THE ADMINISTRATION'S GOVERNMENT-WIDE REORGANIZATION PLAN ======================================================================= HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION __________ JUNE 27, 2018 __________ Serial No. 115-88 __________ Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov http://oversight.house.gov _________ U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 31-276 PDF WASHINGTON : 2018 Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Trey Gowdy, South Carolina, Chairman John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee Elijah E. Cummings, Maryland, Darrell E. Issa, California Ranking Minority Member Jim Jordan, Ohio Carolyn B. Maloney, New York Mark Sanford, South Carolina Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of Justin Amash, Michigan Columbia Paul A. Gosar, Arizona Wm. Lacy Clay, Missouri Scott DesJarlais, Tennessee Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Jim Cooper, Tennessee Thomas Massie, Kentucky Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia Mark Meadows, North Carolina Robin L. Kelly, Illinois Ron DeSantis, Florida Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan Dennis A. Ross, Florida Bonnie Watson Coleman, New Jersey Mark Walker, North Carolina Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois Rod Blum, Iowa Jamie Raskin, Maryland Jody B. Hice, Georgia Jimmy Gomez, Maryland Steve Russell, Oklahoma Peter Welch, Vermont Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin Matt Cartwright, Pennsylvania Will Hurd, Texas Mark DeSaulnier, California Gary J. Palmer, Alabama Stacey E. Plaskett, Virgin Islands James Comer, Kentucky John P. Sarbanes, Maryland Paul Mitchell, Michigan Greg Gianforte, Montana Vacancy Sheria Clarke, Staff Director William McKenna, General Counsel Kevin Ortiz, Professional Staff Member Julie Dunne, Government Operations Subcommittee Staff Director Sharon Casey, Deputy Chief Clerk David Rapallo, Minority Staff Director C O N T E N T S ---------- Page Hearing held on June 27, 2018.................................... 1 WITNESSES The Honorable Margaret Weichert, Deputy Director for Management, U.S. Office of Management and Budget Oral Statement............................................... 5 Written Statement............................................ 7 APPENDIX American Federation of Government Employees Statement for the Record submitted by Mr. Cummings............................... 48 The National Treasury Employees Union Statement for the Record submitted by Mr. Cummings...................................... 52 National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association submitted by Mr. Cummings...................................... 62 ``Two Years Not Ten Years Redesigning Infrastructure Approvals,'' Common Good, submitted by Mr. Palmer can be accessed at: https://www.commongood.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/ 2YearsNotl0Years.pdf ``Assessing the Costs Attributed to Project Delays'' submitted by Mr. Palmer can be accessed at: https://ftp.dot.state.tx.us/pub/ txdot-info/fed/project-delay-summary.pdf....................... 65 2018-06-20 New York Times ``How One Conservative Think Tank Is Stocking Trump's Government'' submitted by Ms. Plaskett........ 66 Response from Ms. Weichert, Office of Management and Budget, to Questions for the Record....................................... 83 EXAMINING THE ADMINISTRATION'S GOVERNMENT-WIDE REORGANIZATION PLAN ---------- Wednesday, June 27, 2018 House of Representatives, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Washington, D.C. The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in Room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mark Meadows presiding. Present: Representatives Duncan, Issa, Amash, Foxx, Meadows, Walker, Blum, Hice, Russell, Grothman, Hurd, Palmer, Comer, Mitchell, Cummings, Norton, Clay, Lynch, Connolly, Kelly, Lawrence, Watson Coleman, Raskin, Welch, DeSaulnier, Plaskett, and Sarbanes. Also Present: Representative Scott. Mr. Meadows. The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will come to order. Without objection, the presiding member is authorized to declare a recess at any time. The modern Federal Government is a result of layers upon layers of legislative executive and judicial actions throughout our Nation's history. The inertia of bureaucracy created by the process allows it to persist year after year after year. And as our former President said, there is every reason why our executive governmental machinery should be at least well planned, economical, and efficient as the best machinery of the great business organizations which, at present, is not the case. That was President Theodore Roosevelt in 1905, but those words are still true today as they were just as true a century ago. Decisions that may have made sense in the past may not work in the context of a modern 21st century society. And as we progress as a Nation, it is incumbent upon elected officials to reevaluate how to best deliver on the services to the American people and the services indeed that they deserve. Take pizza for example. If a company wishes to sell cheese pizza, it has to meet with the Food and Drug Administration requirements. However, if they add pepperoni to that pizza, the company must now adhere to rules issued by the Food Safety Inspection Services of the Department of Agriculture. So you have one pizza going through one agency, another pizza with pepperoni going through a different agency. Or let's look at imported seafood, which accounts for nearly 90 percent of consumed seafood in the United States. In September of 2017, a Government Accountability Office audit found that the FDA and the FSIS were not fully coordinating on the drug residue testing methods. GAO also found that two agencies were using different standards for testing drug residue to determine if seafood was safe. Now, the lack of coordination and aligned standards only harms businesses seeking to comply with the law. But also, it harms consumers and puts their health at risk. The complex and ever growing demands of our citizens require an efficient and effective Federal Government. And as these examples suggest, the current construct fails to meet this requirement. The plan to reorganize the executive branch put forward by President Trump seeks to help us meet this--the new needs or I might say the existing needs of our constituents. In March 2017, President Trump issued an executive order calling on the Office of Management and Budget to create a comprehensive reorganization plan that consolidates or eliminates redundant and ineffective programs and agencies. And the plan which was released last Thursday seeks to deliver an-- to the executive branch what they dictated to be wholly meeting the Federal Government's important mission of service and stewardship objectives. The plan suggests bold reforms, such as the elevation of the Office of Personnel Management into the executive branch--I mean, the Executive Office of the President, the merger of Departments of Labor and Education, and the consolidation of welfare programs and a revamped Department of Health and Human Services. This plan is a roadmap designed to jump start a conversation about how to best deliver these services to the American people, the services they expect. And we're pleased to have the OMB deputy director of management, Margaret Weichert, here today to present that roadmap to the committee and to the American public. Accomplishing the goals in this plan will not be easy, and it will require a hand-in-hand work with Congress, the administration, and stakeholders to fully recognize and realize the potential transformation that is envisioned here. I want to thank you, Deputy Director Weichert, for being here, and I look forward to our conversation. With that, I recognize my good friend, the ranking member, the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Cummings. Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I'm glad that we are having this hearing today. I definitely have numerous questions for the witness about the Trump administration's reorganization plan. For example, I want to know why is it that there is no analysis of the cost and benefits of this proposal? Why is there no assessment of its impact on the Federal budget? Why is there no information at all about how it will affect Federal workers? And why is it there's no list of actions that require congressional approval? These are all basic prerequisites for a serious plan, and they are completely missing from this one. Last week, my staff asked the Office of Management and Budget for these assessments, and they were told that they did not exist. The Trump administration now claims that it wants to use this proposal, and I quote, ``to build productive bipartisan dialog,'' end of quote. If that were a serious claim, the Trump administration would have worked with us over the past year, instead of keeping their work secret, despite multiple requests from members of this committee. Take just one example in our committee's jurisdiction, the Postal Service. We have a bipartisan bill--Mr. Chairman, you have worked very hard on that bill with us--that we passed out of our committee unanimously, that would help the Postal Service maintain a more solid financial footing forward. Instead of working with us, President Trump unilaterally appointed a task force to come up with its own ideas about the Postal Service. Then without even waiting for its own task force's results, President Trump rushed in this proposal to eliminate the Postal Service entirely. Ladies and gentlemen, it makes no sense. Like so many other ideas that have come out of this White House, President Trump's proposal to privatize the Postal Service is disorganized, unilateral, nonsensical and, frankly, incompetent. I do not think this plan is a serious one. What I do think is extremely serious is the urgent plight of thousands of children who the Trump administration separated from their parents with no discernible plan to reunite them. None, zero. Tomorrow, the Judiciary Committee is holding a so-called, quote, ``emergency hearing,'' end of quote, on Hillary Clinton's emails. They're hauling up Rod Rosenstein and Christopher Wray to demand more answers. But the real emergency is these children, these babies and toddlers, whom the government has unilaterally and literally torn from the arms of their parents, some of them a few months old. To my Republican colleagues, last week, I asked a very simple question, but a very profound one. I simply asked for your help. Call a hearing, ask DHS and HHS and DOJ to come up here and testify about what the plan is to reunite these children and these kids with their families. Light a fire up under them to get them moving. If we can have an emergency hearing on Hillary Clinton, we certainly can have an emergency hearing on these children. And so I ask the question, I asked for help. But guess what? I got no response. Zilch. Didn't even get a letter, not a phone call, nothing. And so the children continue to suffer. You've seen them locked up in cages. I said it before and I'll say it again: This is our country. It is a great country, but we will be judged by the way we treat our citizens and particularly our children. So on Friday, we had to send our own letter just from the Democrats, dated June 22, to the Attorney General Sessions, DHS Secretary Nielsen, and HHS Secretary Azar. We asked for basic information on each child that was separated from his or her parents so we could monitor and promote efforts to unify these families. These are documents they should have at their fingertips, and we asked for them by tomorrow. Apparently however, we cannot have these documents, for some reason. And as we all know, the Democrats are in the minority. And since no Republican joined our request, the agencies will not produce the documents. We hear a lot of talk from the agency heads, but no documents. And so now I'm pleading, I'm pleading with you once again. Anyone on this panel, anyone, is there one Republican who will join us, just one, to save and help these families reunite? Anyone? Radio silence. Is there one Republican who will sign his or her name to this letter requesting the basic facts and the documents about these children? I will yield to any Republican member who will join us in this effort. I ask one last time, is there one---- Mr. Issa. Would the gentleman yield? Mr. Cummings. Yes. Mr. Issa. Would you give the 30 days that the San Diego court has ordered for full reunification as part of the letter since the President's executive order now has been codified by a Federal judge? Mr. Cummings. No, no. Mr. Issa. So you wouldn't give the President and the Federal court system the 30 days to unify them? Mr. Cummings. I'm just--taking back my time. I'll let you see the letter, and if you want to sign on to the letter---- Mr. Issa. I look forward to seeing it. Mr. Cummings. Yeah. We need help. These children need help. We wouldn't do this to our own children. We would not allow people to split up our families. As a matter of fact, if they tried to split up our families, we would go off. And so as I close, Mr. Chairman---- Mr. Meadows. If the gentleman will yield. If you'll give me a copy of the letter, I'll get back to you within 24 hours. You know that I have a bipartisan history of demanding documents, regardless of their political, I guess---- Mr. Cummings. Yes. Mr. Meadows. --relevance. And if you'll give me a copy of the letter, we'll get back to you within 24 hours. Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Is there--so--and I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for that. It means a lot to me. And so we move forward. But I say to my colleagues, you can have your emergency hearing on Hillary Clinton's emails, but can we also have one on these kids who desperately need our help? Children are separated from their parents by our own government. Isn't that an emergency? Another week has gone by and there's still no functioning plan to reunite these families. Isn't that an emergency? The harm and the trauma our own government is inflicting on these children is continuing and compounding every single day. There's no question that this is an emergency. I've often said that what you do to a child, and if it's negative, it probably lasts them for the rest of their lives. And it is not the deed, it's the memory that haunts them and harm them. And so we all know in our hearts that we need to address this, and we need to start treating it like the emergency that it is. And, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for what you just said. This is a bipartisan issue, it should be. And we look forward to your response. With that, I yield back. Mr. Meadows. I thank the gentleman for his opening remarks. I'm pleased to introduce our witness, the Honorable Margaret Weichert, deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget. Welcome. And pursuant to committee rules, we'd ask that you would stand before you testify and please raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God. Ms. Weichert. I do. Mr. Meadows. Thank you. You may be seated. And please let the record reflect that the witness answered in the affirmative. Obviously, in order to allow time for questions and answers, your oral testimony will be limited to 5 minutes. This is not your first rodeo, you get that. And the clock's there in front of you. And yet at the same time, your entire written statement will be made part of the record. So you're now recognized for 5 minutes. WITNESS STATEMENT STATEMENT OF MARGARET WEICHERT Ms. Weichert. Thank you. Chairman Meadows, Ranking Member Cummings, and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the plan to reshape government in the 21st century. Healthy organizations change and adapt to customer needs and the demands of the free market. The U.S. Government should be no different. Our Founders conceived a durable governing framework and Constitution to serve the American people, but our current organizational model has not kept pace with 21st century needs. Despite dramatic changes in technology, our Federal Government still operates much like it did 50 years ago. And it isn't well organized to provide the service and flexibility that Americans expect in the digital age. I cringe when I hear how inefficient it is to interact with Federal agencies. Let me give you some examples. Jobseekers have to navigate more than 40 workforce development programs across 15 agencies. Poultry companies deal with multiple offices and time-consuming paperwork because chickens and eggs are regulated by different agencies. Environmental conservation for fish in our rivers are affected by regulations from four different organizations. And basic infrastructure development and maintenance projects for roads and ports face organizational complexity that can delay investments by years. This is not how Americans want government to operate. As a result, in March 2017, the President issued Executive Order 13781 directing the Office of Management and Budget to work with key stakeholders and produce a comprehensive government reform plan to better meet the needs of the American people. This plan is part of a broader set of management improvement initiatives designed to balance executive branch mission, service, and stewardship responsibilities, while reducing duplication, risk, and inefficiency. Concrete efforts to drive change were released in the President's Management Agenda in March 2018. The PMA is the administration's blueprint for aligning government IT, data, and the Federal workforce in the 21st century. Reorganization proposals build on this blueprint and are among the various tools we are using to modernize government. Over the past year, OMB reviewed top-down and bottom-up reform and reorganization proposals from Federal agencies, the public, academics, interest groups, and Federal employees. The reform plan was also informed by years of research and recommendations from the Government Accountability Office, GAO, including the GAO high-risk lists and reports on government duplication and fragmentation. After synthesizing this information, OMB developed the recommendations included in the reform and reorganization plan released by the President in last week's Cabinet meeting. Given the seriousness of this task and its potential for major impact to government missions and to our workforce, the OMB team worked with executive branch agencies on reform plan deliberation and predecisional analysis in phases. The initial phase covered data collection where agency input and 100,000 public comments were collected between June and December of last year. The second phase focused on opportunities to reduce duplication and fragmentation and improve cross-agency efficiency. This worked through on GAO reports on risk, duplication, and inefficiency, as well as literature review from think tanks and good government groups, which is included on page 128 of the proposal. And that phase started in January 2018. The final phase incorporated President's Management Agenda priorities that were used to prioritize proposals where mission, service, or stewardship might be improved via reorganization or restructuring. This final phase began after the PMA release in March. A transformation of this scope will take time to implement. Some changes can be applied directly within agencies, while other more complex proposals may require action by the President or Congress. Now that the plan has been issued, we are eager to engage in a constructive conversation with Congress on how to move forward together. We know that Congress shares our interest in driving positive reform. This committee in particular has dedicated considerable effort over the years to exposing duplication and inefficiency in government and exploring ways to improve government operations. At times of great change, commitment to government of the people, by the people, and for the people is critical. As the U.S. faces the challenge of serving the diverse needs of our growing country, I look forward to working with all of you to ensure that the executive branch is well-organized to deal with 21st century realities. Thank you again for inviting me here today. I look forward to your questions. [Prepared statement of Ms. Weichert follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Mr. Foxx. [Presiding.] Thank you very much, Ms. Weichert, for your statements, and we appreciate your being here. I will in 1 second introduce members to ask their questions. But I want to a brief followup on what you have said. As I said when the reorganization was announced, the Federal Government is long overdue for a serious overhaul. The proposal to merge the Departments of Education and Labor is recognition of the clear relationship between education policy at every level and the needs of the growing American workforce. At the Committee on Education and Workforce, we make these connections in everything we do. I appreciate the administration's support for this idea, and I look forward to working with the administration on the proposal and how the new department could function to best serve American students, workers, job creators, and families. I now would like to recognize Mr. Issa for 5 minutes of questions. Mr. Issa. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm delighted to see a real proposal. The last administration had asked us for authority, but never gave us any proposal. But having said that, I'd like to delve into a piece of history for a moment. As you know, this committee in the past has held hearings to review the history of how you do a reorganization. And the gold standard appears to--try to make sure I can see you--the gold standard seems to be the history of the Hoover Commission. In that situation, in addition to many, many ideas that had bubbled up and were obviously on the forefront of the executive branch's mind, what they did was they did a lot of what you've just done, but they did it in a way in which Congress had to buy in along the way, along with the interest groups, and that allowed a commission that, through multiple Presidencies, continued to allow an evolution. As you look at the short term and authority, why is it that we're not seeing, if you will, a sustaining body that would put this out in the public and at the same time bring Congress on a, if you will, a permanent basis into the process, rather than an approval and then see you later? Ms. Weichert. So---- Mr. Issa. And I mean no disrespect with the approval but see you later, but we do know how that works. Ms. Weichert. So I appreciate the question. And we too looked at the history of reform in government and in the private sector and looked at various experiences, including experiences in the recent past where proposals basically got winnowed away in the public deliberation process before there was a rich and full dialogue. So much about the process that we engaged in was designed to ensure that we had some really meaty proposals to put out for public debate before engaging into more implementation oriented part of the change, which we know needs to happen in public. Mr. Issa. I appreciate that. I guess I'll go back and sort of restate the question, if you will. In the corporate world-- and you mentioned that in the corporate world generally there are two kinds of reorganizations. There are ones that are evolutionary, for example, pulling up to the corporate headquarters, the IT functions as a service, something that's long overdue in the Federal Government. And this committee has seen, although we did empower CIOs, we still have too many of them based on the legislation. But, you know, that's an example of one that is very limited. And the execution is everything, while the lines of code that it would take to authorize it are relatively few. And then you have things more like, let's say, General Electric, where they find that the organization itself is in doubt and they start with serious combinations, reductions, sales, et cetera. You seem to be blending the two. In other words, the IT function broadly being under a consolidated authority, professionalizing it, and taking it out of, if you will, little fiefdoms that sometimes go all the way down to an agency of only a few million dollars of spending, is a shortcut that we could certainly understand you're bringing us a single proposal for. And I have to be honest, I didn't see that part of the proposal. But then the other side of it, which is recognizing that too many people report directly to the President, or to be more cynical, too many people try to get through the chief of staff to the President. What are you going to do about that in this proposal? Because nothing I see here really says we have too many Cabinet positions and those Cabinet positions cannot possibly get the ear of the President or direct access to decisionmakers in some sort of a corollary to the private sector. Ms. Weichert. So thanks for the question. You're exactly right that we did blend both what we learned from public sector reform initiatives in the past as well as in the private sector. And what really drove everything that we did here is the same thing that drove the work we did in the President's Management Agenda, which is looking at the intersection between mission, delivery, service to the American people, and stewardship of taxpayer resources. And it was where that sort of trio of things came into either conflict or in confluence that we really focused our activity. And I think the key thing to reiterate is there are many tools and many approaches. We tried---- Mr. Issa. And lastly, in the few remaining seconds, if we were to have the authority to approve it here today, what would be your timeline which--in other words, how many years would you really envision to execute even the portions that you've already laid out? Ms. Weichert. I'd say 3 to 5 years. Mr. Issa. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Issa. Mrs. Watson Coleman, you're recognized for 5 minutes. Mrs. Watson Coleman. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Thank you very much. And thank you very much for being here today and sharing this information with us. Ms. Weichert, I've got a lot of questions about this reorganization plan. I'm really concerned about the impact of the proposals as it relates to active and retired employees and moving the function out of OPM and eliminating OPM. At some point, I'm going to need to have a discussion about how that happens and our role in that. I'm very concerned about protecting careerist employees. And I'm fearful that if that function in any way, shape, or form gets into the White House, we've got a real problem, given the White House's disdain for the workforce in the first place. But I am the ranking member of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation and Protective Security. I have a major concern and it has to do with the vulnerabilities that are facing our surface transportation systems. The threat to public transportation systems has fully grown in recent years, culminating in an attempt of terrorist attack against New York City subway system just this last December. Unfortunately, the administration has responded to this growing threat by proposing drastic cuts to surface transportation security programs. And now you propose that Federal security responsibilities for these vulnerable systems be transferred back to the Department of Transportation, which failed to protect transportation systems on 9/11 and no longer maintains security expertise. You seem to envision an ever shrinking Federal role in protecting public transit, despite how critical these systems are to our national security. What responsibility do you believe the Federal Government should have in protecting surface transportation systems? Ms. Weichert. So thank you for the question, and there are a number of things in there. I'll start by saying that definitively and from a business standpoint on the first set of issues you raised around people in the workforce, the pragmatic and practical reality is any change that delivers on mission, service, and stewardship for the American people has to be delivered by the workforce we have. And we do not disdain that workforce; we applaud the work that that workforce does. And so I do look forward to engaging on that conversation. As it relates to transportation, I'm not familiar with all of the back and forth components that happened prior to the latest proposal. What I can say was the goal of many of the proposals in here, including the transportation proposals, was to reduce fragmentation, duplication, and areas where the government was not having an integrated approach to serious issues as the ones you're mentioning. Mrs. Watson Coleman. So am I to assume that TSA weighed in on this discussion and agreed with the transfer of these functions into the Department of Transportation, and that the Department of Transportation weighed into this discussion and agreed that it would be capable of handling this additional responsibility when it hasn't had a like responsibility since after the transfers after 9/11? Ms. Weichert. So the Department of Transportation absolutely weighed in on the proposals. And basically, the conversation looked at what would need to be done to align from an organizational standpoint to reduce communication and efficiencies, to reduce overlapping resource or fragmentation, diffuse resources so that we could put the bulk of the money towards the mission. Mrs. Watson Coleman. Well, part of the problem then is that with regard to surface transportation issues, the administration has consistently proposed to cut those things. And now it's to move them into a department that doesn't seem to have as its primary function that issue. And you didn't say whether or not TSA had any input in this, you simply said that the DOT did. I'm wondering, is there a thought that the creation of the Department of Homeland Security was not a good idea? Ms. Weichert. There's no thought that that was not a good idea. Mrs. Watson Coleman. Do you believe that State and local authorities have the necessary resources to protect public transportation systems without significant government--Federal Government support? Ms. Weichert. So the issue in the proposal was really about coordination of effort, and so it's not the only tool, as you're clearly indicating. Money is another important tool that helps align us to the needs of the mission. What this proposal was trying to do was look at structural impediments that were organizational in nature that made it difficult to steward resources in a way that provided the best service. Mrs. Watson Coleman. Thank you. If the transportation security responsibilities were split across the multiple departments, how would the Federal Government effectively protect against and respond to attacks affecting multiple modes? And who would direct those Federal efforts in such an attack? Ms. Weichert. So the specifics around how we actually implement these proposals, again, back to the earlier comment. What we wanted to put out was a framework, a set of principles, and an orientation that was informed by leading practices around how do