NASA CFO, IG nominees grilled by Senate committee

A Senate panel which oversees the nation's space agency reviewed the nominations of two top managers last Thursday.

Dr. Elizabeth Robinson, President Obama's nominee to be the chief financial officer at NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, is a scientist whose resume includes a PhD in geophysics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and various stints both on Capitol Hill, and in the executive branch, most recently in the Office of Management and Budget.

In recent years, NASA has faced numerous and well-documented challenges accounting for its spending on any number of space-related projects. And with that in mind, Senator Jay Rockefeller (D.-West Virginia), chairman of the Commerce committee, grilled Robinson about the fact that the space agency's books have been in such bad shape that the accounting firm of Ernst and Young was recently unable to assemble an audit.

Even though Robinson acknowledged that straightening out NASA's financial reporting was her "top priority", Rockefeller pressed her saying "It's not enough to say you're committed to it, there has to be a harder edge to your answer."

Robinson responded, "GAO and the IG (Inspector General) have pointed out that there have been issues with data integrity, making sure that as agencies execute their financial transactions and record them, that errors are noted."

She also acknowleded that NASA now has in place a continuous monitoring program, in which efforts are made every night to try to catch financial anomalies.

Dr. Robinson also said NASA is continuing to collect data for a system that would allow officials to see the value of everything from desktop computers to the International Space Station. She also explained that the space agency is making strides in its effort to consolidate the financial management systems at NASA headquarters and its ten operating centers nationwide.

Next to Robinson was Paul Martin, the nominee to be the next Inspector General at NASA.

His grilling by Rockefeller was much shorter, but the chairman still had tough questions for him about the fact that his predecessor in the job had, according to the GAO, only recovered only 40 cents for every dollar appropriated to the agency, when other agency IGs recover nearly 9 dollars.

Martin told Rockefeller that it's important for the IG to prioritize, and go after the big-ticket contracts where there is the most potential for abuse. He also says it's important to "assess the auditors, and assess our staff", and he told the chairman that "if we need to reposition people, we will do that."

So far, no date has been set for the full Senate Commerce Committee to vote on the nominations of Robinson and Martin.

------
On the Web:

Senate Commerce Science and Transportation Committee - Nominations Hearing 10/15/09

(Copyright 2009 by FederalNewsRadio.com. All Rights Reserved.)