Personnel Vetting, Security Clearance Reform, and Trusted Workforce 2.0

[Senate Hearing 118-431]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

S. Hrg. 118-431

OPEN HEARING:
PERSONNEL VETTING, SECURITY CLEARANCE
REFORM, AND TRUSTED WORKFORCE 2.0
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HEARING

BEFORE THE

SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE

OF THE

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

__________

JULY 10, 2024

__________

Printed for the use of the Select Committee on Intelligence

[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov

__________

U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
57-024 WASHINGTON : 2026
=======================================================================

SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE

(Established by S. Res. 400, 94th Cong. 2d Sess.)

MARK R. WARNER, Virginia, Chairman
MARCO RUBIO, Florida, Vice Chairman

RON WYDEN, Oregon JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
ANGUS S. KING, Jr., Maine TOM COTTON, Arkansas
MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado JOHN CORNYN, Texas
ROBERT P. CASEY, Jr., Pennsylvania JERRY MORAN, Kansas
KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
JON OSSOFF, Georgia MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota
MARK KELLY, Arizona

CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York, Ex Officio
MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky, Ex Officio
JACK REED, Rhode Island, Ex Officio
ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi, Ex Officio
———-

William Wu, Staff Director
Brian Walsh, Minority Staff Director
Kelsey Stroud Bailey, Chief Clerk

C O N T E N T S

JULY 10, 2024
OPENING STATEMENTS

Page
Mark R. Warner, U.S. Senator From Virginia………………….. 1
Marco Rubio, U.S. Senator From Florida……………………… 3

WITNESSES

Milancy Harris, Acting Under Secretary of Defense for
Intelligence and Security, U.S. Department of Defense………. 4
Prepared Statement for the Record………………………. 7
David Cattler, Director, Defense Counterintelligence and Security
Agency………………………………………………… 11
Radha Iyengar Plumb, Ph.D., Chief Digital and Artificial
Intelligence Officer, U.S. Department of Defense…………… 21
Stacey A. Dixon, Ph.D., Principal Deputy Director, Office of the
Director of National Intelligence………………………… 26

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

Personnel Vetting Process Chart……………………………. 57

OPEN HEARING: PERSONNEL VETTING, SECURITY CLEARANCE REFORM, AND TRUSTED
WORKFORCE 2.0

WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, 2024

U.S. Senate,
Select Committee on Intelligence,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:54 p.m., in
Room SH-216 of the Hart Senate Office Building, in open
session, the Honorable Mark R. Warner, Chairman of the
Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Warner (presiding), Rubio, Wyden, Bennet,
Casey, Gillibrand, Kelly, Cornyn, Lankford, and Rounds.

PROCEEDINGS

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARK R. WARNER,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM VIRGINIA

Chairman Warner. I want to call this open hearing on
security clearance reform to order. I welcome today’s Executive
Branch witnesses. It’s good to see all of you again. Apologies
for starting a little bit late. The vote got started a little
bit late.
So, we will get at it. Our witnesses today are the
Honorable Milancy Harris, Acting Under Secretary of Defense for
Intelligence and Security; Mr. David Cattler, Director of the
Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, DCSA; the
Honorable Dr. Radha Plumb, Chief of Digital and Artificial
Intelligence at DOD; and the Honorable Stacey Dixon, Principal
Deputy Director of National Intelligence PDDNI, representing
ODNI as the government’s security executive agency.
Today, the Committee will get a status update on efforts to
improve how the government conducts security clearances for our
national security workforce. As many of you know, we have long
prioritized the need for fundamental reforms in this area.
That’s because we need Intelligence Community, community
personnel and others who hold security clearances to be vetted
effectively and expeditiously to ensure classified information
is properly protected. We also need to balance this with the IC
agencies’ urgent need to quickly bring on board the very best
people needed to staff sensitive positions. And that’s
obviously increasingly important in this challenging world.
Now, when I first got involved in this, and it may have
been somebody who used to work on this Committee’s staff, Jon
Rosenwasser’s, fault. A series of folks came to me from the
consulting industry in Virginia. I didn’t think that I would be
a decade in. It’s been almost a decade since we started this. I
knew it would take some time, but I did not realize this
pursuit would be a career path. But the truth is the need for
reform was clear.
Our legacy vetting system was anchored in a system that was
set up literally in the 1940s and 1950s. Usually with the
workforce at that point, once they got cleared, they were there
for life. Very little mobility between agencies or with the
private sector. And it focused on periodic, time-based
reinvestigations that were almost done all by paper and in
person. And that meant that people waited way too long to get
clearances and, frankly, it allowed a lot of mistakes to
happen.
Then in 2014, the OPM data breach highlighted the system’s
structural failures, and it nearly collapsed. The backlog for
investigations swelled to, I think, my number here is as high
as 750,000 stuck in limbo. And at that point to get a top-
secret clearance took on average about two years. That’s crazy.
Today, with nudging from Congress and frankly bipartisan
nudging from this Committee, the backlog has been significantly
reduced to a steady state of about 200,000.
However, and that’s the good news, over the last nine
months we’ve seen what literally is a disaster unfold with the
national background investigation systems in this, which is
supposed to deliver the IT backbone for the government’s
Trusted Workforce 2.0. The way forward, which frankly if we
don’t get this right, the whole security clearance reform
process crumbles.
I know we’ve got mostly folks who follow this stuff, but
there may be some for whom this doesn’t roll quite off their
tongues regularly, but NBIS is supposed to enable key
components such as continuous vetting. We’ve moved from
episodic, every five years vetting, to using technology for a
continuous vetting process.
So, both, better process, but it doesn’t require the kind
of effort of every five years with all the staffing required.
And we’re supposed to recognize, we’ve got to have more
workforce mobility. We’ve got to realize there’s got to be
reciprocity between a security clearance at one agency and
another.
And again, NBIS was supposed to be the linchpin of this
whole transformation. When the Committee last heard a hearing
on security clearance reform in March 2023, we were told–and
other than Stacey, I think most of the rest of you were not
involved at that point–we were told that NBIS was making great
progress in meeting developmental milestones. Since then, we’ve
learned that NBIS has been plagued with problems stemming from
poor leadership, poor Executive Branch oversight, a lack of
clarity about requirements, and questionable contract and
program management. And to just kind of drive this home, NBIS
was supposed to be delivered in 2019. We’re in 2024 at this
point and, unfortunately, with not a lot of clarity in sight.
This is not the only place where big software development
projects have run afoul. I think all of the Senators up here
have dealt with students and parents over the last year who’ve
had to do the updated FAFSA system in terms of financial
student aid. It’s been a disaster in terms of the rollout.
We’ve seen problems oftentimes with our veterans’ health care
systems. But at least one of the items we’re going to talk
about today meets the level of inefficiency of any of these
prior screw ups.
So, NBIS was supposedly–just to give you a data point–
NBIS was supposedly to be completed by 2019 at an estimated
cost of $700 million. Yet, five years later, we are not fully
operational–$850 million has been spent on NBIS. In addition,
and we just got this updated from GAO today, another $850
million on trying to deal with some of the legacy systems. And
while there is a plan that we will actually get this completed
over the next 18 months, which will put us into late 2025,
calendar year 2025, it’s still uncertain what the balance of
getting this done will cost.
I know getting these new systems right is hard, but it
shouldn’t be this hard. The truth is this kind of screw up and
this kind of inefficiency is what robs so many of our citizens
of their trust in government. Now let me add, and again, I know
there’s a 90-day review that’s been done. I’d like all of our
witnesses to tell us about what happened during that review and
what we’re doing on a going forward basis.
Today, we’re going to need some firm commitments about when
we’re going to see the delivery of those capabilities. And that
again, Mr. Cattler, the DCSA customers have been waiting for–
literally for years. We’ve got to get this right. We’ve got to
make sure that the good men and women who want to join the IC
are not put off by the enormous time that it takes to get a
clearance.
We also have got to get the whole implementation. I think
we’re roughly 1.5 on our Trusted Workforce. We’ve got to get it
to 2.0. We’ve got to make sure that continuous vetting,
workforce mobility, clearance reciprocity, and timetables are
met. I also want to add in my questions a little bit of an
update on commercial SCIFs, which is something that I think,
post-COVID, that we need to see.
I apologize again for the length of my opening, but it’s a
really important issue. And I’m grateful for you all being
here.
And I turn it over to the Vice Chairman.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARCO RUBIO,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM FLORIDA

Vice Chairman Rubio. Thank you. Thank you to the witnesses
for being here. Last year we held a hearing on this topic, and
I stated at that time that the clearance process and the
ongoing reforms are at the fundamental core of protecting our
security and our Nation’s most sensitive assets: our
capabilities and information.
And you know, it’s the job of this Committee to ensure that
our intelligence is secure at least from—-. That’s our job
from a Congressional oversight perspective. And so, it’s with
serious concern that we’re back here a year later in what I
believe is a position worse off than we were a year ago. And
I’m hoping that I hear from testimony today that that’s not the
case.
We had the 2014 Chinese hack into the Office of Personnel
Management. The next generation security clearance IT system,
the National Background Investigation Services, was expected to
be online by 2019. It’s now 2024. We don’t have full NBIS
utilization, no termination of expensive and old legacy
security clearance systems, and already at the tune of more
than $1 billion per year.
And look, I recognize these IT systems require upgrades,
but in this case, with all this expensive security clearance
legacy systems still online, we have no timeline for full
utilization being finalized. And an opt in or opt out confusing
option for any federal department or agency. And so, I want to
be persuaded why this isn’t waste and redundancy and a serious
lack of ownership and accountability.
So, I sort of end where we begin and that is, our oversight
responsibility as a Committee is to protect our Nation and to
make sure that our Nation’s most sensitive secrets are being
protected while at the same time enhancing our workforce. So,
we’ve got to be able to protect our secrets and make sure the
people that we’re bringing in are properly vetted, but we also
have to be able to bring in the best people we possibly can
into the workforce. And it’s essential to these efforts that
the timely and secure means of recruiting, onboarding, and
retaining cleared personnel exists. And so, I’m hoping that I
can hear something today that makes me feel better about
everything I’ve just said. Because when I compare where we are
today to where we are a year ago, I think it’s gotten worse,
not better. So, thank you for coming.
Chairman Warner. And again, for my colleagues, open
hearing. The Committee’s process says we do five minute rounds
and by order of seniority.
With that, Secretary Harris, I think you’re going to get us
started. Thank you.

