Sam Farr: “As the gentleman knows, security clearances are necessary to protect our national security and are required for…”

“As the gentleman knows, security clearances are necessary to protect our national security and are required for thousands of jobs. This process is also expensive. DOD pays billions of dollars to the Office of Personnel Management, OPM, to manage the DOD security clearance program. OPM has made some improvements in their investigation process so the program is no longer on GAO's high-risk list, but the problem remains that OPM relies on manual labor to process DOD security clearances. The research scientists at Personnel Security Research Center, PERSEREC, under the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, have developed a suite of automated tools. Those tools could save millions of dollars without sacrificing quality if these tools were incorporated into the security reinvestigation process. I greatly appreciate that the chairman and ranking member of the Defense Subcommittee have included report language encouraging DOD to investigate more in automated tools for the security clearance process. Would my colleagues agree that DOD needs to leverage the resources of PERSEREC to integrate their research, called ACES, into the DOD security reinvestigation process?”