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Today, Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wisc.), the Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity, delivered the following opening remarks, as prepared, at the start of the subcommittee’s hearing to discuss a recent VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) report highlighting issues with the planning, expectations, and execution of the Digital GI Bill (DGIB) program, a longstanding priority for the Committee.

Good afternoon.

The Subcommittee will come to order.

I want to thank everyone for being here today to discuss the Digital G.I. Bill project.

I believe this is a topic that can be approached in a nonpartisan manner as the ultimate goal of this hearing is to get down to brass tacks and figure out how VA can continue its efforts to get the DGIB program back on track.

During this Subcommittee’s joint hearing with the Subcommittee on Technology Modernization in July 2023, Congress received an update on the Digital G.I. Bill project, and we voiced our concerns about how the project had been designed and implemented during the Biden-Harris administration.

I would like to repeat my fellow Chairman, Rep. Matt Rosendale’s words during his opening statement last July where he stated quote, “I believe the concept (of DGIB) remains sound, but the bureaucracy managing the project is floundering.”

Since July 2023, I think it is clear that the bureaucracy managing this project has negatively impacted the success of DGIB and has cost the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and ultimately negatively impacted veterans.

We are here today because of the report issued by the V.A. Inspector General on August 28, 2024, that confirms many of the fears that were expressed on my side of the aisle about how this project was being managed under this administration.

According to the OIG, this project was hindered from the outset because “VBA failed to include staff who had the required technical expertise to develop performance work statements, which outline the necessary steps to complete the platform development and therefore drive contract requirements.” Further, the OIG specifically mentioned that the initial contract requirements were “unclear or unrealistic.”

This report highlighted the lack of accountability of leadership at V.A., and the design flaws that will continue to cost the American taxpayer.

VA employees working on this project did not have the proper expertise to run this program, and V.A. failed to follow traditional contract implementation guidelines, it’s as simple as that.

Many of these same issues have been raised and investigated by this Committee in previous G.I. Bill failures in 2008, 2010, and 2018.

It is embarrassing that we have to have another hearing on this project when just two years ago this Committee praised VA on how DGIB was being implemented.

Now, the DGIB program’s lifecycle cost is projected by MITRE, who I will note refused to testify today and answer questions about their involvement in these issues, to be up to $2.7 billion dollars.

That is over a billion dollars more than the estimate that was given to Congress in 2021, and this project, which was originally projected to be finished at the end of 2024, will not even be done until 2026.

During today’s hearing, VA must be accountable for the two-year delay and the doubling in costs and explain how they are going to get DGIB back on track. Student veterans deserve a modern system that they can count on. Taxpayers deserve to know that their investment is worthwhile – period.

What floors me is that in any private business or non-government sector of the American economy heads would roll if the same decision making and leadership mistakes continued to be made year after year through multiple administrations.

But instead, Congress gets an endless parade of V.A. career employees who come up here and promise to better, or blame a contractor, and then go about their very merry way as if nothing happened.

I’m not looking for a witch hunt, but we have to get to the bottom of the systemic failures and if there are things that V.A. needs from Congress to be successful, please share them with us.

I also look forward to hearing from the Office of Inspector General and Accenture on what recommendations they have for V.A. to make sure DGIB will still be a success when the project is done.

We cannot – and will not – let the Digital G.I. Bill join the list.

With that, I now yield to the Ranking Member for his opening remarks.