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Hearing of the
Subcommittee on Rules and Organization of the House

Subcommittee hearing on "The Government Performance and Results Act and the Legislative Process of House Committees."

TESTIMONY | TRANSCRIPT
DATE: March 22, 2000

TIME: 9:30 AM

ROOM:H-313 The Capitol

 

WITNESSES

     

  • Hon. Steve Horn (R-CA), Chairman, Subcommittee on Government Management, Information and Technology, Committee on Government Reform

     

  • Hon. David Walker, Comptroller, General Accounting Office

     

  • Hon. Joshua Gotbaum, Executive Associate Director and Controller, Office of Federal Financial Management at the Office of Management and Budget

     

  • Hon. Maurice McTigue, Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Mercatus Center, George Mason University

 

PURPOSE OF HEARINGS

The purpose of the hearing is to examine the impact the Government Performance and Results Act's (GPRA) implementation has had on the legislative process of House committees. The Subcommittee plans to look at GPRA from a process standpoint, examining its impact on the duties and oversight responsibilities of the standing committees of the House. The two primary goals of this hearing are: (1) to determine whether committees automatically provide performance goals when creating or reauthorizing programs and; (2) to examine the rules governing the House oversight and hearing process to determine whether these rules affect the way in which committees incorporate performance goals into their legislation. Witnesses will provide historical perspective on the legislative process, discuss the ways in which committees design and advance performance goals, provide insight on how committees analyze these performance goals during authorization or reauthorization of programs, and make suggestions on how committees could better accomplish the oversight goals of the Results Act.

 

OVERSIGHT AND THE CREATION OF GPRA

House committees are required to conduct oversight over programs and agencies within their jurisdiction, and programmatic oversight will remain one of Congress's principal assignments. It is crucial that Congress have the ability to carry out effective oversight in order to deter waste and abuse, make certain that federal administrators faithfully execute laws, and ensure that executive policies reflect the public interest. The Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946 mandated that House and Senate committees exercise "continuous watchfulness" of the administration of laws and programs under their jurisdiction. The Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970 permitted House standing committees to "review and study, on a continuing basis, the application, administration and execution of laws" under its jurisdiction. Congress has a responsibility to: improve the efficiency, economy, and effectiveness of governmental operations; evaluate programs and performance; detect and prevent poor administration, waste, or abuse in government programs; ensure that executive policies reflect the public interest; ensure administrative compliance with legislative intent; and prevent executive encroachment on legislative authority and prerogatives. These bipartisan goals may be accomplished through congressional programmatic oversight.

In terms of the interaction between performance goals and congressional oversight, the rules of the House and the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (S. 20), provide insight and guidance for House committees. The general oversight responsibilities outlined in Clause 2(a) and Clause 2(b)(1) of Rule X of the Rules of the House state that the various standing committees shall have general oversight responsibilities to assist the House in:

  1. its analysis, appraisal, and evaluation of the application, administration, execution, and effectiveness of Federal laws; and conditions and circumstances that may indicate the necessity or desirability of enacting new or additional legislation; and
  2. its formulation, consideration, and enactment of changes in Federal laws, and of such additional legislation as may be necessary.

After concluding that congressional policymaking, spending decisions and programmatic oversight were seriously handicapped by insufficient attention to program performance and results, S. 20, stated that among the purposes of the act were the following:

  1. "To help Federal managers improve service delivery, by requiring that they plan for meeting program objectives and by providing them with information about program results and service quality";
  2. "To improve congressional decisionmaking by providing more objective information on achieving statutory objectives, and on the relative effectiveness and efficiency of Federal programs and spending."

Under the authority vested in the House committees by Rule X and Rule XI, committees work to determine whether legislation is working as intended, the costs and benefits of program implementation, and whether some statutes have outlived their usefulness. However, it was often difficult to measure program performance because the objectives in statute were not easily discernible. As a result, in 1993, Congress enacted the Government Performance and Results Act to require all federal agencies to develop measurable performance goals for their programs.

 

GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE AND RESULTS ACT - BACKGROUND

The Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 encourages greater efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability in federal spending, and requires agencies to set goals and to use performance measures for management and, ultimately, for budgeting. To give federal agencies time to develop implementation procedures, Congress phased in the law over 7 years and required pilot projects. The law required agencies to transmit to OMB and to Congress long-range strategic plans in 1997 and then annual performance plans and performance goals, beginning with the FY 1999 budget. Pursuant to the law, OMB submitted a government-wide performance plan to Congress. This is an annual report and has been submitted as part of the FY1999 and FY2000 budget requests. In March 2000, agencies are required to send to Congress performance reports comparing actual performance to goals. In March 2001 OMB is required to report on the results of performance budgeting pilot projects and recommend whether or not performance budgets should be required statutorily. OMB established inter-agency groups to share information and modified Circular A-11 on guidance for budget preparations to give precise instructions about developing strategic plans, performance plans, and performance reports. The statutorily required 1997 OMB reports to Congress on implementation of initial pilot projects did not recommend any changes to the law. In June 1997, the General Accounting Office reported to Congress that federal agencies' implementation activities varied in quality, utility, and responsiveness to the law, but that it was possible for agencies to make improvements.

Final versions of each agency's strategic plans were sent to Congress by September 30, 1997. Each plan was to include a mission statement, general goals and objectives, a description of the resources needed to achieve the goals, the relationship between the performance goals and general goals, key factors external to the agency that could significantly affect the achievement of the goals, and a description of the program evaluations used and a schedule for future evaluations. A November 1997 congressional majority leadership report, using information from 24 agency-specific congressional teams, graded strategic plans and identified major problems, including data systems that were inadequate for evaluating outputs and outcomes, incomplete statement of resource and strategies needed to achieve goals, and insufficient coordination with other agencies. It recommended that congressional committees assess agency goals in terms of policy objectives, specify performance measurement requirements in legislation, and monitor how performance is measured in agency financial audits.

The agencies' first annual performance plans were send to Congress with FY1999 budget request. Performance plans were to establish performance goals; describe goals in an objective, quantifiable, and measurable form, in an alternative descriptive form, or to include a statement that it is infeasible to express such goals; describe the resources required to meet goals; establish performance indicators to measure outputs or outcomes; provide a basis for comparing actual program results with performance goals; and describe how measure would be verified and validated. In June 1998, the House majority leadership reported that the plans were disappointing and that agencies did not deal with major management problems, lack reliable data to verify and validate performance, often did not give results-oriented performance measure, did not link performance measures to day-to-day activities, and did not coordinate across agencies. The report stated that effective implementation requires a ‘culture change' in which congressional oversight and OMB leadership were crucial. The agencies' first GPRA performance reports for FY1999 are due March 31, 2000, and are to describe performance relative to goals and steps an agency will take to achieve goals that were not met.

 

ATTACHED DOCUMENTS

 

  1. Timetable for Implementation of the Government Performance and Results Act.

     

  2. Performance Measure Provisions in the 105th Congress: Analysis of a Selected Compilation, Congressional Research Service report – December 1998.