we structure government in the 21st century. We believe now it's the time for experts like yourself and others who care deeply about the issues to help articulate a path forward. Mrs. Watson Coleman. Thank you. I'm out of time. I yield back. Mr. Foxx. Thank you, Mrs. Watson Coleman. Mr. Comer, you're recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. Comer. Thank you, Madam Chairman. And welcome to the committee today. I think I for one am strongly in favor of reorganizing the government. The two things that I support strongly from an ideological standpoint with respect to government is to reduce the size of government and the bureaucracy, as well as cut wasteful spending. So my questions are, first of all, is this reorganization plan, is it an actual downsizing of government? Ms. Weichert. So I think it's a great question. The initial look at the data around how do we deliver the mission in the 21st century looked at what are we doing? What does the American people expect the government to do? And where are we doing it well and where do we have challenges? Much like in business, looking at the gap analysis. What we do not actually have is a problem of too many Federal employees. So when we did the analysis, something like 60 percent of our existing Federal workforce is eligible to retire within 10 years, 40 percent within 3 years. So what we don't have is a challenge of too many Federal workers to deliver the mission. What we do have is a skills alignment challenge and opportunity. Mr. Comer. So is reducing the Federal workforce, is that a purpose of the reorganization? Ms. Weichert. It is--it is not the purpose of the reorganization. It may be a byproduct in certain areas, but it's actually a major priority to look at the workers we already have who have passed background checks, who are committed to the missions, and look at how we might redeploy them to the areas we can't hire enough people. Mr. Comer. Would you say that one of the goals of this reorganization is to actually save money? Ms. Weichert. Absolutely. Mr. Comer. Shifting gears, I want to ask some questions about the nutrition assistance programs, the welfare programs. I'm a member of the Agriculture Committee. This has obviously been a big topic of discussion as we squeaked a farm bill through the House last week. With respect to the consolidation of nutrition assistance programs from the Department of Ag's Food and Nutrition Service into the renamed Department of Health and Public Welfare, this action would require congressional approval, correct? Ms. Weichert. Absolutely. Mr. Comer. What is the proposed timeline for stating the purpose of obtaining statutory authority here? Ms. Weichert. So this would be something we'd want to work with Congress on determining. The rationale for this proposal is really to make it easier for the States who actually administer the cash or near cash aid, who typically administer it out of one function, to make it more streamline so that more of our money actually goes to the needy families and isn't wasted on bureaucracy. I think the timeline and all the issues need to be hashed out with the key players. Mr. Comer. Okay. Could you explain the benefits to taxpayers and those needing assistance from the government of the consolidation of nutrition assistance programs with other welfare programs? Ms. Weichert. Sure thing. So conflicting and confusing eligibility requirements actually make it difficult for people who are in need of assistance to navigate what the requirements are, and make it also difficult for the States who are supporting that to help their constituents, their clients get the need--need-based aid that they need. It also may--the conflicting eligibility requirements may make it more vulnerable to fraud and abuse of that system. So the belief is that if we take a customer-centric approach, both in terms of how we deliver the money to the States as well as how the States interact with their clients, the needy families, this should streamline it and make it easier. Mr. Comer. Great. Sounds good. Look forward to working with the administration as we move forward with this reorganization. Last question, this is a big question. When you're looking at reorganizing the Postal Service, has privatization come up? Is that the direction that you think you're going to propose to head in? Or what's the status of privatization of the Postal Service? Ms. Weichert. So privatization is definitely a vision for the longer term and a framework that could be looked at. I think in all scenarios, both in the proposals that this body has agreed to as well as the task force that the President has pulled together, the near-term has to be about economic sort of improvement in the Postal Service, because you couldn't privatize an entity that has the level of liabilities and economic challenge that the existing Postal Service does. Mr. Comer. Great. Thank you very much. And I yield back, Madam Chairman. Ms. Weichert. Thank you. Mr. Foxx. Ms. Norton, you're recognized for 5 minutes. Ms. Norton. Yes. Ms. Weichert, looking at the proposals, one appears to dismantle the OPM's government personnel office. Now, that office was established by the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. Note the word ``civil service'' in that Act. But the proposal appears to remove OPM's retirement, healthcare, and H.R. Servicing functions to the Government Services Administration, the GSA. It then renames the GSA the Government Services Agency. That is correct? Ms. Weichert. That is correct. Ms. Norton. The policy function of OPM that ensures that we have a merit-based, nonpartisan civil service system, as I understand it from the plan, is going to be subsumed in the Executive Office of the President? Ms. Weichert. So it would move and be elevated to the Executive Office of the President. Ms. Norton. Why is that an elevation? Ms. Weichert. So in most companies that have a human centric and employee centric strategic human capital function, having that function, having a chief human capital officer who is close to the executive and close to where prioritization and decisions are made is critical. And that the key element in this proposal is, since that initial 1978 change and the establishment of OPM with great merit system principles and great civil service reform ideas, we have not delivered against those merit system principles. By the data from the employees themselves in the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, our civil servants do not believe we are keeping up with merit. They don't believe that promotions are based on merit. They don't believe awards depend on merit. They don't believe that---- Ms. Norton. I certainly don't know what putting part of the HR office in the executive office of the President would speak to those concerns of employees. That's not the--that is not the opinion of your own executive, Linda Springer, a former senior adviser in your office who has helped launched the administration's reorganization effort. And she's a former OPM director in the Bush administration, has warned that this change is, and here I'm quoting her, very troubling. She believes that a central personnel office is necessary. According to her, an independent central personnel office is needed because--again, I think I should quote her--because of the firewall between the agency and political personnel at the White House as it relates to personnel practices, particularly hiring and other actions, to be sure the oversight for compliance for merit systems principles is handled independently. And that comes from a--that comes from a functionary senior adviser in your own office from the Bush administration. Ms. Weichert. So one of things that's a real challenge about any reorganization is the people who have grown up within an organization are rarely able to fundamentally change it. And so it's important to look at data and facts. And one of the things we did look at is across the OECD countries that are relevant and similar to the United States, only one had an organizational construct for people that was comparable to OPM, and that was France, which is not known to be a bastion of bureaucratic efficiency. Every other major comparable country in the OECD had a function while they still had civil service principals. And in some cases, they might have had something like the Merit System Board that we have as separate. But in each case, the--having it close to where decisions are made about budget and policy priority helped ensure that mission, service, and stewardship were aligned with the workforce issues. Ms. Norton. I yield back. But I have to note that you're having it very close to where political decisions are made and that firewall seems to disappear. Thank you. Mr. Foxx. Thank you, Ms. Norton. The chair notes the presence of our colleague Congressman Bobby Scott of Virginia. We appreciate your interest in this topic and welcome your participation today. I ask unanimous consent Congressman Scott be allowed to fully participate in today's hearing. Without objection, so ordered. Mr. Russell, you're recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. Russell. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you, Ms. Weichert, for coming here today. While I support the administration's dedication to improving efficiency and streamlining government bureaucracy, the proposal to spinoff Federal responsibility and congressional oversight for operating our air traffic control functions as written in the reform plan is inconsistent with that goal by putting national security, safety, accessibility, and efficiency of our national airspace in jeopardy. The reform plan states that privatizing air traffic control operations would reduce transportation fragmentation across government. This fragmentation refers to the vital relationship between the FAA and Department of Defense to protect the national airspace in tandem by sharing airspace, training systems, assets, equipment, and information. This is made possible by their mutual status as Federal agencies within the Federal Government. By divorcing ATC functions from the government and thus Department of Defense, each shared interest would be subjected to a yet unknown established process of coordination, which could leave our Nation vulnerable to cybersecurity and physical attack. It would also create a potential multibillion dollar unfunded liability for Department of Defense to update its own systems in coordination with these new processes. Instead of reducing fragmentation, air traffic control privatization compromises the interoperability the Department of Defense and other agencies such as the FBI, Homeland Security, the DEA, and our intelligence services currently enjoy. Instead of jointly developing the technologies of spectrum vital to our national security, privatization of ATC separates and complicates them. Furthermore, past proposals have also diminished the powers of the President and reduced his vital oversight, as well as Congress', to protect the national security of our airspace against nefarious cyber actors in times of national duress such as the 9/11 terrorist attack. Instead of the President, the FAA, and the military being able to rapidly make decisions, such as September 2001, the emergency would first have to navigate its way through a private board, something that is not only unrealistic, but dangerous. The proposal to streamline Department of Transportation by privatizing ATC functions is intended to better enable our aviation system to respond to consumer needs and modernized services. And while we embrace modernization efforts to improve cost efficiency, the lengthy process of privatizing would be counterproductive to those ends, especially given that modernization under NextGen is well on track. Instead, it would result in industry uncertainty, significant cost to the Federal Government, and a slower pace for NextGen implementation. FAA administrator and NextGen chairman Ed Bolton warned that such a transition could take 7 years and handle the billions of dollars of taxpayer paid for infrastructure to a private entity, while industry would be unable to update technology and procedures. The aviation industry cannot afford to lose time and resources in these indirect efforts. They would much better be served in investing these years and dollars directly into an already unfolding and modernizing NextGen implementation. While language in the reform plan advocates privatized ATC systems such as those in Canada and other places, it is important to note that there can be no comparison with the 88,000 flights a day in the United States to those of 9,000 in Canada, most of which originate or terminate in the United States, handled by our system, or even the 35,000 in Europe, when combined with Canada, don't even equal half of U.S. air traffic. The U.S. airspace is not only the largest, busiest, and most complex in the world; it is also the safest and most accessible. This is in large part due to the public structure of the system, including its accountability to this Congress and the FAA and its mission to provide reliable air traffic services to a wide range of users and communities across our Nation. For these reasons, Congress has recently, historically, and repeatedly rejected legislative efforts to privatize our Nation's air traffic control systems. Language for privatization in the 21st Century AIRR Act held up FAA reauthorization for over a year in the House, and it faced stiff bipartisan opposition in both the House and the Senate. Any further attempt at ATC privatization would be redundant and a waste of legislative efforts, and also reduces the very powers of the President that the President is trying to reform. While we appreciate and support reorganization as an opportunity for much needed government reform, we will continue to oppose any attempt to those advocates and allies of this system to privatize it in the United States. For this fundamental reason, our national airspace belongs to we the people and not a private company. And, Madam Chairman, I yield back my time. Mr. Foxx. Thank you Mr. Russell. Mr. Lynch, you're recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. Lynch. