From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: U.S. Comptroller General Testifies to House on GAO's 2025 High Risk List Update Description: In his February 25, 2025, opening statement to the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, U.S. Comptroller General Gene L. Dodaro, head of the GAO, spoke about GAO's 2025 High Risk List update. This year's List includes 38 high-risk areas, including one new area. GAO is adding Improving the Delivery of Federal Disaster Assistance to the List because of the increasing cost and complexity of federal support as natural disasters become more frequent and intense. Actions to address high-risk issues have contributed to hundreds of billions of dollars saved since the List was established, including approximately $84 billion in financial benefits since our last update in 2023. Financial benefits over the past 19 years (fiscal years 2006-2024) totaled nearly $759 billion or an average of $40 billion per year. Related GAO Work: GAO-25-108125, High-Risk Series: Heightened Attention Could Save Billions More and Improve Government Efficiency and Effectiveness Released: February 2025 [ Start ] [ Text On-Screen: ] GAO Testimony before Congress 2025 HIGH RISK LIST: Heightened Attention Could Save Billions More and Improve Government Efficiency and Effectiveness Opening Statement by U.S. Comptroller General Gene Dodaro February 25, 2025 House Committee on Oversight and Accountability [ U.S. Comptroller General Gene L. Dodaro, head of the GAO, speaking: ] Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Ranking Member Connolly, members of the committee. It's, very good to be here today to talk about GAO's High-Risk area, which focuses on fraud, waste, abuse, mismanagement, but also on broad based transformation that's needed for a number of our programs to achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness in government. There's been some good progress since our last update. As has been mentioned, we've saved over $760 billion over time through implementation of recommendations that have been acted on by the Congress and the administration on high-risk areas. Today, I want to focus on a couple of things. One, we're adding one new area this year, and that's improving the delivery of disaster assistance. You know, storms are becoming more frequent and intense. In the last ten years, the federal government's appropriated $500 billion for disaster assistance. FEMA is stretched way too thin. They're managing right now over 600 disasters. Some of them go back 20 years. The system is fragmented. There are over 30 different federal agencies involved in delivering assistance. There's confusion, overlapping regulations. We need reform in that area. And that's why we're highlighting it. There's also opportunities to better manage the cost of the federal government. As has been mentioned by the Chairman, Ranking Member, improper payments remains a very intractable problem. The last six years there's been over $150 billion every year in improper payments. That's not even the complete number. There are a number of programs that aren't even reporting. There's $600 billion net tax gap between the amount of taxes owed and taxes collected by the IRS. Voluntary compliance is hovering around 82, 85%. We can do better, in that area to make sure that government is getting its fair share of revenue. There are many major acquisitions across the government, including DoD weapons systems. They're on the High list. The Department of Energy, contracting for nuclear, development and cleanup of our, weapons complex. These contracts are consistently overrun, over budget, and delays occur and don't deliver on the promises. Information technology remains a government wide problem. It's designated a government wide list. Acquisitions and operations. Government spends over $100 billion a year. Most of that goes to maintain existing legacy systems and not to new technology. So the government is not harnessing the power. FAA, just to give a couple examples, FAA has 138 air traffic control systems. 31% of those systems are not sustainable by FAA's own amount. So there's not enough spare parts, there's not enough money, there's not enough plans, and there are plans to develop. Many of these systems aren't, intended to resolve the problem for 10 or 13 years. We've got the VA electronic health care system. They're on their fourth try. They spent over $12 billion already. We've only deployed the system, to four medical centers. Another five in the next year. But there's 160 more to go. So these are issues. Cybersecurity. I designated that a High-Risk area across federal government in 1997, added critical infrastructure protection in 2003. It is still a problem. It's grown in intensity, and the government's not acting at a pace commensurate with the evolving grave threat, not just to the federal government's information systems, but the critical infrastructure protection, the electricity grid, water systems, our telecommunications network, all across the 16 critical infrastructure sections of the United States. There are many other areas on the list, that deal with public health and safety, oversight of medical products. We've got drug shortages. We've got not enough inspections of drug manufacturers, food safety. The Bureau of Prisons is in significant disrepair, and understaffed. And I can go in to many of these areas during the discussion. But the main message here is that action and heightened attention on these issues can save billions of dollars, improve public health and safety and also go to the heart of improving the service and the effectiveness and efficiency and a return on investment and build better trust in our government institutions. I thank you for the opportunity to be here today and would enjoy entertaining your questions. [ Text On-Screen: ] find out more @ GAO.gov GAO-25-108125 HIGH RISK LIST: Heightened Attention Could Save Billions More and Improve Government Efficiency and Effectiveness [ End ] For more info, check out our report GAO-25-108125 at: GAO.gov