STATEMENT OF MILANCY HARRIS, ACTING UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
FOR INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Secretary Harris. Chairman Warner, Vice Chairman Rubio, and
Distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify about the Department’s progress on the
initiatives underway to improve and enhance the National
Background Investigation Services, or NBIS, program and
implementing Trusted Workforce 2.0 reforms.
I am pleased to join the Honorable Dr. Stacey Dixon, the
Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence; David
Cattler, the Director of DCSA; and the Honorable Dr. Radha
Plumb, the Department’s Chief Digital and Artificial
Intelligence Officer. Thank you all for the partnership in
getting NBIS back on track.
NBIS is critical to the Department’s and the Federal
Government’s implementation of Trusted Workforce 2.0
initiatives. NBIS will be the end-to-end IT infrastructure that
enables our security, suitability, and credentialling experts
to conduct comprehensive personnel vetting, from subject
initiation through background investigation, adjudication, and
continuous vetting.
Although the Department has successfully deployed some key
capabilities in the eight years since the program started, we
are significantly behind in delivering the complete, end-to-end
NBIS that has been promised to Congress and our customers. For
instance, we promised and have yet to deliver background
investigation capabilities to support the updated Personnel
Vetting Questionnaire, a shared data layer to promote
information sharing and reduce duplicative costs, and shared
service capabilities such as adjudication case management for
our federal customers.
Last year, my office became aware of a number of issues
which, when explored, revealed significant impediments to
delivering NBIS on the expected timeline. When I became the
Acting Under Secretary in March of this year, I initiated a 90-
day sprint effort focused on understanding the state of the
program, the issues resulting in delays in delivering
capability, and charting a path to recovery. A cross-functional
team from across the Department, as well as my colleagues from
DCSA and CDAO, are here today, but also our CIO and acquisition
experts, began that effort on April 1st and have worked
together closely to develop a way forward.
Our plan includes several actions intended to return the
NBIS program to a path to success. First, we are acting to
improve oversight and governance going forward by ensuring we
are making decisions at the appropriate level. That includes
elevating the program decision authority from DCSA to the Under
Secretary for Acquisition and Sustainment. We are also
elevating program sponsorship to the Under Secretary for
Intelligence and Security. Lastly, we are creating a robust
governance process that will allow us to translate requirements
from our interagency customers while providing the necessary
protections to prevent cost, schedule, and performance erosion.
DOD also has new leadership and experts in key positions
responsible for NBIS development. Along with Director Cattler,
DOD brought in both a new program executive officer and a new
NBIS program manager. The new program manager joins us with a
wealth of expertise and experience in delivering through agile
methodologies–something lacking in past NBIS program
management. We have also enlisted expertise from the Defense
Digital Services under our Chief Digital and Artificial
Intelligence Office. Dr. Plumb will testify today to DDS’s
focus on modular data architecture, building the right reams,
and adopting digital transformation best practices, all of
which will be instrumental in strengthening the NBIS program.
Combined with improved oversight, new leadership, and
greater technical expertise, we are moving forward with several
initiatives. The program is fully focused on Agile software
development with strong involvement from our users to ensure
timely feedback and value assessments of product deliveries. To
support this, we are updating foundational documentation to
clearly outline roles and responsibilities, establishing the
program’s core capability requirements in support of Trusted
Workforce 2.0, and driving improvements across the board. These
efforts will result in more robust, transparent, and reliable
cost, schedule, and performance metrics, improving trust in
future delivery of capabilities. Recovery is not quick. This
will be a months-long exercise to build a foundation enabling
the Department to deliver NBIS.
Despite the issues, the Department has successfully
enrolled its entire national security population into
Continuous Vetting, or “CV.” CV is an effective model that
relies on automated record checks and the reporting of relevant
information from components to enable the near-real-time
identification of risk. Our data indicates we are identifying
potentially concerning behavior significantly sooner than
traditional periodic reinvestigations. This early detection
enables a strengthened security posture, supporting our
critical missions across the Department. Additionally, within
the Department, Trusted Workforce 2.0 policies are driving
robust information-sharing between our agency insider threat
hubs and the personnel vetting enterprise, allowing us to
better identify and mitigate potential risks.
In closing, the Department of Defense remains committed to
the NBIS program and providing secure and effective personnel
vetting processes, services, and systems so that government
agencies and members of our Nation’s industrial base have
confidence in their trusted workforce. While we cannot undo the
missteps of the past, I am confident that we are on the path to
success for NBIS. It is of paramount importance that the
Department regains and maintains the trust of Congress in these
efforts if we are to maintain strategic advantage over our
adversaries.
I thank the Members of this Committee for your strong
support of the Department of Defense, and I look forward to
answering your questions.
[The witness’s testimony was interrupted by a failure of
the audio system and was not fully recorded. The prepared
statement, which she read from, follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

Chairman Warner. I would urge everybody to please stick to
the three minutes that we were promised on your openings.
Just to make clear for all of those who are interested,
this is not an intelligence failure, it is not DCSA, it is not
NBIS. The Senate Recording Studio owns the microphones, and
something I guess right before the hearing started, they got
fried. That doesn’t mean that the Chinese are not culpable, but
we don’t have direct proof on that yet.
Vice Chairman Rubio. Until proven otherwise.
Chairman Warner. I think, Mr. Cattler, you’re up next,
right?

STATEMENT OF DAVID CATTLER, DIRECTOR,
DEFENSE COUNTERINTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY AGENCY

Director Cattler. Chairman Warner, Vice Chairman Rubio and
distinguished Members of the Committee, I’m honored and
grateful for the privilege to testify before you today. Thank
you for the attention you’re giving to Trusted Workforce 2.0
and to the National Background Investigation Services Program.
I will act with the same urgency to ensure that DCSA is
responsible and accountable in both what we say and what we
deliver.
DCSA provides integrated security services that protect
America’s Trusted Workforce and cleared workspaces. We are the
Federal Government’s largest investigative service provider and
provide vetting services for 95 percent of the Federal
Government. Last year, DCSA’s personal security team conducted
2.7 million investigations, 668,000 adjudications, and
performed the continuous vetting of over 3.8 million people in
the Trusted Workforce.
DCSA is also the primary implementer of the Trusted
Workforce 2.0 initiative. Our NBIS program supports this reform
effort as a federal IT system for end-to-end personnel vetting.
We have faced challenges delivering NBIS to meet the expected
timelines for Trusted Workforce 2.0 implementation. NBIS is
unacceptably delayed and has cost far more than anticipated.
Internal and external assessments of the NBIS program
identified key problems across a variety of aspects, including
oversight, program management, software development
methodologies, acquisition strategy, team competencies, and
leadership. As Under Secretary Harris indicated, the
Department’s 90-day sprint effort has focused efforts on
understanding and addressing these issues.
One of the outcomes of this effort is an initial 18-month
capability roadmap for NBIS development. It addresses the
Trusted Workforce 2.0 technical requirements and also secures
requirement alignment across the DOD. We have a plan, but we
are not yet recovered. Our plan is not yet approved by our DOD
Acquisition Decision Authority, and once approved, we will need
time to execute the plan. To be clear, NBIS development then
will extend beyond the next 18 months, but I’m confident in
this path to reset the program and also in DCSA’s internal
actions to support NBIS recovery and to improve our visibility
and management of the program itself.
Also, as Under Secretary Harris noted, DCSA has onboarded
new NBIS leadership to develop and implement this new roadmap.
This leadership team has also evaluated and aligned a
disciplined contracting strategy to support this way forward.
We will obtain a new independent cost estimate to assist with
developing a reliable funding profile for the program.
In the meantime, we are committed to funding additional
NBIS development without passing the costs on to our customers.
We are working with our DOD partners and with OMB on funding
options. We continue to engage customers and partners to ensure
their feedback is incorporated as we implement this new
roadmap. We will continue to address the GAO recommendations,
as well.
I have also directed our DCSA Inspector General to audit
the NBIS program to ensure internal accountability for both the
past and moving forward. We will move forward at a responsible
pace to ensure that we understand the problems and are
addressing them.
So, in conclusion, we will move forward with a program that
instills confidence, a program that delivers and upholds this
mission without fail. We’ve embraced collaboration with our
oversight partners and with our mission owners. Together, we
will put NBIS on a sustainable pathway forward to ensure a
trusted workforce to protect the Nation and secure the public’s
trust.
I’m confident in our path forward and do expect to be held
accountable for our performance. Thank you.
Dr. Plumb will now testify to DDS’s focus on modular data
architecture, building the right teams and adopting digital
transformation best practices.
[The prepared statement of the witness follows:]

STATEMENT OF RADHA PLUMB, PH.D., CHIEF DIGITAL AND ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE OFFICER, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Dr. Plumb. Chairman Warner, Vice Chairman Rubio, and
distinguished Members of the Committee: I appreciate the
opportunity to testify here before you today on the chief
digital and artificial intelligence officer role in the NBIS
recovery efforts.
Our CDAO team has partnered with our colleagues across the
Department of Defense through a 90-day discovery sprint. We
focused on characterizing the problem space, user needs, as
well as mission and technical requirements. We then work with
partners across DOD to ensure any proposed technology changes
align to the full set of requirements for NBIS.
As we’ve seen in other enterprise level implementation
issues across DOD with analogous examples in the private
industry, modernizing and scaling a technical capability
requires both change in the underlying technology and a change
in mindset and culture.
The CDAO has made a number of specific recommendations to
DCSA related to the technical NBIS solution, which can be
grouped in three big areas. The first group relates to
technical approach to delivering a modular data architecture.
The second group focuses on building the right teams and
aligning those teams on products rather than features and
capabilities. And the third area focuses on adopting digital
transformation best practices. The overall technical approach
we recommend is to build upon the existing systems where
possible, and build the digital solutions needed in targeted
areas where needed. This, combined with the expansion of
technical talent and the adoption of Agile software development
methodologies provides a robust framework for success.
I’ll close by noting that in addition to the shift in
technical approach, we need a mindset shift. Unlike hardware
procurement, software delivery never reaches a discrete
endpoint for both the front and back-end system development. We
should anticipate needing to devote time and resources to
continuous development cycles that will maintain and
continuously improve the technology.
Thank you. I’ll now turn over to Honorable Stacey Dixon to
discuss the implementation of the Trusted Workforce 2.0.