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. And, Ms. Weichert, thank you for appearing before this committee to help us with our work. I had a chance to read through the Trump administration reorganization plan, and it says here at page 124, it says that the overall goal of the reform is to enhance our global presence and policy processes and to serve the goal of ensuring the most efficient allocation of personnel consistent with the best U.S. interest around the world. Am I reading that correctly? Ms. Weichert. I can't see what you're reading, but I'm guessing it's right. Mr. Lynch. Yeah, all right. Okay. I'll actually ask to submit it for the record. Mr. Foxx. Without objection. Mr. Lynch. Okay. You realize we don't have an ambassador in Albania. Would that be consistent with an enhanced global presence? Ms. Weichert. I was not aware of that. Mr. Lynch. Okay. We don't have one in Australia either. We don't have one in Azerbaijan. We--and I'm talking about we don't have an ambassador and we don't have anybody nominated. So here's the President out here trying to reorganize the government, and we don't have anybody in, as I said, Albania, Australia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belize, Bolivia, Central African Republic, Ivory Coast, and Cuba. No ambassador, no one nominated. So it's not like we're slowing the nominations down; no nominations have been made. So, obviously, we can't confirm someone because the President has not offered a nominee. We don't--I was in--Mr. Issa and I were in Egypt about 10 days ago, a couple of weeks ago, I guess. We don't have an ambassador in Egypt, an incredibly critical post in the Middle East, an important ally at times with Israel. They've got an insurgency on the ground in the Sinai. We've got troops there. We've had them there since 1973, believe it or not. And, you know, there are also some outlying human rights issues that we raised with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi a couple of weeks ago as well, but we have no ambassador, and that's problematic. We don't have an ambassador in Eritrea, Georgia, Honduras. We've got major problems on our border involving many Honduran refugees, and yet we don't have anybody on the ground in Tegucigalpa that could articulate our policies. And again, no nominees in any of these countries. We don't have anybody in Iceland, Ireland, Jordan. Mr. Issa and I visited with King Abdullah last week. Forty percent of his population are refugees. He's trying to do the right thing by Iraqi refugees, Syrian refugees. He's a great--we do not have a better ally in the region, ourselves and Israel, than Jordan. They are with us in the fight against ISIS. They are doing their work. We have no one on the ground. We don't have anybody representing this government as an ambassador to Jordan. Hugely problematic. Libya. Growing concerns about ISIS regenerating in that country. We have no ambassador. Mexico. You think we would have an ambassador to Mexico. We do not. The President has not nominated anyone, and we've got major problems on the Mexican border. I don't have to go over that with you. Mongolia. OECD, you mentioned OECD, we don't have a designee to OECD, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Hugely important. Panama. No ambassador. No one nominated. Qatar. Another huge problem in our Middle East policy. We don't have anybody on the ground there. Saudi Arabia. You think we might have an ambassador to Saudi Arabia? No one nominated, no one appointed. Seat is empty. Singapore. Somalia, Al Shabaab is on the way back. We have nobody on the ground in Somalia. South Africa, Sudan, no one in Khartoum. Sweden, Syria, obvious problems. Tajikistan, major problem for the folks--for our troops on the ground in Afghanistan. There's a foreign fighter path. Tanzania, Turkey. Again, I was there a couple of weeks ago. Critical post in the region, straddles Europe and Asia. Huge problems going on right now. No one on the ground there. In Venezuela. So this plan, rather than going out and trying to privatize the post office, how about the President do his job? Nominate people for these countries. Get us on the ground. The President's proposal last year was to cut State Department by 30 percent, and this year, to cut them by 22 percent. We need to do our job on the ground. We--you know, we had a group of 50 generals that signed on to a letter to express how important it is for the military to have good diplomatic people on the ground so that we don't put our men and women in uniform on the battlefield. We can avert that by having good strong diplomacy on the part of the State Department. Mr. Foxx. Mr. Lynch, you time has expired. Mr. Lynch. Madam Chair, you have been indulgent, and I really appreciate that. And I do yield back my time and I thank you. Mr. Foxx. Thank you. Mr. Mitchell, you are recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. Mitchell. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Ms. Weichert for being here. In contrast to what's happened a little bit here, I will endeavor not to do a 5 minute and 30 second floor speech. A couple of comments on my colleague about FAA and air traffic control. I support what the administration is trying to do, support it as we looked at the FAA bill. There's some differences of opinion, clearly. The Defense Department weighed in and said there weren't concerns with the national airspace. In fact, Secretary Mattis personally made phone calls to Members about that issue. So I'm confused as to where some of my colleagues think somehow we're going to give up our airspace to foreign entities. There's discussion about NextGen being well under track. Well, in fact, we spent billions of dollars, yet they can't give us a date when NextGen will be put in place. We put additional accountability measures in the bill of the FAA reauthorization from the House to in fact insist we get a better idea when that's going to happen, the cost of not doing that. So I will support, if we don't get NextGen in place, we don't update our air traffic control system which, in fact, is archaic, we'll make another pass by and privatize the air traffic control, whether all of my colleagues are happy with that or not. Let me shift, if I can. I spent 35 years in workforce development and post-secondary ed. So your proposal on combining education and workforce is intriguing to me. Give me an example, I'm curious have you looked at it. As we looked at workforce programs in the country, there's administrative costs at the Federal level, both the national office and regional office. There's administrative costs to the State, both the agency administering it as well as their management and budget unit, which also charged what was called indirect costs. Then you had the local agency has an admin rate, and then the service provider has administrative costs. As you looked at this, did you estimate what the total administrative cost currently being incurred by those programs was? Ms. Weichert. So thank you for the question. We definitely looked at duplication and overlap, and where estimates had already been done by others such as the Government Accountability Office, we took those into consideration. As I have said before, the goal of this proposal was not to actually size the costs and benefits but put out a framework. What I can say is the fragmentation in workforce development was stunning. So 40 programs--and actually there is a lot of debate about that. So I heard the number 40. I have heard the number 46. I have heard the number 47. We can confirm 40 in OMB, but we know the number might be higher. Mr. Mitchell. Let me give you an estimate of that. I have done it for a variety of programs. We operated a lot of those programs. About 30 percent of the total money that we authorized in Federal funds goes to administrative costs before it delivers services to any individual that needs those services, be it a laid off auto worker, whatever you want to call it. Ms. Weichert. Right. Mr. Mitchell. Thirty percent of the money. I guess I agree with what you are trying to do here in terms consolidating and reduce the fragmentation, but the important thing to the taxpayer and people that need services is actually put more money of what we authorize the taxpayers pay directly delivering services. So what is your thoughts on the next step in terms of how it is we do that and limit the administrative costs that chew up so much of these budgets? Ms. Weichert. So, I think it is a great point, and this is obviously one that has generated a lot of interest. I think what the chairwoman indicated in her remarks is really important. Congress and the House, in particular, already thinks about education and labor in an integrated way, and I think this is a great place to start that dialogue and actually frame out, you know, what would a timeline that would be appropriate, what would the way to start forward, and to your point, what are the metrics that we are really focused on. I mentioned earlier, you know, what drove this was mission, service, stewardship. In this context I'd want to have metrics around the mission of training people, are we actually effectively training people for the jobs that we have versus jobs of the past. Mr. Mitchell. Well, for example, I mean, some of these programs, which, in fact, do duplicate. I have been involved with them again. You can grant them as block grants to the State and reduce a great deal of the Federal bureaucracy in terms of allegedly delivering the programs. They don't deliver a service. They theoretically make sure that you are delivering it in a way they want to. Ms. Weichert. Right. Mr. Mitchell. We could block grant it to the State. We could further limit administrative costs to the State and local service providers. So I think the right direction you are going is correct, but we need to be aggressive about that administrative cost because it is a huge burden. Ms. Weichert. Yeah, and I think it is a great point. And from this point forward, we put out kind of the principles, but the experts, the people who really live and breathe this can help us frame, you know, the--both the desired metrics as well as metrics that we would be worried about unintended consequences, that we have to ensure as we are making change happen, we don't inadvertently do some harm, and that would be something, again, we would like to engage in dialogue on. Mr. Mitchell. I appreciate your time, and I yield back. Thank you, Madam Chair. Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Mitchell. Mr. Cummings, you are recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much. Ms. Weichert, first of all, I want to thank you for meeting with me on yesterday. And as I said to you then, one of my main--major concerns is that this is not just an effort to do more harm to Federal employees. I think they have given over and over again. Whenever folk want to get extra money for something or they need some, they go after Federal employees, and it concerns me greatly. I want to go and talk about this retraining, but before I do that, I want to go to something that Mr. Lynch talked about. You got all these vacancies in the ambassadorships and people not even nominated. It seems like this is--there is some homework we need to do before we even get to where you are. We are not--we are not even functioning competently right now. You follow what I am saying? Are you there? Ms. Weichert. So the---- Mr. Cummings. You have this blank look on your face. Ms. Weichert. Yeah. So I appreciate the comments, both of Mr. Lynch and what you are saying about nominations. Mr. Cummings. Yeah. Ms. Weichert. None of the proposals that we looked at were specifically dealing with that element, so all of the places we looked at programs, we were looking at fundamentally structural challenges to achieving mission, service, and stewardship. Mr. Cummings. One thing we talked about yesterday was the whole idea that in the next 10 years, I think you told me, a large percentage of our Federal employees will be retirement eligible. Is that right? Ms. Weichert. Correct. Mr. Cummings. What was that percentage? Ms. Weichert. Sixty percent. Mr. Cummings. That is a lot. Ms. Weichert. That is a lot. Mr. Cummings. You also said that we don't--you have got a good group of people, the Federal employees, but sometimes you need to kind of find a way to make sure their skills match up with the jobs that are available. Ms. Weichert. Correct. Mr. Cummings. How do you plan to do that? Ms. Weichert. So there are a number of proposals in here. One of the key areas is really elevating the OPM function to focus on the strategic elements of the mission. So, today--and this is really the kernel of the proposal. Today, most of the people in OPM are effectively doing transaction processing related to HR paperwork. They are not thinking about the strategic issues that you and I discussed. They are not thinking about skill set mismatches between, you know, the skills that were put in the GS schedule back in 1949 and what we need today. We don't have the resources, given the way that organization has to function, because it is dealing with all this administrative overhead. So the first thing we want to do is elevate the strategic functions of OPM to stay focused on merit systems principles in the 21st century and how we actually execute that. There are a couple of other proposals in there that I think are critical. There is one that probably has gotten almost no attention, but it is something called, ``The Government Effectiveness Advanced Research Center,'' something that we would like to propose that would invite academics, public sector, and private sector individuals to share ideas about things like retraining and retooling. And fundamental issues that affect Americans broadly around as we automate more functions around paperwork processing, how do we redeploy those same people, those valuable workers to the highest and best use in government serving people, reducing backlogs, and doing jobs like cybersecurity, data science, and other things that add value. Mr. Cummings. Now, you--the entire world has witnessed this administration's inhumane treatment of children. So when you testify about the Trump administration's plan that would remove children's aid programs from their traditional department, people are right to question the true motives. I think Ms. Norton was referring to that. President Trump's plan would move the supplemental nutrition assistance program and the women's, infants, and children program out of the Department of Agriculture where they have been administered, helping millions of children and low-income parents for decades. The administration says that this disruption would benefit the country, but I think we need to see more than empty promises. Has the administration conducted a cost-benefit analysis for this particular proposal? Ms. Weichert. So as I indicated earlier, the proposals were meant to look for ways that we could better serve the communities that we are trying to help and that the implementation phase would look at cost benefits. Mr. Cummings. One last question. The postal service. This is something that we, as I said earlier on this committee, worked very hard on for years. We finally came up with a proposal where all the stakeholders were in pretty much agreement. Have you taken a look at that? I mean, because it seems that it solves a lot of the problems, and now we hear that you want to privatize the postal system. So, I mean---- Ms. Weichert. So we are definitely aware and appreciative of the work that this committee has done. And as you and I discussed yesterday, having a bipartisan perspective is welcome, and it is something that the team that is working on this issue is definitely taking into account. Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much. Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Cummings. Mr. Walker, you are recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. Walker. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Ms. Weichert, under the proposed reorganization plan, the administration has decided to combine the Department of Education and Labor. I think many of us commend that effort. Are there any other agencies that the administration looked at combining or even completely eliminating? Ms. Weichert. So the analysis--and I would encourage--this is a shameless plug, but I would encourage folks to look at not just the proposals themselves but also the framing of them. It shows how we actually looked at the mission, service, and stewardship. So we focused on areas where there were challenges in, first and foremost, delivering the mission that the people expect of us. I think another proposal that I would mention--so the Army Corps civil works component was another area where the civilian work of the Army Corps, which is about 22 percent of the total work that that group does, is very complex, very bureaucratic, and has a lot of problems with mission delivery, which is why we proposed reducing the number of agencies involved in some of those projects from three to two. It wouldn't eliminate Army Corps for Defense proposes, but it would get it out of the business of civil works. Mr. Walker. Sure. Okay. Under the reorganization plan, I believe also the administration has suggested the postal service, which was just discussed, could be at least partially or maybe even fully privatized. Can we unpack that a little bit more. When it comes to the administration, how they reached the conclusion that the postal service needs to be at least drastically restructured? Ms. Weichert. So I think the simple facts--you know, if we look at what we want the postal service to do, it has got three main roles: universal service for Americans that was outlined a very long time ago in the Constitution; we want to take care of the postal service employees; and we want to ensure that it is economically solvent. In the last two categories, economic issues and really, you know, change in the economic model for the postal service, and particularly the drop in first class mail has fundamentally affected our ability to meet our liabilities for employee benefits as well as to be economically viable as an independent agency. Mr. Walker. Sure. Do you see a moment or a time where the historical average would be followed when it comes to the price of First Class mail? Is that part of your discussion? Ms. Weichert. So I have not been in the details of this particular proposal, and as I said earlier, we invite the experts who are deeply steeped in these issues to be involved. But what I can say is, you know, the driving force behind, I think, all of these activities, the work done in this body, the work of the task force, and then the proposal for the long-term potential privatization all have in mind the fact that the current economic situation--and you know, $100 billion in unfunded liability, 6 years of default, that is unsustainable, and we still have an obligation to serve, you know, the core-- the core ethos of that. Mr. Walker. Well, thank you. I don't--Ms. Weichert, I don't consider that a shameless plug on your behalf. I think it was Yogi Bear that said: It ain't bragging if you have really done it. So keep up the good work. With that, I yield back, Madam Chairman. Ms. Weichert. Thank you. Mr. Connolly. Would my friend yield before he yields back? Mr. Walker. In theory, yes. Mr. Connolly. I was just going to suggest to my friend that one of the things Ms. Weichert did not talk about in response to your question about the postal service was, of course, the onerous prepayment requirement that Congress put on the postal service in 2006 in lame duck, which has cost the postal service billions of dollars, and that needs to be addressed. This committee, as you know, Mr. Walker, has addressed that unanimously. Mr. Walker. Yes. Mr. Connolly. I would love to see the administration at least acknowledge that that is a major problem. Thank you for yielding. Mr. Walker. Of course. And since I have a couple of seconds of my time left, Ms. Weichert, would you like to touch on that at all before I officially yield back? Ms. Weichert. Unfortunately, I don't have the context to have an informed response. Mr. Walker. Fair enough. Yes. I don't want to put you on the spot without more information. Thank you, and with that, Chairwoman. Ms. Foxx. The gentleman yields back. Ms. Lawrence, you are recognized for 5 minutes. Mrs. Lawrence. Thank you. Ms. Weichert, can you tell me-- other agencies had the opportunity to submit reorganization plans with their own prospectives. Did you offer this opportunity to the Postal Service? Ms. Weichert. I don't know the answer to that question. Mrs. Lawrence. Do you have, in your possession, a reorganization plan from the Postal Service? Ms. Weichert. I do not. Mrs. Lawrence. Do you know why not? Ms. Weichert. I do not. Mrs. Lawrence. Did OMB consult the Postal Service at any point in the process of creating such a plan, or did your task force at any time even ask for it? Again, you don't know. Ms. Weichert. I don't know. Mrs. Lawrence. So how did you come up with this recommendation or plan on privatizing the Postal Service, keeping in mind that the Postal Service does not fund itself with taxpayer's dollars. It funds itself based on the sale of their products. In addition to that, it operates under a directive of the Constitution. So how did you come up with a plan to privatize it when you have not engaged the organization? And could I add to that, when you are talking about reorganization, I am looking at the members of the task force who are political appointees. Have you had a forensic audit of tasks and desk audits of these departments so that when you--this is a very severe recommendation. It is very high level. To say I am going to privatize it and then actually put it on the selling block for the highest bidder is what I am reading into this proposal, and you have not even engaged the organization, but you have political appointees who have sat at a table, and, to me, I will be honest, looks like a political just throw it up against the wall, we should privatize it when you haven't, to me, addressed the constitutional responsibility as saying that there is economic challenges when the Postal Service pays its own bills because they do not use taxpayer dollars. So you are putting apples and oranges together, and I am very, very concerned that a recommendation of privatization, not reorganization, but privatization is something that this task force to--and I am not seeing the expertise or the due diligence to even get to that point. I am extremely concerned. You are saying all the right words. I am very impressed with your presentation. You obviously understand a lot, but right here in this lane, you are lacking a lot that for me to have you to sit here and say privatize, to sell it off when this body has been working for years to come up with a bipartisan plan--bipartisan--because we are trying to service the country based on our constitutional requirement. I need you to say something other than ``I don't know.'' Ms. Weichert. So I appreciate the passion and the commitment to the topic. On this particular proposal, it very much was looking at the long term with the understanding that there were a number of players looking at the near term issues. And, again, every proposal that made it in here was looking at a combination of are we achieving the mission, the service, and the stewardship responsibilities. And the notion of an independent organization that is meant to be self-funded but that has $100 billion in unfunded liabilities---- Mrs. Lawrence. And part of that is because of what we did. We put legislation together to address that, because we are on all this body, who has the constitutional responsibility as well, based on our oath, we have pushed that forward. How in the world did you get from saying we want to be economically feasible to selling it to the highest bidder and to privatize it? I just don't understand that leap, unless it is purely political. Ms. Weichert. I wouldn't say it is purely political. What I would say--and again, in the front of the volume, we looked at what are those things that are fundamental to the mission, service, stewardship component. Mrs. Lawrence. So why wasn't reorganization even put on the table? Ms. Weichert. So the external analysis and looking at other proposals, including how other countries have looked at this, definitely fed into that, but what I would say is---- Mrs. Lawrence. But I just want to interrupt you. You looked at other countries, but you did not talk to the organization that you are talking about privatizing. Something seems wrong with that, that you would sit in a room and look at other international post companies, organizations, and make a recommendation of privatizing and sell it without even doing your due diligence for what we do in America and looking at the forensic operations, to look at where are the cost deficiencies. I am very concerned that this is not appropriate. My time is up, so I am going to close with this. This body, who has the legislative responsibility based on the people who voted us here, I would hope every single one of us will stand up and have the political courage to say we must meet those economic responsibilities. Ms. Foxx. The gentlewoman's time has expired. Mrs. Lawrence. And we will continue to do that---- Ms. Foxx. The gentlewoman's time has expired. Mrs. Lawrence. --but this is not professional and it looks political and unacceptable. I yield back. Ms. Foxx. The gentlewoman's time has expired. Mrs. Lawrence. I yield back. Ms. Foxx. The gentlewoman's time has expired. Mr. Grothman, you are recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. Grothman. Thank you for being here, and I will point out, the post office is in the Constitution. I think it is important for everybody to realize what is in the Constitution and also important for everybody to realize what is not in the Constitution and the Federal Government is forbidden to do. And it is important to bring that up as well. Thank you for the proposals. I mean, I think it is a good thing to try to look at what we can do to make the government more efficient, and I think when too many different agencies have things, you know, one hand not know what the other is doing, you result in spending too much money and having perverse effects. One of the things you want to do is you want to combine the nutrition assistance programs with other welfare programs. Could you explain the benefits of that? Ms. Weichert. So I think that the primary issue actually looks at the delivery and the service component. Mr. Grothman. Right. Ms. Weichert. So States administer both the temporary assistance for needy families, as well as the SNAP and the WIC programs essentially to largely the same group of people, and they tend to have one organization that does that administration, but when they deal with the Federal Government, they have to deal with confusing, overlapping, sometimes conflicting requirements that add to their overhead and basically reduce the amount of money of the whole pool that actually goes to the needy families. Mr. Grothman. It is good. You know, one of the things that I am interested in and one of the reasons I ran for this job is you add up the public benefits, all the different things: income tax credit, the SNAP, the low-income housing, the TANF, you wind up with really big numbers that discourage people from working and discourage people from getting married as well. Do you think that by trying to put everything under one roof we do a better job of seeing, quite frankly, how much is available out there if you don't try to work as hard as you can? Ms. Weichert. So I think that the key thing from this proposal was really in taking a great view of some of the best in serving communities that are at risk. When you look at how charities are judged and measured, they are measured by how much of the actual benefit goes directly to the cause, and then, you know, the charities that have the best performance have the least amount of overhead. That is really where I think we should be judged. Mr. Grothman. You feel we are spending a lot of money on poverty and a lot of that money is going to government employees who are administering the programs? Ms. Weichert. I absolutely think that we have excessive administrative overhead that would be better served actually bringing that money to the people that are targeted for it. Mr. Grothman. I will give you a question, and you can think about this. It is a conversation I once had with a person high up in the administration. It was not the President. Do you feel we would be better off just taking a block amount of money and giving it to the States and saying: Here, you deal with the low-income housing, you deal with the nutrition, you deal with the educational requirements, and we are out of here all together, because when you look at the overall amount of money spent per person in poverty, it is just shockingly high. The average person would be happy to live off that, and of course, a lot of that is not trickling down to the people if poverty. It is going to the bureaucracy. But could you see the day come when the administration would just say: Here is X amount of dollars per person in poverty in your State today. You deal with it? Ms. Weichert. So I haven't done the full analysis to be able to get to that conclusion. What I would say is that would be part of the dialogue that I think we should have. Certainly there are governors and State and local authorities who would welcome that. And I think, you know, as many Members of this body have indicated, when we get to the implementation phase, we have to look at the costs and benefits, but I think it is certainly something we would want to look at. Mr. Grothman. I would encourage you to do that. I came here with all sorts of ideas how to run these programs, but over time, I realize that Congress is incapable of doing what they should do in these programs, and maybe if you just said: We will give the State of Wisconsin $20,000 a year for every person in poverty, we would be ahead of the game and just clear the decks here in Washington. With regard to the merger of Education and Labor, is there a reason why we didn't include something in there a little bit more like commerce to kind of change the mentality and realize that our goal here is to help commerce and not get in its way? Is that something you would ever think about adding to the mix? Ms. Weichert. I am sorry. I didn't understand the question. Mr. Grothman. Would you ever consider adding commerce or economic development, that type of thing, in the mix maybe to try to change the mentality in the departments of education and labor? Ms. Weichert. So I think it is a great question. What we wanted to do was get as clear as we could about core mission elements, and so I think the place we saw the greatest overlap had to do with workforce development and the alignment of how we actually prepare people for the work force, so it didn't go as far as the actual commerce mission, but I think it is an interesting thought. Mr. Grothman. Thank you for coming over. It is a tough--we are a tough crowd. Ms. Foxx. The gentleman's time has expired. Ms. Kelly, you are recognized for 5 minutes. Ms. Kelly. Thank you, Madam Chair. Welcome. The President's reorganization proposal includes a radical plan to merge the Department of Education with the Department of Labor, but it only devotes four pages to this proposal. Such a merger obviously would require Congress to agree. But Senate appropriations chairman, Roy Blunt told reporters there are not sufficient votes for this merger, so it is not going to happen. But I wanted to ask about reorganization that is happening inside the Department of Education. The office of civil rights within the Department is charged with protecting the rights of disabled students, people of color, LGBTQ students, and others who face discrimination. Has the Department considered downsizing or consolidating the regional offices of the office of civil rights? Ms. Weichert. I am not aware of anything that would affect the office of civil rights at all. Ms. Kelly. Your proposal says you would move the office of civil rights. I am asking if you or the Department have considered consolidating its regional offices or shrinking its footprint? Ms. Weichert. So what I can say--so I am not familiar with all of the details of the internal deliberations that the Department of Education has done, but as part of this proposal, very explicitly, a number of the programs, including anything impacting the office of civil