Recommendation: The Commissioner of FDA should establish a process for the agency to communicate directly with all U.S.-based commercial airlines, including regional airlines, to encourage them to request construction inspections to ensure compliance with the agency's standards for the sanitary construction of aircraft galleys and lavatories. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Health and Human Services: Food and Drug Administration
Status: Open

Comments: HHS concurs with GAO's recommendation. FDA agrees that enhancing communication with U.S.-based commercial airlines, including major national and regional commuter airlines, to encourage them to request construction inspections can have a positive impact on efforts to gain compliance with the Agency's standards for aircraft galley and lavatory sanitation and potable water system installation. FDA has a long history of working collaboratively with interstate travel conveyance stakeholders to provide public health oversight to the industry. As part of this collaboration, FDA and the airline industry connect through a variety of mechanisms to provide access to diverse industry partners. To effectively engage all relevant stakeholders, FDA will consider ways to enhance current mechanisms and coordinate with airlines on better communication. FDA will review its existing outreach channels to allow airline stakeholders to actively and directly engage with the Agency on construction inspections. FDA will review its Interstate Travel Program website to determine if updates can be made to emphasize airline construction and reconstruction information. FDA maintains open dialog with airline organizations, including the Airlines for America (A4A), the Regional Airline Association (RAA), and the International Flight Services Association (IFSA). Members of A4A are comprised of major national airlines, whereas those of RAA are comprised of regional commuter airlines and those in IFSA include airlines and airline food suppliers. These industry associations are valuable partners in developing solutions to problems that concern the airlines and airline construction. FDA will continue to engage with these organizations in written correspondence and at relevant national industry meetings (such as the Environmental Protection Agency biennial meeting on aircraft drinking water safety) and will include the topic of construction inspections. FDA will also continue to use these existing mechanisms to develop a better communication process with the airline industry on its efforts to improve industry practice and government oversight.

Recommendation: FERC should review its current interagency agreements that pertain to its onshore LNG permitting process, and implement any needed updates. FERC's review should include input from cooperating agencies and CEQ. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
Status: Open

Comments: In FERC's comments on a draft of our report, the Chairman of the Commission agreed with our findings and recommendations and stated that he has directed FERC staff to develop appropriate steps to implement the recommendations.

Recommendation: Once FERC has completed the review and implemented any necessary updates to interagency agreements, FERC should establish a process to regularly conduct such reviews and, as necessary, update the agreements. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
Status: Open

Comments: In FERC's comments on a draft of our report, the Chairman of the Commission agreed with our findings and recommendations and stated that he has directed FERC staff to develop appropriate steps to implement the recommendations.

Recommendation: FERC should review its LNG regulations and replace the reference to the outdated 1984 earthquake standard. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
Status: Open

Comments: In FERC's comments on a draft of our report, the Chairman of the Commission agreed with our findings and recommendations and stated that he has directed FERC staff to develop appropriate steps to implement the recommendations.

Recommendation: FERC should establish a process to conduct a standards-specific review of regulations that incorporate standards every 3 to 5 years and to update the regulations, if necessary. (Recommendation 4)

Agency: Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
Status: Open

Comments: In FERC's comments on a draft of our report, the Chairman of the Commission agreed with our findings and recommendations and stated that he has directed FERC staff to develop appropriate steps to implement the recommendations.

Recommendation: The Administrator of PHMSA should conduct a standards-specific review of regulations that incorporate standards and, if necessary, update the regulations or document its decision for not updating them. (Recommendation 5)

Agency: Department of Transportation: Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration
Status: Open

Comments: In the Department of Transportation's comments on a draft of our report, the department concurred with our recommendation and said that PHMSA is currently developing a proposed rule that would incorporate updated standards, as described in our report.

Recommendation: The Administrator of PHMSA should establish a process to conduct a standards-specific review of regulations that incorporate standards every 3 to 5 years and to update the regulations, if necessary. (Recommendation 6)

Agency: Department of Transportation: Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration
Status: Open

Comments: In the Department of Transportation's comments on a draft of our report, the department concurred with our recommendation and said that PHMSA has established a timeline for conducting a standards-specific review of LNG facility regulations every 3 to 5 years. We plan to follow-up on the status of the recommendation.

Recommendation: The Commandant of the Coast Guard should conduct a standards-specific review of the Coast Guard's regulations that incorporate standards and, if necessary, update the regulations or document its decision for not updating them. (Recommendation 7)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: United States Coast Guard
Status: Open

Comments: In the Department of Homeland Security's comments on a draft of our report, the department concurred with our recommendation and stated that it conducts such reviews as part of its ongoing public rulemaking process. We plan to follow-up on the status of the recommendation.

Recommendation: The Commandant of the Coast Guard should update the agency's process for conducting standards-specific reviews to include time frames for completing such reviews every 3 to 5 years. (Recommendation 8)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: United States Coast Guard
Status: Open

Comments: In the Department of Homeland Security's comments on a draft of our report, the department concurred with our recommendation and stated that the Coast Guard is in the process of updating its policy, "Standards Program For Marine Safety, Security, and Environmental Protection Programs," with timeframes for completing standards-specific reviews. The department estimated this would be completed in September 2021.

Recommendation: The Commandant of the Coast Guard should develop and implement workforce planning for the Office of Operating and Environmental Standards that addresses the four remaining key principles for strategic workforce planning. (Recommendation 9)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: United States Coast Guard
Status: Open

Comments: In the Department of Homeland Security's comments on a draft of our report, the department concurred with our recommendation and stated that it is in the process of updating its Manpower Requirements Plan to include timeframes and milestones for completing manpower requirements analyses and determinations for positions and units. The Coast Guard anticipates promulgating the updated plan in March 2022.

Recommendation: The Secretary of the Army should ensure that the Assistant Chief of Staff for Installation Management, in conjunction with the Centers of Standardization and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, establish and implement performance measures to assess the progress the Centers are making in ensuring that standard designs are used consistently. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Defense: Department of the Army
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with this April 2020 recommendation. In June 2020, DOD provided information that it had developed a corrective action plan and identified an action officer to lead implementation of this recommendation. DOD stated that it is developing a sampling plan with criteria to consider for assessing the consistent use of standard designs. DOD stated that it would identify projects that were completed during the year that used standard designs and that it would then assess the progress that the Centers are making in ensuring that standard designs are used consistently by sampling from the completed projects. DOD stated that, based on the results of this analysis, it would adjust the metrics and frequency of future analyses, as appropriate. DOD stated that it expects this effort to be completed in Spring 2021.

Recommendation: The Secretary of the Army should ensure that the Assistant Chief of Staff for Installation Management, in conjunction with the Centers of Standardization and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, establish and implement performance measures to assess the effects of the use of standard designs, specifically the progress the Centers are making in reducing design costs and time, construction costs and time, and change orders. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Department of Defense: Department of the Army
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with this April 2020 recommendation. In June 2020, DOD provided information that it had developed a corrective action plan and stated that it planned to establish relevant performance measures to analyze efforts to reduce design costs and time, construction costs and time, and the number of change orders. DOD stated that it expects to develop standards containing the metrics, frequency of analysis, and means of reporting. DOD stated that it expects to present the results of its analysis at the FY2020 Military Programs After Action Review in January 2021.

Recommendation: The Director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services should work with the Assistant Secretary for the Employment and Training Administration to assess options for changing the H-2B visa program and, as warranted, implement changes or submit proposed legislative changes to Congress. DHS and DOL could consider options included in their June 2019 report to Congress and identify those that may be implemented cost effectively and without adversely affecting U.S. workers. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: United States Citizenship and Immigration Services
Status: Open

Comments: DHS agreed with this recommendation and noted that it plans to work further with DOL to explore options for improving the H-2B visa program and possibly develop proposals for legislative changes.

Recommendation: The Assistant Secretary for the Employment and Training Administration should work with the Director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to assess options for changing the H-2B visa program and, as warranted, implement changes or submit proposed legislative changes to Congress. DOL and DHS could consider options included in their June 2019 report to Congress and identify those that may be implemented cost effectively and without adversely affecting U.S. workers. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Department of Labor: Employment and Training Administration
Status: Open

Comments: DOL agreed with this recommendation. DOL said it is prepared to work with DHS to consider options for changing the H-2B program and to provide any technical assistance that Congress may need on this issue. We will monitor the agency's progress to implement this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services should work with the Assistant Secretary for the Employment and Training Administration to assess the advantages and disadvantages of considering current economic trends in determining the appropriate number of additional H-2B visas to provide when given this authority by Congress and, as warranted, implement an approach that considers such trends. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: United States Citizenship and Immigration Services
Status: Open

Comments: DHS did not agree with this recommendation. DHS said it would continue to work with DOL-as it has done in prior years--if and when Congress delegates the authority to make additional H-2B visas available beyond the statutory cap to DHS. The agency also expressed its view that Congress is better positioned to determine whether and how many additional visas should be made available to meet the needs of U.S. businesses. In fiscal years 2017 through 2020, DHS was authorized to increase the number of H-2B visas beyond the statutory cap, after consulting with DOL to determine that "the needs of American businesses [could not] be satisfied...with United States workers..." In exercising this authority in prior years, DHS stated that "[t]he scope of the assessment called for by the statute [in making this determination] is quite broad, and accordingly delegates the Secretary of Homeland Security broad discretion to identify the business needs [s]he finds most relevant." In light of DHS's broad view of its authority, we continue to believe that it would be appropriate for DHS, in consultation with DOL, to assess the advantages and disadvantages of considering current economic trends in determining the appropriate number of additional H-2B visas to provide. If they determine that using such data would be warranted, the agencies would then be well positioned to implement such an approach if DHS is granted such authority in the future. Moreover, if-as DHS stated in its response to our recommendation-the agency believes that Congress is best suited to determine what increases in visa numbers may be needed to meet the needs of U.S. businesses, consistent with protecting American workers, it may wish to work with Congress to draft a legislative proposal reflecting this view.

Recommendation: The Assistant Secretary for the Employment and Training Administration should work with the Director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to assess the advantages and disadvantages of considering current economic trends in determining the appropriate number of additional H-2B visas to provide when given this authority by Congress and, as warranted, implement an approach that considers such trends. (Recommendation 4)

Agency: Department of Labor: Employment and Training Administration
Status: Open

Comments: DOL agreed with this recommendation. The agency plans to draw on its data on labor market and economic trends to provide technical assistance to DHS on the determination of how many additional H-2B visas to make available.