STATEMENT OF STACEY DIXON, PH.D., PRINCIPAL DEPUTY DIRECTOR,
OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Director Dixon. Chairman Warner, Vice Chairman Rubio,
Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to
appear before you today to discuss personnel vetting reform.
I am pleased to represent the Director of National
Intelligence, Avril Haines, who serves as the security
executive agent for the Federal Government. In this role and as
head of the Intelligence Community, she develops and oversees
policies and standards for determining an individual’s
eligibility for access to classified information and to occupy
a national security or sensitive position.
Trusted Workforce 2.0 helps us ensure vetting processes are
effective, timely, fair, and secure. It is centered around a
risk-based model that leverages modern IT, improves timeliness,
reduces complexity, and eliminates repetitive and duplicative
investigative actions. Doing so improves the mobility of the
workforce to respond to mission needs and helps us detect and
mitigate risk earlier.
We’ve established a more consistent vetting foundation by
creating guidelines and standards that identify intended
outcomes for personnel vetting. Despite many achievements, much
work remains. Implementing the most aggressive security
clearance reform in decades takes time. The Honorable Harris,
the other PAC principals at OMB and OPM, and I work diligently
to address clearance reform challenges in an intentional way,
taking into account views from multiple partners, to include
Congress.
We acknowledge there are still areas where we must together
plan for how best to achieve success. Reciprocity and the
broader transfer of trust is one such area. The security
portion of reciprocal determinations continues to improve, with
most agencies completing that determination within five days.
Nevertheless, other transfers of trust take more time as one
would expect. Factors such as polygraph requirements, medical
evaluations, new continuous vetting alerts or the new job
requiring different kinds of access to sensitive information
may also increase the time it takes to move individuals from
one agency to another.
There’s also an increased demand for expanded transparency
between agencies related to personnel mobility. To address this
challenge, we’re developing software that will provide greater
visibility for the gaining agency, so they have direct access
to information they need to make transfer of trust
determinations.
Measuring the success of Trusted Workforce 2.0 is also
important. Therefore, we’re working to create a more automated
solution to assist agencies in reporting their metrics.
In closing, we believe it is imperative we stay focused on
improving and completing implementation of the Trusted
Workforce 2.0 transformation. The success of this personnel
vetting reform effort will continue to require strong senior
leadership commitment as well as Congressional support.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today.
We look forward to your questions.

