One Big Beautiful Bill Extends the PRAC
Whatever you may think of now enacted One Big Beautiful Bill recently passed by Congress and signed by President Trump, at least it has one good provision — it has extended the existence of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC), according to sources closely following legislative actions.
The law provided $88 million in new funding for federal fiscal year (FY) 2026 to extend the PRAC through 2034. After the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, Congress provided $40 million for the establishment of the PRAC, which has teamed with federal agency inspectors general to alert agency officials about potential risks and emerging fraud schemes, investigated thousands of pandemic fraud-related cases, and used data to identify potential fraud and other forms of improper payments more quickly. The PRAC and its data analytics center, which has identified pandemic relief program fraud recoveries that have far exceeded the $40 million that Congress appropriated, previously had a mandated sunset date of Sept. 30.
PRAC Executive Director Ken Dieffenbach, in a congressional hearing earlier this year, cited recent GAO recommendations to Congress that urged the creation of a permanent analytic center of excellence to aid the oversight community in identifying improper payments and fraud, adding that this center “could result in $1 billion or more annually in financial benefits.”
The PRAC has access to more than 60 major data sources and more than 1 billion data points, including 127,000 known fraud cases, over 15 million potentially compromised internet protocol addresses, emails, banking data elements, street addresses, Social Security numbers, employer identification numbers, and law enforcement sensitive data items related to known or suspected fraud schemes. The PRAC supports law enforcement efforts to investigate fraud, and has assisted with more than 1,000 investigations with 23,000 subjects under investigation with a potential fraud loss of over $2.4 billion.
A recent substack article from GovIntegrity provides more information on this matter. PRAC officials have stressed the need to use the information it collects to proactively halt fraud before it begins, rather than the federal government constantly being reactive to fraud. We fully agree. Therefore, we are greatly supportive of this move to maintain the PRAC and the good work it continues to do.
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