Recommendation: The Assistant Secretary for the Employment and Training Administration should take steps to target its audits of H-2B employers to employers with the highest likelihood of violating program requirements; such steps could include moving ahead with developing a system for identifying trends in H-2B employer audit outcomes. (Recommendation 5)

Agency: Department of Labor: Employment and Training Administration
Status: Open

Comments: DOL agreed with this recommendation. DOL noted that while further development of a system for tracking industry and occupational trends in H-2B employer violations is currently on hold due to budgetary constraints, when this system is available it will provide the capacity to take a risk-based approach to selecting employers for audits. We will monitor the agency's progress to implement this recommendation.

Recommendation: GSA should assess and address the reliability of the information used to calculate reported cost savings for the broker program. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: General Services Administration
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: In June 2020, GSA said the agency would validate system data through regional and broker outreach and fully utilize validated system data to manage the broker program. The agency also said it will develop a quality control plan and follow-up on outcomes. We will continue to monitor GSA's progress with implementing this recommendation.

Recommendation: GSA should develop outcome-based metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of using brokers to supplement the GSA's leasing workforce. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: General Services Administration
Status: Open

Comments: Although GSA initially did not concur with this recommendation, the agency stated in June 2020 that it agrees with the recommendation and will take steps to implement it. Specifically, GSA plans to revise the broker performance standards and document broker effectiveness through lease cost avoidance, timely lease replacement, and earned commission credits. We will continue to monitor GSA's progress with implementing this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Defense should ensure that the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment, in collaboration with the military departments, provide updated guidance for the oversight of privatized military housing, to include oversight objectives for each service to monitor the physical condition of privatized homes over the remaining duration of the ground leases. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Defense: Office of the Secretary of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: The Department of Defense (DOD) concurred with this recommendation. In its August 2020 response, DOD noted that the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment (ASD (S)), as the Chief Housing Officer, issued guidance requiring the military departments to monitor work order completion for housing privatized under the Military Housing Privatization Initiative based on a combination of resident input, timeliness of work order completion, and number of repeat work orders for the same repair. The guidance also required increased tracking of MHPI project work orders by installation staff. Moving forward, the ASD(S) plans to issue quarterly program review guidance that establishes oversight objectives for the military departments to monitor the physical condition of MHPI housing over the duration of their project ground leases, formalizing the requirement that the data be monitored by the Chief Housing Officer. DOD expects this to be completed by December 2020. We will continue to monitor the status of this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Secretary of the Army should take steps, in collaboration with the Army's private housing partners, to review the indicators underlying the privatized housing project performance metrics to ensure they provide an accurate reflection of the condition and quality of the homes. (Recommendation 2

Agency: Department of Defense: Department of the Army: Office of the Secretary
Status: Open

Comments: The Department of Defense (DOD) concurred with this recommendation. In its August 2020 response, DOD noted that the Secretary of the Army has taken several steps toward addressing this recommendation. For example, the Army published the Portfolio and Asset Management Handbook creating a multi-tiered assessment approach of performance metrics to measure the health of each privatized home through inspection, assessment, satisfaction, and feedback. The Army and the private housing partners revised the Incentive Fee Performance Management Plan, placing increased emphasis on resident satisfaction and work order/maintenance management. The Army also put Commanders in charge, ensuring Army leadership at every Army installation is tracking housing quality and safety. In late 2020, the Army plans to review and evaluate these actions and make a determination by 31 Jan 2021 if any changes or revisions are needed to best implement the recommendation. As such, we will continue to monitor the status of this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Secretary of the Air Force should take steps, in collaboration with the Air Force's private housing partners, to review the indicators underlying the privatized housing project performance metrics to ensure they provide an accurate reflection of the condition and quality of the homes. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: Department of Defense: Department of the Air Force: Office of the Secretary of the Air Force
Status: Open

Comments: The Department of Defense (DOD) concurred with this recommendation. In its August 2020 response, DOD noted that the Air Force is engaging in several steps to address this recommendation. Specifically, in March 2020, the Air Force tasked each of the Military Housing Offices to inspect all move-in, move-out, and change of occupancy maintenance events and all emergency, urgent, and life, health, and safety work orders, which is outlined in Air Force guidance. The Air Force is also engaging in several ongoing actions. In response to a memo to the military departments to provide consistency of performance incentive fees, the Air Force was negotiating with the privatized housing project owners to update performance incentive fee metrics in accordance with ASD directed categories and weightings. As of August 2020, agreements had been finalized with 2 partners and work was ongoing with the remaining partners. In addition, the Air Force was working with the project owners to deploy Satisfacts, a survey tool to independently measure resident satisfaction with projects' work order performance, across all Air Force projects with an expected completion by December 2020. We will continue to monitor the status of these recommendations.

Recommendation: The Secretary of the Navy should take steps, in collaboration with the Navy and Marine Corps' private housing partners, to review the indicators underlying the privatized housing project performance metrics to ensure they provide an accurate reflection of the condition and quality of the homes. (Recommendation 4)

Agency: Department of Defense: Department of the Navy: Office of the Secretary
Status: Open

Comments: The Department of Defense (DOD) concurred with this recommendation. In its August 2020 response, DOD noted that the Navy and Marine Corps are engaging in several steps to address this recommendation. Specifically, the Navy and Marine Corps have developed a centralized electronic data warehouse, which receives data from privatized housing partner maintenance systems to display work order and survey performance dashboards. By February 2021, the Navy expects to complete the development of metrics displayed by the data warehouse to include key service call performance metrics and resident feedback data. The Navy and Marine Corps are also developing a web-based monitoring matrix tool housing officials can use to evaluate the performance of privatized housing partners. The tool is intended to provide improved tracking capabilities and improved accessibility to information, thus providing more consistent oversight and improved advocacy service members and their families. The Navy is also working to hire 247 additional Navy and Marine Corps housing staff to review and analyze private partner provided recurring maintenance and customer satisfaction reports in an effort to strengthen oversight and monitoring, with an estimated completion of September 2020. Moving forward, we will continue to monitor the status of these and other efforts.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Defense should ensure that the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment, in collaboration with the military departments and private housing partners, establish minimum data requirements and consistent terminology and practices for work order data collection for comparability across installations and projects and to track trends over time. (Recommendation 5)

Agency: Department of Defense: Office of the Secretary of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: e Department of Defense (DOD) partially concurred with this recommendation. In its August 2020 response, DOD stated that the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment (ASD(S)), as the Chief Housing Officer, plans to issue a policy directing the military departments to establish, to the maximum extent practical, minimum data requirements and consistent terminology and practices for MHPI housing unit work order collection to aid in comparability across installations and projects, and for tracking trends over time. However, DOD noted that the department cannot mandate changes to existing MHPI project legal documents. DOD estimates that this effort will be completed by December 2021. We will continue to monitor the status of this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Defense should ensure that the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment require the military departments to establish a process to validate data collected by the private housing partners to better ensure the reliability and validity of work order data and to allow for more effective use of these data for monitoring and tracking purposes. (Recommendation 6)

Agency: Department of Defense: Office of the Secretary of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: The Department of Defense (DOD) concurred with this recommendation. In its August 2020 response, DOD noted that the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment (ASD(S)), as the Chief Housing Officer, issued guidance directing the military departments to exercise proper oversight to ensure Military Housing Privatization Initiative (MHPI) projects perform in accordance with legal agreements, to include due diligence in monitoring and auditing project maintenance records and other project performance data. The guidance also required military departments to review their entire portfolios of MHPI projects to ensure accurate and appropriate work order management processes. In response to the new guidance, DOD noted that the military departments put in place appropriate oversight measures and undertook the required reviews, though the investigations of project business practices were ongoing in some cases. As another step, the ASD(S) plans to issue guidance directing the military departments to establish a process to validate data collected by their respective MHPI Project Owners to better ensure the reliability and validity of work order data and to allow for more effective use of these data for monitoring and tracking purposes. DOD expects this to be completed by the end of September 2020. We will continue to monitor the status of this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Defense should ensure the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment, in collaboration with the military departments, develop a process for collecting and calculating resident satisfaction data from the military departments to ensure that the data are compiled and calculated in a standardized and accurate way. (Recommendation 7)

Agency: Department of Defense: Office of the Secretary of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: The Department of Defense (DOD) partially concurred with this recommendation based on the fact that the draft report listed the incorrect office as the source for addressing the deficiency, but subsequently changed its response to concur after the recommendation was directed to the appropriate office in the final report. In its August 2020 response, DOD noted that the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment (ASD(S)) plans to issue guidance establishing a department-wide process for collecting and calculating resident satisfaction data to ensure that the data are compiled and calculated in a standardized and accurate way effective with the survey collection effort in Fiscal Year 2021. The department expects this effort to be completed by October 2020. We will continue to monitor the status of this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Defense should ensure the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment provides additional explanation of the data collected and reported in future reports to Congress, such as explaining the limitations of available survey data, how resident satisfaction was calculated, and reasons for any missing data, among other things. (Recommendation 8)

Agency: Department of Defense: Office of the Secretary of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: The Department of Defense (DOD) partially concurred with this recommendation. In its August 2020 response, DOD noted that the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment (ASD(S)) would provide additional explanation of the MHPI resident satisfaction data collected and reported in future annual Military Housing Privatization Initiative (MHPI) reports to Congress, effective with the annual report covering fiscal year 2019. DOD noted that the additional information will include, among other things, an explanation of the limitations of available survey data, how resident satisfaction was calculated, and reasons for any missing data. As of August 2020, the annual MHPI report covering fiscal year 2018 was in final coordination and the department noted that the report would addresses a vast majority, but not all, of the requirements identified in our recommendation. DOD noted that the additional information would be provided in the next annual MHPI report. We will continue to monitor the status of this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Secretary of the Army should develop and implement a plan to clearly and systematically communicate to residents the difference between the military housing office and the private partner. At a minimum, these plans should include the Army housing office's roles, responsibilities, locations, and contact information and should ensure that all residents are aware that they can directly contact Army housing office officials. (Recommendation 9)

Agency: Department of Defense: Department of the Army: Office of the Secretary
Status: Open

Comments: The Department of Defense (DOD) concurred with this recommendation. In its response, DOD noted that the Army developed a "Plain Language" briefing as required by the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act that included the Army Housing Office's roles, responsibilities, location, and contact information at each privatized housing project site. DOD noted that the intent of the briefing was to ensure that all residents were aware of their ability to directly contact Army Housing Office and/or the Garrison Commanders. DOD stated that the briefing was disseminated to all of the Military Housing Offices, who are using it in newcomer briefings, and stated that the briefing would be provided to all current residents of privatized military housing, but that measure would not be tracked due to attrition. In addition, DOD noted that Headquarters, Department of the Army was tasking Army Materiel Command to develop a more detailed plan to communicate to residents the difference between the Army Housing Office and the private housing partner. The Army's intent is to not only capture residents upon their arrival at an installation, but making the services of the MHO known over the duration of a resident's time on at installation. We will continue to monitor the status of this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Secretary of the Navy should develop and implement a plan to clearly and systematically communicate to residents the difference between the military housing office and the private partner. At a minimum, these plans should include the Navy housing office's roles, responsibilities, locations, and contact information and should ensure that all residents are aware that they can directly contact Navy housing office officials. (Recommendation 11)