Chairman Warner. All right, Senator Rounds, what do you
have to say for yourself? [Laughter]
No, no, no, you’re not up on the panel.
So, you know, there’s some really tough questions that need
to be asked. But let me make clear, while Deputy Director Dixon
has been on the PAC, the oversight board, she was not directly
responsible for some of the details of some of this, although I
will ask why the PAC didn’t catch it.
Dr. Plumb has been brought in as one of the experts to help
us figure it out. And you know, Mr. Cattler and Secretary
Harris were not there when the screw ups took place. So, while
I’m going to be very tough on them, my hope is that we can get
some answers. But I want to make clear that for the most part,
these were not the individuals, unfortunately, that were
directly responsible. And I will add as well, some of the
people who were responsible have almost all left the
government, and they got quite an earful from me in the
interim.
And just to put this, again, in a little bit of context,
March of 2023, we do our normal update. We’re trying to figure
out–reciprocity is a huge issue. You know, you get a security
clearance at DOE or DHS. Even when you had a security clearance
at DHS and you wanted to move from one DHS contract to another,
you still had to go through another process. It was crazy. I
remember Dan Coates, who was on this Committee for many years,
when he became DNI and had to go through what took a much
longer process than it should, him having had access to all of
the information from this Committee. So, we’ve been working
this process, trying to drive the wait time down, trying to
make sure that a clearance wouldn’t have to be redone all the
time.
And you know, to try to do this where we have continuous
vetting using technology–not sending retired FBI agents out to
check whether somebody actually went to college X–makes sense
and should bring about a more efficient system. But as we said,
for a program that was supposed to be done by 2019, and you can
go ahead and start the clock, I’m not going to go forever on
this. This was supposed to be in 2019. And in 2023, we were led
to believe that things were going along even though there had
been delays. The amazing thing was, in September of ’23, at
NBIS there was a sudden deletion of 90 terabytes of
information. That’s a lot of information. Now luckily, there
were some backups that were able to restore that. But we asked
if you hadn’t had that “holy heck!” moment, would this
Committee have ever been informed of how screwed up things
were?
To give a framework at DCSA 5,400 employees, roughly about
1,000 of them, almost all the time we’re working on this
project. The outside contractor had 1,000-plus people working
on it. The contractor was to my understanding developing a
program that would have never scaled to meet the needs.
How did this go on without anybody saying–of a few
thousand people, contractors, and government employees saying
this isn’t going to work?
Now some of this is due to fixed price contracts, where I
don’t believe we’ve actually set the incentives in the right
place to get a product that’s deliverable. But it still begs
the question of, my gosh, if there hadn’t been the misplacement
of 90 terabytes of data, when would we have been informed?
Starting in about November, December, we had a series of
meetings I did with others, with former Secretary Moultrie on
these issues. And it went from one story to another, getting
worse and worse and worse. So, we’ve not only wasted–we don’t
know for a project that was supposed to cost in total an
initial estimate $700 million and we’re at about $1.7 billion
now and we don’t even know how much it will cost to finish.
You know, for you guys who thought ACA rollout was bad,
this may get close in terms of cost overruns. We need to know
what the expectation would be.
And I’m going to start with Secretary Harris and David, for
you to give us an update. And I appreciate the 90-day sprint.
And then I am going to ask Dr. Dixon, why didn’t the PAC catch
this, and how do we have confidence? We can bring you guys in
on a regular basis, but how are we going to have confidence
that this doesn’t happen again? Because end of the day, as
Senator Rubio said, we’ve got to guard our Nation’s secrets.
And if we can’t get people cleared and people won’t come to
work for the IC and we can’t get them to move from our
contractor community, if we can’t get folks to move from one
contract to another, we’re not going to be as efficient as we
should be.
So, Ms. Harris and Mr. Cattler, if you could talk and then
Ms. Dixon, if you could answer.
Secretary Harris. Thank you for the question. So first and
foremost, we are focused on doing this once. So, this sprint
effort has been focused on diagnosing what has gone on with the
program and focused on moving out on an implementation plan
that leads to success. That includes, as I mentioned, new
oversight authority, both for the sponsorship of the program
and for the acquisition. So that will both happen at the Under
Secretary level in the Pentagon. This is a cross-functional
effort. DCSA needs the full team at its back.
So, we are also working on clarity on requirements and a
new requirements management process. That will be in
conjunction with our partners in the PAC to ensure that we
understand what the system needs to deliver, how our customers
are using it, and what needs to be integrated into the roadmap
for future development.
We are also working on, as you referenced, this roadmap for
delivery so we have some predictability, so we can measure how
we are doing against those goals, and that we can better mark
where we have delays or other technical problems that are
interrupting the development cycle. And finally, we are working
to develop a reliable funding profile aligned to that new
roadmap.
As David alluded to in his statement, we are conscious that
we need to, as the Department, take the costs of this delay and
fund those internally. We are working through that in our
current program budget review, but we are confident that we can
continue to deliver this program if we align to these goals.
Chairman Warner. Well, I would like brief answers because
I’m chasing away my colleagues. But I’m going to be here as
long as it takes. So, I’ve got lots of rounds of additional
questions. But you know, and I appreciate, Mr. Cattler, you
coming in to take this on because it it’s a mess and I
appreciate that.
But if you could briefly–and then Secretary Dixon or
Director Dixon, could you briefly, because I want to make sure
everybody gets a bite.
Stacey, I’m going to save you for my second round, so you
get a reprieve, but how do we make sure that we’ve actually got
a plan and please give as much specificity as possible, but
briefly. And I have lots of follow ups for later.
Director Cattler. Well, thank you, Chairman. I’d just
reinforce what the acting Under Secretary said. First by saying
that I joined literally a week before that 90-day period began
for the review and was able to then plug into that fully. And
I’m confident that we brought the right people to bear to take
a hard look at this.
From my perspective, we considered personnel–personnel
expertise, as a first basket. We looked at procurement as a
second and we looked at oversight as a third. And we’ve both
made many points already, but happy to amplify on what the
specifics were that we went through as we did that review.
But moving forward, we have new oversight authorities. We
will have clarity on program requirements and new requirements
management process. And I think it’s important to say here that
the Trusted Workforce requirements, as well as those in NBIS as
initially conceived are understood and sound. I think the
problem really was their interpretation and making sure that my
agency had what it needed in terms of its knowledge and
capability to actually deliver properly on those requirements.
And this was a large part of this discovery process as we went
through it.
We will also have an updated and good vetting capability
roadmap for delivery and a reliable funding profile aligned to
that new roadmap. After its approval, we will also get that
outside independent cost estimate to be even more confident and
in compliance with policy and the statute and be sure you have
the right documents.
So, at the end of this 90 days, we will have delivered an
updated set of acquisition documents. This revamped
requirements governance procedures, Agile training and
documentation. As Dr. Plumb has also said, we’ve brought in
some new people. We know where our gaps are in the skill sets
that we need to hire on the government side. We’re working with
the contractor as well on actions that need to be taken there.
And we are also evaluating the requirements baseline. Sir, I
have a lot to say on this point, but again in the interest of
time, I’ll stop.
Chairman Warner. I’ll come back around. Senator Rubio.
Vice Chairman Rubio. So this could be to Director Dixon or
Secretary Harris or both. The continuous vetting in the
National Background Investigation Service is not mandatory for
all the agencies and departments to use as their system under
the Counterintelligence and Security Agency. This directly, I
think, impacts oversight by ODNI as the security executive
agent. Additionally, contractors have a real tough time being
able to plan and train to these very different systems and it’s
not easy to track whom to contact for security clearance
tracking and reciprocity.
So DCSA and NBIS systems of security clearance do not cover
or support the IC. Why is that? And what is the plan going
forward? In particular, what about reciprocity for employees
that are moving, for example, from CIA to DIA?
Director Dixon. I will take that one, Sir.
You’re absolutely right that DCSA does not cover the
Intelligence Community. We have a number of agencies within our
community, and we essentially allow them to determine the types
of risks that they’re willing to take as they’re bringing on
board their folks. So they do their own. Many of them do their
own investigative service. They also have enhanced vetting
processes, to include polygraphs, medical, some psychological
screenings that DCSA does not provide. But those are what they
believe they need to bring on board the kinds of folks that
they need for their particular workforce. To expect DCSA to do
that sort of tailoring for different agencies to deliver what
they need is something that we wouldn’t put on them. We believe
that the agencies themselves are best positioned to bring their
folks on and know what kinds of vetting they actually need to
do. We are very comfortable with what DCSA does for the rest of
the government, but with respect to the Intelligence Community,
because it is so variable between the agencies, it’s better for
them to be able to actually pick their processes.
Vice Chairman Rubio. So which agencies don’t use NBIS and
DCSA’s CV program? Which are the agencies that do not?
Director Dixon. We have within the CV particular—-
Vice Chairman Rubio. Yes.
Director Dixon. Continuous vetting is done by everyone.
Vice Chairman Rubio. Right.
Director Dixon. It’s just done differently. We have a
continuous evaluation system that we use within the
Intelligence Community, but it uses many of the same reports
and data sources that the CV does–it uses for DCSA. So there’s
commonalities there. It is just a different system that we run.
David, do you want to—-?
Director Cattler. Yes, thanks.
I’ll just add from the DCSA perspective, we’re managing
enrollment and alert resolution for 3.8 million Department of
Defense, military civilian, and National Industrial Security
program contractors, but also for 44 non-DOD federal agencies.
So it’s a very large population that we’re handling outside the
IC.
Vice Chairman Rubio. So is not having a sort of a single–
or at least as a baseline–a single NBIS like system for the
federal government, doesn’t that hamper efforts at reform and
oversight, because we’re in essence dealing with all these silo
type systems?
Director Dixon. Our answer actually would be no, Sir.
Because Trusted Workforce 2.0 is bringing in the
standardization and the guidelines, so that even though we’re
using different investigative processes, the underlying
principles behind them are the same.
And what will happen with a clearance, the types of
security clearances that are being granted, the types of
vetting that’s being done is similar across the board. When it
comes to the IC, we just require more than some of the other
government agencies and so we’re handling that “more”
section. So it’s really the baseline and foundation are
similar. It’s just the extra parts are different for what our
community needs.
Vice Chairman Rubio. Okay.
Chairman Warner. Senator Wyden.
Senator Wyden. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr.
Chairman. And let me say to our panel, years ago, when Senator
Moran of this Committee and I started on the declassification
reform issue, we learned that a staffer actually had to trek
around from office to office with a blue bag waiting around for
approval and I always wondered whether this took so long that
the staffer had to pack a lunch because it looked like they
were out there for great lengths of time. This was because
Senator Moran and I found that the different systems didn’t
talk to each other. So we’re going to start speaking English
now about exactly what is at issue. Then with digital records,
they just overwhelmed this broken system.
So, I had a number of conversations with Director Haines.
And she said: you and Senator Moran are absolutely right, and
we’ve got to get serious about it. And she went and gave a big
speech in Texas with Senator Cornyn, who’s taken a great
interest in it, and she said we’re going to reform it.
So, I want to ask some questions now of you, Dr. Dixon, to
pick up where we left off on this kind of setting-the-table
that I have done here.
You were last in our hearing last March, and I asked then
and I’m going to ask now: Has any progress been made in the
Administration’s rewrite of the Executive Order governing
classification and declassification?
Director Dixon. The Administration continues to make
progress on that. I believe that they will have some upcoming
deliverables over the course of the summer that we’re all
looking forward to. But it’s been a very collaborative process
across the interagency, making sure that everyone’s equities
are being taken into account.
Senator Wyden. So you expect that we’ll get that this
summer?
Director Dixon. I believe that is their goal.
Senator Wyden. Okay. Now obviously, real reform means you
got to have somebody in charge. Is the Administration any
closer to designating an executive agent for classification and
declassification?
Director Dixon. I would say part of the Executive Order
conversations that they’re having involve who that executive
agent will be for declassification.
Senator Wyden. So, will we be close to actually getting an
executive agent for classification and declassification, in
your view, by fall? That’s a “yes or no” answer.
Director Dixon. I’m not in charge of the process. Their
goal is to deliver—-
Senator Wyden. Who is? Who is?
Director Dixon. The Administration itself is actually
delivering the Executive Order update. And once they deliver
that, part of that is a description of who will be the
declassification executive agent. Once that is defined, they
will then go about filling the process.
Senator Wyden. So when do you believe we’ll have an
executive agent for classification and declassification?
Because that’s key. You know, in other words, Senator Warner,
Senator Rubio are talking about all kinds of very serious
things. And I think back through some of what Senator Moran and
I have been through and the first thing we got to do is figure
out how to put this in terms people can understand. The system
we found with the person and his blue bag made a mockery out of
what government is supposed to be all about.
I’m at the point, I’m now, I believe, the longest-serving
member of this Committee. I think we’re at the point where the
classification system is so broken, we can’t even necessarily
figure out who the bad guys are and who the good guys are. So I
hope you’ll take back–and I’m going to be on the phone with
Director Haines very quickly on this question of when we’re
going to get an executive agent for classification and
declassification.
Director Dixon. In the meantime, Sir, we’re also making
some strides to actually improve declassification. But I do
believe once the EO–the Executive Order is delivered, it will
explain who the Executive Order agent for classification is.
Senator Wyden. Okay. So one last question. My time is
short. For you, Ms. Dixon.
So I think it is generally believed that declassification
reform is going to save taxpayers some money in the long term.
But we’re going to have to have some investments in order to
modernize the current obsolete system. Has the ODNI arrived at
some estimates for how much declassification reform will cost
in the next few years? A. And B, will you make public what
