Rep. Vicky Hartzler, R-Mo., who chairs the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, held an event to address concerns in the Defense Department‘s clearance process.

The subcommittee’s fourth official event discussed on ongoing efforts to streamline DoD’s process for granting security clearances to employees and contractors, the House Armed Services Committee said Friday.

The current clearance process has prolonged waiting periods and caused a backlog of over 700,000 cases in 2017.

As a result, Congress ordered the department to apply other programs and technologies to streamline and boost the accuracy of the clearance process.

Hartzler convened four recent subcommittee meetings she had with officials from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, Defense Security Service, the National Background Investigations Bureau and the Government Accountability Office.

These meetings revolved around various reports and plans aiming to address issues on the process.