From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov

Transcript for: Comptroller General Testifies to U.S. House of Representatives 
on GAO's 2018 Duplication Report 

Description: In his April 26, 2018, testimony to the U.S. House of 
Representatives, Comptroller General Gene Dodaro introduces GAO's 2018 
Duplication and Cost Savings Report.

Related GAO Works: 
GAO-18-498T: Government Efficiency and Effectiveness: Opportunities to Reduce 
Fragmentation, Overlap, and Duplication and Achieve Other Financial Benefits
and
GAO-18-371SP: 2017 2018 Annual Report: Additional Opportunities to Reduce 
Fragmentation, Overlap, and Duplication and Achieve Other Financial Benefits

Released: April 2018


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United States House Committeee on Oversight and Government Reform

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Government Efficiency and Effectiveness: 
Opportunities to Reduce Fragmentation, Overlap and Duplication and Achieve 
Other Financial Benefits

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Comptroller General
Gene L. Dodaro's
Opening Statement
April 26, 2018

>> It is now my pleasure to recognize the witnesses and Mr. Dodaro. Please, we 
welcome your testimony.

[ U.S. Comptroller General Gene Dodaro: ]>> Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 
Good morning to you, ranking member Ms. Norton, members of the committee. I'm 
very pleased to be here today to present our eighth annual report. I'm also 
very pleased to report that, based on the first seven years that we issued this 
report, we issued about 724 recommendations: 52 percent have been implemented, 
24 percent of them partially implemented, and as a result of these actions, 
there are financial benefits that have accrued or will accrue to the federal 
government of $178 billion. 

Now most of these actions were due to Congress taking action to pass 
legislation, to deal with a number of issues that we had raised. And given 
Congress's critical role, in the appendix to our testimony today are 58 open 
recommendations to the Congress that we have had made that could result in 
savings of tens of billions of dollars in additional money. So I commend those 
for your attention. I'd be happy to talk about them today. 

In the new report that we're issuing today, we have additional tens of actions, 
68 new actions that can be implemented. For example, overlap and duplication in 
the U.S. Defense Department distribution centers could be made that could save, 
by DoD's estimates, $527 million over five years. There are tens of billions of 
dollars, potentially, that could be saved by treating low-level waste at the 
Hanford repository with cheaper methods, and it could actually get the job done 
faster. Also at the Veterans Administration, there could be tens of millions of 
dollars in additional savings by consolidating their medical and surgical 
supplies purchasing program. Also at the Coast Guard, they have identified 
themselves a number of stations that could be closed that overlap with other 
stations within the same timeframe that could respond to search and rescue, and 
that could save them millions of dollars and improve their operations as well. 
So these are a few examples that we have. 

Now we also, from our prior work in addition to these new examples, have a 
number of outstanding examples that still need to be fully implemented. And 
they range from taking actions at the IRS and, you know, some other revenue 
options that could increase the revenue coming into the federal government 
through more efficient practices and also save a lot of money, particularly in 
the Medicare area and in the Medicaid program, which is the fastest-growing 
part of the federal government's budget from a spending standpoint. 

So we're very pleased that you're holding this hearing. We appreciate the 
attention given to our work. And my colleagues and I would be very pleased to 
respond to all questions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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