Agency: Department of Defense: Department of the Navy: Office of the Secretary
Status: Open

Comments: The Department of Defense (DOD) concurred with this recommendation. In its August 2020 response, DOD noted that the Navy has taken various steps to address this recommendation, with additional steps planned. For example, the Navy has ensured that each installation has a specific issue resolution process description marketing flyer available, both in hard copy and on the public housing websites, with a reminder that residents can contact both the privatized housing property manager and the Navy housing office with any issues. Moreover, every housing unit has been provided with a refrigerator magnet reminding residents that they can and should contact the Navy housing office if they have any issues with their home. In addition, the Navy and Marine Corps have established a requirement to contact each privatized housing resident not later than 15 days after move-in and again 60 days after move-in to provide an opportunity to request assistance and remind them of available support. Moving forward, the Navy has an ongoing effort to require private housing companies to market the same messaging as the service issue resolution processes for the MHOs that they support, for consistent advocacy messaging to the tenants. The information will be added to PPV partner websites, printed material and resident handbooks. The Navy also plans to use its annual survey to tracks resident satisfaction and awareness of the Navy's issue resolution process, with expected completion by October 2020. In addition, the Marine Corps has identified a near-term initiative to procure name tags for all MHO employees to wear, identifying themselves as distinct and separate from privatized housing property management company, which will be standardized across all USMC installations. The Marine Corps also plans to develop a standard welcome aboard package to include magnets and other items with key point of contact information. The Marine Corps expects these efforts to be completed by the end of September 2020.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Defense should ensure that the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment, in collaboration with the military departments, assess the risks of proposed initiatives aimed at improving the privatized military housing program on the financial viability of the projects. (Recommendation 12)

Agency: Department of Defense: Office of the Secretary of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: The Department of Defense (DOD) concurred with this recommendation. In its August 2020 response, DOD noted that the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment, as the Chief Housing Officer, planned to issue a policy establishing the assessment of Military Housing Privatization Initiative (MHPI) project financial viability as part of quarterly program reviews as a long-term requirement. The department noted that the program review data would be augmented by input from the MHPI companies, who are assessing the likely impact of proposed initiatives in conjunction with their third party lenders. The department expected this effort to be completed by December 2020. We will continue to monitor the status of this recommendation.

Recommendation: The U.S. Commissioner of the IBWC should work with the Mexican Commissioner to formalize a binational rapid response team to address sewage infrastructure failures along the U.S.-Mexico border, including the Nogales and South Bay wastewater treatment plants. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: International Boundary and Water Commission, United States and Mexico
Status: Open

Comments: In July 2020, USIBWC stated that two teams have been established with members, one in the Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Sonora region and one in the San Diego and Tijuana region. IBWC continues to take actions to formalize the binational rapid response teams. We will review the final documents for each team when they are completed and available.

Recommendation: The U.S. Commissioner of the IBWC should direct USIBWC staff to conduct long-term capital planning for the Santa Cruz River Basin and Tijuana River Valley watersheds, following the principles in OMB Circular A-11. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: International Boundary and Water Commission, United States and Mexico
Status: Open

Comments: In July 2020, the U.S. Commissioner of the IBWC stated that it had conducted long-term capital planning for the facilities for which it is responsible. They noted the 5-year plan that USIBWC had developed for the South Bay plant and the 10-year plan that it had developed for the Nogales plant. We noted these plans in our original report and stated that they needed to be broadened to identify needs in the Santa Cruz River Basin and Tijuana River Valley watersheds. The agency only partially concurred with our recommendation in the report and noted that to the extent our report envisions USIBWC undertaking long-term capital planning for (1) nonfederal infrastructure; (2) infrastructure that does not yet exist; and/or (3) infrastructure that the USIBWC is not yet authorized to construct or maintain, it does not concur. The agency is a key player in managing water quality on the border and has the infrastructure and organization that will be part of the solution. Without the information that USIBWC would generate by comprehensively assessing its long-term needs, such as through long-term capital planning efforts, Congress cannot authorize specific work that needs to be done. We recommended that the agency conduct long-term planning, including for infrastructure that does not exist and for infrastructure that is not yet authorized specifically to address this problem. We continue to believe that USIBWC should recognize its role along the border and start planning for it, including by undertaking long-term capital planning for existing and potential future infrastructure and identifying alternatives to address the long-standing water quality problems.

Recommendation: The Administrator of the General Services Administration should expand its outreach as appropriate to obtain feedback from lessors that are representative of its entire lease portfolio. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: General Services Administration: Office of the Administrator
Status: Open

Comments: GSA agreed with this recommendation. In its 180-day letter to the congressional clients dated March 25, 2020, GSA stated that it would provide additional documentation of invitations to its industry outreach efforts. We will review this information when it is available.

Recommendation: The Administrator of the General Services Administration should, for future outreach efforts, document and assess lessors' feedback about the leasing process. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: General Services Administration: Office of the Administrator
Status: Open

Comments: GSA agreed with this recommendation. In its 180-day letter to the congressional clients dated March 25, 2020, GSA stated that it would document and assess the feedback received from lessors during its outreach efforts. We will review this information when it is available.

Recommendation: The Administrator of the General Services Administration should evaluate whether the simplified lease model is achieving its intended results. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: General Services Administration: Office of the Administrator
Status: Open

Comments: GSA agreed with this recommendation. In its 180-day letter to the congressional clients dated March 25, 2020, GSA stated that it would evaluate its simplified lease model and provide documentation of the evaluation's methodology, findings, and recommendations. We will review information related to this evaluation when it is available.

Recommendation: The Administrator of the GSA should report for Congress and the public—for example, on GSA's prospectus website—the extent to which completed projects' construction costs and schedules were rebaselined and final construction costs, to include any additional funding tenant agencies may have provided to GSA for changes. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: General Services Administration: Office of the Administrator
Status: Open

Comments: The General Services Administration (GSA) partially concurred with this recommendation. On February 6, 2020, GSA stated that it will publish summary schedule and budget results for completed projects on GSA's public-accessible prospectus website. GAO will continue to monitor GSA's actions related to this recommendation and update information accordingly.

Recommendation: The Administrator of the GSA should update its 2005 Commissioning Guide—or replace it with appropriate industry-recognized standards and guidance—to be consistent with GSA's current design standards and industry practices. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: General Services Administration: Office of the Administrator
Status: Open

Comments: GSA concurred with this recommendation, and on February 6, 2020, stated that GSA will publish updated Commissioning Guidance. GAO will continue to monitor GSA's actions related to this recommendation and update information accordingly.

Recommendation: The Administrator of the GSA should identify and communicate—such as through policy, guidance, or other appropriate mechanism—(a) when and how Post Occupancy Evaluations should be conducted for completed projects considering resource constraints and (b) how recommendations or lessons learned from those evaluations are effectively communicated to future project teams. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: General Services Administration: Office of the Administrator
Status: Open

Comments: GSA concurred with this recommendation, and on February 6, 2020, stated that GSA will publish program guidance on how and when Post Occupancy Evaluations are conducted and communicate recommendations or lessons learned to future project teams. GAO will continue to monitor GSA's actions related to this recommendation and update information accordingly.

Recommendation: The FEMA Administrator should assess the need for an agency-wide consolidated standard operating procedures document for the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program that provides detailed information on the roles and responsibilities, requirements, and key tasks and milestones for monitoring and closing out program projects. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: Directorate of Emergency Preparedness and Response: Federal Emergency Management Agency
Status: Open

Comments: The agency agreed with this recommendation and is working to address it.

Recommendation: The Administrator of FHWA should require FHWA division offices to document the rationale for classifying projects as emergency repairs, such as a description of why an emergency repair is necessary and which alternative strategies or repairs were considered, and to more clearly define the circumstances under which projects are classified as emergency repairs, including what constitutes restoration of essential traffic. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Transportation: Federal Highway Administration
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: DOT concurred with our recommendation and FHWA stated it plans to issue a memo to its division offices to implement it by June 2020. We will continue to monitor the department's efforts to implement our recommendation.

Recommendation: The Administrator of FHWA should identify a specific timeline for clarifying the policy on the acceptable time frames for accomplishing emergency repair projects undertaken under expedited contracting and environmental requirements, and require FHWA division offices to document the rationale for decisions to extend projects beyond these time frames. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Department of Transportation: Federal Highway Administration
Status: Open

Comments: DOT concurred with our recommendation and FHWA stated it plans to issue a decision memo to its division offices to implement it by June 2020. We will continue to monitor the department's efforts to implement our recommendation.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Veterans Affairs should ensure that the Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs update its cost-estimating procedures for cemetery construction projects to fully incorporate the 12 steps identified in the GAO Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide: Best Practices for Developing and Managing Capital Program Costs.

Agency: Department of Veterans Affairs
Status: Open

Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: The Commandant of the Coast Guard should ensure that the Deputy Commandant for Mission Support implements risk management processes that more fully align with the five key steps outlined in DHS's Critical Infrastructure Risk Management Framework to better guide agency shore infrastructure investment decisions. This should include (1) setting goals and objectives, (2) identifying critical infrastructure, (3) assessing and analyzing risks and costs, (4) implementing risk management activities, and (5) measuring the effectiveness of actions taken. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: United States Coast Guard
Status: Open

Comments: The Coast Guard concurred with the spirit of GAO's recommendation to formalize its shore infrastructure risk management processes. As noted in their formal comment, the Coast Guard was mandated by the DHS Under Secretary for Management to follow risk management guidance outlined in the DHS Resilience Framework in March 2018. The Coast Guard reported that progress towards implementing GAO's recommendation is expected to be concurrent with the development and implementation of the Component Resilience Plan in accordance with the DHS Resilience Framework. According to the Coast Guard, the DHS-mandated Component Resilience Plan assigns a mission criticality level and resilience factor to each shore facility based on a criticality assessment, inter-dependencies between mission essential assets and functions, and risk. It will then align its current resilience factor formulation to that defined through the process in the DHS Resilience Framework. Risks identified through the Framework will be managed through a strategic combination of risk acceptance, mitigation, engineering, and operational controls. The Coast Guard stated that it intends to complete these multiple efforts by the end of 2021. In a March 2020 update, the Coast Guard stated that its Office of Civil Engineering was developing the Work Plan, newly named the 2020 Civil Engineering Program Work Plan: Initiatives and Tactics and said it would include goals and objectives for identifying and addressing infrastructure resilience gaps and resource needs in alignment with the Coast Guard's Component Resilience Plan. The Coast Guard expected to publish this Civil Engineering Work Plan by July 31, 2020, after which it said it would begin implementing and measuring the effectiveness of the actions identified in the Work Plan. In June 2020, the Coast Guard reported that it now anticipates finalizing the Civil Engineering Work Plan by September 30, 2020.

