Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the status of the Department of Energy's (DOE) compliance with documentation and reporting requirements for its major system acquisitions (MSA).

GAO found that: (1) as of June 1992, 27 of 37 DOE MSA had progressed beyond the conceptual design stage and had an estimated total project cost of about $35 billion; (2) seven MSA did not have approved mission needs statements providing project justification relative to the DOE mission; (3) nine MSA did not have an approved project plan describing the project and establishing approved cost, schedule, and technical baselines; (4) ten MSA did not have an independent cost estimate for the entire project's total cost, used to validate the original project cost estimate; (5) DOE had not approved key documents for many of the projects because the projects had been in transition to or from MSA status or were being rescoped, revised, or redirected; (6) 8 of the plans were not up to date for 18 MSA which had approved project plans, and several had been out of date for 2 years or more, costing $50 million greater or less than the approved total project cost; and (7) out of date key approval documents and project plans raise questions about the level of involvement DOE management has had in the early stages of many critical projects.