rights, was not discussed. Ms. Kelly. So you don't know if there was an analysis on the caseload of investigations this office would be able to maintain after you cut the number of regional offices? Ms. Weichert. I don't know, no. Ms. Kelly. I would also like to ask you about another important office in the Department of Education, which is the budget service office. That is the office that communicates with Congress and performs fiscal evaluations on current and future programs. It is an important office, and Congress relies on it. Are there any plans that would change the place and prominence of that office at the Department of Education? And if so, what are the details? Ms. Weichert. I am not aware of that. It was not included in this proposal. Ms. Kelly. So you don't think anything will change? Ms. Weichert. I don't know in terms of internal organizational structure. Ms. Kelly. I would like to ask you about the Federal student aid office now. The Federal student aid office, which is responsible, as I am sure you know, for administering millions of taxpayer dollars in loans to student borrowers. The President's plan says that the Federal student aid office will be merged with American workforce and higher education administration office, along with eight other offices from the Department of Ed and Labor, leaving it further removed from any accountability to borrowers or taxpayers, but that big merger is not likely to happen soon. Why did you propose moving the Federal student aid office in this way? Ms. Weichert. So the proposal that is in the volume was hoping to get Federal student aid aligned to a full workforce development view of student aid that would encompass not only higher traditional 4-year educational opportunities but also vocational opportunities, make that easier. The proposal envisions it is still operating as a whole entity and not being further merged but that the management shift would help align that broader mission of ensuring that we have student aid available for a range of educational opportunities, not just 4- year universities and things of that nature. Ms. Kelly. So you are looking at not only 4-year but 2-year or---- Ms. Weichert. Two-year vocational technical type programs, as well as potentially a greater understanding of the role of apprenticeships and other type on-the-job training. Ms. Kelly. Any graduate? Are graduate programs included in that? Ms. Weichert. So, again, the goal would be to align all of the Federal student aid ideas to really the end-to-end perspective route, workforce development. Ms. Kelly. And as you--as this plan may come about, does it increase the accountability to taxpayers and borrowers as the GAO and Inspector General have repeatedly recommended? Ms. Weichert. So this tool is not, I think, the optimal tool for that. I think there are a number of things in the President's management agenda looking at our IT modernization and data accountability and transparency where we absolutely welcome the opportunity to get more transparent around elements of the data so that we can be more accountable but do that in a way that is efficient, effective, and not burdensome. Ms. Kelly. Okay. Well, I think I yield back the balance of my time. Thank you. Mr. Cummings. Does the gentlelady yield? Ms. Kelly. Yes, I will. Mr. Cummings. Madam Chairwoman, I ask unanimous content so have the statements from the American Federation of Government Employees, the National Treasury Employees Union, and the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association entered into the record. Ms. Foxx. Without objection. Mr. Cummings. Thank you. Ms. Foxx. Mr. Hice, you are recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. Hice. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for being here. Can you explain the proposal to move alcohol and tobacco responsibilities out of the ATF? Ms. Weichert. I am not familiar with the details of that proposal, but I would be happy to get back to you for the record. Mr. Hice. Okay. Do you know anything about that, the whole issue of where the firearms and explosive bureau would go and why? Ms. Weichert. I do not. Mr. Hice. Okay. I think it is--before I move on to some other questions, I think it is something that we have got to consider. It appears to me that we have got to look at who would regulate firearms if it goes back under the Department of Justice or remains under the Department of Justice and potentially FBI. Certainly the FBI is, in my opinion, not the proper place to regulate firearms, are not equipped to regulate industry and that type of thing, and it is concerning to me where ultimately that would go. Let me ask a little bit about the Department of Labor. Specifically, as it relates to OSHA, has that issue come up at all? Ms. Weichert. So there are no plans to change any of the specific activities of OSHA under this plan. Mr. Hice. Okay. Well, there are about half of our States that have a State run type OSHA program that, frankly, works better because it is closer to home. They know the industries. They know the issues that are facing their States better than the Federal Government. Is there a possibility or would the administration in any way consider encouraging States to develop their own OSHA type program rather than it coming straight from the Federal Government? Ms. Weichert. So I think it is a great idea, and I think it brings up a great point. We wanted this proposal to be the beginning of a dialogue that would be iterative and ongoing. That is how modern, flexible organizations adapt and ensure that they are aligned in the mission. I think there are many principles in here that really are asking questions about what should the Federal Government be doing and what are States and local governments better positioned to do. So we would welcome dialogue that is fact based and, you know, asking the right questions. Mr. Hice. So how would that dialogue best take place? Ms. Weichert. So we have already started some preliminary conversations with governors, and we have our intergovernmental affairs organization in the EOP, but we would welcome congressional involvement in essentially curating a conversation on those topics. Mr. Hice. Okay. Well, I would look forward to being part of that, that communication and that discussion. And Madam Chair, with that, I will yield back. Ms. Foxx. Thanks for yielding back. Mr. Clay, you are recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. Clay. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Ms. Weichert, for being here. You know, President Trump's reformed plan appears to be premised on the belief that reform requires structural reorganization, the merging or moving around of agencies and their employees, and I question whether that is truly necessary or whether reform can be accomplished without eliminating, merging, or moving agencies around. Let's take, for example, President Trump's proposal to merge the Departments of Education and Labor into a single agency to be called, and I quote, ``The Department of Education and Workforce.'' The new name is very similar to the jurisdiction of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. Ms. Weichert, was this similarly a factor that was considered in the President's plan? Ms. Weichert. Absolutely, and the fact that most OECD countries and countries like China actually organize in this way. Mr. Clay. Now you mentioned workforce development in your other colloquy. You know, that is one of the important missions of the U.S. Department of Labor. They retrain workers, they help stand up workers, they even job corps. It is all geared towards workforce development. How do you envision that once these two agencies are merged? Is it still going to be as robust? Ms. Weichert. I think it will be more robust. So one of the things--and getting to your first point of, is reorganization necessary to make change happen. Mr. Clay. Yeah. Ms. Weichert. I think it is a pivotal question and one that we thought deeply about. Organizational change is one tool among many, and so many of the proposals actually focused on places where change has been needed for some time, as highlighted by Government Accountability GAO studies and other concerns, and change hasn't happened, organization can be a tool that actually gets resources together, aligns priorities. As it relates specifically to the workforce, what we saw when we looked at, you know, whether it is 40 programs or 46 or 47 workforce development programs, we saw a real mix in terms of quality and outcomes orientation. We saw a real mix in terms of evidence, evidence-based decisionmaking. What we are hopeful to do is that we can steward the resources associated with these various programs and focus them on the things that are driving the reskilling, driving the workforce development in ways that actually help the American worker that are easier for businesses to actually deal with as well, and ultimately get more Americans in the right jobs for the 21st century. Mr. Clay. You know--and thanks for that response, but some of my colleagues are quite skeptical of the President's plan and question the underlying motive or purpose. For example, Ranking Member Scott of Virginia called the plan, and I quote, ``hastily concocted proposal that uses the false promise of streamlining to cut investments in our future.'' Ms. Weichert, how do you respond to critics of the plan like Mr. Scott? Ms. Weichert. So, first thing, to anyone who wants to accuse us of being hastily--these plans are being hastily concocted, I would encourage them to read the whole volume and not just the thumbnail proposals in the back, including the bibliography and including the President's management agenda that really provides the context for the whole thing. I understand in Washington, you know, in a hyper political environment, questioning people's motives, but what I would like to ask people to do is judge us by our actions and judge us by results. Mr. Clay. But, look, there is one member of even the President's party who was quoted in the New York Times as saying that, one, that the proposal to move the $3 billion CDBG program from the Department of HUD to Commerce is just a first step to eliminating the program. He says the move to the Commerce Department was an attempt to strangle the program by removing it from HUD--career HUD official. How do you respond to that? Ms. Weichert. So, again, I can't--I can't have a conversation about motives. What I can say is that the proposals that we have, we believe have a fact base and merit, and we have attempted to showcase that in the report and in the bibliography. What I would say is reasonable people with expertise and passion may disagree, and it may be because they are informed by facts that we don't have. I would invite folks to actually, you know, meet us in the realm of public debate, bring the facts, bring the alternative proposals, and that is probably the most important thing I would say is we have attempted to create a holistic path forward. Is it perfect? Of course it isn't. Does it have elements of challenge and difficulty? Absolutely. But what we attempted to do was actually put together a plan that was a holistic vision, and to the extent people disagree with that, I absolutely welcome that debate, and I think folks who have spent time with me and spent time with our team realize we are genuine in having that debate. Mr. Clay. And my time is expired. Madam Chairwoman thank you. Ms. Foxx. The gentleman's time has expired. Mr. Palmer, you are recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. Palmer. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Good to see you, Ms. Weichert. I think the majority of members on both sides out of this committee understand the need to make some reforms in the Federal Government. We have had hearings on everything from mismanagement at the Veterans' Affairs, Social Security, cybersecurity, improper payments, and I can go on down the list. I mean, we are acutely aware that there are needs for reform. You said something in your testimony that the Federal Government operates much like it did 50 years ago. I have been acutely focused on how do we reduce improper payments, and it is a huge problem. It was $140 billion last year. Do you see the reforms as having a very positive impact on reducing improper payments? Ms. Weichert. I think, to the extent that we can get management oversight of like programs like money, it is going to improve general management efficiency. It is not the only way. Mr. Palmer. Also, the data systems, we can---- Ms. Weichert. Absolutely. Mr. Palmer. The savings that you can generate from some of these reforms and reducing improper payments can go back in to replacing data systems. Ms. Weichert. Absolutely. Mr. Palmer. Which should really improve that area. You also mentioned the GAO's high risk list and that not every Federal agency has taken action to get. We know that from hearings here that not every agency has taken action. Will this effort to improve accountability from the Federal agencies, will this effort improve that? Ms. Weichert. That is absolutely one of the objectives. Mr. Palmer. Will it help increase our oversight and our effectiveness? Ms. Weichert. That is absolutely the goal. Mr. Palmer. I also want to get into an area that I think is of great importance, and that is the whole issue of infrastructure and the permitting process, and you mentioned in your testimony the need to reduce the permitting time. Madam Chairman, I would like to introduce a couple of reports into the record. Ms. Foxx. Without objection. Mr. Palmer. One is 2 years, not 10 years redesigning infrastructure approvals. It is from an organization called, ``Common Good.'' And they make this point that a 6-year delay in starting construction on public projects costs the Nation over $3.7 trillion. That is more than double the $1.7 trillion that is needed to upgrade America's infrastructure through the next decade, and that is everything--that is rail service, water infrastructure, roads and bridges, inland waterways, power generation, power transmission. I really think that what you are trying to do and what this administration is trying to do in regard to infrastructure is critical. And to give you a more local example of that, I would also like to introduce this report into the record: Assessing the Costs Attributed to project Delays in Texas. Ms. Foxx. Without objection. Mr. Palmer. There was a rural road, a four-lane project, 2.7 miles, it was delayed 33-1/2 months and the delay was $96,000 a month. That added $3.5 million to just a 2.7-mile rural road project in U.S. Highway 59 in Texas, 2.6 miles they were going to widen that stretch of road. A 5-year delay at $297,000 a month, that added $17.8 million to the project. And then I-10 and I-410 in the San Antonio area, adding an interchange, is 1.5 miles that was affected, it was delayed 11 months at 447 a month. That added $5.1 million. We are literally throwing our infrastructure dollars down the drain with these delays, and if you would like to comment on that, I think the committee would be very interested in hearing your thoughts on how we are going to make these changes that will reduce the permitting delays. Ms. Weichert. I absolutely appreciate that, and reducing burden and actually increasing the economic output are definitely, you know, important missions that we have out of this plan. I think the Army Corps' proposal for the civilian work is a great example of just what you are talking about--very good intentions to preserve various people's rights around our waterways, to protect fish, lead to very complex, and you know, hard to navigate conflicting regulatory burden that make it very difficult to do improvement projects of any type, and I think that is an example of exactly what you are saying. Mr. Palmer. Well, one other point here. We have had hearings on cybersecurity breaches, particularly at the Office of Personnel Management, and one of the problems that we have is hiring highly qualified people. We have a program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham called the joint forensics research--I mean, ``The Center for Information Assurance and Joint Forensics Research,'' one of the top guys in the world running this. His students have a job before they graduate, but if they try to get a job with the Federal Government, it is months before they can even hear back from them. And I just wonder if part of this restructuring is going to enable us to hire the very best that is out there to work in the Federal Government on cybersecurity. If the chairman may--she may answer? Ms. Weichert. Thank you. So absolutely, and that is one of the key areas of why we wanted to elevate the OPM function because getting to the bottom of that challenge requires strategic emphasis and a real commitment at the top of the house. Mr. Palmer. So the bottom line is we have got to change. Ms. Weichert. Absolutely. Mr. Palmer. I thank the chairwoman for her indulgence, and I yield back. Ms. Foxx. The gentleman's time has expired. Ms. Plaskett, you are recognized for 5 minutes. Ms. Plaskett. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Good afternoon. Ms. Weichert, I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about the implementation if this plan takes place. The executive order advised for looking for opportunities for the private sector to take over some of these government functions. We have heard discussion about post office and air traffic control. What other agencies or areas do you think that privatization might be appropriate? Ms. Weichert. So the other place that I think has gotten a lot of attention, not just now but practically in every administration in recent history, is around the Tennessee Valley Authority. Our proposal is a fairly narrow proposal around transmission assets, looking at, you know, whether the Federal Government really needs to be in the business of providing the transmission of power. Ms. Plaskett. Okay. And in discussing the privatization or even the merging of these businesses, how much input was given to those career individuals, civil servants? Was discussion had with them about how this implementation might affect the civil service? Ms. Weichert. So the agencies were absolutely involved in providing bottoms-up feedback as part of a process that took place between June and December of last year. Some of the proposals that resulted out of that were included in the February release of the 2019---- Ms. Plaskett. When you say bottom-ups, what specifically? Ms. Weichert. So as I mentioned in my opening statement, we did the analysis in three phases. We did a data collection phase that included bottoms-up input from agencies and from public comment. We got 106,000 public comments. Ms. Plaskett. When you say ``from agencies,'' do you mean the employees or the management of the agency? Ms. Weichert. Presumably, both. Ms. Plaskett. How do you know presumably? Ms. Weichert. So in almost every case, the proposals required a depth of knowledge that require that the civil servant population had to participate in the---- Ms. Plaskett. So in the outside--the comments, you said that you also received public comments. Ms. Weichert. Correct. Ms. Plaskett. Did you receive public submissions or submissions from employee unions? Ms. Weichert. I can't say for sure whether those were included in the public comments. Ms. Plaskett. Did you seek out the unions' input in these discussions. Ms. Weichert. So we--the requests for comment was generally made public after the executive order so---- Ms. Plaskett. But did you engage the unions as a whole? Specifically, did you engage the unions? Ms. Weichert. Specifically, no. As I indicated earlier, one of the reasons we did the deliberation the way we did is, in the recent past, no reform effort--despite the fact that there have been reform efforts and reorganization efforts proposed in every administration, no reform effort has successfully moved forward with the exception of one that took place after 9/11, precisely because entrenched interests essentially negotiated a way around---- Ms. Plaskett. I didn't ask you if you were negotiating. I just asked you if you requested from them their comments or their positions? Ms. Weichert. We requested public comment. Ms. Plaskett. But not specifically from unions. Ms. Weichert. Not specifically from anyone individually. Ms. Plaskett. Now that, you know, you are talking about a negotiation, which would be the implementation of the process. Ms. Weichert. Correct. Ms. Plaskett. Would you be engaging--and I would assume, how would you engage the unions because they would need to be engaged in the implementation, which then becomes this discussion that you were talking about just a moment ago. Ms. Weichert. Yeah, absolutely, and this is something that, you know, we released the plan last week. We are--you know, this is the first truly public conversation we are having, but we anticipate having many public conversations. And what I would say is there are great examples in the not too distant past of where unions and management of a variety of ilks have gotten together and looked at, you know, how do we achieve the mission of our business, serve the customers---- Ms. Plaskett. So I am assuming then that you are going to engage those. Is that what you are saying? Ms. Weichert. Absolutely. Yes. Ms. Plaskett. So when you talk about influencing the plan, you said that, you know, you discussed bottoms up, you also asked for public comment. You did not necessarily speak specifically to the unions about this. Were there other outside groups that you spoke with? Were there think tanks or others that supported your ideas? Ms. Weichert. We didn't speak to anyone. As I mentioned again, there were three phases to our---- Ms. Plaskett. I heard the three phases. I am just asking did you speak to them? Ms. Weichert. The second phase involved looking at things in the public realm, including GAO reports. We looked--our bibliography on page 128 of the report articulates all of the knowledge---- Ms. Plaskett. So did you engage the Heritage Foundation who has specific reports about this? Ms. Weichert. There is a Heritage Foundation report that was reviewed as part of this. Ms. Plaskett. And what would be the name of that report? Ms. Weichert. It is on---- Ms. Plaskett. If you could get that back to me, I would appreciate that. Ms. Weichert. Absolutely. Ms. Plaskett. Ms. Chairwoman, I would ask to insert into the record an article from the New York Times entitled: ``How One Conservative Think Tank is Stocking Trump's Government. By placing its people throughout the administration, the Heritage Foundation has succeeded in furthering its right-wing agenda.'' Ms. Foxx. Without objection, and the gentlewoman's time has expired. Ms. Plaskett. Thank you. Ms. Foxx. Thank you. I will recognize myself for 5 minutes. As the chairwoman of the Education and Workforce Committee, I take our oversight responsibilities very seriously with respect to the worker protection agencies within the Department of Labor, evidenced by the many hearings and other oversight actions we have conducted during this Congress. Under the Trump administration's reorganization proposal, Labor Department worker protection agencies, such as the occupational safety and health administration and the wage and hour division would be housed within the, quote, ``enforcement,'' end quote, agency at the newly created Department of Education and the Workforce. Would this enforcement agency continue the administration's approach of providing needed compliance assistance while also effectively enforcing the laws, and do you foresee any impacts on the enforcement of worker protection laws because of the proposed realignment? Ms. Weichert. So the answer is: There are no changes in direction in terms of compliance and enforcement support, and the goal would be to continue to provide that support at the highest level. Ms. Foxx. Thank you. You said the proposal was built around mission and purpose, and this proposal seems to focus better the work of the agencies when it comes to helping students, job seekers, and employers. By having a seamless approach to programs for students pursuing postsecondary and continuing education from one office in bringing the programs focused on elementary and secondary schools into another, do you expect it will be easier for students, families, school officials, and employers to find the resources and guidance they need to improve and/or provide a better educational opportunity for students? Ms. Weichert. That is absolutely the objective. Ms. Foxx. Thank you. What safeguards would be in place to ensure students will not lose valuable protections, especially for students from vulnerable groups in the restructuring of these offices? Ms. Weichert. So it is a great point, and disability employment, OSHA, mine safety, office of civil rights, none of those are expected to change at all under this proposal. Ms. Foxx. And we appreciate that, and I assume you will want to work with the Congress and the relevant stakeholders to maintain those protections. I think it is important for the administration---- Ms. Weichert. Absolutely. Ms. Foxx. --to assert that. Ms. Weichert. Yes, we absolutely assert that we believe that the oversight responsibilities of Congress are paramount. Ms. Foxx. Thank you. To what extent did OMB ensure that GAO and Inspector General reports and recommendations were fully considered in developing the crosscutting proposals? Ms. Weichert. So they were very important in considering the crosscutting proposals. As I mentioned earlier, reorganization is one tool among many, and we wanted to look at those things where there were known problems and intractable problems that did not seem to get traction without a reorganization purpose, and so much of the thinking really was, you know, where are there places where time and time again has GAO said this is a problem. Ms. Foxx. You have indicated several times that this is right in the beginning stages. Ms. Weichert. Correct. Ms. Foxx. But has the--how does the administration propose Congress address authorizing the government reform plan proposals which require congressional action if you have such plan already? Ms. Weichert. So what we are planning to do this summer--so we were genuine about saying this is a framework and a plan but that we need to engage with key constituencies, especially Congress but also other stakeholder groups, including unions and civil servant--service representatives. And so, over the course of the summer, we will be working with agencies. I am very happy to take feedback and input on highlighting what is a proposed implementation construct and what would require legislative input, what could be proceeded with administratively, and then what would be expected to be in the 2020 budget. Ms. Foxx. And the last question. If the administration believes the proposal does not need congressional approval, can you commit to notifying Congress in advance of any proposed action so we can evaluate to propose change? Ms. Weichert. So what we can do is commit to the dialogue around all of these proposals and incorporate the feedback and the insights from the people who have oversight over those. Ms. Foxx. Thank you very much. Mr. Sarbanes, you are recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. Sarbanes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for being here today, Ms. Weichert. I want to thank you for your testimony. My understanding is that part of the proposal would be to eliminate OPM or absorb its functions into the executive office of the President. Is that correct? Can you explain that a little bit more? Ms. Weichert. Sure. So the proposal is not to eliminate OPM. It is actually to take and follow leading practice for modern human capital management and take the administrative transaction processing, essentially the paperwork functions, and move them into shared services context, and then focus the efforts of the core human capital elements of the organization, focus those more strategically on workforce needs for the future, reskilling, redeploying civil service reform, and elevating that into the executive office of the President, ensuring it gets the right level of attention, resources, and priority. Mr. Sarbanes. So let me express the concern I have. From what I can gather, looking at the way the executive office of the President has operated, there is a real kind of partisan edge to it. There is plenty of evidence of a kind of ethical blindness, which has afflicted the office overall, which is a bad combination, politicizing things, being overly partisan, not observing ethical boundaries, transparency, accountability, you put all that together, and it can really undermine and corrode the effectiveness of government. Mr. Sarbanes. And what I worry about is pulling more functions and key decisions around how human resources are deployed across the Federal Government and all of its various agencies, pulling that into an environment where you've got this kind of partisan politicized outlook, where there's-- there's these examples of not observing transparency accountability, ethical norms, et cetera, which could just make the overall situation that we see even worse. So I'm extremely concerned about the potential for this reorganization to the extent some of the human resources decisionmaking is being into a place that has that edge to it, how that will ripple through. So what I'd like you to address is, you know, how are you going to have safeguards? What kind of safeguards will be in place to prevent nepotism, because we've definitely seen that, operating close-- in the close quarters of the White House and the executive office, to safeguard against political patronage in the executive branch, and others things like that, which, frankly, undermine the confidence of the public in government's ability to act on the public's behalf and in the public interest, rather than to act to serve special interests or insiders or what have you. So what kind of safeguards are there going to be in place to address that potential concern? Ms. Weichert. So I appreciate the question. I think it's a fantastic question. And it's actually one that has good precedent. So the office I run--so deputy director for management has responsibility for a range of functions that expand across the Federal Government, around IT, around--so the Federal CIO is in my office. The Comptroller of the United States is in my office and is responsible for finance and accounting policy, procurement policy. The Office of the Federal Procurement Policy administrator is in my office. And Congress has actually put in safeguards around those key functions and elevated them into the Executive Office of the President precisely so that they can get the attention that Congress over time has felt it's needed. The lack of an office of equivalent heft in the EOP for people is actually in some ways conspicuous by its absence. I mentioned earlier that most OECD countries have people up there with IT, with finance, accounting and---- Mr. Sarbanes. Okay. Well, thank you. I'm still nervous, because you take functions of heft and you put them in a place where ethical boundaries are ignored