Federal Reports

Why We Did This Report

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Inspector General conducted this audit to determine whether the EPA has established sufficient controls to prevent unauthorized access to the Central Data Exchange system.

Summary of Findings

The EPA needs to strengthen management and access security controls for the Central Data Exchange, or CDX, system. The security of the CDX system is integral to the EPA accepting electronic environmental data for the Agency’s air, water, hazardous waste, and toxics release inventory programs. Without adequate security controls, the CDX is vulnerable to threat actors exploiting weak security controls to potentially gain unauthorized access, create fraudulent accounts, and enter unreliable data into the system.

This is an annual report to Congress regarding the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s (CPSC) efforts to prevent and protect trafficking victims in 2024 in accordance with the Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act of 2022.

Our audit found that loan costs claimed by the RLF operators were not allowable, allocable, and reasonable. Specifically, we found that the four operators awarded 11 of the 19 loans (58 percent), totaling $4,020,050, to ineligible borrowers that did not meet the eligibility criteria in the operators’ respective RLF operational plan, and borrowers did not use the RLF funds for the purpose intended by the CARES Act. As a result, we are questioning $4,020,050 in loan funds. In addition, we found RLF operators with 20 percent or more loans that were delinquent, in default, or written off, and EDA did not identify this as an area of concern.

We reviewed the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) in Manhattan, Kansas. The audit was performed to evaluate the implementation of physical security controls at NBAF. We reviewed relevant documents and interviewed officials responsible for NBAF’s physical security. Our audit generally covered fiscal year 2023 through the first quarter of fiscal year 2024.

Investigative Summary 22-0028