113th Congress } { Report
1st Session } SENATE { 113-44
_______________________________________________________________________
Calendar No. 91
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION
ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2014
R E P O R T
[TO ACCOMPANY S. 1197]
on
TO AUTHORIZE APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2014 FOR MILITARY
ACTIVITIES OF THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AND FOR MILITARY CONSTRUCTION,
TO PRESCRIBE MILITARY PERSONNEL STRENGTHS FOR SUCH FISCAL YEAR, AND FOR
OTHER PURPOSES
together with
ADDITIONAL VIEWS
----------
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
UNITED STATES SENATE
June 20, 2013.--Ordered to be printed
[...]
Subtitle C--Intelligence-Related Matters
Personnel security (sec. 931)
The committee recommends a provision that would require
major reform of the personnel security clearance investigation,
adjudication, and transfer processes to improve security and
reduce costs. Specifically, the provision would require:
(1) the Director of Cost Analysis and Program
Evaluation to conduct a comprehensive, comparative
analysis of the cost, schedule, and performance of
personnel security investigations acquired through the
Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and through
components of the Department of Defense (DOD);
(2) the Secretary of Defense to develop a plan by
October 1, 2014, to acquire investigations through the
approach most advantageous to DOD and to determine
whether investigations can be improved through the
increased utilization of private entities to conduct or
provide supporting information for security
investigations;
(3) the Secretary and the Director of National
Intelligence (DNI) to develop a joint strategy to
continuously modernize all aspects of personnel
security to lower costs and improve security, and to
develop and report annually on metrics that will
demonstrate progress in achieving those objectives;
(4) the Secretary and the DNI to consider, and allow
them to adopt, a series of innovations in security
investigation methods and data sources that have been
shown to be effective through analysis and/or
demonstrations;
(5) the Secretary and the DNI to ensure, to the
maximum extent practicable, reciprocal acceptance of
clearances; and
(6) development of benchmarks by which to measure the
current level of reciprocity in clearance transfers and
the costs imposed by delays.
DOD transferred the bulk of its security investigations in
2004 to OPM because DOD had accumulated a large backlog of
clearance applications and investigations were taking an
enormous amount of time which imposed high indirect costs
through productivity losses, and (rightly) DOD did not consider
security investigations to be a core mission.
OPM successfully eliminated the backlog that it inherited
and substantially reduced the time it takes to complete
investigations.
However, personnel security costs have steadily risen and
DOD has had little visibility into OPM's cost structure to
determine what has been driving those increases. A recent
Government Accountability Office report documented OPM's lack
of cost transparency and rapidly rising costs. DOD is spending
three-quarters of a billion dollars annually on security
investigations, and costs have been rising at a rate of 10
percent a year. Multiple intelligence agencies that conduct
their own investigations using the same contractors as OPM have
achieved savings of up to 50 percent compared to the prices
charged by OPM. The pressure on budgets has become severe,
while new federal investigative standards that mandate a
periodic reinvestigation every 5 years could increase the cost
of personnel security dramatically in coming years.
In addition, DOD and DNI have been eager to modernize the
security investigation process, believing that doing so would
actually improve security, reduce the time needed for
investigations, and reduce costs. OPM has been slow to address
these cost and reform issues.
The Army and the National Reconnaissance Office
successfully demonstrated, through a pilot program, the gains
that can be achieved in efficiency, time, security, and cost by
applying modern information technology and exploiting non-
traditional information sources.
Some intelligence agencies have effectively stopped
performing periodic reinvestigations, which has led to a huge
new investigatory backlog, and because the government and
contract employees of these agencies are past due for
reinvestigations, other agencies may refuse to accept their
clearances, limiting their employment opportunities through no
fault of their own. Finally, industry has expressed concerns
about a thicket of bureaucratic obstacles that still make the
transfer of clearances between government agencies and
departments, and from one contract to another, difficult and
time-consuming, ultimately costing taxpayers substantial
amounts of money as workers are idled, with their time charged
to overhead.
The committee believes that the time has come to issue a
legislative mandate to force an action that all stakeholders
seem to agree is necessary.
[...]
