The House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs served subpoenas compelling two top Oracle executives to testify about the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM) contract after the department raised the contract ceiling from roughly $10 billion to nearly $27 billion.
The subpoenas, signed and served Sept. 14, require Oracle Executive Chairman Larry Ellison and Oracle Health CEO Mike Sicilia to testify under oath, according to a press release from Democrats on the committee.
According to the subpoenas, Sicilia is to testify at a hearing on Nov. 19, while Ellison is to testify on Dec. 10.
The action follows the committee’s unanimous 19-0 vote on Sept. 2 to subpoena the executives after Oracle declined to testify at an oversight hearing on the EHRM program. Rep. Maxine Dexter, D-Ore., introduced the subpoena motion during the Sept. 2 hearing.
“This is an important victory for veterans, taxpayers and congressional oversight,” Committee Ranking Member Mark Takano, D-Calif., said in a statement.
“Oracle agreed to testify, backed out, then tried to substitute private conversations for public accountability,” he added. “Nineteen members of this committee, Republicans and Democrats, said that was unacceptable. The subpoenas are signed and served, and Larry Ellison and Mike Sicilia must answer under oath for what veterans will receive in exchange for a contract ceiling tripled behind closed doors.”
The committee’s scrutiny centers on VA’s decision in August to increase the Oracle contract ceiling by nearly $17 billion. The ceiling represents the maximum amount VA can spend through the contract vehicle, with individual work negotiated through task orders.
VA has said “unanticipated complexities” in deploying the Federal EHR caused the department to reach the previous contract ceiling sooner than expected. The department is seeking to continue deployment and support services until all VA medical centers and associated facilities have transitioned to the system. VA also proposed three one-year optional ordering periods that could extend the contract through May 16, 2031.
Lawmakers at the Sept. 2 hearing also questioned how the higher ceiling squares with commitments Sicilia made to Congress in 2022 after Oracle acquired Cerner, the company that originally received the VA contract.
In written testimony at the time, Sicilia said Oracle was committed to delivering the system “without exceeding the contracted cost” and would address performance or workflow problems “at our expense.”
VA Deputy Secretary Paul Lawrence told lawmakers at the Sept. 2 hearing that 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 said.
The contract increase comes as VA continues accelerating deployment of the Federal EHR after a nearly two-year pause. The department halted deployments in April 2023 to address problems at the first implementation sites and resumed deployments in April 2026. As of July, the system had been deployed at 14 of VA’s 164 medical centers.
VA plans to complete Federal EHR deployments across its facilities by 2031. The department has scheduled 26 deployments for 2027. It has not publicly released a deployment schedule beyond next year.