Federal Reports

The audit objectives were to determine whether program funds were managed in accordance with the ARC and Federal grant requirements.

The Office of Inspector General received an anonymous complaint alleging that: (1) Department of Energy Headquarters’ Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities (SCIF) in the Forrestal Building have been out of compliance with U.S. Intelligence Community requirements; (2) the Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (DOE-IN) authorized a contractor employee to procure a contract for a congressionally directed review of DOE-IN’s Counterintelligence (CI) Program, which may have been a conflict-of-interest violation; and (3) DOE-IN has contractor employees conducting inspections of DOE-IN’s CI Program.

We initiated this inspection to determine the facts and circumstances regarding the alleged management concerns at DOE-IN.

We substantiated the allegation that Department Headquarters’ SCIFs in the Forrestal Building did not meet U.S. Intelligence Community requirements. Specifically, we found that SCIF reaccreditations, technical security reviews, and self-assessments were not conducted for some SCIFs occupied by DOE-IN. These issues occurred, in part, because DOE-IN did not develop and implement a formal corrective action plan with a strategic approach to improve SCIF compliance at Department Headquarters, including the necessary resources to implement the corrective action plan. To its credit, we noted that DOE-IN began making progress in calendar year 2023. In addition, we did not substantiate the allegation that DOE-IN authorized a contractor employee to procure a contract for a congressionally directed review of DOE-IN’s CI Program; therefore, we did not substantiate the allegation that there was a conflict-of-interest violation. Further, while we substantiated the allegation that DOE-IN has contractor employees conducting inspections of DOE-IN’s CI Program, we determined that the use of contractor personnel to conduct these inspections is not against DOE-IN policy. DOE-IN leadership approves the selection of the lead inspector and provides Federal oversight for CI Program inspections.

Noncompliance with U.S. Intelligence Community security requirements, which ensure that critical safeguards are fully implemented, may result in degradation of the security posture for SCIFs, potentially exposing highly classified national security information.

To address the issues identified in this report, we have made two recommendations that, if fully implemented, should help ensure that the Department maintains its Headquarters’ SCIFs in compliance with U.S. Intelligence Community requirements.

Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, LLC (SRNS) operates the Savannah River Site under a management and operating (M&O) contract which contains provisions and requirements governing the purchase of services from contractor-affiliated sources such as parent companies (i.e., corporate reachback).

We conducted this audit to determine whether: (1) SRNS’ use of corporate reachback at the Savannah River Site was in compliance with its M&O contract provisions and requirements governing the use of corporate reachback; and (2) the overall costs incurred for these activities were reasonable, allocable, and allowable.

We found that SRNS did not comply with its M&O contract requirements to use competition in purchasing services from contractor-affiliated sources; therefore, we are questioning the costs incurred for numerous corporate reachback activities as unallowable.

The issues we identified occurred, in part, because of the Department of Energy’s lack of oversight in ensuring SRNS followed the M&O contract requirements to: (1) sufficiently document the special expertise for each seconded corporate reachback acquisition when not using competition; and (2) sufficiently document the reasonableness of the costs incurred.

This report contains five recommendations that, if fully implemented, should help ensure SRNS follows its M&O contract requirements to use competition when purchasing services from a contractor-affiliated source. Although management concurred with our recommendations, we consider the action taken to address our recommendations unresponsive to the underlying concerns that prompted the recommendations.

An Amtrak Director based in New York City used his company-issued computer for personal business on company time. Those activities included visiting clothing, apparel, and design websites, excessively watching non-work related YouTube videos and visiting other personal-use websites. The employee was terminated on December 26, 2024, and he is not eligible for rehire.

OIG reviewed the Rural Business-Cooperative Service’s internal controls over the Meat and Poultry Processing Expansion Program grant recipients’ use of funds.