Newsroom

Ken Dieffenbach, Executive Director of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC), testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship on Wednesday, February 25, 2026, at a hearing titled, “ From Fraud to Recovery: Restoring Integrity in Small Business Programs.” Executive Director Dieffenbach discussed the PRAC’s work overseeing funds related to the pandemic and One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) Act to improve fraud identification and prevention across federal programs, including those intended to help small businesses. “One of the many lessons of the...

Today, Tammy L. Hull, Acting Chair of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE), announced the appointment of William W. Kirk, Inspector General of the U.S. Small Business Administration, to serve as the Chair of CIGIE’s Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC). Mr. Kirk will replace outgoing Acting Chair Michael E. Horowitz, Inspector General of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, who has led the PRAC since April 2020. Ms. Hull appointed Mr. Kirk pursuant to Section 15010 of the Coronavirus...

Ken Dieffenbach, Executive Director of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC), testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Government Operations Subcommittee, on Tuesday, January 13, 2026, at a hearing titled, “ Curbing Federal Fraud: Examining Innovative Tools to Detect and Prevent Fraud in Federal Programs.” With the Subcommittee’s support, in partnership with the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and in recognition of the success of the PRAC model, in July 2025 the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB)...

Washington, DC — Today, Michael E. Horowitz, Acting Chair of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC), announced the release of the PRAC’s Semiannual Report to Congress, which covers the period April 1, 2025 through September 30, 2025. “I’m proud of what the PRAC has accomplished since our creation in 2020. Recognizing the success of our model, in July 2025 Congress passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act which extended the PRAC until 2034 and expanded our jurisdiction to fight fraud in programs funded in the bill,” said Acting Chair Horowitz. “With an expanded mandate and the...

Washington, DC — Today, Michael E. Horowitz, Chair of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC), announced the release of the PRAC’s Semiannual Report to Congress, which covers the period October 1, 2024, through March 31, 2025. “I’m proud of the work that the PRAC, with the support of our partners, has done to advance transparency, accountability, and program integrity over the past five years. The PRAC’s data analytics tool has helped recover for the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars—far more than our total appropriation from Congress. Now, with three months remaining...

Today, the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC) issued a Fraud Prevention Alert that demonstrates how cross-agency partnerships and innovative data analytics—tools Congress provided to the PRAC—can improve program integrity by verifying identities and flagging potential anomalies in applications before taxpayer funds are sent to fraudsters. “Our oversight work during the past five years has detailed federal agencies’ inability to use data to effectively prevent pandemic-related fraud. By contrast, the PRAC’s sophisticated data analytics capabilities allow us to look across federal...