Federal Reports

On March 27, 2020, the President signed into law the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act). To date, the CARES Act has provided the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) with $909.7 million, which includes direct apportionments of $756 million to support the needs of DOI programs, bureaus, Indian Country, and the Insular Areas and a $153.7 million transfer from the U.S. Department of Education to the Bureau of Indian Education in June.This report presents the DOI’s progress as of June 30, 2020, in spending CARES Act appropriations. Specifically, the DOI’s expenditures to date total $393,538,262 and its obligations total $534,545,127.We are also monitoring the DOI’s progress on reporting milestones established by the CARES Act and the Office of Management and Budget.We anticipate issuing updated status reports monthly.

The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) complied with Federal procurement requirements for its noncompetitive procurement of the Whitefish contract. However, the contract costs may not have complied with Federal cost principles that costs must be reasonable to be eligible for Federal awards. PREPA’s oversight of the Cobra contract did not comply with PA program guidelines. Finally, FEMA’s Public Assistance grant to PREPA for the Cobra contract did not fully comply with PA program guidelines. We made two recommendations for FEMA to provide technical assistance to Puerto Rico to ensure compliance with Federal regulations and PA program guidelines. We made two other recommendations for FEMA to develop guidance to verify its subrecipients’ oversight of time and material contracts and determine the reasonableness and eligibility of time and material contract costs. FEMA concurred with three of the recommendations and did not concur with one recommendation.