Department of Commerce

On Friday, September 6, 2019—the day Hurricane Dorian made landfall in the United States as a Category 1 hurricane—the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued an unsigned statement (Statement) in response to a request by the White House then-acting Chief of Staff to the Office...

For our audit of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO’s) Patent Capture and Application Processing System (PCAPS), our objective was to determine whether USPTO has adequate data recovery and contingency plans in place to ensure operational availability of PCAPS.We found that (1) USPTO has...

For our audit of a sample of 124 standalone contracts and individual task orders composed of various contract types (e.g., time-and-material, labor-hour, and fixed price) that were closed during fiscal years (FYs) 2016 and 2017, our objective was to determine whether National Institute of Standards...

For our audit of the U.S. Census Bureau’s (the Bureau’s) integrated communications contract (ICC) with Young & Rubicam, Inc. (Y&R), our objectives were to determine whether the Bureau is (1) administering time-and-materials (T&M) and labor-hour delivery orders in accordance with Federal Acquisition...

For our audit of the U.S. Census Bureau’s (the Bureau's) Census Questionnaire Assistance (CQA) operation -- in support of our oversight role over the planning and implementation of the 2020 Census -- our audit objectives were to determine how previous internal assessments informed the operation, how...

For our audit of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) program, our objective was to assess the cost, schedule, and technical performance of the Program’s spacecraft acquisition and development efforts. Specifically, we sought to (1) determine...

This report summarizes work that we initiated and completed during this semiannual period on a number of critical Departmental activities. Over the past 6 months, our office issued 13 products related to our audit, evaluation, and inspection work. These products addressed programs and personnel...

For our final report on the audit of the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) regarding foreign end users and exports, our objective was to assess the effectiveness of BIS’ efforts to ensure foreign end users are suitable to receive and use controlled U.S. exports in accordance with the Export...

For the final report on our audit of the Department of Commerce’s (the Department’s) Enterprise Web Solutions (EWS) system, our objectives were to determine whether the (1) processes used to vet contract staff given administrative access to the EWS system are adequate; (2) Department followed a...

For our final audit report on the U.S. Census Bureau’s (the Bureau’s) 2018 End-to-End Census Test, with specific attention paid to the testing of peak operations, our objectives were to determine whether (1) the test included data quality components identified as success criteria in the test plan,...