on a daily basis, And I think it complicates the situation. Ms. Weichert. I push back, though--I appreciate, absolutely appreciate the concern. What I would say is if you could--and I'd be happy to talk to you more about your concerns. But when it comes to the functions that are already there, we have a range of vehicles, including performance.gov, data.gov, and other vehicles to ensure not less, but more accountability and oversight. We work very closely with the congressional committees that have oversight---- Mr. Sarbanes. Well, then I'd just ask you to work harder at that, because I'm not necessarily seeing the results that you're suggesting when it comes to observing accountability and transparency and all. I'll yield back my time. Thank you. Ms. Foxx. The gentleman's time has expired. Mr. Raskin, you're recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Welcome, Ms. Weichert. I notice you're planning to reorganize a whole bunch of departments, from the Postal Service to OPM, but curiously absent on the list was the Department of Defense, which has a $700 billion budget. And our committee has seen a report just a couple of years ago saying $125 billion could be saved in efficiency. So I'm just wondering why it's missing. Ms. Weichert. So we looked at the areas where, again, mission, service, and stewardship were having the most challenges in moving forward. I absolutely appreciate the concerns. And we did look at GAO studies in that realm. In order to focus this activity, we wanted to look at those things where we had enough information, we had the ability. Mr. Raskin. Okay. I'm going to get you this report. You check it out. There's about $125 billion that could be saved almost overnight by improving efficiencies there. I represent Maryland's Eighth Congressional District, which is home to more than 88,000 Federal employees who've come under some harsh rhetorical treatment by this administration, but also some attacks on their pay and benefits. And also, I hear regularly from Federal employees who love their jobs and love the country, as do you, and you're committed to your government job, whose mission has been interfered with for political reasons, they believe. And I'm wondering, what are you doing now or what are you hoping to do in the future to protect the Federal workforce, the integrity of the civil service, and to prevent corruption by political interference? Ms. Weichert. So I think it's a great question. And again, I will say it as many times and as many ways as I can, that it is enlightened self-interest for us as the largest enterprise employing people to really understand and internalize the importance of the Federal worker to the---- Mr. Raskin. Cool. So that's your value, but do you have any specific actions that you're taking to protect the Federal workforce today? Ms. Weichert. Absolutely. So one of the cross-agency priority goals that was released in the President's Management Agenda is looking explicitly at people in the workforce in the 21st century and the civil service reforms we need to do that. And we're focusing very heavily on the areas where the employees themselves have said that, you know, the merit systems principles that were enshrined in the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act where they are not actually being aligned with---- Mr. Raskin. If I could, I've got to cut you off there because I've got a few more questions, but I'd love to hear more specifics from you about that. Ms. Weichert. Absolutely Mr. Raskin. The administration's been rolling back proudly workplace, consumer, and environmental protections deemed to be overly intrusive. For example, Mr. Mulvaney has ordered that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau drop enforcement against payday lenders. Do you have any plans to somehow honor the commitment of the CFPB to protect borrowers in the wake of that announcement? Ms. Weichert. So I am not involved in the activities of the CFPB. Mr. Raskin. Okay. Similarly, you might not be involved in this one. What about in the area of HUD? Do you have any plans to follow through on HUD's commitment to fair housing in the wake of the administration's nullification of the fair housing rule that had been promulgated to address patterns of discrimination and segregation? Ms. Weichert. So I can't comment on that specifically. Mr. Raskin. I saw yesterday, there's a rule called the hog carcass cleaning rule which says, quote: All hair, scurf, and dirt, including all hoofs and claws, shall be removed from hog carcasses and the carcasses thoroughly washed and cleaned before incision is made for evisceration or inspection. This is for food protection. Sounds like a pretty good idea to me. But the Department of Agriculture just posted its intent to repeal this rule last month. Do you know how that particular mechanism of deregulation would work to protect consumers or is that being done at the behest of the slaughterhouse operators? Ms. Weichert. I am not familiar with that. Mr. Raskin. Okay. Can you tell us what the role of The Heritage Foundation was in the development of this plan? Ms. Weichert. So there was no specific involvement, other than the review of the materials that are listed on---- Mr. Raskin. Do you know of anything that The Heritage Foundation recommended that was not incorporated in the final plan? Ms. Weichert. I don't have the plan in front of me, but if you actually compare our document and the document that we reference, there's a significant difference. Mr. Raskin. Okay. I didn't see it, but thank you very much. I appreciate it. Ms. Weichert. It's page 128 of the report. Mr. Raskin. I'll check it out. Thank you. Ms. Foxx. The gentleman's time has expired. Mr. Scott, you're recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. Scott. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I thank you for your courtesies. Ms. Weichert, I agree with you that you shouldn't question people's motives in legislation. But in this case, isn't it true that many Republicans have run on platforms that include the total abolition of the Department of Education? Ms. Weichert. So I'm not aware of anyone specifically. If there's information, I'd be happy to look at it. Mr. Scott. You're not aware of any Republican who's run on a platform that included the abolition of the Department of Education? Ms. Weichert. So I'm a management consultant who came to Washington in August of last year. I haven't spent my time focused on the political realm. What I've spent my time looking at is how to drive transformational change---- Mr. Scott. Okay. Well, let me just say that a lot of Republicans have run on that platform, and so you have to understand why there's skepticism---- Ms. Weichert. Absolutely. Mr. Scott. --when you want to merge. And some think it's submerge the Department of Education. The Department of Labor is essentially law enforcement at its core. It enforces wage and hour, it enforces OSHA, labor standards, like unfair labor practices; basically a law enforcement agency. A very small portion is in job training and unemployment situations. Education is education policy. You see the difference in their missions when you look at their civil rights focuses. You're aware that the Department of Education, when you say civil rights, you're talking about Brown v. Board of Education, desegregation, equity in education, rights of disabled students, disparities in discipline. And when you talk civil rights in the Department of Labor, you're talking about affirmative action, and contracts, implementing the Janus decision that just came down today, employment discrimination, and things like that. How would a civil rights division of this combined thing actually operate? Ms. Weichert. So I think that is one of the areas where we would look forward to working with the Oversight Committee on the operationalization of this. Most of the enforcement components were going to simply be moved as they were and then look at if there were synergies going forward. To the extent the missions are distinct, and particularly the skill sets or the core needs or the players involved are different, that is absolutely a reason you could have organizationally distinct activities. But our belief is that there probably are some synergies to the extent enforcement involved a range of like skill sets. Whether it's law or compliance, that would be something to look at. Mr. Scott. Is this expected to save any money? Ms. Weichert. So the vision for all of these things is to, at a minimum, improve mission and service and not cost any more. The goal in a perfect world would also save money, but that---- Mr. Scott. But you don't expect to not necessarily save any money. One of the rationales was overlapping workforce programs. When we passed the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act in 2014, we thought we had taken care of the unnecessary overlaps. Can you name any programs that are still, quote, duplicative? Ms. Weichert. So I would submit that if there are 40 workforce development programs or 46 or 47, that there would be duplication among those. Mr. Scott. Can you name the ones that are duplicative? Ms. Weichert. I cannot. Mr. Scott. Can you say a word about what would happen in the school nutrition programs from a public school perspective? I know we have the school lunch program and one agency. Most of the child nutrition programs are under Agriculture and they are going to be moved around. Can you say from a school perspective what's going to happen? Mr. Cummings mentioned WIC and other programs kind of moved around. Ms. Weichert. So only SNAP and WIC, which are near-cash programs, would be proposed for moving. All of the commodity assistance programs, particularly as it relates to school lunch, would remain as is. Mr. Scott. And would--this Child and Adult Care Food Program moves to the Department of Health and Human Services? Ms. Weichert. So, again, the SNAP program and the WIC program would move to HHS. Mr. Scott. And how would that operate in a school system? Like an afternoon snack program. Ms. Weichert. So, essentially, the programs that would move to HHS are the near-cash programs that are largely administered by States and local entities. And what this would essentially do is streamline the provision of resources, the dollars from the Federal Government to those agencies that actually administer them. So presumably, it would make the job of anyone whose doing that administration at a State or local level easier. Mr. Scott. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Scott. I'm now prepared to make some closing comments. Ms. Weichert, I want to thank you very much for the excellent presentation that you made and the superb way in which you have handled the questions, and some animosity, it appeared to me, directed at you, which I think was inappropriate, but I appreciate very much. And I read the paragraph given to us about you. And I can understand that you are a consummate professional. And I think we are extraordinarily fortunate to have had someone with your experience come in and help shepherd this study that was done and be able to explain it to us. I will compliment Director Mulvaney very highly for having the good sense to bring you in to work with him on this project. I particularly appreciated the fact that you kept coming back to mission, service, and stewardship as your guiding principles. I do think that--we do that with the committee too. When we propose legislation, we outline what our principles are in putting forward the legislation and make sure they are like a North Star for us. And I believe you have come up with three very, very good ways to anchor what it is you've done. I think, again, many of the comments and questions that were directed to you were not in your bailiwick to answer and I appreciate, again, the way you handled that. I believe that we here have a great responsibility to spend hardworking taxpayer dollars as well as we can spend them. We are taxing the American people at a very high rate, in my opinion. And when we take on a responsibility to do something for the American people here at the Federal Government level, then I think we need to be doing the best we can. And the world is changing, and it's changing rapidly. And again, with your background in information technology and other areas, you see that. Unfortunately, I think people who get entrenched in government jobs, who get entrenched in elected office, sometimes cannot see what is happening out there in terms of change and the need to change that. I heard you say one of your missions is to have the Federal Government better serve the public. That should be the mission of all of us here. And if it requires change with an organization, then we should be out there joining you in saying this needs to be changed. I've always believed we should sunset every piece of legislation that passes here. That would help us gain much better control over making the adjustments that need to be made every 3 years, every 5 years, whatever, instead of having to wait for these reports to be done and these studies to be done periodically, and then have agencies be very defensive because they do not want to make the changes that are necessary. I think they forget, people in the agencies, often why they are here. They think the public is here to serve them. We are here to serve the public. I also want to thank you very much for emphasizing that this is the beginning of a conversation which Congress should engage in and not just discount out of hand the kinds of comments you made because the motives are questioned. I think you did an excellent job of representing the administration. And I realize you came into the administration, I believe from the comments, to specifically do the thing that you have done and that you do not have a political agenda. And I appreciate that very much. If the Federal Government does not make the kinds of changes that you all are recommending here and many, many more, we are failing the American people. And the American people, I believe, will hold us responsible for that, and they should hold us responsible for it. Again, and I think what we are seeing--while I don't like the vitriol that's going on, I think that there are people out there very frustrated because the Federal Government is not doing its job. In some cases, it's doing jobs it has no business doing, and we need to sort those things out better. So I want to thank you very much for the excellent presentation and for the way that you have responded to members today in a very open and fair and honest way. I would like to take a point of personal privilege and recognize Nathaniel Wallace and his parents, who are here. Nathaniel is the art competition winner for the Fifth District of North Carolina. And I'm a little late for my appointment with Nathaniel and his parents, as they're going to go over to the reception for the art competition winners who are here in town today. I'm sure, Mr. Scott, you want to mention yours? Mr. Scott. Yes. Right over here. Please stand. Thank you. Ms. Foxx. Great. We're glad to have both of you all here. And I appreciate Mr. Scott speaking up. So again, I thank you for being here today, Ms. Weichert. The hearing record will remain open for 2 weeks for any member to submit a written opening statement or questions for the record. And if there is no further business, without objection, the committee stands adjourned. [Whereupon, at 12:21 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] APPENDIX ---------- Material Submitted for the Hearing Record [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]