Reports & Testimonies

The Department of Energy is cleaning up nuclear waste from weapons production at 15 U.S. sites—at an estimated cost of over $400 billion. Much of this cost will be for work not directly related to the cleanup, like maintaining roads. When setting site budgets, DOE categorizes activities as either cleanup-related—like treating contamination—or not. This helps DOE prioritize competing funding needs. But DOE's guidance doesn't clearly...

The Hanford Site in Washington State is one of the largest and most expensive environmental cleanup projects worldwide. We estimated in 2022 that the cleanup will cost between $300 billion and $640 billion and take decades. In this Snapshot report we cover steps the Department of Energy and Congress could take to save money and reduce risks posed by the site's 54 million gallons of...

Hundreds of thousands of service members live in military housing—such as government-owned barracks or privatized family housing. In recent years, there have been concerns about health and safety risks in military housing and DOD's management of its housing programs. Poor housing conditions negatively affect quality of life. We testified about our work on poor living conditions in barracks and DOD's oversight of housing. For example...

In the coming decades, the Department of Defense plans to spend an estimated $1.7 trillion on nearly 2,500 F-35s. Most of the funds will go to operating, maintaining, and repairing the aircraft. DOD faces costly maintenance issues for the F-35, such as: Delays setting up military service depots—facilities to complete the most complex repairs Inadequate equipment to keep aircraft operational Maintenance and supply delays affecting...

Hundreds of thousands of service members live in military barracks. Concerns about poor living conditions and how DOD is managing the barracks go back decades. We observed barracks in poor condition, including some with safety risks like sewage overflow and inoperable fire systems. And some barracks don't meet DOD requirements for privacy or amenities. DOD doesn't have reliable information about barracks conditions, or how these...

Cloud computing offers on-demand access to shared IT resources like networks, servers, and databases. Federal agencies can deliver better IT services for less money by using the cloud. In fiscal year 2022, the Department of Defense committed about $3 billion for cloud computing contracts. Cloud service providers charge user fees for transferring data from the cloud. DOD officials have negotiated some discounts for such fees...

DOD is the largest federal agency, and the only one that has never achieved a "clean" audit opinion—which is when financial statements are presented fairly and are consistent with accounting principles. The challenge that DOD faces in modernizing its business and financial IT systems is a big hurdle to making its financial statements auditable. This Snapshot report covers ways to improve DOD's Strategy for addressing...

The DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis collects and shares homeland security data with its partners in law enforcement, the intelligence community, and the private sector. While doing so, it's important to protect U.S. citizens and residents' rights and privacy. But the office hasn't done some required audits that would ensure that its personnel are following policies to protect these rights. For example, auditing the...

Cloud computing offers on-demand access to shared IT resources like networks, servers, and databases. Federal agencies like DOD must move their data and software to the cloud when possible. But software licenses and restrictive vendor practices can limit or prevent such efforts. For example, some vendors charge extra fees to use their software with third-party cloud providers. DOD officials said that restrictive practices generally affected...

Despite an international ban on their use, chemical weapons have been used over the past 10 years in assassinations and on civilian populations. When a chemical weapon is used, investigators may use forensic technologies to detect that it was used, identify the chemical, and help attribute it to a likely source. Challenges to such investigations include small or degraded samples. These can result if investigators...

The Department of Defense spends hundreds of billions of dollars on contracts for services, such as program administration and tech support. DOD policy requires the military departments to collect and review data about their service contracts with a value of $10 million or more. Having such data available could help DOD contract more efficiently and save money. While the Navy collects and reviews this data...

Federal Prison Industries, a wholly government-owned corporation employing federal prison inmates, produces products and services that it sells to federal agencies. The Department of Defense was FPI's largest federal customer for fiscal year 2022 and purchased a range of items, including furniture, apparel, and electronics. DOD awarded contracts for about $163 million annually toward FPI products and services from fiscal years 2018-2022. When deciding whether...

The National Nuclear Security Administration must regularly assess the nation's nuclear weapon stockpile— without nuclear explosive testing. However, the data that NNSA uses to model the stockpile's safety and more needs to be updated. To do so, the agency performs plutonium experiments in a facility about 1,000 feet underground. It plans to upgrade infrastructure and build 2 new tools to get more data from these...

The U.S. and its allies face terrorism and other security threats. The U.S. government helps partner nations address such threats through security cooperation programs. One such program requires DOD and the State Department to jointly plan and develop "train and equip" projects—for example, training crisis response teams or providing military trucks for troop transport. But DOD hasn't worked with State to specify how and when...

In FYs 2018-2022, the Department of Defense allocated more than $5 billion to improve partner countries' ability to address threats like terrorism and drug trafficking. These projects provided equipment, training, services, and construction to national security forces. But 75% of the projects' deliverables were delayed, limiting the projects' success. Also, DOD evaluations of projects' effectiveness were not high quality—for instance, evidence and findings weren't clearly...

Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) programs are DOD's largest source of military officers. As such, ROTC programs can help cultivate diversity in the military. The population of military officers from ROTC programs became more diverse by race, ethnicity, and gender from academic years 2011-2021. For example, the percentage of officers who were White men decreased by 9.4%, while the populations of Blacks or African Americans...

In 2016, Congress directed the Defense Health Agency to run military medical facilities. As part of the multiyear transition of these facilities to DHA oversight, the agency set up 22 offices to manage facilities that it grouped into 36 U.S. "markets" and 2 overseas regions. But staffing the offices has been hard. DHA estimated it needs over 1,400 personnel to do so—which exceeds expected resources...

The National Nuclear Security Administration plans to invest over $30 billion in its major projects to modernize the research and production infrastructure supporting the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile. This is our first biennial assessment of NNSA's major projects. As of March 2023, NNSA's major projects collectively exceeded their cost estimates by over $2 billion. They also surpassed their collective schedules by almost 10 years. Cost...

Agencies rely on IT systems to screen job applicants and manage employee data from background checks and other vetting activities. This helps to minimize the risks of having untrustworthy people in sensitive federal positions. In 2015, a cybersecurity incident compromised this data in federal systems. The Department of Defense has since taken over responsibility for most federal personnel vetting and is developing a new IT...

Before we issue reports, we send them to the agencies we've audited for review and comment. For reports containing sensitive or classified information, we also ask the agency to let us know what can or cannot be released publicly. Delays in these reviews can delay the issuance of our reports. This Q&A report, the first in a series of 4, details the timeliness of DOD's...