Recommendation: The FTA administrator should ensure that FTA's cost estimating information for project sponsors is consistent with all 12 steps found in GAO's Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide and needed for developing reliable cost estimates. [Recommendation 1]

Agency: Department of Transportation: Federal Transit Administration
Status: Open

Comments: As of March 2020, FTA had posted GAO's Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide to its website. However, FTA has yet to update its cost estimating information, which does not align with GAO's best practices in five areas: (1) risk and uncertainty analysis; (2) sensitivity analysis; (3) identifying ground rules and assumptions; (4) obtaining the data; and (5) presenting cost estimates to management. GAO continues to believe that because FTA's cost estimating information does not align with all 12 steps found in GAO's Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide, FTA lacks reasonable assurance that sponsors have developed and communicated high-quality cost estimates. We will continue to monitor FTA's actions.

Recommendation: The FTA Administrator should provide a central, easily accessible source with all of FTA's cost estimating information to help project sponsors improve the reliability of their cost estimates. [Recommendation 2]

Agency: Department of Transportation: Federal Transit Administration
Status: Open

Comments: As of March 2020, FTA had developed a webpage with some cost estimating information for project sponsors. However, the website did not include key information for project sponsors which FTA had previously provided to GAO for its analysis of cost estimating information. We continue to believe that providing a centralized location to share existing FTA documentation with sponsors, and ensuring that the documentation incorporates best practices from GAO's Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide, such as sensitivity analyses, could improve the reliability of sponsors' cost estimates and could reduce the risk of cost overruns for Capital Investment Grant (CIG) New Starts applicants and grantees. We will continue to monitor FTA's actions to address this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Homeland Security should ensure that the fiscal year 2019 plan includes the statutorily required elements or discloses why any element was not included in the plan. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security
Status: Open

Comments: DHS agreed with our recommendation and in August 2020, DHS issued the Fiscal Year 2019-2020 Border Security Improvement Plan. The plan includes a description and the status for satisfying of each of the 11 statutorily required elements. GAO has on-going work to review the plan.

Recommendation: The CBP Commissioner, in conjunction with the DHS Office of the Chief Readiness Support Officer, should develop and implement a plan to ensure that CBP executes its Facility Condition Assessments (FCA) program by conducting FCAs at each CBP-owned land border crossing consistent with DHS Directive 119-02-004. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: United States Customs and Border Protection
Status: Open

Comments: CBP concurred with the recommendation and, in March 2020, provided a plan for conducting FCAs at some, but not all, CBP-owned land border crossings. According to officials, CBP will update this plan to include all CBP-owned land border crossings and may coordinate with the DHS Office of the Chief Readiness Support Officer to ensure the plan is consistent with DHS Directive 119-02-004. To fully address this recommendation, CBP should complete the FCA plan to include all CBP-owned land border crossings.

Recommendation: The CBP Commissioner should share FCA reports with GSA and use facility condition information in GSA's Building Assessment Tool to inform FCAs. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: United States Customs and Border Protection
Status: Open

Comments: CBP concurred with the recommendation and, in February 2020, GSA confirmed that it received FCA reports from CBP for GSA-owned land border crossings. GSA also confirmed that it provided CBP with a spreadsheet containing data from GSA Building Assessment Tools. To fully address this recommendation, CBP should demonstrate that it is using GSA Building Assessment Tool information to inform its FCAs at GSA-owned land border crossings.

Recommendation: The GSA Administrator should share Building Assessment Tool reports with CBP and use facility condition information in CBP's FCAs to inform its assessments through the Building Assessment Tool. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: General Services Administration
Status: Open

Comments: GSA concurred with the recommendation and, in April 2020, provided documentation that it received CBP FCAs and provided Building Assessment Tool information to CBP. GSA further provided updated guidance describing how it will share this information with CBP going forward. To fully address this recommendation, GSA should demonstrate that it using CBP FCA reports to inform its Building Assessment Tool assessments.

Recommendation: The GSA Administrator, in conjunction with CBP, should share with CBP information on GSA maintenance and repair work at GSA-owned land border crossings at the level of detail necessary to inform CBP's data in TRIRIGA. (Recommendation 4)

Agency: General Services Administration
Status: Open

Comments: GSA concurred with the recommendation and, in December 2019, stated that it would share this information with CBP on a monthly basis until it is available to CBP for self-service on a shared data system. To fully address this recommendation, GSA should provide documentation that CBP has access to the shared data system.

Recommendation: The CBP Commissioner should use information on maintenance and repair work conducted by GSA at GSA-owned land border crossings to update facility condition information in TRIRIGA on an ongoing basis. (Recommendation 5)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: United States Customs and Border Protection
Status: Open

Comments: CBP concurred with the recommendation and, in December 2019, reported that it began documenting processes for validating and correcting existing records in TRIRIGA using information on maintenance and repair work conducted by GSA. In addition, CBP reported that it is developing a standard operating procedure for TRIRIGA data entry. To fully address this recommendation, CBP should demonstrate that it is regularly receiving information on maintenance and repair work performed by GSA and that it is using this information to update data in TRIRIGA.

Recommendation: The CBP Commissioner should establish review time frames for stakeholders involved in its Five-year Capital Investment Plan review and approval process. (Recommendation 6)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: United States Customs and Border Protection
Status: Open

Comments: CBP concurred with the recommendation and, in April 2020, provided a document establishing time frames for stakeholders involved in the five-year plan review and approval process. To fully address this recommendation, CBP should demonstrate that it has communicated these time frame expectations to stakeholders.

Recommendation: The CBP Commissioner should establish and document a methodology for its annual land border crossing capital prioritization process that includes procedures and time frames for each step. (Recommendation 7)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: United States Customs and Border Protection
Status: Open

Comments: CBP concurred with the recommendation and, in April 2020, provided a document that formally establishes and documents a methodology for its land border crossing prioritization process, including procedures and time frames for each step. To fully address this recommendation, CBP should demonstrate that it is implementing this methodology during its annual five-year capital investment planning process.

Recommendation: The Administrator of General Services should ensure that the Commissioner of the Public Buildings Service develops a strategy that outlines the steps needed to routinely collect information on and monitor the time frames for finalizing construction contract changes at the headquarters level. The strategy could address issues such as the types of construction contract changes that should be included, when the measurement of the contract change process should begin, and the information systems that will be affected. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: General Services Administration
Status: Open

Comments: GSA agreed with this recommendation. In September 2019, GSA told us that it will set up a cross functional team with officials from the Public Building Service offices of Acquisitions and Design and Construction, and the GSA Office of Government-wide Policy, to develop a strategic plan to address the recommendation. In July 2020, GSA told us that the final action step for this recommendation was due to be completed on August 31, 2020. We will continue to monitor implementation of this recommendation as we receive more information on steps taken.

Recommendation: The Secretary of the Army should direct the Chief of Engineers and Commanding General of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to develop a strategy to expand on existing data and systems to routinely collect information on and monitor the time frames for finalizing construction contract changes at the headquarters level. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Department of Defense: Department of the Army
Status: Open

Comments: DOD agreed with this recommendation. In July 2020, DOD officials told us that it has developed a corrective action plan to address the recommendation, which is estimated to be completed at the end of August 2020. We will continue to monitor progress once we receive the corrective action plan.

Recommendation: The Secretary of the Navy should direct NAVSEA to incorporate current cost and program data and an updated cost risk analysis in its planned update of the Columbia class lead submarine cost estimate. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Defense: Department of the Navy
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with this recommendation, stating that the Columbia Class Program cost estimate will be updated in 2019 to support the lead ship authorization Decision Acquisition Board in 2020. As of September 2020, we have yet to receive an update on the status of this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Secretary of the Navy should direct NAVSEA to develop a realistic and well-documented estimate of savings from use of the authorities associated with the Fund and incorporate the savings associated with the lead submarine into the Columbia lead submarine cost estimate. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Department of Defense: Department of the Navy
Status: Open

Comments: DOD agreed with this recommendation, stating that the updated Columbia Class Program cost estimate would incorporate estimated savings from use of the authorities associated with the fund and savings associated with the Columbia lead submarine cost estimate. In August 2020, Navy officials indicated that NAVSEA updated the Columbia lead submarine cost estimate to include updates to the estimate of savings from the use of the authorities associated with the Fund.

Recommendation: The Secretary of the Navy should direct the Columbia class program office to update the lead submarine cost estimate and cost risk analysis prior to requesting funds for lead submarine construction. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: Department of Defense: Department of the Navy
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with this recommendation, stating that the lead submarine cost estimate and cost risk analysis will be updated to support the lead ship authorization Decision Acquisition Board in 2020. In August 2020, Navy officials indicated that NAVSEA updated the Columbia lead submarine cost estimate. However, this estimate was completed after funding was requested for lead submarine construction. While the Office of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation plans to conduct an assessment of this estimate in the summer of 2020, the assessment will also be too late to inform the Navy's funding request.