those estimates are?
Because we have spent so much money on this, I think people
have a right to know what’s the answer to that. And I guess I
got eight seconds to get it under the gun.
Director Dixon. With respect to the first one, we are in
the process of figuring out what tools, capabilities,
incentives we need to actually put in place so that people are
thinking more about what information they can declassify versus
how we’ve been protecting it in the past. I will take back
whether or not we’re going to be publicizing that number.
Senator Wyden. Just know–and I’m going to say it right
here. Senator Rubio, kids me from–We’re going to have a real
fight if there is a resistance to making those estimates
public. We have spent so much money for so long. The public’s
got a right to know on where we go from here, especially given
the fact that my Chair has asked these serious questions and
we’re kind of in the dark about what’s happening with the
delay, so that’s—-
Chairman Warner. Ron, you know we had—-
Senator Wyden. Thank you.
Chairman Warner. [continuing]. We took your and Senator
Moran’s bill. Senator Cornyn had a lot of work on this. We
built it in. We went even further and it was all in the IAA
last year. And it ended up not being this Committee; it ended
up being some of our colleagues in the House. And we’ve still
got many of those provisions in this year’s IAA. So we are not
letting go of that and appreciate the great work that you and
Senator Moran have done. And I know Senator Cornyn has been an
advocate on this as well.
Senator Cornyn, you’re up.
Senator Cornyn. Well, let me start with where Senator Wyden
left off, and Senator Warner. The Sensible Classification Act
that we passed last year. Part of that required studies and
recommendations on the necessity of security clearances.
I believe the testimony we’ve heard was that there are four
million people with security clearances in America. If four
million people are supposed to keep the Nation’s secrets, it
seems to me that there’s a lot of not secrets being kept. I
mean, that things are not secret. And we’ve learned that some
of the FTEs require a security clearance without regard to
actually the necessity of that person getting a security
clearance and the like.
So what I wanted to ask is, have the agencies that you
oversee begun the studies on the necessity of security
clearances, including a description of how the agencies will
make sure that the number of security clearances granted will
be kept to a minimum?
Let me start with you, Dr. Dixon.
Director Dixon. I actually don’t know the answer to that
question. I will go back and find out whether the studies have
begun.
Senator Cornyn. That concerns me. You’re the Deputy
Director of National Intelligence and you don’t have that
information?
Director Dixon. That particular one, no, Sir, I do not.
Senator Cornyn. Any of the rest of you have any knowledge
of any studies that have been done or are in the process of
being done as required by the statute?
[No response.]
Okay. Well, that’s kind of not a great start.
Let me go back.
As I understand it, the Counterintelligence and Security
Agency was established in 2018. Of course, the NBIS, the
personnel vetting system, was supposed to be the NTI–end to
end IT infrastructure to enable the comprehensive personnel
vetting on a single platform. It was originally supposed to be
completed by 2019–that was five years ago–at a cost of $700
million. But here we are, five years later, and the program is
not operational and $850 million has been spent.
Can any of you tell us when the NBIS will become
operational?
Secretary Harris. So we have delivered some NBIS capability
to date. At this time, as part of the 90-day effort, we are re-
baselining to make sure we understand exactly—-
Senator Cornyn. That means you’re starting over.
Secretary Harris. We are not starting over. As I think
you’ve heard some of the other witnesses talk about, we’re
looking to make sure that we can use what has been built. We
are exploring exactly what needs to happen going forward to
ensure we meet the full level of capability that is expected
from the system.
At this time, we are in the process of refining exactly our
understanding of that timeline. I commit to this Committee—-
Senator Cornyn. In other words, you can’t tell us at this
point.
Secretary Harris. I cannot tell you at this point. What I
can commit to is that we will keep this Committee informed as
those estimates take shape.
Senator Cornyn. Yeah.
Secretary Harris. We are going through the process as I
discussed to work with the Under Secretary for Acquisition and
Sustainment. As part of that we are re-baselining the program.
We will have an independent cost estimate. All of these are
things that I commit to keeping the Committee informed on as
this work takes shape.
It couldn’t happen in 90 days. This is a month-long effort.
But we are fully committed to making sure that you have the
full visibility as it comes together.
Senator Cornyn. So you can’t tell us when the NBIS will be
operational at this point.
As I look at the new NBIS program manager and program
executive officer has identified, it looks like four main
reasons why this program is overdue and overbudget. One was the
trouble with requirements. The second is too much focus on
technical debt. The third is poor contract management. And the
fourth is insufficient time and criteria for review. The GAO,
the Government Accountability Office, has conducted multiple
studies and made a variety of recommendations.
Are those recommendations being implemented in the current
efforts?
Director Cattler. Senator, yes, they are. We’re taking
corrective action on those. That’s one commitment that I make
to this Committee and to my agency.
Senator Cornyn. And who is in charge in the sense that
there needs to be somebody held accountable? And as long as
everybody is accountable, no one’s accountable. Who is in
charge of making sure this program is back on track and will be
delivered as promised?
Secretary Harris. So, I believe that as the program
sponsor, the Under Secretary for Intelligence and Security has
responsibility, and it is a shared responsibility with the
Under Secretary for Acquisition and Sustainment, to ensure that
this program is sufficiently overseen and that we are doing
this soundly and in line with the requirements as they have
been laid out.
Senator Cornyn. So the Department of Defense is
responsible?
Secretary Harris. The Department of Defense is responsible.
And we are fully committed to making sure that this is the path
to success for NBIS as we move forward.
Senator Cornyn. Well, it is no surprise to me that a
program as complex as this that is overdue and over budget when
apparently the most basic requirements were never identified
initially; is that correct?
Secretary Harris. I think the requirements were outlined in
Trusted Workforce 2.0. I think what we had was a breakdown in
how those requirements were being managed into technical
requirements for the development and how we were taking account
of the delays in that process. And that is something that we
are seeking to remedy immediately with more proactive oversight
from the Under Secretary of INS’s office in partnership with
DCSA as we look to make sure we put this on a sound foundation.
Senator Cornyn. My time is overdue.
Chairman Warner. One, I think you can all get nod. Dixon on
classification. The other folks who are here, it’s more on
security clearance reform. But to add kind of insult to injury,
you know, you got a thousand people at DCSA working on this,
and a thousand people at Peraton, the contractor, working on
this and why nobody raised their hand earlier is something
we’re going to get to at some point today.
Senator Cornyn. Well, Mr. Chairman, if I could just add?
The fact that there’s a couple thousand people working on it
doesn’t mean that they know what they’re doing or they’re
working in alignment toward an achievable objective on a timely
basis. To me, that seems like the biggest problem here is lack
of leadership and a lack of any accountability. And I grant
that they’re working on it, but I don’t think that’s a great
answer.
Chairman Warner. We do have new people in because it was–I
wish we would have done this when the prior people were here so
we could, you know, appropriately scour. And again, when we get
around to another round, Dr. Plumb has got–because she’s got a
team that has been helping try to help figure this out as well.
Senator Bennet.
Senator Bennet. Thanks, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate your
mentioning that.
Dr. Plumb, that’s actually where I’m headed, so I
appreciate it.
Mr. Chairman, we have heard what a disaster the development
of the National Background Investigation Services has been. And
it sounds like, I hope, the review team has a clear
understanding of what needs to happen to get this back on
track. And I look forward to regular updates on the progress.
Others have covered the costs here. I want to focus on the
schedule delays.
GAO reported in June 2023 that 16 of the 25 major IT
business programs at DOD reported cost or schedule changes
since January 2021, including 12 that had cost increases
ranging from $43,000 to $194 million; had scheduling delays. I
think there were 12 ranging from 3 to 33 months. And program
officials attributed the changes to factors such as new
requirements and unanticipated technical complexities that I’m
sure drove scope in some way that might have been predicted, I
guess.
But my question is broader than NBIS. It gets at the
pattern of large-scale IT acquisition and software development
across the federal government. The Chairman mentioned FAFSA and
our veterans’ health systems, but we could list what feels like
an endless, endless, endless list of examples. By the way,
examples where people are here to do the work, but never here
for the accountability when we’re doing our oversight. The IRS,
you know, comes to mind, in my mind, actually recently as a
decent implementation. But I’ll put that to one side.
Dr. Plumb, in your statement for the record, you laid out
three key points that this team will adopt: fixing the data,
architecture, and adopting a modern approach; building the
right team with the right skills and technical acumen; and
adopting digital transformation best practices.
My question is, why can’t we seem to adopt these principles
across the federal government or at least in the IC and the
DOD? Until these principles are mandatory, we’re going to
experience these failures again and again, wasting time and
money and failing to deliver for the taxpayers. Would you like
to say a word about that, Dr. Plumb?
Dr. Plumb. Thank you, Senator. I think maybe the way to
start this is, fundamentally our acquisition models in the U.S.
Government and the Department of Defense in particular have
remained hardware-centric. So we fund them in similar ways to
the way we fund hardware procurement. And we use future
delivery as our milestone markers for progress on them.
Companies that manage IT successfully with minimal
disruption to users have a more continuous integration and
continuous delivery and deployment pipeline process that. for
instance, only takes software offline for very short periods of
time to do upgrades and invests 70 to 80 percent of the total
program costs into the backend data architecture and
infrastructure as compared to the frontend user interfaces and
features.
So inside the broader question of software acquisition,
while we have authorities and the software acquisition pathway,
the traditional program management oversight and processes have
tended to drive focus on the wrong areas. That creates both a
prioritization problem where prioritization is on frontend user
interfaces and new features rather than backend investments and
funding issues because those backend technical complexities
cost money and take extra time.
In the context of NBIS, driving our recommendations is
really focusing on those backend improvements, keeping what we
can, building new things where we need to and then marrying
that up with an agile continuous process for software
development and delivery so that we don’t face these problems
again in the future.
And I’ll just close by saying that while we, of course,
want to get to the point where we’re meeting the full set of
the requirements, there’s no point at which this is “done.”
And I think moving to a mindset where this is a continuous
development and improvement process, that we’ll continually
manage and upgrade the backend technology and frontend
features, is part of what can prevent this in the future.
Senator Bennet. Dr. Plumb, with the last 30 seconds that I
have, could you talk a little bit about the Defense Digital
Service? Is this the type of team that we can bring in that
agency, working with either the principles that you’ve
described or some rationale, at least, could help make a
difference in these kinds of implementations?
Dr. Plumb. Absolutely. The Defense Digital Service focuses
on–they serve as our chief product office inside the Chief
Digital and AI Office in the Pentagon. They focus on what we
call product management approach to delivery, which means they
combine a product manager who owns a roadmap in that Agile
development process oversight with software engineers and user
experience designers and researchers.
The idea of what we call product trio is to focus on
turning the requirements that come in from customers into
technical requirements and roadmaps and then ensuring that
there is a systematic execution of those that are linked to
continuous testing and user experience. And this team is one
that we apply to major issues and concerns inside the
department that rise to a priority senior-leader level like
NBIS.
Senator Bennet. Thank you, Dr. Plumb, for your oversight of
this. It’s going to be hard to get to the bottom of all of it
and I’m grateful that you’re making it a priority.
Chairman Warner. Senator Rounds.
Senator Rounds. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Away we go.
I think I really want to focus on one particular issue to
begin with. And I think, Deputy Dixon, I think I’m going to
focus with you simply because you come with DNI. What I’m
curious about is we’re doing our best here to identify and to
be able to get folks in for security clearances and getting
them through is extremely frustrating and it is in all branches
of government. But at the same time, we want to make sure that
we keep these individuals and that they feel that they are
appreciated and that their service is meaningful and that
basically we have their back.
The reason why I lay it out that way is because most
recently, for the second time now on a “60 Minutes” display,
we talked about the AHI or the anomalous health incidences in
which individual members who are well respected within your
community have clearly identified health issues that they
attribute to specific identifiable incidences that have
occurred.
Now we’ve had classified briefings on the topic and I
understand that this is a very sensitive area. But I think for
the individuals that are outside of those meetings that we
have, individuals that are within the community, I think we
should publicly talk about how we are going to address their
concerns. And probably to the American people that this is not
something which is being ignored or put on the back shelf.
Can you share with us, first of all, within your office,
who is responsible and accountable for actually chasing down
what is going on and not just simply the fact that we know that
these incidences are occurring. There’s a recognition of that
and we respect these individuals. But there doesn’t seem to be
an attribution or a discussion of the attribution which has
occurred. Could you perhaps in this open discussion at least
give us some assurances that this is an ongoing thing that is
going to get followed up on?
Director Dixon. Thank you, Senator Rounds. And absolutely,
we are. Our first priority is taking care of the individuals
within our community. So, our employees, their family members,
whoever is experiencing health challenges as a result of
whatever the cause of the thing is. We have from the top levels
of every agency made sure that it’s very clear that whatever
they are experiencing should be reported. And once reported, we
should do our best to get them the kind of help that they need.
If that ends up being a payment out of the Havana Act, that is
one route that they can go. But making sure that they get them
quick medical care.
With respect to the side of who’s actually looking for and
who’s going after it, it’s really an entire agency–it’s all of
IC process, so it’s not just our organization.
Senator Rounds. If it is, with all due respect, if it is
everybody, it is nobody. Somebody’s got to be in charge. I
guess that’s what I’m asking is, who is in charge of this very
serious issue?
Director Dixon. It has to be, because the information that
we need to collect is collected by different agencies,
different agencies are responsible for different parts of it.
The DNI has very clearly stated that it is our plan to not only
