The House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs voted unanimously on Sept. 2 to subpoena two Oracle executives after lawmakers from both parties sharply criticized the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the company over a nearly $17 billion increase to the ceiling of VA’s Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM) contract.
The committee voted 19-0 to subpoena Oracle Chairman and Chief Technology Officer Larry Ellison and Oracle Health CEO Mike Sicilia. Rep. Maxine Dexter, D-Ore., introduced the motion after Oracle declined to testify at the hearing, which provided a status update on the EHRM program.
The vote capped a contentious, bipartisan hearing focused largely on VA’s decision last month to increase the Oracle contract ceiling from roughly $10 billion to nearly $27 billion.
Lawmakers said they learned about the nearly $17 billion ceiling increase through news reports rather than directly from VA or Oracle.
“This has been the biggest boondoggle I’ve ever seen,” Committee Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill., said of the contract. “The frustration that we feel on this committee and the subcommittee as well is beyond measure.”
Lawmakers repeatedly pointed to commitments Oracle made in 2022 after acquiring Cerner, the original company awarded the VA contract with a ceiling of $10 billion. In written testimony that year, Sicilia said Oracle was committed to delivering the EHR system “without exceeding the contracted cost” and would fix performance or workflow issues “at our expense.”
VA Deputy Secretary Paul Lawrence said he could not explain how that commitment factored into the latest contract modification.
“I’ve got to figure out what was promised and see how our acquisition folks dealt with that,” Lawrence told lawmakers.
Lawrence defended the new ceiling, saying VA needed the additional capacity to complete deployments through 2031 and was confident it would be sufficient. The contract ceiling represents the maximum VA can spend under the vehicle, with individual work negotiated through task orders.
When pressed on whether VA would eventually seek another increase, Lawrence said, “The answer is no. We’re not going to come back and ask for more money.”
However, Government Accountability Office (GAO) Director of Information Technology and Cybersecurity Carol Harris told lawmakers that VA still has not provided GAO with the underlying analysis needed to validate its overall cost projections.
VA provided a life cycle cost estimate last year projecting $37.2 billion to complete deployments at all 170 VA sites by 2031 and another $19.3 billion for 10 years of operations and sustainment, bringing the total to $56.5 billion. But Harris said that figure excludes costs incurred by the Veterans Health Administration and VA’s Office of Information and Technology, making it incomplete and unreliable.
That number also differs from the $48 billion life cycle cost estimate that Lawrence frequently referenced throughout the hearing. Lawrence described that estimate as roughly $37 billion for deployment plus another $11 billion for sustainment.
Harris said GAO received the same VA document Lawrence referenced, but noted that the document also identifies another $8 billion in sustainment costs, bringing the total to $56.5 billion.
“I’m not quite sure” why VA and GAO were citing different totals, Harris said, stressing that VA still has not provided the underlying analysis needed to validate the estimate.
“We have an outstanding request with VA to provide us with the underlying documentation,” Harris said. “It’s been over a year at this point, and typically, if we haven’t received it, I have red flags about whether it exists.”
GAO has also not received an updated integrated master schedule that would allow the watchdog to determine whether VA’s 2031 completion target is realistic.
Despite the criticism, Harris acknowledged that VA’s recent deployments have gone more smoothly than the first six EHR rollouts. VA has deployed the system across Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana this year and plans additional go-lives in Cleveland and Anchorage in October. The department plans another 26 deployments in 2027.
Still, Harris cautioned that places like Michigan had years to prepare because their deployments were initially planned before VA placed the program into a reset in 2023. Other facilities will have less preparation time.
“[The next rollout may look different], and I wouldn’t be surprised by that because the runway that Indiana had was not the same as what Michigan had in comparison,” Harris said. “Time will tell how effective VA has been in implementing those change management strategies.”
Lawrence maintained that the program is now “back on track,” telling lawmakers that VA has improved training, site preparation, and senior-level oversight as it accelerates deployments.
But Ranking Member Mark Takano, D-Calif., argued that VA is moving too quickly without completing an independent operational assessment recommended by GAO.
“Employees in Michigan, Southern Ohio, and Indiana are telling us that many of the issues identified by the first six sites still have not been fixed,” Takano added.
The committee’s subpoena vote ensures the oversight fight will continue, this time with lawmakers seeking answers directly from Oracle about the higher contract ceiling and the company’s role in bringing the long-running modernization program to completion.