Recommendation: The Director of NSF should assess the agency's large facilities oversight workforce to identify any project management competency gaps, develop a plan to address any gaps and time frames for doing so, and monitor progress in closing them. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: National Science Foundation
Status: Open

Comments: NSF agreed with this recommendation and, as of September 2019, had awarded a contract for a proficiency assessment and workforce gap analysis. NSF anticipated finishing the proficiency assessment and workforce gap analysis by the second quarter calendar year 2020 and planned to consider options to address any identified gaps, such as identifying workforce development training opportunities. We will continue to monitor and provide updates on NSF's actions to address this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Director of NSF should establish criteria for the project management expertise of award recipients for large facilities projects and incorporate the criteria in project requirements and external panel reviews. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: National Science Foundation
Status: Open

Comments: NSF agreed with this recommendation and, as of November 2019, had drafted but not finalized new language for the Major Facilities Guide and related supplemental award terms and conditions for major facilities. The new language would require award recipients to document their plans for meeting project management competencies. We will continue to monitor and provide updates on NSF's actions to address this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Director of NSF should ensure, through a requirement or other means, that award recipients for large facilities projects provide information to NSF on any lessons learned or best practices. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: National Science Foundation
Status: Open

Comments: NSF agreed with this recommendation and, as of November 2019, had drafted but not finalized supplemental award terms and conditions for major facilities to require recipients to participate in NSF's process for identifying and sharing lessons learned on projects - for example, by sending appropriate staff to the annual major facilities workshop that NSF hosts to provide a collaborative forum for continuous learning and information-sharing or by presenting lessons learned or good practices at the workshop. We will continue to monitor and provide updates on NSF's actions to address this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Commandant of the Coast Guard should direct program managers to establish shore infrastructure performance goals, measures, and baselines to track the effectiveness of maintenance and repair investments and provide feedback on progress made. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: United States Coast Guard
Status: Open

Comments: The Coast Guard concurred with this recommendation and said it would take steps to implement it. As of April 2020, the Coast Guard continues to develop and refine its shore infrastructure measures with associated goals and estimates that it will complete these efforts in December 2020. When we confirm actions the Coast Guard has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: The Commandant of the Coast Guard should work with Congress to develop and implement a process to routinely align Coast Guard's shore infrastructure portfolio with mission needs, including by disposing of all unneeded assets. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: United States Coast Guard
Status: Open

Comments: The Coast Guard concurred with this recommendation and said it would take steps to implement it. As of April 2020, the Coast Guard continues work to establish a formalized process to assess current and projected operational and mission support needs to identify and recommend disposal of unneeded land, buildings, and structures. The Coast Guard anticipates completing these efforts by December 2020. When we confirm actions the Coast Guard has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: The Commandant of the Coast Guard should establish guidance for planning boards to document inputs, deliberations, and project prioritization decisions for infrastructure maintenance projects. (Recommendation 4)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: United States Coast Guard
Status: Open

Comments: The Coast Guard concurred with this recommendation and said it would take steps to implement it. As of April 2020, the Coast Guard is reviewing its existing guidance for planning boards and expects to complete these efforts in December 2020. When we confirm actions the Coast Guard has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: The Commandant of the Coast Guard should employ models for its asset lines for predicting the outcome of investments, analyzing trade-offs, and optimizing decisions among competing investments. (Recommendation 5)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: United States Coast Guard
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: In 2019, GAO reported that the Coast Guard generally has not employed models for predicting the outcome of maintenance investments and optimizing among competing investments, as called for in leading practices. GAO found that, in one instance, the Coast Guard used a model to optimize maintenance for its aviation pavement and, according to Coast Guard officials, found that it could save nearly $14 million by accelerating investment in this area (e.g., paving runways) sooner rather than deferring such maintenance. Coast Guard officials told GAO that such modeling could be applied within and across all of its shore infrastructure asset types, but the Coast Guard did not implement the results of this model and does not require their use. Employing models to predict the future condition and performance of facilities could potentially identify and achieve cost savings, according to leading practices. The Coast Guard concurred with GAO's recommendation that it employ models for its asset lines for predicting the outcome of investments, analyzing trade-offs, and optimizing decisions among competing investments. As of January 2020, the Coast Guard has not employed models to evaluate its asset lines. Instead, the Coast Guard reported that it is evaluating alternative models for its asset lines, and estimated that the Coast Guard will complete this analysis by December 31, 2020.

Recommendation: The Commandant of the Coast Guard should include supporting details about competing project alternatives and report trade-offs in Congressional budget requests and related reports. (Recommendation 6)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: United States Coast Guard
Status: Open

Comments: In February 2019, GAO reported that Coast Guard budget requests did not provide Congress with accurate information about its funding needs. Specifically, we found that the Coast Guard did not meet this leading practice as its budget requests (1) have not clearly identified funding allotted for routine shore infrastructure maintenance needs, and (2) have not generally addressed deferred maintenance and repair deficiencies, resulting in increases to its backlogs. Specifically, GAO found that budget requests related to shore infrastructure for fiscal years 2012 through 2019 did not provide Congress with required and complete information, as previously noted, necessary to inform decision-makers of the risks posed by untimely investments in maintenance and repair backlogs. GAO also reported that the Coast Guard annual Unfunded Priorities List does not clearly articulate prioritization decisions, including information about trade-offs among competing project alternatives, as well as the impacts on missions conducted from shore facilities in disrepair that had not been prioritized in previous years, or is it aligned with its requirements-based budget targets for shore infrastructure. DHS concurred with GAO's recommendation that the Coast Guard include supporting details about competing project alternatives and report trade-offs in Congressional budget requests and related reports. In its August 2019 180-day letter response, DHS stated that the Coast Guard Office of Budget and Programs will include additional information in the future Unfunded Priorities Lists. However, when the Coast Guard released its 2020 Unfunded Priorities List to Congress it did not contain additional details on competing priorities. GAO will continue to monitor Coast Guard budget requests and related reports, including the Unfunded Priorities Lists, for additional supporting details about competing project alternatives and trade-offs

Recommendation: The Secretary of Energy, in coordination with DOE's Office of Project Management and NNSA's Office of Acquisition and Project Management, should develop requirements that clearly define how and where project management lessons learned for capital asset projects should be documented and saved to make them readily accessible across the department. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Energy
Status: Open

Comments: DOE concurred with the recommendation and as of July 2020, continues to work on developing a policy memorandum in advance of revising DOE Order 413.3B, Program and Project Management for the Acquisition of Capital Assets, to identify the project management lessons learned and outline the kinds of information the repository will collect. We will monitor DOE's effort and evaluate the action once it is complete.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Energy, in coordination with DOE's Office of Project Management and NNSA's Office of Acquisition and Project Management, should develop requirements for sharing project management lessons learned for capital asset projects from the beginning of a project (i.e., prior to the start of construction at CD-3) routinely and in a timely manner to improve DOE's ability to identify and evaluate problematic practices and positive experiences. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Department of Energy
Status: Open

Comments: DOE concurred with the recommendation and as of July 2020, continues to work on developing a policy memorandum in advance of revising DOE Order 413.3B, Program and Project Management for the Acquisition of Capital Assets, to have those conducting peer reviews elicit project management lessons learned with department-wide applicability and submit any discerned, as well as replace the order's definition of project management lessons learned with a standard industry definition. We will monitor DOE's efforts and evaluate the actions once they are complete.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Energy, in coordination with DOE's Office of Project Management and NNSA's Office of Acquisition and Project Management, should develop requirements for evaluating the effectiveness of corrective actions taken in response to project management problems for capital asset projects, with a focus on those lessons that necessitate the need for department-wide improvements. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: Department of Energy
Status: Open

Comments: DOE concurred with the recommendation and as of July 2020, plans to revise the Project Management Risk Committee charter by assigning it the responsibility to qualitatively evaluate the effectiveness of corrective actions taken in response to project management lessons learned from projects with a total project cost greater than $750 million having department-wide implications. This action, however, may not fully address the recommendation, in part because there may be some lessons learned with applicability department-wide from projects that do not meet this cost threshold. We will monitor DOE's effort and evaluate the action once it is complete.

Recommendation: The Chief of Engineers and Commanding General of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers should define and measure deferred maintenance for inland waterways in a way that enables the Corps to clearly communicate estimated costs for maintenance needs. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Defense: Department of the Army: Corps of Engineers
Status: Open

Comments: As of December 2019, the Corps has developed a definition for "deferred maintenance" for civil works and plans to request funding to establish a team to review maintenance data. The Corps anticipates implementing this recommendation by the end of 2020.

Recommendation: The Chief of Engineers and Commanding General of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers should pursue ways to increase the Corps' ability to use available funding for inland waterways construction more efficiently and, should changes to the Corps' authority be necessary, develop a legislative proposal to request such authority. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Department of Defense: Department of the Army: Corps of Engineers
Status: Open

Comments: As of December 2019, the Corps is working to review existing authorities, funding, and contracting mechanisms to identify potential courses of action to address GAO's recommendation. The Corps anticipates implementing this recommendation in 2021.

Recommendation: Congress should consider designating an agency to regularly collect and maintain specified cost-related data from credit allocating agencies and periodically assess and report on LIHTC project development costs. (Matter for Congressional Consideration 1)

Agency: Congress
Status: Open

Comments: As of August 2020, Congress had not designated an agency to regularly collect and maintain data on LIHTC project development costs.

Recommendation: IRS's Associate Chief Counsel, in consultation with Treasury's Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, should require general contractor cost certifications for LIHTC projects to verify consistency with the developer cost certification. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of the Treasury: Internal Revenue Service
Status: Open

Comments: IRS disagreed with the recommendation and had not taken action to implement it as of August 2020. We maintain that requiring general contractor cost certifications would help address a known fraud risk.

Recommendation: To help allocating agencies analyze development cost trends and drivers and make comparisons to other agencies, IRS's Commissioner of the Small Business/Self-Employed Division should encourage allocating agencies and other LIHTC stakeholders to collaborate on the development of more standardized cost data, considering information in this report about variation in data elements, definitions, and formats. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Department of the Treasury: Internal Revenue Service
Status: Open

Comments: IRS disagreed with the recommendation and had not taken action to implement it as of August 2020. We maintain that greater standardization of LIHTC cost data would facilitate analysis of cost drivers and cost-management practices.

Recommendation: IRS's Associate Chief Counsel, in consultation with Treasury's Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, should communicate to credit allocating agencies how to collect information on and review LIHTC syndication expenses, including upper-tier partnership expenses. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: Department of the Treasury: Internal Revenue Service
Status: Open

Comments: IRS disagreed with the recommendation and had not taken action to implement it as of August 2020. We maintain that communicating expectations about the collection and review of syndication expenses would enhance program transparency and allocating agency financial assessments.

Recommendation: The Commandant of the Coast Guard, in collaboration with the Secretary of the Navy, should direct the polar icebreaker program and NAVSEA 05C to update the HPIB cost estimate in accordance with best practices for cost estimation, including (1) developing risk bounds for all phases of the program lifecycle, and on the basis of these risk bounds, conduct risk and uncertainty analysis, as well as sensitivity analysis, on all phases of the program lifecycle, and (2) reconciling the results with an updated independent cost estimate based on the same technical baseline before the option for construction of the lead ship is awarded. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: United States Coast Guard
Status: Open

Comments: In providing comments on this report, the Coast Guard concurred with our recommendation. As of August 2020, Coast Guard officials stated that they are updating the polar icebreaker program's life cycle cost estimate to reflect information provided by the shipbuilder and anticipate completing the update in the fall 2020. We will review the updated life cycle cost estimate at that time and determine if the actions taken meet the intent of this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Commandant of the Coast Guard should direct the polar icebreaker program office to develop a program schedule in accordance with best practices for project schedules, including determining realistic durations of all shipbuilding activities and identifying and including a reasonable amount of margin in the schedule, to set realistic schedule goals for all three ships before the option for construction of the lead ship is awarded. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: United States Coast Guard
Status: Open

Comments: In providing comments on this report, the Coast Guard concurred with our recommendation. As of August 2020, Coast Guard officials stated that they updated the polar icebreaker program's schedule for the lead ship and are in the process of developing schedules for the follow-on ships. We will review the updated schedules once the Coast Guard provides them and determine if the actions taken meet the intent of this recommendation.

