Federal Reports

Why We Did This Report

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Inspector General conducted this audit to determine how the EPA has managed its Brownfields Program and allocated funds under the program since enactment of the Brownfields Utilization, Investment, and Local Development Act.

Summary of Findings

We identified two areas that may warrant management attention and further research:

• Data inaccuracies in the EPA’s Grants Research Information Portal database, which could limit EPA staff’s ability to accurately monitor and report on grant funds using the database.
• Increased grant funding due to Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act appropriations, which could pose challenges for EPA oversight of grant funds and associated results. The EPA will have to monitor a higher number of brownfields projects—including larger, more complex projects—for years after FY 2026 while not receiving additional Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act appropriations to fund regional oversight staff.

OIG assessed the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s internal controls governing the inspection of passenger baggage for commercial and private aircraft departing Hawaii to the continental United States to protect against invasive plant and plant product pests and diseases.

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) is issuing this report to present the results of our audit of SBA’s Oversight of Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) Recipients. The SVOG program was established on December 27, 2020, as part of the Economic Aid to Hard-Hit Small Businesses, Nonprofits and Venues Act. In total, Congress provided $16.25 billion for the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) to award grants to eligible businesses in the live arts and entertainment industry.

As of October 2024, SBA identified $544 million in potential improper payments that need to be recovered. SBA established performance goals, measured progress, and reported that the SVOG program met all three performance goals. However, we found one of those goals, the number of SVOG recipients that continued or reopened operations, was not measured with representative data.  SBA should establish and implement timeframes for each closeout activity. Without prompt action to closeout these awards, SBA has no assurance that taxpayer funds were used for the intended purpose.  

We made six recommendations for SBA to improve recovery of SVOG funds where needed, expedite the award closeout process, better monitor the use of SVOG funds, and report on the limitations of data used for SVOG performance results.

The OIG examines individual nonpharmaceutical proposals submitted by commercial contractors for Federal Supply Schedule contracts with an anticipated annual value of $3 million or more, with an anticipated annual value of $500,000 or more for dealers or resellers without significant sales to the general public, and where VA has requested a review. The OIG’s oversight work helps VA contracting officers negotiate fair and reasonable prices for the government and taxpayers. The OIG’s reports on individual proposals are not published because they contain sensitive commercial information protected from release under federal law. To promote transparency, this report summarizes the 22 preaward reports provided to VA contracting officers in fiscal year 2024.

The 22 nonpharmaceutical proposals had a cumulative estimated contract value of approximately $1.8 billion and included a total of 44,802 offered items. The OIG found that commercial sales practice disclosures were accurate, complete, and current for four proposals. The remaining 18 proposals could not be reliably used by VA for negotiations until noted deficiencies were corrected. The OIG also determined that proposed tracking customers for two proposals covering 56 of the offered items were not suitable for the price reductions clause and recommended different tracking customers. Tracking customers serve as a benchmark for potential price reductions during the life of a contract; if tracking customers receive a price reduction, the government’s price should also be reduced. Of the 22 proposals reviewed, no tracking customer recommendations could be made for five proposals covering 28,077 of the 44,802 items. Contract negotiations for 21 proposals had been completed as of May 8, 2025, and the OIG recommended lower prices than offered for 15 of the proposals, assisting contracting officers in obtaining approximately $17.4 million in savings for VA over the life of the contracts.

Audit of the Railroad Retirement Board's Compliance with Annuity Eligibility Requirements – Abstract

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has conducted almost no familial deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) testing to verify biological parent-child relationships, potentially missing opportunities to protect vulnerable migrant children from human smuggling fraud schemes. From September 2021 to September 2024, CBP conducted 314 familial DNA tests on about 0.01 percent of the 2.7 million aliens who crossed the border claiming to be part of a family unit. CBP did not increase familial DNA testing even after limited testing revealed more than 14 percent of administered tests indicated no biological relationship.