Reports & Testimonies

The National Institutes of Health provided $2.2 billion in contracts or grants in FYs 2011-2021 to foreign organizations for research involving animals. Foreign facilities conducting this research must follow U.S. or international animal welfare standards. NIH relies on annual reports submitted by funding recipients to monitor the foreign research facilities' compliance with these standards. But NIH doesn't verify the reliability of the information in these...

Treasury's Fiscal Service manages the General Fund, which finances daily and long-term government operations. In FY 2022, $23.2 trillion flowed into the General Fund and $22.8 trillion flowed out of it. Fiscal Service continued to make progress in addressing the issues identified in our prior audits. However, we don't have enough information to give an opinion on the reliability of the FY 2022 Schedules because...

Some countries have inadequate security at their nuclear facilities making them vulnerable to sabotage and the nuclear materials within them vulnerable to theft. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), DOD, and other agencies are working to help secure international nuclear materials. For instance, the U.S. is helping other countries increase facility security and counter nuclear smuggling around the world. But we found that a few...

In fiscal year 2022, federal agencies made an estimated $247 billion in payment errors—either payments that should not have been made or that were made in the incorrect amount. Overpayments accounted for about $200 billion of the total. But the total doesn't yet include estimates for certain risky programs, like the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. This report—the first in...

Many families struggle to access high-quality, affordable child care. Federal funds help states assist low-income families with child care expenses. But states subsidized care for only about 2 million of the nearly 8.7 million children eligible in FY19. The COVID-19 pandemic financially strained working families and child care providers. Six of the 7 state child care administrators we interviewed said that during the pandemic their...

The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute is a federally funded, nonprofit corporation that was established to fund and evaluate research aimed at helping patients, doctors, and policymakers make better health care decisions. PCORI is required to have its financial statements audited annually, and we're required to review those audits. PCORI's auditor issued an unmodified (clean) opinion on its fiscal year 2022 financial statements, concluding that these...

Finding affordable, accessible rental housing can be difficult for low-income households that have a family member with a disability. The Department of Housing and Urban Development has rental assistance programs that can help. But a lot of affordable housing is aging and has to be modified to work for these families. We looked at HUD's rental assistance programs, how many households with disabilities they served...

The Department of Defense is upgrading its fleet of fighter and attack planes, known as "tactical aircraft." Most of these planes have outlived their planned service lives. We testified about the F-35—a key piece of DOD's fleet modernization efforts. Our ongoing work shows that the F-35 program has delivered over 800 aircraft, but is over a decade behind schedule and $165 billion over original cost...

The U.S. Departments of Commerce and Energy and the EPA have received billions in funding in recent years for clean energy, water and infrastructure, and climate resilience programs and projects (among others). This testimony discusses these agencies' challenges with effectively managing such programs and projects, including keeping costs on track. For example, DOE spent $472 million on the definition and design of 4 carbon capture...

From 2021-22, U.S. retail food prices rose by 11%—the largest annual increase in over 40 years. Rising food prices particularly impact low-income consumers, who spend about 30% of their income on food. Many factors influencing the food supply chain can affect retail food prices, such as global trade issues, pandemics, animal and plant disease outbreaks, and war. Federal agencies don't control food prices, but may...

Under the Immigrant Investor Program, foreign nationals who invest in projects that create or sustain U.S. jobs can get a visa and a path to citizenship. The program presents unique fraud and national security risks for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to address, such as schemes to defraud immigrant investors. While USCIS collects some data on fraud and national security risks, more specific data—such...

The National Labor Relations Board is an agency that addresses complaints of unfair labor practices and protects employees' right to unionize. NLRB is headed by a five-member board. Each member of the board is nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. After Senate confirmation, board nominees receive a signed presidential commission and are then sworn into office. On August 28, 2021, NLRB mistakenly...

According to the Department of Defense, only a quarter of Americans between the ages of 17 and 24 can meet military service requirements, such as those for education and physical fitness. So how can DOD maintain the number of active-duty service members it needs for national security? This Snapshot looks at our prior work on military recruitment and retention. We've recommended ways to help DOD...

To reduce aviation greenhouse gas emissions, the White House issued a "Grand Challenge" that aims to increase the production of sustainable jet fuel to 3 billion gallons per year by 2030. Its goal is also to produce enough fuel to meet 100% of commercial jet fuel demand by 2050. Currently, this fuel is used at two large airports, but accounts for less than 0.1% of...

Regenerative medicine and advanced therapies—such as stem cell transplants—seek to repair, replace, or restore function to damaged cells, tissues, or organs. These therapies aim to address the causes of and cure previously untreatable conditions. The development of such therapies depends on an educated, well-trained workforce—often requiring advanced degrees and specialized lab training. Stakeholders identified workforce shortages for lab and manufacturing technicians, data scientists, and others...

For the last 5 years, our work yielded an average of $145 in financial benefits for every $1 invested in us, as well as an annual average of more than 1,300 other benefits. In this testimony before the House Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch, Committee on Appropriations, U.S. Comptroller General Gene Dodaro discusses GAO's FY 2024 budget request. Meeting Congress's growing demand for GAO's services...

This testimony examines some Department of Homeland Security challenges with Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection operations. In prior work, we reviewed how DHS assessed the costs and benefits of consolidating Coast Guard and CBP maritime stations. DHS developed a way to compare these costs in September 2021. We also review Coast Guard and CBP's workforce challenges. We recommended that Coast Guard analyze its...

Protecting critical infrastructure that helps provide necessities like water, electricity, and food is a national priority. Events like natural disasters or cyberattacks can disrupt services Americans need for daily life. We testified that many federal agencies work to protect the nation's critical infrastructure and look to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency for leadership on how to do it. A 2021 law expanded these agencies'...

Nursing home residents are among the most vulnerable populations for COVID-19 and other infectious diseases. Proper infection control practices—like handwashing—remain critical to the safety of over 1 million U.S. nursing home residents. We convened a panel of infectious disease specialists, nursing home staff, advocates, and other experts to examine infection control practices in nursing homes. These experts identified 14 actions for the Department of Health...

VA's health care system offers services to more than 9.5 million people. But VA's facilities are aging, and upgrading them to meet veterans' needs will be a massive undertaking that could cost up to $76 billion. VA developed more than 1,400 recommendations for modernizing and realigning its health care infrastructure, such as closing some medical facilities and establishing new ones. However, we found gaps in...