Recommendation: The DHS Under Secretary for Management should require the Coast Guard to update the HPIB acquisition program baselines prior to authorizing lead ship construction, after completion of the preliminary design review, and after it has gained the requisite knowledge on its technologies, cost, and schedule, as recommended above. (Recommendation 5)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security
Status: Open

Comments: In providing comments on this report, DHS concurred with our recommendation and stated that it will require the Coast Guard to update the HPIB program's acquisition program baselines prior to authorizing lead ship construction. As of August 2020, Coast Guard officials anticipate updating the acquisition program baselines by no later than February 2021. We will review the updated HPIB acquisition program baselines at that time and determine if the actions taken meet the intent of this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Commissioner of CBP should analyze the costs associated with future barrier segments and include cost as a factor in the Impedance and Denial Prioritization Strategy. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: In July 2018, we reported on U.S. Customs and Border Protection's (CBP) efforts to construct new physical barriers along the southwest border. We found that the Impedance and Denial Prioritization Strategy--CBP's decision support tool for prioritizing locations for barrier construction projects--did not include analysis of the costs of deploying barriers in each location, which can vary depending on topography, land ownership, and other factors. We recommended that CBP analyze the costs associated with future barrier segments and include cost as a factor in the Impedance and Denial Prioritization Strategy. CBP agreed with this recommendation. CBP officials stated that, after prioritizing locations, CBP conducts detailed cost estimates as part of the acquisitions process. As of January 2020, CBP officials stated that this cost information may affect how the construction projects are executed, but that it would not influence how CBP prioritizes barrier construction projects across various locations. As we have previously reported, organizations should use an integrated approach to the requirements, acquisitions, and budget processes to prioritize needs and allocate resources, so they can optimize return on investment, and maintain program affordability. To fully address our recommendation, Border Patrol needs to incorporate its analysis of the costs of barrier projects into its process for prioritizing locations for construction of barriers.

Recommendation: The Director of NSF should revise the agency's policies for developing schedules for large facilities projects, and for reviewing those schedules, to better incorporate the best practices in GAO's schedule guide. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: National Science Foundation
Status: Open

Comments: NSF agreed with this recommendation and, as of November 2019, had updated its internal guidance to include a new section related to schedule reviews. The updated guidance states that the NSF Large Facilities Office will lead analysis of the schedule for each proposed major facilities project, which will include a technical evaluation by the sponsoring office. As further steps to implement this recommendation, NSF planned to develop (1) a new section of the Major Facilities Guide on schedule development, estimating, and analysis and (2) new internal guidance on including project schedules as part of external panels' oversight reviews. NSF anticipated completing these actions by mid-fiscal year 2020. We will continue to monitor and provide updates on NSF's actions to address this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Administrator of the General Services Administration should update existing procedures to require GSA officials to estimate the full operations and maintenance costs of design choices in the planning and design process for new Design Excellence buildings. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: General Services Administration
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: GSA agreed with the recommendation. GSA officials are in the process of developing a tool to estimate the full operations and maintenance costs of design choices during the planning and design, including how those choices will impact areas discussed in our report, e.g., cleaning, energy, and landscaping costs. This tool is scheduled for completion in 2020. Based on a demonstration from GSA, we believe that upon implementation this tool will address our recommendation by allowing officials to better understand the impact of design choices as they are being made. We will follow up with GSA in later in the year to validate that the tool is operational.

Recommendation: The Administrator of the General Services Administration should update existing procedures to require GSA officials to further consider and document, during the planning and design of new Design Excellence buildings, how design choices may affect building functionality, such as whether a building is publicly visible and accessible. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: General Services Administration
Status: Open

Comments: GSA concurred with this recommendation. GSA officials are the process of developing a tool that will include the ability to consider building functionality, e.g., purpose or function of the building and spaces, when estimating operations and maintenance costs during planning and design. This tool is scheduled for completion in July 2020. Based on a demonstration from GSA, we believe that upon implementation this tool will address our recommendation by allowing officials to better understand the impact of functional design choices as they are being made. We will follow up with GSA later in the year to validate that the tool is operational.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Energy should direct ORP to require the WTP contractor to determine the full extent to which problems exist in all WTP structures, systems, and components.

Agency: Department of Energy
Status: Open

Comments: DOE agreed with the recommendation. As of June 15, 2020, DOE has started to take action to implement this recommendation, but actions are not sufficient to close it yet. DOE has directed the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) construction contractor to determine the full extent to which problems exist in all WTP structures, systems, and components and plans to complete full implementation of this recommendation by February 15, 2021.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Energy should direct ORP to use its authorities to stop work in areas where quality assurance problems are recurring until ORP's Quality Assurance Division can verify that the problems are corrected and will not recur.

Agency: Department of Energy
Status: Open

Comments: DOE agreed with the recommendation. As of July 1, 2020, DOE has taken some action to implement this recommendation, but actions are not sufficient to close it yet. To implement this recommendation, DOE strengthened and evaluated the existing Office of River Protection (ORP) Stop Work process to ensure it is sufficiently rigorous. In June 2020, ORP activated this new process. However, ORP has not yet used its authority to stop work in areas in areas where quality assurance problems are recurring.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Defense should ensure that the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations, and the Environment work with DOD's construction agents, military departments, and other offices to improve DOD's MILCON cost estimating guidance (i.e., DOD's Unified Facilities Criteria) by fully incorporating all the steps needed for developing high-quality reliable cost estimates. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD partially concurred with our recommendation to improve its cost estimating guidance by fully incorporating all 12 steps needed for developing high-quality, reliable estimates. DOD stated that it did not believe that it is suitable to fully apply all 12 steps to any construction project due to characteristics of the military construction program that DOD believes differ from those of major system or weapon acquisition programs. However, DOD also stated that it concurred with the intent and general applicability of the twelve steps to military construction and that DOD cost estimating guidance lacks specificity in several of these areas. DOD acknowledged that expanding its cost guidance to more fully incorporate these steps would benefit the military construction program, and told us that it is planning to address this by revising its cost guidance. In our report, we recognize that it may not be appropriate to fully apply all 12 steps to each construction project. For example, it may not be realistic or to the military departments' benefit to conduct a sensitivity and uncertainty analysis or develop an independent cost estimate for all the construction projects they initiate every year, especially for low-cost projects. Accordingly, we did not recommend that DOD fully apply all 12 steps to each construction project, but rather that it fully incorporate the 12 steps into the Unified Facilities Criteria so that, at least, each step is considered for each project. DOD could then choose to establish thresholds-based on, for example, the dollar values of the projects-to determine for which the 12 steps should be fully applied or other circumstances in which some steps might not be applicable. We believe DOD's planned revisions once completed will meet the general intent of our recommendation.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Defense should ensure that the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations, and Environment revises its guidance on privatized military housing to include a requirement that the military departments incorporate measures of future sustainment into their assessments of privatized housing projects. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with this recommendation in its response to our report. In its response, the department stated that it was working with the military departments to determine appropriate measures of future sustainment and would revise its guidance to require the military departments to incorporate measures of future sustainment into their assessments of privatized housing projects. In May 2019, an official from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment stated that DOD anticipates being able to issue this guidance sometime in calendar year 2019.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Defense should ensure that the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations, and Environment takes steps to resume issuing required reports to Congress on the financial condition of privatized housing in a timely manner. (Recommendation 4)

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with this recommendation in its response to our report and stated that it was working to further streamline the reporting format and data collection process to ensure more timely reporting to Congress. Subsequently, in September 2018 DOD issued its report to Congress on the financial condition of privatized housing covering fiscal years 2015 and 2016, and in May 2019 DOD issued the report covering fiscal year 2017. An official from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment noted in May 2019 that the next report will cover updated reporting requirements from the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019. The official said that DOD was in the process of reviewing its schedule to determine when it will be able to submit the report covering fiscal year 2018, with the expectation that the submission will be made in December 2019 or no later than March 2020. The official added that collection, reconciliation, and coordination of the information in the report remains the biggest challenge to timely submittal, as well as other privatized housing-related work requirements. Because it is unclear whether future reports reflecting the updated reporting requirements will be submitted in a timely manner, we will continue to monitor DOD's response to this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Defense should ensure that the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations, and Environment reports financial information on future sustainment of each privatized housing project in its reports to Congress. (Recommendation 5)

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with this recommendation in its response to our report and stated that it would ensure that financial information on future sustainment of each privatized housing project would be included in the report to Congress on privatized housing covering fiscal year 2017. However, the report covering fiscal year 2017 was issued in May 2019 and did not include financial information on the future sustainment of each privatized housing project. We will continue to monitor any actions DOD takes to implement this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Defense should ensure that the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations, and Environment provides guidance directing the military departments to assess the significance of the specific risks to individual privatized housing projects resulting from the reductions in the basic allowance for housing and identify courses of action to respond to any risks based on their significance. (Recommendation 6)

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with this recommendation in its response to our report. In its response, the department stated that it would issue guidance to the military departments to annually report on their assessment of the specific risk of changes in the basic allowance for housing to individual privatized housing projects and identify any courses of action to respond to the risks based on their significance. In May 2019, an official from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment stated that DOD anticipates being able to issue this guidance sometime in calendar year 2019.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Defense should ensure that the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations, and Environment finalizes guidance in a timely manner that clearly defines the circumstances in which the military departments should provide notification of project changes and which types of project changes require prior notification or prior approval. (Recommendation 7)

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with this recommendation in its response to our report. In its response, the department stated that DOD has coordinated draft guidance with the military departments which it expected to issue in fiscal year 2018. However, in May 2019, an official from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment stated that the guidance has been delayed due to other pressing requirements and DOD now anticipates being able to issue this guidance sometime in calendar year 2019.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Defense should ensure that the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations, and Environment revises its guidance on privatized military housing to require the military departments to define their risk tolerances regarding the future sustainability of their privatized housing projects. (Recommendation 8)

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with this recommendation in its response to our report. In its response, the department stated that it would revise its privatized housing guidance to require the military departments to define their risk tolerances regarding future sustainability of privatized housing projects. In May 2019, an official from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment stated that DOD anticipates being able to issue this guidance sometime in calendar year 2019.

Recommendation: HUD's Assistant Secretary for Housing should improve the accuracy of RAD leverage metrics--such as better selecting inputs to the leverage ratio calculation and clearly identifying what the leverage ratio measures--and calculate a private-sector leverage ratio. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Department of Housing and Urban Development
Status: Open

Comments: This recommendation remains open. HUD has described an ongoing evaluation of its leverage metrics. We will continue to review HUD's progress and post updates as appropriate.

