Senator Mark Warner pressed the director of the Government Accountability Office during today’s meeting of the Budget Committee to move more aggressively to identify overlapping and duplicative federal programs.

“Many of us have worked in a bipartisan way to make progress in improving government efficiency and effectiveness, but this is an area that requires constant attention,” Sen. Warner said.

Sen. Warner was a lead cosponsor of the 2010 Government Performance and Results Modernization Act, which directs federal agencies to focus on their highest priority programs, identify their least performing programs, and rely upon relevant performance data in making policy and management decisions. Sen. Warner urged GAO Director Gene Dodaro to press even further to require federal agencies to provide an accurate inventory of their best and least performing programs.  

“Anybody that’s done business knows you need to identify, and oftentimes limit, your organization’s priority goals. If you say you have 30 goals, you actually have zero goals,” Sen. Warner said.

Sen. Warner also pushed GAO for additional progress in implementing The Data Act, a bipartisan bill which Sen. Warner successfully sponsored in the last Congress. The DATA Act has been called the biggest improvement in government transparency since enactment of the FOI Act.