take care of employees but to try to close those intelligence
gaps that have kept us from being able to do the attribution
that you’re talking about. So the DNI at the top, ODNI can be
in charge.
Senator Rounds. Okay, so—-
Director Dixon. But we alone can’t do it.
Senator Rounds. Within the ODNI, the Office of the Director
of National Intelligence, somebody has to be the person
responsible for accumulating, acquiring, and pushing for this
information. I don’t need that name here, but is there a person
who is responsible for getting this done?
Director Dixon. There are different people responsible for
different parts. The part of collecting the reports from across
the Community, yes, there are individuals who do that. The part
of making sure that the agencies are out collecting information
so we can close those intelligence gaps, yes, we’re overseeing
that as well, so there is not one person doing both parts; but
because one is focused on the work, the people, and the other
one is focused on the adversary or whatever may be causing
these things. So there are individuals—-
Senator Rounds. And how about the technical side of this?
Is there a person working on the technical side of who is using
what type of a weapons system or a technology? Do we have
another person responsible for chasing that down as well?
Director Dixon. The folks that are overseeing the
collection side are also working with those who have the
technical capabilities.
Senator Rounds. So now we’re down to just two people
basically that are working on this or that are accountable for
putting this all together?
And is somebody overseeing those two individuals or is that
directly reporting to ODNI?
Director Dixon. Within ODNI we have individuals overseeing
them. So those that are overseeing what’s happening in the
Community with respect to collection as well as what’s
overseeing that the guidance that we’re putting forth on how to
take care of our workforce is being followed, yes, correct.
Senator Rounds. So we have one person in charge of each of
those two? At some point somebody’s got to be in charge.
Director Dixon. I think if you were to ask my boss,
Director Haines, she would say she’s in charge. She is the
place where it ends. And so, by default, I am in charge as
well. We will make sure that our communities are doing what we
have provided guidance for them to do, which is to take care of
the people and to do our best to close the intelligence gaps.
Senator Rounds. And I don’t mean to belabor this, and I’m
already over my time, but it just seems to me that unless there
isn’t somebody who can look at us and tell us, this is my
responsibility. I’m in charge of getting through this thing.
I’m responsible for having this thing fixed. Then it means that
it’s going to be on the back side and it’s going to get delayed
and we’re not going to get it completed in a timely fashion.
I simply bring it to your attention because I think we’re
going to have to continue to ask that question until we get a
direct answer about somebody who is responsible for following
this through just to make sure that those folks out there that
are suffering through this and that may be impacted by this in
the future know that it is not on the back shelf.
Director Dixon. Okay. Okay.
Senator Rounds. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Warner. I would say, Senator Rounds, I think, you
know, the vast majority of folks affected were CIA. And CIA was
taking the point. But there were then people that were
affected, DOD, that was kind of a separate chain. And then
there were some Treasury. So you know, it was across a series
of departments.
Senator Rounds. Oh, no question. But the problem is, unless
we’ve got somebody responsible for actually chasing this stuff
down and everybody’s looking at each other, we’re not going to
get this thing fixed. And it seems to me that we owe it to the
Intelligence Community, to the folks that are actually doing
the hard work outside of our boundaries that we’re going to
follow this thing through.
And that we have not simply said, we know something
happened. We don’t know what it is and we’re not going to do.
And until it comes to us, we’re not going to chase it down.
Chairman Warner. Well, we have a hearing I think on July
31st on this topic exactly. And you know, again, I think we
need to get it fully aired out.
Senator Rounds. Excellent. And hopefully by then, we’ll
know who the folks are that are actually chasing it down. And
they can share with us what they’ve gotten done. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Warner. Senator Kelly.
Senator Kelly. Ms. Harris, when was the initial RFP for the
NBIS program? When did we start?
Secretary Harris. So I will refer to DCSA for the specifics
on the contracts, but this has been a multiyear process that–
—
Senator Kelly. Well, when was the contract awarded?
Secretary Harris. Okay, I will defer to David for the
specifics on that.
Senator Kelly. The first one with Peraton.
Director Cattler. Senator, this program was begun in 2016
as a DISA effort, so the first RFP would have been issued then.
Senator Kelly. You know, a typical software program–you
come up with a set of requirements, you come up with a plan on
how you’re going to develop the software, how you’re going to
verify it, how you’re going to test it, how you’re going to
make sure all the parts work together, make sure it’s
integrated with other systems.
Pretty early in a program you fix requirements. And then,
you say this is it and, contractor, you need to build this.
Software acquisition often goes–one of the ways it can go
kind of sideways on you is if you keep changing the
requirements. I heard, and I can’t remember who said it, maybe
Dr. Plumb, that you now have a new requirements management
process that you’re putting into place. So, it sounds like the
requirements are still being developed for this system that we
started to acquire in 2016.
That could be the problem. I mean, I have yet to hear what
the real problem was that caused this to be delayed from
something that started in 2016, that was supposed to be
delivered in 2019, and now we’re in 2024, and it sounds like
we’re still working on requirements.
Let me ask one question. The other possibility or maybe
it’s a combination of a few things–I think somebody mentioned
production challenges and difficulties and requirements was
thrown out there–is the contractor. You know, software is–
it’s hard. I’d say it’s difficult. It’s different than
manufacturing hardware, obviously. It presents its own set of
challenges.
So are you having problems with the contractor being able
to write the code and then verify the code and test the code or
is it the thing I started with, which is you keep changing the
requirements and they can never catch up?
Secretary Harris. So I’ll start with the requirements and
then I’ll defer to David on the specifics on the engineering. I
think when you hear us talk about the requirements process,
what we have is, for something like this, we’re getting real-
time user feedback. The federal customers are using it. There
are things that will need to be integrated into future
development cycles. Right now, what we did not have was a
rigorous way for us to take those requirements and kind of look
at them against a technical roadmap and understand where they
would affect the development timelines.
And so that is a place where the Under Secretary of INS’s
office will be taking an active role to make sure we have a
better set of processes to make sure that as we’re getting
feedback from users as they’re using NBIS as the capabilities
roll out, and there are requests for new and different things,
we understand the effect they may have on our long-term
development timelines.
Senator Kelly. Was that built into the contract? That you
were going to continue to feed back new requirements to them as
this was tested and they would have to make changes?
Secretary Harris. So, I think as we are onboarding folks
into this process, right, there is an expectation that as we
are developing, under Agile methodologies, that we would be
getting user feedback, and we would be ingesting that into
future deliveries. I think what we did not have was a really
mature infrastructure to translate government requirements into
technical requirements, as Dr. Plumb mentioned. And so that’s a
key finding from these 90 days is we need to get more rigorous
around that.
The overall requirement is Trusted Workforce 2.0. The
requirements for what NBIS needs to deliver that end-to-end IT
system for vetting have been clear from the beginning. The
enforcement and the kind of interaction of that with the
technical development and the user feedback is where I think
the rigor needs to come in. I’ll defer to David for specifics
on the contractor performance.
Director Cattler. Senator, we started with a firmly-defined
set of requirements. We had requirements first from the
Secretary of Defense in 2016, as the Acting Under Secretary has
laid out about that end-to-end system. Those were complemented
by further requirements when the Administration’s agenda in
that timeframe of 2018 for Trusted Workforce came together.
Those requirements though are essentially the same, they’re
just at a higher level when you combine the departmental
requirements and cross-governmental requirements.
I’m going to give you a perspective from inside DCSA now
looking at this. What I would say is that they were realistic,
the requirements. They were achievable. But my agency did not
have a firm understanding of the complexity of the technical
features nor how exactly to approach those and accomplish them.
Now as Dr. Plumb has also said, it would seem from our
review, from my review now as the Director about 100 days, that
we did in fact, as Dr. Plumb said, focus first on features and
a bit less on functional capability delivery.
And there’s a related point here then about cost, about
legacy system sunsetting because if, for example, we had taken
an approach to prioritize the sunsetting of the legacy systems
and especially those that cost the most first, we could have
wound up in a different financial picture at this point, if not
actually had delivered more capability at an earlier time.
Senator Kelly. Was the contractor aware of the complexity
of the system? Do you think they were pretty honest with you
about the challenges that they were going to face?
Director Cattler. Senator, I think there’s a couple of
things in there. I’d say one is, yes, I think the contractor
has been honest with the government about what they can
deliver, and they’ve done the work as the government specified
it. But at the same time, the government reserved for itself
the role of being the software integrator. So in that, we asked
for certain things that’s–Senator, that’s why I’m emphasizing
the significance of my agency’s decision making about
interpreting their requirements.
Senator Kelly. Have those individuals within the government
that were going to do the software integration, have they done
software integration on any programs before?
Director Cattler. Yes, sir. My new NBIS program manager has
deep and lengthy experience doing this for the Army for
enterprise information systems. It’s one of the primary reasons
why I selected him to be the program manager.
Senator Kelly. Could you give us an example of Peraton,
what else they have built?
Director Cattler. Sir, in this case, all I could say now is
that what I rely on Peraton for are these software services
related to NBIS and also for a very extensive effort related to
field operations for background investigations themselves.
Senator Kelly. Well, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Warner. Let me make a try at this. This is my kind
of understanding. And I welcome anyone on the panel to correct.
This is a hard issue. We’ve been trying it for a long time.
Conceptually, I think the Trusted Workforce 2.0 is a great goal
to get to. DCSA is a relatively new entity. And they think they
got the big picture requirements in place. But candidly, from
conversations I’ve had with predecessors and others, DCSA did
not have the technology knowledge of how complicated these
requirements would be to actually build and build at scale. One
of the key things that Mr. Cattler just said was my new NBIS
supervisor has got this experience, which previously they
didn’t have that experience.
And there was a while–and some of the predecessors who had
positions here were either–they couldn’t, wouldn’t, or
shouldn’t kind of say “this is above my knowledge level.” So
you have the problem that the requirements–and look at the–we
all see the placemat here. We’ve all read and seen the
gazillions of these. But we’re taking a system that was really
antiquated and trying to come up with this new cutting-edge
idea. It’s a good idea, but boy, the implementation has been
really bad. To compound this–and Peraton does a lot of work in
other parts of the IC–You know, I think we had a fixed-price
contract. That’s why we came up with this notion “well, it’s
going to be $700 million bucks.” And I worry that there was
not even any incentive because I think at some point along the
way, even though they may have been–I don’t think DCSA got the
requirements right specifically to the technical capability
that they need to draw but probably the contractor bid against
an inappropriate set of requirements. But what makes me crazed
a little bit is that somewhere along the way, I think even if
they had built to the requirements that they had opted for,
they couldn’t scale those anyway. And because–I wonder–and
again I’m anxious to be contradicted on this–is you had folks
at the contract saying, “well, we have a fixed price contract.
As long as we hit these things, we’re going to be fine” even
though I think probably people had to have known, oh my gosh,
what we’re building can never scale to the needs of the whole
classified and secret workforce.
And maybe DCSA, you didn’t have enough folks or maybe we
were so far along, they kept with a hope and a prayer that this
would figure itself out And we had a holy heck moment. And we
were pushing. We were told things were going along. And
frankly, only because of an inadvertent loss of 9 terabytes of
data that they did recover that we even found out about this. I
mean, when would we have known?
I mean, at some point, the game was up, because there was
not going to be any plan where they would have had a fully
operational system by September of ’24, even a year ago. And
then there was like, as the deeper we got into the rabbit hole,
it was more like holy heck, this is not a short term, this is a
massive screw up.
So we got 850 million bucks that we’ve spent so far. We got
$850 million of maintaining legacy systems that we wouldn’t
have had to spend if we would have gotten the new systems in
place by 2019. I think Secretary Harris and Director Cattler
are working their tail off to try to get us this output of what
it’s going to take in 18 months and how much it’s going to
cost. But thank goodness–and I hope this is where we’ve got to
figure out your capabilities overall–what Dr. Plumb’s group is
supposed to be doing is they’re supposed to be, as Senator
Bennet said, the Technical SWAT Team to come in. Because I
don’t think you had the Technical SWAT Team at DCSA. And how we
get at the contractual obligation that if the contractor has
got the technical knowledge, why don’t they raise their hand
and say, hey, we’re building your stuff, but by the way, we’re
not building you something that can scale.
We got to figure out how we think about contracting. And
one thing I would also say is if there are other–the Committee
wants to work with you. If there are other legislative
authorities you need in this software management, we’re willing
to take a good hard look at that.
But is the characterization of how we got here that I just
laid out, am I right? Am I partially right? Am I wrong? Who
wants to take that on? Look, lots of hands going, but so–
please?
Secretary Harris. So I think at the beginning we expected
we would gain co-efficiencies by putting this at DCSA between
mission and what mission–what this is supposed to deliver. I
think what we have realized is that a program of this scale and
complexity, to exactly your point, needs a whole-of-department
approach.
So I think that’s what you’re seeing reflected here today.
We need Director Cattler’s leadership. We need Dr. Plumb’s
squad. We need Under Secretary LaPlante’s acquisition
oversight. We need our CIO looking at this against other
software systems in the Department. And we need Intelligence
and Security to make sure this meets the mission. And that is
what we needed.
And so I think the road you laid out, Senator, is exactly
right. But I think what you need is the team you have right now
looking at this with the—-
Chairman Warner. It wasn’t that the fact that–but if we
had been smarter in 2017, 2018, shouldn’t we have known that we
were asking this relatively small entity to take on a task that
was too big for its britches? And there are capabilities inside
of DOD that can