Recommendation: HUD's Assistant Secretary for Housing should determine how it can use available program-wide data from public housing and Section 8 databases, in addition to resident logs, for analysis of the use and enforcement of RAD resident protections. (Recommendation 4)

Agency: Department of Housing and Urban Development
Status: Open

Comments: This recommendation remains open. HUD plans to develop a methodology to track residents through individual HUD systems such as Public Housing program, RAD and Section 8 program databases. We will continue to review HUD's progress in implementing this recommendation and provide updates as appropriate.

Recommendation: The FHWA Administrator should offer and provide guidance or technical assistance to NEPA assignment states on developing evaluation methodologies, including baseline time frames and timeliness measures. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Transportation: Federal Highway Administration
Status: Open

Comments: As of June 2020, FHWA has not agreed to offer and provide guidance or technical assistance on evaluation methodologies for NEPA assignment states. GAO continues to believe further evaluation guidance is needed, and will continue to monitor FHWA's actions.

Recommendation: To better enable decision makers to evaluate the full long-term costs of posture initiatives under ERI, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct EUCOM and the military services to develop estimates for the sustainment costs of prepositioned equipment and other infrastructure projects under ERI and ensure that the services plan for these long-term costs in future budgets. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD partially concurred with this recommendation, stating that its components will continue to estimate the sustainment costs for prepositioned stocks and other infrastructure projects during DOD's annual program and budget review process, but adding that without additional topline base budget funding, some portion of the associated sustainment costs will need to be financed with OCO funds. We have since determined that the Department of the Army has estimated sustainment costs for prepositioned equipment and other infrastructure projects, and plans to incorporate those costs into the out-year cost projections in the next budget submission. As of August 2020 the Air Force had not taken steps to address this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force should work with the Office of the Secretary of Defense to issue a requirement to their installations to systematically track the costs associated with extreme weather events and climate change. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Defense: Department of the Air Force
Status: Open

Comments: In October 2017, DOD non-concurred with our recommendation. In August 2018, an official from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Energy, Installations & Environment) stated that because DOD non-concurred with this recommendation, the department has no plans to implement it. As of June 2020, DOD has not provided evidence that the department intends to implement it. Thus, the recommendation remains open and we will continue to follow up on it, if DOD decides to take relevant actions.

Recommendation: The Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force should work with the Office of the Secretary of Defense to issue a requirement to their installations to systematically track the costs associated with extreme weather events and climate change. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Defense: Department of the Navy
Status: Open

Comments: In October 2017, DOD non-concurred with our recommendation. In August 2018, an official from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Energy, Installations & Environment) stated that because DOD non-concurred with this recommendation, the department has no plans to implement it. As of June 2020, DOD has not provided evidence that the department intends to implement it. Thus, the recommendation remains open and we will continue to follow up on it, if DOD decides to take relevant actions.

Recommendation: The Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force should work with the Office of the Secretary of Defense to issue a requirement to their installations to systematically track the costs associated with extreme weather events and climate change. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Defense: Department of the Army
Status: Open

Comments: In October 2017, DOD non-concurred with our recommendation. In August 2018, an official from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Energy, Installations & Environment) stated that because DOD non-concurred with this recommendation, the department has no plans to implement it. As of June 2020, DOD has not provided evidence that the department intends to implement it. Thus, the recommendation remains open and we will continue to follow up on it, if DOD decides to take relevant actions.

Recommendation: The Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force should take steps to administer the Screening Level Vulnerability Assessment Survey, or a similar instrument, to all relevant locations. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Department of Defense: Department of the Air Force
Status: Open

Comments: In October 2017, DOD non-concurred with our recommendation. In August 2018, an official from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Energy, Installations & Environment) stated that because DOD non-concurred with this recommendation, the department has no plans to implement it. As of June 2020, DOD has not provided evidence that the department intends to implement it. Thus, the recommendation remains open and we will continue to follow up on it, if DOD decides to take relevant actions.

Recommendation: The Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force should take steps to administer the Screening Level Vulnerability Assessment Survey, or a similar instrument, to all relevant locations. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Department of Defense: Department of the Navy
Status: Open

Comments: In October 2017, DOD non-concurred with our recommendation. In August 2018, an official from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Energy, Installations & Environment) stated that because DOD non-concurred with this recommendation, the department has no plans to implement it. As of June 2020, DOD has not provided evidence that the department intends to implement it. Thus, the recommendation remains open and we will continue to follow up on it, if DOD decides to take relevant actions.

Recommendation: The Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force should take steps to administer the Screening Level Vulnerability Assessment Survey, or a similar instrument, to all relevant locations. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Department of Defense: Department of the Army
Status: Open

Comments: In October 2017, DOD non-concurred with our recommendation. In August 2018, an official from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Energy, Installations & Environment) stated that because DOD non-concurred with this recommendation, the department has no plans to implement it. As of June 2020, DOD has not provided evidence that the department intends to implement it. Thus, the recommendation remains open and we will continue to follow up on it, if DOD decides to take relevant actions.

Recommendation: The Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force should implement DOD goals and plans by incorporating climate change adaptation into service-level guidance and required training for the development of installation-level plans, including master plans and natural resource plans, at all locations. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: Department of Defense: Department of the Air Force
Status: Open

Comments: In October 2017, DOD partially concurred with our recommendation. According to a July 2018 Corrective Action Plan provided by DOD, it was continuing to review DOD Directive (DODD) 4715.21 on climate resilience; DOD reissued the directive in August 2018. The directive requires the military departments to incorporate adaptation to climate change impacts into their planning for facilities. Further, DOD has incorporated adaptation into other guidance that applies to each of the departments. For example, with revisions to DOD's Unified Facilities Criteria for Master Planning and High Performance and Sustainable Building Requirements, as well the issuance of the guide "Climate Adaptation for DOD Natural Resource Managers," DOD has instructed the military departments' planners to incorporate adaptation into installation-level plans. Further, in 2020 DOD issued guidance that requires the military departments to use a DOD database on sea level changes in their planning for coastal infrastructure (sea level change is one impact of climate change). However, as of June 2020, the Air Force had not provided evidence of required training for installation-level planners that incorporates the DOD guidance discussed in this summary. Thus, the recommendation remains open and we will review evidence of such training if that evidence becomes available.

Recommendation: The Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force should implement DOD goals and plans by incorporating climate change adaptation into service-level guidance and required training for the development of installation-level plans, including master plans and natural resource plans, at all locations. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: Department of Defense: Department of the Navy
Status: Open

Comments: In October 2017, DOD partially concurred with our recommendation. According to a July 2018 Corrective Action Plan provided by DOD, it was continuing to review DOD Directive (DODD) 4715.21 on climate resilience; DOD reissued the directive in August 2018. The directive requires the military departments to incorporate adaptation to climate change impacts into their planning for facilities. Further, DOD has incorporated adaptation into other guidance that applies to each of the departments. For example, with revisions to DOD's Unified Facilities Criteria for Master Planning and High Performance and Sustainable Building Requirements, as well the issuance of the guide "Climate Adaptation for DOD Natural Resource Managers," DOD has instructed the military departments' planners to incorporate adaptation into installation-level plans. Further, in 2020, DOD issued guidance that requires the military departments to use a DOD database on sea level changes in their planning for coastal infrastructure (sea level change is one impact of climate change). However, as of June 2020, the Navy had not provided evidence of required training for installation-level planners that incorporates the DOD guidance discussed in this summary. Thus, the recommendation remains open and we will review evidence of such training if that evidence becomes available.

Recommendation: The Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force should implement DOD goals and plans by incorporating climate change adaptation into service-level guidance and required training for the development of installation-level plans, including master plans and natural resource plans, at all locations. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: Department of Defense: Department of the Army
Status: Open

Comments: In October 2017, DOD partially concurred with our recommendation. According to a July 2018 Corrective Action Plan provided by DOD, it was continuing to review DOD Directive (DODD) 4715.21 on climate resilience; DOD reissued the directive in August 2018. The directive requires the military departments to incorporate adaptation to climate change impacts into their planning for facilities. Further, DOD has incorporated adaptation into other guidance that applies to each of the departments. For example, with revisions to DOD's Unified Facilities Criteria for Master Planning and High Performance and Sustainable Building Requirements, as well the issuance of the guide "Climate Adaptation for DOD Natural Resource Managers," DOD has instructed the military departments' planners to incorporate adaptation into installation-level plans. Further, in 2020, DOD issued guidance that requires the military departments to use a DOD database on sea level changes in their planning for coastal infrastructure (sea level change is one impact of climate change). However, as of June 2020, the Army had not provided evidence of required training for installation-level planners that incorporates the DOD guidance discussed in this summary. Thus, the recommendation remains open and we will review evidence of such training if that evidence becomes available.

Recommendation: The Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force should integrate climate change data and projections into the Unified Facilities Criteria standards and periodically revise those standards based on any new projections, as appropriate. (Recommendation 4)

Agency: Department of Defense: Department of the Air Force
Status: Open

Comments: In October 2017, DOD partially concurred with our recommendation. According to a July 2018 Corrective Action Plan provided by DOD, the Office of the Secretary of Defense continues to work with the military departments to evaluate how best to incorporate resilience measures into Unified Facilities Criteria (UFCs), as appropriate. DOD also stated that UFCs are reviewed and revised on a rolling basis. As of June 2020, DOD has not provided evidence of climate change data and projections integrated into UFCs. Thus, the recommendation remains open and as UFCs are updated, we will assess the extent to which the revised versions addresses the recommendation.

Recommendation: The Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force should integrate climate change data and projections into the Unified Facilities Criteria standards and periodically revise those standards based on any new projections, as appropriate. (Recommendation 4)

Agency: Department of Defense: Department of the Navy
Status: Open

Comments: In October 2017, DOD partially concurred with our recommendation. According to a July 2018 Corrective Action Plan provided by DOD, the Office of the Secretary of Defense continues to work with the military departments to evaluate how best to incorporate resilience measures into Unified Facilities Criteria (UFCs), as appropriate. DOD also stated that UFCs are reviewed and revised on a rolling basis. As of June 2020, DOD has not provided evidence of climate change data and projections integrated into UFCs. Thus, the recommendation remains open and as UFCs are updated, we will assess the extent to which the revised versions addresses the recommendation.

