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Open Recommendations

DOE Loan Programs: Actions Needed to Address Authority and Improve Application Reviews
GAO-25-106631
May 08, 2025
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5 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Congress Congress should consider making changes to the authority for LPO's five loan programs or reducing appropriations to reflect what LPO is likely to use before the authority expires. (Matter 1)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Department of Energy The Secretary of Energy should ensure that the Director of LPO directs staff to undertake an annual comprehensive review to identify and correct errors in application review guidance. (Recommendation 1)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Department of Energy The Secretary of Energy should ensure that the Director of LPO directs staff to undertake an annual comprehensive review to assess the completeness and accuracy of its application review documentation, including evaluating any deficiencies in the documents, determining appropriate corrective actions, and evaluating the effectiveness of implemented remedies. (Recommendation 2)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Department of Energy The Secretary of Energy should ensure that the Director of LPO directs staff to undertake an annual comprehensive review to identify application review training needs and to evaluate the extent to which training addressed deficiencies. (Recommendation 3)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Department of Energy The Secretary of Energy should ensure that the Director of LPO updates application review guidance for Section 1703 loans to include an evaluation of whether a project qualifies as innovative at the time the term sheet is issued. (Recommendation 4)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Intellectual Property: Patent Office Should Strengthen Its Efforts to Address Persistent Examination and Quality Challenges
GAO-25-107218
May 07, 2025
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8 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Patent and Trademark Office The Director of the USPTO should identify ongoing initiatives designed to improve patent examination and quality and take steps to ensure that each initiative is following evidence-based policy-making practices to manage and assess results. For example, initiatives should include clear goals and performance measures, and data collection to support evaluation. (Recommendation 1)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Patent and Trademark Office The Director of the USPTO should formalize, document, and implement an approach for creating, managing, and assessing pilot programs that incorporates leading practices for effective pilot program design. (Recommendation 2)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Patent and Trademark Office The Director of the USPTO should update guidance to better ensure that supervisory quality reviews result in a valid assessment of examiner performance. This should include consideration of how office actions are selected for supervisory quality reviews and how identified errors are reflected in data. (Recommendation 3)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Patent and Trademark Office The Director of the USPTO should implement policies to improve the documentation and transparency of changes made to random quality review outcomes resulting from the OPQA data integrity review process. Such policies should include requiring clear documentation of any change being made to the outcomes, the basis for the change, and the process that led to the change. (Recommendation 4)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Patent and Trademark Office The Director of the USPTO should ensure that the Office of Patent Quality Assessment updates processes to have OPQA's data integrity reviews include an appropriate number of random quality reviews that found compliance. (Recommendation 5)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Patent and Trademark Office The Director of the USPTO should establish an overall statutory patent quality compliance goal and communicate how that goal relates to the issuance of quality patents. (Recommendation 6)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Inflation Reduction Act: Opportunities Exist to Help Ensure GSA Programs Achieve Intended Results
GAO-25-107349
Apr 29, 2025
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3 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
General Services Administration The Administrator of GSA should ensure that the Commissioner of the Public Buildings Service develops a decision-making framework with criteria for evaluating and selecting high-performance green building projects to help ensure GSA makes sound capital investment decisions for its high-performance green building program. (Recommendation 1)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
General Services Administration The Administrator of GSA should ensure that the Commissioner of the Public Buildings Service establishes interim targets with time frames for each of GSA's IRA performance goals. (Recommendation 2)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
General Services Administration The Administrator of GSA should ensure that the Commissioner of the Public Buildings Service publishes all of GSA's IRA performance goals, along with periodic updates on GSA's progress toward meeting the goals, in a single source, such as GSA's IRA website, that is readily available to the agency's stakeholders, including Congress and the public. The statement of each performance goal should include a quantitative target and a time frame for achieving the target. To the extent that GSA has established interim targets with time frames, the goal statements should also include those. (Recommendation 3)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Administrative Burden: OMB Should Update Instructions to Help Agency Assessment Efforts
GAO-25-107239
Apr 21, 2025
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Management and Budget The Director of the Office of Management and Budget should update OMB's supporting statement instructions for information collection requests to fully incorporate all of the elements of its burden reduction guidance.
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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