there are capabilities.
And that’s what I think Secretary Harris is saying is we’re
going to try to bring all the capabilities of DOD to the table.
We should have probably had that. We probably were expecting
too much from an agency that was not fully prepared to execute
on this.
Senator Kelly. Can we get back to the contract, though? So
what happens now? I mean, at one point, the contractor, the
prime contractor, sent an invoice for something that was beyond
$700 million, right? And they had to explain themselves. I
mean, what was their explanation? And then have we resolved
that issue or is the cost going to just continue to grow?
Because I imagine my guess is because, you know, I’ve seen this
before, the contractor says, well, you’re changing the
requirements on me. We had a fixed-price contract to build this
box that does these things. And now a few years later, you’ve
got–we’ve deployed parts of this and you have the end user is
saying that they want changes.
And you’re feeding these changes back to the contract. And
they say, well, we weren’t contracted to do that. So then they
say, well it’s going to cost you this much more. And every
change order is going to be, you know, whatever–$10,000 for
every single change.
Has that portion of this been resolved?
Director Cattler. Well, yes, sir. And that’s why I’ve said
my second basket of issues. We looked at in this 90-day review
was in fact procurement. And that’s, you know, as I said in my
statement for the record, that’s everything from not just how
we got here, but also to how we need to move forward. Do we
have the right contract vehicles? Are we incentivizing and
disincentivizing properly to hold a contractor accountable? Is
the government clear in terms of what it’s calling for? Do we
have the right expertise? As I say, we didn’t just need
technical expertise on the IT. We also needed to take a hard
look at the procurement.
I mean to link both of your interventions. What I would say
is I also agree that it would seem to me it was a lot to put on
a new agency to tackle this, as well, as the agency was
standing up. However, there was too much authority vested in
the previous incumbent in my role, in this context. And that’s
why I wholeheartedly agree with the elevation of product
ownership, the program ownership up to the Under Secretary for
Intel and Security and the acquisition decision milestone
authority also being elevated away from me at DCSA to the Under
Secretary for Acquisition and Sustainment.
Because in effect, my agency was allowed to call the shots
on how to interpret the requirements, figure out what the
procurement approach should be, figure out what the technical
details then were inherent in all that development, take the
decisions about contractor performance and compliance, what
information was reported out for oversight.
So if I may, Senator, get back to both of you, because
you’ve also asked, is there anything that needs–just to
clarify a couple points that I think are important. The first
is that you’ve asked the question of when we would have–when
you would have been notified and when you would have found out.
And I think two things I would say here, just so at least, as
the DCSA director, I’m clear on what I communicate to you.
The previous Under Secretary for Intelligence and Security
came before this Committee in November of 2023 and did inform
you that largely the program was on track. My agency did not
inform the Under Secretary for Intelligence and Security and
the office that we were substantially off track and would not
meet the 2024 deliverable until after that hearing had
concluded.
So I think that’s one point I just want to make sure that I
share with you. And the other thing I would say is—-
Chairman Warner. Which is a big freaking deal.
Director Cattler. What’s that?
Chairman Warner. It’s a big deal that he wants—-
Director Cattler. It’s a big deal, yes, Senator, that’s why
I’m making sure that I clarify that.
The other thing I would say is that on your observation
about the OPIS outage, so this is one of the OPM legacy systems
that we rely on essentially as a data storage system for the
records. I do not think that the two things, NBIS and OPIS, are
actually not linked in a direct causal way, meaning that the
OPIS outage that occurred would not in itself have triggered my
predecessor nor anyone else to come here and say that NBIS
would not be delivered on time.
Chairman Warner. But I believe what happened–and you
weren’t there–but I believe what happened, and some of the
folks who were working on this are not here now, they’re over
with Dr. Dixon, but was that we–people came in and informed
well, we got this problem. We’re going to get it fixed. We’ve
lost 90 terabytes of data, but we got a backup, so we’re going
to find it. And oh, by the way, there was not a linkage that
that loss was related to NBIS. Oh, but when in that
notification around the 90 terabytes, oops, that was when we
were notified by them.
So I don’t want to imply that they were linked, but it was
like simultaneous notification.
Director Cattler. They’re coincident in time, Senator. My
review of this–and again I had my Inspector General helping me
with this also. But my review of this is–is we did conclude
the investigation into the OPIS outage about my first week in
the role here as the director. We already knew internally that
we had a real problem on our hands here. We’d known for quite
some time about NBIS, but it didn’t become clear enough to
actually, I think, pop a flare and go back to Intel and
Security and say, clearly, we’re not going to meet that
milestone.
So, all I’m saying is, Senator, both of these problems were
quite bad for what they–one, OPIS for what it could have been,
because as you’ve said, we did recover the 90 terabytes of
data, thankfully. That was a failure to follow internal
controls, meaning that we had an employee, some employees
together, that did not follow the proper procedures for the
ways in which we would clear storage memory on the system. And
instead, issued an order that wiped out 90 terabytes of data.
Now again, it’s great, we have magnetic tapes that have the
backup on it. But the root cause of that is a failure of
accountability, a failure to follow proper procedure.
Concurrently, we had longstanding problems related to NBIS.
Chairman Warner. This is where I think Senator Kelly and I
were both trying to hit a little bit on. I was informed or told
that–going back to the fixed-price contract, the nature of the
contract, there was no incentive for the contractor to say, oh,
by the way, we believe we are contractually meeting your
requirement. But by the way, we could never scale this to meet
the full needs of the Community.
Director Cattler. Senator, I’d say—-
Chairman Warner. Is that fair, or not fair?
Director Cattler. I’m not sure it’s entirely fair, but it’s
not unfair. I think what I would say in response is, the
contractor doesn’t get paid unless the software they develop
meets the specification and is successful. So, in that regard,
the government gets what it pays for. The government gets what
it tells the contractor it needs to do.
However, it is not the contractor’s primary responsibility
to inform the government that it might not scale or it might
not be able to be aggregated as the government performs the
role of the software integrator.
But you could ask the question of whether it’s incumbent
upon the contractor to inform the government: Hey, government,
your ideas don’t make sense.
Chairman Warner. Right. Well, that wouldn’t–you know,
especially if DCSA didn’t write the specs. But isn’t there some
obligation, moral or otherwise–maybe not legal–but moral or
otherwise to say, hey, we’re building a machine that’s not
going to be able to service the scope of the problem that we’re
trying to address?
Director Cattler. Well, Senator, I can’t comment too much
on that piece of it in the past, but just to say that again, as
we review the procurement approach and the ways in which we
will move forward, these are all key factors we have in mind.
Chairman Warner. And the company’s got a good reputation.
Let me state that. The company has–the contractor’s got a good
reputation. I remember as a new Senator having a lot of
contractors based in Virginia, in the beginning of the Obama
Administration, I thought I’m going to figure out defense
contracting.
And the then-number-two at DOD came over and brought in
four contracting officers and twelve volumes. And I was cured
of my thought that I was going to fix this in any shape or
form. But at least, in terms of what we’ve got–ability to,
say, have purview over, and this is one of those areas where
we’re going to stay obsessed about this until at least as long
as I’m here.
Is there legislative authority? And maybe this is for not
just for Secretary Harris and Director Cattler, but Dr. Plumb
or Dr. Dixon, either in terms of a stick of a penalty if you
don’t inform or an incentive if you do–oh, by the way, we’ll
give you a little extra spliff here if you tell us, government,
that we are completely screwed up in our requirements, or we’re
not building something that’s going to meet the problem.
Director Cattler. Senator, that’s just not the way we built
that contract architecture. That’s not to say we couldn’t in
the future or that we shouldn’t, but we did not.
Chairman Warner. Right, but again, this is not just your
problem, it is across–as we all cite our various examples. But
it is a little frustrating that when we see–and it’s not like
every large corporate software problem project doesn’t have
problems. But we do seem to have an extraordinarily higher
failure rate on big software projects in government than almost
anything else.
And Dr. Plumb, it looked like you were going to hit your
button.
Dr. Plumb. I was just going to add, Senator, I think a big
part of the issue that our Defense Digital Service team
identified, that we’re working closely with DCSA, is making
sure the right technical talent exists inside the government to
vet and review what’s going on. In this case, just as an
example, the decision was made on this contract in 2018 to have
essentially a low code solution, which means it’s like a sort
of simple drag-and-drop coding solution to solve a massive data
architecture engineering problem, including with some legacy
systems that use code that doesn’t exist anymore, that people
don’t use anymore.
That’s not traditionally–we would not consider that a best
practice. We wouldn’t even consider that an advisable practice
because you want a true programing language, a Java or a SQL,
to be able to manage the interaction between those databases in
a flexible and continuous development way. So as just a
concrete example, the lack of technical expertise in the
government to review those types of decisions, the decisions to
how to meet the requirements, which as were mentioned, I think
were clear how to translate that into a technical solution was
missing.
I think what we have now is a team of technical experts
with our Defense Digital Services that are working hand in
glove with the program management office and are working with
that office to identify and hire inherent technical talent that
will help DOD out.
Chairman Warner. But let’s take it out of DCSA. Let’s take
another part of the government, another part of DOD. You know,
are we going to bring your SWAT team in on the frontend before
we put these contracts out in other areas?
Dr. Plumb. Well, that’s what we’re trying. I mean, yes,
we’re trying to do that for future solutions. I think better to
solve it on the frontend of the procurement than the backend.
And I think there are broader efforts to do this across the
department that don’t that have technical talent in them that
don’t need us—-
Chairman Warner. But what you guys are doing in your
Defense Digital Services, how long has that enterprise been
around?
Dr. Plumb. I think–I can get the exact answer, but I think
since roughly about 2017 or 2018.
Chairman Warner. Okay, so it has been around. So I keep
thinking about, like, under the Obama Administration there was
18(F) and there were the digital services.
Dr. Plumb. Right, exactly.
Chairman Warner. It feels like these kind of crack SWAT
teams, though, come and go inside the government enterprise in
a way that we don’t build that at least review part of the
process in enough of our systems. Is that fair?
Dr. Plumb. That probably is fair, I think. Inside of the
Department of Defense, we’ve tried to establish this chief
digital and AI office, my office, as the lead staff assistant
inside the Department to oversee that data, data architecture,
data oversight, data principles to help drive alignment both in
how we build–the technical requirements we’re talking–about
and what the procurement requirements are. So what does it mean
to be interoperable? What does it mean for the government to
have data rights, so that that’s baked into the contracts, the
government rights, instead of trying to solve that problem over
and over again? And that’s work we have ongoing. And we have
sort of large-scale initiatives underway to do that.
Chairman Warner. And Dr. Cattler, you mentioned the fact
that maybe your predecessors weren’t aware or asked for too
much power and authority without enough oversight. Or didn’t
recognize they didn’t have the technology components. Is there
a way to build in somebody with–you know, you got an agency
with 5400 people. Somebody’s got to have been willing to say,
hey, you know, we’re biting off more than we can chew.
Or are there any things–again, with your agency and
specifically—-. But are there other ways to build in some