Recommendation: The Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force should integrate climate change data and projections into the Unified Facilities Criteria standards and periodically revise those standards based on any new projections, as appropriate. (Recommendation 4)

Agency: Department of Defense: Department of the Army
Status: Open

Comments: In October 2017, DOD partially concurred with our recommendation. According to a July 2018 Corrective Action Plan provided by DOD, the Office of the Secretary of Defense continues to work with the military departments to evaluate how best to incorporate resilience measures into Unified Facilities Criteria (UFCs), as appropriate. DOD also stated that UFCs are reviewed and revised on a rolling basis. As of June 2020, DOD has not provided evidence of climate change data and projections integrated into UFCs. Thus, the recommendation remains open and as UFCs are updated, we will assess the extent to which the revised versions addresses the recommendation.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Defense should direct the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Policy), the geographic combatant commands, the sub-unified commands, and the Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force to consider climate change adaptation as they develop DOD's position for future negotiations with host-nation governments on cost-sharing activities, when relevant or appropriate. (Recommendation 5)

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: In October 2017, DOD partially concurred with our recommendation. According to a July 2018 Corrective Action Plan provided by DOD, the Department is continuing to review and update the processes and criteria governing host-nation cost-sharing negotiations to strengthen or incorporate resilience measures. Since each bilateral agreement is unique, these must be completed on a case-by-case basis. Further, DOD noted that any updates would occur on a "rolling basis." As of June 2020, DOD has not provided evidence that the department has engaged in such updates. Thus, the recommendation remains open and as we become aware of new or updated host-nation cost-sharing agreements, we will assess the extent to which they (or the processes and criteria governing them) address the recommendation.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Defense should direct the Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force to issue guidance, as appropriate, that calls for more formal coordination mechanisms related to climate change adaptation, such as memorandums of understanding, between DOD installations and surrounding host-nation communities. (Recommendation 6)

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: In October 2017, DOD partially concurred with our recommendation. According to a July 2018 Corrective Action Plan provided by DOD, the Department is continuing to review guidance for establishing agreements between host-nation communities and DOD installations. Further, DOD noted that any updates would occur on a "rolling basis." As of June 2020, DOD has not provided evidence that the department has engaged in such updates. Thus, the recommendation remains open and as we become aware of new or updated agreements between host-nation communities and DOD installations, we will assess the extent to which they (or the guidance governing them) address the recommendation.

Recommendation: To better assess OBO's performance, the Secretary of State should finalize the mechanisms OBO will use to centrally manage project management data (to include project cost and schedule information), currently termed the Ideal Operational State, and document through appropriate policies, procedures, or guidance.

Agency: Department of State
Status: Open

Comments: As of January 2020, OBO reported the development of an Integrated Master Schedule template that will serve as a single source for project schedule information for all new capital projects, from inception to occupancy. OBO also reported a bureau-wide effort to develop a holistic Data Management Strategy, including project management data among additional categories of data such as portfolio, program, property, and human capital. GAO continues to monitor State's efforts to implement this recommendation.

Recommendation: In order to help ensure that DOD and the military departments are providing timely and consistent information on privately financed construction projects to Congress under DOD Instruction 7700.18, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness--in collaboration with any other relevant DOD stakeholders--to identify the categories of privately financed construction projects, including gifts of major construction, that should be reported through the process outlined in DOD Instruction 7700.18; revise DOD Instruction 7700.18 and any other related policies, as appropriate, to clarify which project types are to be included in and excluded from this reporting process; and require that the military departments update their relevant policies to incorporate the revised policy.

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with this recommendation, and stated that it will make clarifications in the next revision of DOD Instruction 7700.18 to clarify the types of privately financed major construction projects that should be reported through the process outlined in the instruction. In July 2020 an official from the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Military Community and Family Policy) said that DOD had completed a draft update of the instruction that included language implementing GAO's recommendation. The official also stated that DOD Instruction 7700.18 is interrelated with other DOD guidance which is also being updated. DOD plans to complete the updates to all the relevant policies by June 2021.

Recommendation: In order to ensure that Congress receives all desired information on all gifts of major construction in a timely manner, the Secretary of Defense--in collaboration with any other relevant DOD stakeholders--should identify the lead organization(s) within DOD that will be responsible for developing DOD-wide policy for reporting gifts of major construction that are not reported through the process outlined in DOD Instruction 7700.18, as appropriate.

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD did not concur with this recommendation, stating that there was already an official, the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, responsible for developing policies related to gifts of real property, including major construction. However, DOD has not formally assigned responsibility to the Under Secretary (now the Under Secretary for Acquisition and Sustainment) for developing DOD-wide policy on reporting gifts of major construction not covered by the process outlined in DOD Instruction 7700.18. As of July 2020, the department had not taken action to address this recommendation, according to a representative of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment.

Recommendation: In order to ensure that Congress receives all desired information on all gifts of major construction in a timely manner, the Secretary of Defense--in collaboration with any other relevant DOD stakeholders--should establish DOD-wide policy, as appropriate, on congressional notification of gifts of major construction to cover all such gifts that are not to be reported to Congress through the process outlined in DOD Instruction 7700.18, and require that the military departments update their gift acceptance policies--and any other relevant policies--to incorporate procedures to support DOD's notification requirements.

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD did not concur with this recommendation, stating that Congress has provided a statutory framework for the department to accept gifts, including gifts of construction, without stipulating any reporting requirements. However, this is inconsistent with DOD Instruction 7700.18, which states that construction projects funded by donations are subject to reporting to Congress. The military departments have been accepting gifts of major construction and reporting some of them to Congress while not reporting others. If DOD does not take action to clarify its policy on reporting such gifts, Congress is likely to continue receiving inconsistent and incomplete information, and to lack an explanation of the scope of the information it is receiving. This in turn may impair Congressional oversight over such projects and their potential effects on future maintenance funding requirements since some projects will not be brought to Congress' attention. As of July 2020, the department had not taken action to address this recommendation, according to a representative of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment.

Recommendation: To ensure that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has accurate information about federal water resources feasibility studies and construction projects led by nonfederal sponsors, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Secretary of the Army to direct the Chief of Engineers and Commanding General of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to establish documented guidance for accurate recording of transactions and other relevant information related to these projects.

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with the recommendation and in May 2008, the Corps reported that it developed implementation guidance for (1) nonfederal sponsor-led feasibility studies (ER-1165-2-209, dated February 4, 2016) and (2) construction projects (ER-1155-2-504, dated July 12, 2017). The Corps also reported that it established a Project Delivery Team to develop documented guidance for accurate recording of transactions and other relevant information related to nonfederal sponsor-led federal water resources projects, but it has not yet determined an estimated completion date for this effort. In August 2019, DOD informed GAO that the Civil Works Integration Division Deputy was evaluating the Corps' corrective action plan for the recommendation. We will continue to monitor the Corps' progress.

Recommendation: To strengthen efforts to mitigate earthquake risks to federal buildings, the Secretary of Defense and the Administrator of GSA should (1) Define what constitutes an exceptionally high risk building, identify such buildings, and develop plans to mitigate those risks, including prioritizing associated funding requests as needed; and (2) To the extent practicable, prioritize and implement comprehensive seismic safety measures which could include earthquake drills, seismic safety inspections, and non-structural retrofits to decrease risks and reduce damage in federally-owned and -leased buildings in earthquake hazard areas.

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with our recommendation. In June 2019, DOD reported that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had developed a sophisticated risk assessment tool which could potentially be used to both define and assess exceptionally high risk buildings in a cost-effective manner. DOD said that it was in the process of determining the suitability of the tool for use by its components, and potentially other federal government partners. According to DOD, further action to address this recommendation will depend on both a favorable determination of the tool's suitability and the availability of funding to conduct assessments and complete the mitigation actions identified by the assessments. We will continue to monitor DOD's efforts to address this recommendation.

Recommendation: To better ensure the viability and safety of manufactured housing produced in accordance with the HUD Code, the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development should develop a plan to assess how FHA financing might further promote the affordability of manufactured homes and identify the potential for better securitization of manufactured housing financing.

Agency: Department of Housing and Urban Development
Status: Open

Comments: According to HUD officials, Ginnie Mae and FHA met to discuss their manufactured housing programs and produced a white paper. Once we receive a copy of the white paper, we will determine if it addresses our recommendation.

Recommendation: To better ensure that Congress, stakeholders, and agencies have complete information about changing costs and whether a fee needs to be changed, HUD should assess the feasibility, including an analysis of the benefits and costs, of putting in place user fees for its dispute resolution and installation programs.

Agency: Department of Housing and Urban Development
Status: Open

Comments: As of March 2018, HUD stated that the Office of Manufactured Housing Programs continues to work toward fully implementing both the installation and dispute resolution programs in the default states using two new contractors for these purposes. As the implementation of these programs continues to mature, HUD stated that its Office of Manufactured Housing Programs will be monitoring program requirements and service delivery and gathering data that it can use in assessing the feasibility of putting in place user fees for these programs. We will continue to monitor HUD's progress in implementing our recommendation.

Recommendation: To better ensure that Congress, stakeholders, and agencies have complete information about changing costs and whether a fee needs to be changed, HUD should establish the goals for use of reserves of the Manufactured Housing Fees Trust Fund, and the minimum and maximum thresholds for the reserves appropriate for meeting these goals.

Agency: Department of Housing and Urban Development
Status: Open

Comments: In response to this recommendation, as of March 2018, HUD plans to consider user fee reserve best practices in evaluating any carryover balances and developing future operating budgets for its manufactured housing programs. The Office of Manufactured Housing Programs plans on reviewing best practices and determining next steps ideally by the end of Fiscal Year 2019. We continue to believe that setting clear goals for the reserve and clarifying how those reserves will be used helps ensure accountability and transparency both to Congress and users of fee-based programs. We will continue to monitor HUD's progress in implementing our recommendation.

Recommendation: As we have previously recommended, Congress should consider reexamining and refocusing surface transportation programs, including establishing well-defined goals with direct links to identified federal interests and roles. Based on this review, there may be areas where national interests are less evident and where Congress may wish to consider narrowing FHWA's responsibilities.

Agency: Congress
Status: Open

Comments: As of November 2019, Congress has not yet acted on this recommendation. The Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act (FAST Act; P.L. 114-94), signed into law in December 2015, is due to be reauthorized in fiscal year 2021.

Recommendation: To enhance the safety of unregulated onshore hazardous liquid and gas gathering pipelines, the Secretary of Transportation should direct the PHMSA Administrator to collect data from operators of federally unregulated onshore hazardous liquid and gas gathering pipelines, subsequent to an analysis of the benefits and industry burdens associated with such data collection. Data collected should be comparable to what PHMSA collects annually from operators of regulated gathering pipelines (e.g., fatalities, injuries, property damage, location, mileage, size, operating pressure, maintenance history, and the causes of incidents and consequences).

Agency: Department of Transportation
Status: Open

Comments: PHMSA plans to collect data on previously unregulated hazardous liquid and natural gas gathering lines via rulemakings. PHMSA issued a final rule that covers data collection for hazardous liquid gathering pipelines in October 2019. As of May 2020, PHMSA anticipates issuing the final rule for natural gas pipelines by Fall, 2020.