Comer Supports Bill to Ensure Government-Wide Anti-Fraud Analytics to Protect Taxpayers

WASHINGTON-House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) delivered remarks on the House floor today in support of H.R. 8312, the Fraud Prevention and Accountability Act. This bill, introduced by Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas), establishes a permanent, government-wide, anti-fraud analytics function to assist agency Inspectors General in their fraud prevention work. In his statement, Chairman Comer highlighted the importance of making the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, established during the COVID-19 pandemic, a permanent government function that will dramatically enhance how agencies prevent fraud by utilizing pre-existing resources to track government data and better coordinate between agencies. He also noted that this bill is a culmination of the House Oversight Committee's work to understand fraud and work to prevent it.

Below are Chairman Comer's remarks as prepared for delivery:

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

The Fraud Prevention and Accountability Act dramatically enhances how agencies prevent fraud-especially during any future national emergency.

It also ensures the government-wide data analytic resources established initially to investigate pandemic era fraud are permanently preserved.

Experienced fraudsters understand that when the government responds to a crisis, agencies often let their guard down.

Serious failures were exposed during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially for newly established or rapidly expanded financial assistance and benefits programs.

Agencies did not build effective fraud protections into their programs, nor implement them until the funds were already lost to fraud.

Although the true extent of the fraud through pandemic relief efforts will never be determined, GAO estimates that hundreds of billions of dollars were potentially lost to fraud.

The federal government also lacked a centralized resource for data and advanced analysis that could have quickly identified fraudulent activities.

The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, or the PRAC, built a data analytics capability on the fly as pandemic relief funds were already being expended by agencies.

American taxpayers have been hurt by the lack of swift investigative action and delays in implementing fraud prevention processes.

H.R. 8312 was drafted based on years of diligent oversight work under the leadership of Government Operations Subcommittee Chairman Pete Sessions, the sponsor of this bill.

His legislation ensures there is a permanent, government-wide, anti-fraud analytics function to assist agency Inspectors General with their fraud work.

It ensures a permanent Inspector General Office for Fraud, Accountability and Recovery utilizing the valuable, proven resources built by the PRAC over recent years.

This eliminates the need to start from scratch in the inevitable event of a new national emergency.

The bill also includes provisions to ensure appropriate coordination with the government-wide program integrity and improper payment tools maintained by the U.S. Treasury's Bureau of the Fiscal Service, providing Treasury the authority to develop a government-wide data analytic support platform for federal agencies and state-administered federally funded programs to voluntarily participate in.

This bill is the culmination of years of the Committee's work to understand how agencies can improve their operations to protect hard-earned, taxpayer money from fraudsters.

I encourage my colleagues to support H.R. 8312 and I reserve the balance of my time.