kind of incentive within the agency to say before we bite this,
we ought to think twice or—-?
Director Cattler. Well, yes, Sir. And I think that these
are some of the issues I’m alluding to when I talk about having
a culture of accountability. We also needed to look hard inside
ourselves as well and determine, were we organized in the
proper way, broadly, but specifically on these issues, to be
the right people in the right places, and have we segregated
the decision authority in a way that will give us, first,
internal checks and balances and also some different expertise
and some differences of view as we take these decisions.
So, I already mentioned we lacked a firm understanding of
the complexity, the technical features required to deliver. We
underestimated the timelines it would take. Now, those are both
about expertise. We had a shortage of critical technical/agile
acquisition and integration skills within the program when the
program was transferred to us, but then also over time within
DCSA.
When I talk about leadership, I think it’s important to
point out I also hired another new program executive officer.
The role of the program executive officer here is to look
across in my agency, nine programs–NBIS is but one of them–to
make sure that they’re compliant with proper acquisition
strategies and the documentation is robust, is also compliant.
Chairman Warner. Well, why were we able to set up DCSA
without having a program executive in place as part of the
initial structure of the agency?
Director Cattler. Well, Senator, in this case, we had the
two billets. But for a period of time, the NBIS program manager
and the program executive officer were in fact the same
individual person, which is why I’m saying the decision
authority was a bit too concentrated.
Chairman Warner. It’s been a while since I’ve been in
business, but I realized you’re supposed to have these
functions check each other or somebody overseeing the actual
program management itself at somewhat of a checkpoint level.
Director Cattler. Senator, I completely agree. And again,
if I’m not in a position to record properly diagnostic and
accurate internal information, nor report it up to my higher
headquarters where I’m held accountable, then it’s easy to see
where you’ll have a breakdown in process that can, over time,
lead to these sorts of problems that we’re experiencing with
NBIS. And that’s why, again, I say this 90-day period that the
Acting Under Secretary called for this 90-day review has been
critical and really fruitful, well timed, because she did bring
in new leadership at the agency level. By extension, then,
brought in a new PEO and a new program manager. We’re able to
look comprehensively with partners from CDAO, DDS. Counted on
GAO here also to go back through those reports. We invited them
in. They came in to see me at my invitation the first week of
May. It was just critically important that we brought the right
people to the table.
Chairman Warner. Well, I would ask again: if there are
additional legislative authorities, but I do think you know,
and maybe we are not being harsh enough. I mean, it’s a strange
time in lots of government at this point. But you know, to me,
in many ways, this is in a different setting with maybe a
different membership here that was more willing to just kind of
flog the heck out of you guys.
This is as, as you know a holy heck–government abuse
contract problem as pretty much anything I’ve seen. You know,
you could make a lot of hay with how this started, a new
agency, we’re five years behind, we didn’t get fully notified,
you know,hey
didn’t—-. Your predecessor, Secretary Harris, wasn’t even
fully notified in an appropriate way. And where what was
supposed to be probably wrong-sized at $700 million to start,
but we’re roughly $1.7 billion now, five years late with
another 18 months and no cost estimate to go. I’m glad we got
the new team here, because if it was the old team, it would
just be too easy not to just whack the heck out of you guys.
But the next time you come, if we’re not seeing marked
improvement–and you just need to be straight with us, if
it’s—-. I do think this is broader than your respective
roles. But the incentives to get the contractor to raise their
hand, that says, hey, we’re not building something that can
scale or we’re not building something that’s going to really
meet the need or within the agency. There’s got to be somebody
that kind of felt this doesn’t pass the smell test. And I
obviously think–remember when your predecessor came in and
said, we’re going to bring it up into Big DOD and bring more of
the expertise. How we let it get this far along the way is a
real challenge. Because if we go back to where we start–and
Dr. Dixon, you’re not going to get away completely unscathed
here–where was the PAC through all of this?
Director Dixon. Uh, Senator Warner, thank you for that.
You’re absolutely right. We did not recognize that there was an
issue. We talked about NBIS every time we met as PAC principals
which was very frequent. But we were also working across all
the other things that we’re trying to deliver as part of
Trusted Workforce 2.0, so we did not dedicate enough time
diving in and asking the hard questions.
I think we all made assumptions that some of these other
levels of oversight actually existed when it turns out that
they did not. But we did not ask the questions that would have
gotten us to realize that there was a problem earlier.
Chairman Warner. But again, that doesn’t totally pass the
smell test either, because we knew this was a problem. It was
supposed to be delivered in 2019. Didn’t somebody say in 2022
or 2023? Then again, you could argue if we’ve asked that
question, too, but you had a more direct ongoing
responsibility. Why didn’t somebody in the PAC say we ought to
dig into this a little more?
Director Dixon. I think when the group of us that–the
former people that were at the table with me back in March of
’23, all of us came in ’21–and so we actually thought that we
were on track for the redo in the new process, in the new plan
for NBIS. And every time we looked at the slides, there were
not so many tremendous changes in the deliverables to raise the
concern to us. It looked like they were minimal slips that
happened.
Chairman Warner. So, when you came in, in ’21, they were
still expecting a September of ’24 deliverable?
Director Dixon. Correct. Correct. I don’t remember the
exact date, but it was definitely something in the future,
beyond ’21.
Chairman Warner. But did you have in September when you
came in, in ’21, did you have a plan that says: Okay, by
September of ’24, we’re going to get it done and it’s going to
cost x—-? You must have had some presumption of what the
costs were going to be.
Director Dixon. I’m absolutely sure that we did. As PAC
principles, we sort of were all looking at our own particular
pieces of the puzzle. And so, I don’t know that we were—-
Chairman Warner. Well, how do we make sure the PAC doesn’t
miss this again? Or, because, again, NBIS is just one piece of
this glorified idea. I mean, I had a lot of problems with the
previous Administration, but the previous Administration did at
least start to take on this and help work to bring down the
backlog.
But I feel like we knock out one of these issues–we
knocked out the backlog. Then we had to deal with the
adjudication piece. And you know, again, I’m preaching to the
choir here when we, you know, didn’t have enough polygraph
trainers. Then we didn’t have people to train the polygraphers.
You know, I think we keep knocking these things down, but
then you get this. We got this glorified great new system and
this is an embarrassment.
Director Dixon. I agree. What I can say is, I am much more
comfortable now with the level of oversight that’s going to be
provided with Dr. Plumb. With an acquisition and sustainment as
well as with what the Honorable Harris and her staff are going
to do. This is what should have been in place beforehand.
Now that it is in place, we will do our part.
Chairman Warner. Well, one of the things we can ask the PAC
is how many other of these potential ticking time bombs or not-
ticking time bombs, potential, oh, my gosh, we’re not going to
hit these metrics?
Director Dixon. Very little of what is left to be delivered
is IT solutions. Most of what’s left to be delivered include
how do you take the guidelines and the standards we’ve created
and then roll them out into the workforce. How do you get
everyone ready to do the types of investigations? And so a lot
of things are dependent on NBIS. But NBIS is by far the largest
IT part of Trusted Workforce 2.0.
Chairman Warner. Oh, well, I would say this. I have great
respect for you. I also have great respect for your
predecessor, Sue Gordon.
She promised me she was not going to leave the job until we
had reciprocity with CIA.
Director Dixon. We are making a great deal of progress on
reciprocity.
Chairman Warner. Across the whole Intelligence Community?
Director Dixon. Across the Intelligence Community. When you
talk about specifically someone that’s going from a similar
level of security classification, or security clearance needed,
that person, as I mentioned before, that process can take as
little as five days when it is apples to apples. In many cases
though, it’s not. You’re going from an agency where the
responsibilities you have in one job are actually less and
require less sensitive information than the other one.
And so, then you have to look at, Okay, does the person
need—-? Do we have to go back and look at continuous vetting
alerts? Did something come in between the time the person was
hired in the one agency or the other one? Does this one agency,
the second agency, now require medical screening or
psychological screening or a different kind of polygraph?
So, there are other things that make it not a simple
movement, but when it is exactly the same level of clearance,
same responsibilities and same process from one agency to
another, that process is very quick. And we are working on the
other one.
Chairman Warner. Okay. And is there any way as well that I
can hold our former staff director, Mike Casey, responsible for
anything screwing up going forward?
Director Dixon. Mike Casey and his organization are going
to deliver a tool that’s going to significantly help with
reciprocity. And I’m absolutely sure that they are listening.
Chairman Warner. On what timeline? Now he’s–to your left.
Director Dixon. We are in the requirements-definition
stage, and we may actually reach out to—-
Chairman Warner. Requirements definition stage, we may need
Dr. Plumb’s–or a team.
Director Dixon. Exactly. Exactly. I think we have some
oversight that we’re already talking about and how do we make
sure that we—-
Chairman Warner. Honorable Casey does not want to be up
here in front of this panel talking about this issue at some
point in the future.
Secretary Harris. I am absolutely sure he would agree with
that statement. [Laughter]
Chairman Warner. Well, I’m disappointed that we’re here. I
do appreciate the new members of the team who are trying to get
this, but we have to stay on it. You know, at end of the day,
we get caught up on these details, but end of the day, we got
to make sure we’ve got a security clearance process that works;
that we can still recruit the best and the brightest into the
Community; that our government contracting workforce cannot be
delayed and you know, driven to not be as efficient because
they have to waste so much time. And we didn’t even get today
to the whole question of smaller companies who don’t even have
billets based upon butts in the seats, so that your CFO, you
make it the CEO is a clearance, but the CFO doesn’t know.
And how do you have a CFO that didn’t even know what the
projects they’re working on?
Director Dixon. We are actually making progress on that
too. We heard you loud and clear that there are individuals who
can’t charge to a contract who need to have clearances.
Chairman Warner. Dr. Dixon? Right, who need to have you–
their senior executive team has to have those billets or have
to have those numbers.
Director Dixon. We’re trying to work with our contracting
organizations to actually make sure that can happen.
Chairman Warner. I know. But that, respectfully, and I know
you’ve only been saying it for two-and-a-half years, but I’ve
had other people sit in this seat now for the 7 or 8 years now,
almost 10 years, that I’ve been talking about it and I just
don’t understand why it’s taken so darn long and why some of
this is so hard. And maybe that will be the function of our
next hearing.
For those of you at DCSA and NBIS, we’ve got great
expectations. But I strongly, strongly suggest that if you’ve
got a need for different authorities, I’d like to hear them.
Dr. Plumb, I know you say this is not the way we structure
software in government contracting, but maybe we ought to take
some experiments.
You know, we can call it AI. That means we can get funding
for it no matter what if we call it AI in your office. But
think about where we actually try to align the agency and the
contractor’s interest to come to the same technology-driven
success goal which I think, again–and I don’t think this is
unique to NBIS but is too often a problem where they are not
aligned.
I think I’ve driven all my other colleagues away. I was
actually surprised that we got as many showing up as we did.
But as long as I’m here, we’re going to stay on this and we’re
going to get it fixed. We are adjourned.
Thank you.
(Whereupon at 4:40 p.m. the hearing was adjourned.)

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