Recommendation: The Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works should direct the Director of Civil Works to determine whether existing tools and capabilities (such as the Corps' analyses and models related to inland harbors' conditions and freight traffic, as well as shoaling effects at coastal ports) can be adapted to help evaluate other factors when allocating funds from the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund. The Corps should report to Congress on the feasibility, limitations, and potential costs and on an estimate of any additional funds needed to use such an approach to meet the statutory requirements.

Agency: Department of Defense: Department of the Army: Office of the Assistant Secretary (Civil Works)
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with our recommendation. As of December 2019, officials from the Corps stated that they are working to develop additional metrics for dredging decisions and will brief congressional committees on the results. We will continue to follow the Corps' progress in addressing this recommendation.

Recommendation: To improve USDA's ability to better understand the economic impacts of unintended mixing of GE and other crops, the Secretary of Agriculture should direct the Administrator of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to work with all relevant USDA stakeholders, including APHIS and the Organic Working Group, to determine what additional information should be sought in future organic surveys, such as the costs of reshipping and re-storing shipments rejected because of unintended GE presence, as well as the costs associated with finding new buyers for such shipments.

Agency: Department of Agriculture
Status: Open

Comments: In its August 2016 Statement of Action on our report, USDA did not provide any new information on actions it has taken, if any, to implement this recommendation. For example, there was no indication whether stakeholders internal to the department had continued to meet to discuss the 2014 Organic Survey results and how to move forward with future survey questions to obtain additional data, such as data needed to better understand the economic impacts of unintended mixing with GE crops. As of September 2020, USDA did not have an update regarding the implementation of this recommendation. We will continue to follow up on USDA's efforts.

Recommendation: To improve USDA's ability to better understand the economic impacts of unintended mixing of GE and other crops, the Secretary of Agriculture should direct the Administrator of NASS to include producers, growing identity-preserved crops, in addition to organic producers in USDA's survey efforts.

Agency: Department of Agriculture
Status: Open

Comments: In its August 2016 Statement of Action on our report, USDA did not provide any new information on actions it has taken, if any, to implement this recommendation. We continue to believe that USDA should survey producers growing identity-preserved crops regarding their potential economic losses from unintended GE presence, as is being done for organic producers. As we previously reported, U.S. acreage planted to identity-preserved crops is significantly greater than that planted to organic crops; yet, little is known about the economic costs to identity-preserved farmers of unintended mixing. As of September 2020, USDA did not have an update regarding the implementation of this recommendation. We will continue to follow up on USDA's efforts.

Recommendation: To better inform users of the annual monitoring report about the frequency and scope of pesticide tolerance violations, the Secretary of Health and Human Services should direct the Commissioner of FDA to disclose in the agency's annual pesticide monitoring program report which pesticides with EPA-established tolerances the agency did not test for in its pesticide monitoring program and the potential effect of not testing for those pesticides.

Agency: Department of Health and Human Services
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: In February 2020, FDA said that the recommendation should be closed as not implemented. FDA has previously said that it remained concerned that the disclosure of pesticides for which FDA does not test would enable users to more easily circumvent the pesticide monitoring program, which could jeopardize public health and, at a minimum, would undermine FDA's law enforcement efforts. In addition, FDA said that it discloses in its annual reports all pesticides tested for within the reports' annual scope as required by the Pesticide Monitoring Improvements Act of 1988. FDA's annual reports also clarify that not all pesticides for which EPA has established tolerances were analyzed. FDA said that the Pesticide Monitoring Improvements Act of 1988 does not specifically direct the agency to report information on untested pesticides with EPA-established tolerances. We continue to believe that disclosing the pesticides that are not included in FDA's testing program would be consistent with OMB best practices for reporting limitations relevant to analyzing and interpreting results from a data collection effort. In particular, we continue to believe that FDA should be more transparent about the potential effect of not testing for all pesticides for which EPA has established tolerances. We also note that the Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service implemented a similar recommendation to disclose information about its pesticide monitoring program. As a result, we are keeping this recommendation open.

Recommendation: To reduce the cost of the crop insurance program and achieve budgetary savings for deficit reduction or other purposes, Congress should consider reducing the level of federal premium subsidies for revenue crop insurance policies. In doing so, Congress should consider whether to make the full amount of this reduction in an initial year, or to phase in the full amount of this reduction over several years. In addition, Congress should consider directing the Secretary of Agriculture to monitor and report on the impact, if any, of the reduction on farmer participation in the crop insurance program.

Agency: Congress
Status: Open

Comments: As of March 2020, Congress has not taken action to implement this matter.