Susan Collins

I suspect that your experience is unusual because you personally are so committed and I think we need to look at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), at other agencies that do major grant awards to see whether there really is the kind…

That is one reason this is so important.

Its purpose is to protect the taxpayer. It is to protect government.

I look forward to your recommendations on how we might do so.

I do not want to be at that hearing 30 years from now, I do not know about everybody else here, but we need to make progress.

If we have a major department like the Department of Justice refusing to follow GAO's recommendations and adopt more effective means to go after contractors who should be debarred or suspended it raises the question in my mind about…

If you have any suggestions for us on how we can do a better job of preventing that from happening--it sounds like you are on the alert for it and because you follow up aggressively with the Justice Department and with a longer debarment…

I am trying to figure out why the department is the laggard in this area.

As Senator Collins pointed out, suspension and debarment now apply governmentwide and it is one of the improvements over these past 30 years that we do have the Excluded Party List System that Senator Collins had a role in promoting.

It is not fair or ethical to competent government contractors when they lose government business to those who will not perform effectively and honestly.

Suspension and debarment are mechanisms by which the Federal Government protects taxpayers by avoiding the award of new contracts or grants to those individuals and businesses who have proven to be bad actors.

As the ghost author of those words, I was very pleased to hear them recited today.

I personally think that is a legitimate argument.

I promised him that I would bring it to the highest levels.

Are you concerned that we are jeopardizing the security gains?

You are not fulfilling the mission of the office.

Quantity has a quality all of its own.

I do not see quality and quantity as being enemies.

I want to be very clear on this point.

We convene today to consider the nomination of Roslyn Mazer to become the next Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security.

I have to say that makes no sense to me whatsoever because they are redacting information that would allow the manufacturer to assess whether the chip is legitimate or not.

Maybe we should look at where we are buying these parts and reconsider the manufacturing of those parts in the United States.

Thank you and the ranking member for conducting such an in-depth investigation into such an important problem.

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