Federal Reports

An Amtrak Service/Train Attendant based in Miami, Florida, resigned from his position on December 20, 2022, prior to his administrative hearing. Our investigation found that the former employee violated company policies by engaging in outside employment, including self-employment, while on medical, personal, and collective bargaining agreement leaves of absence.

A special OIG report which shares the view of the OIG’s jurisdiction and role in conducting oversight in the area of post-employment ethics.

In March 2022, we conducted unannounced inspections of four U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facilities in the El Centro and San Diego areas of California, specifically two U.S. Border Patrol stations and two Office of Field Operations (OFO) ports of entry. Our inspections and subsequent analysis showed instances of prolonged detention for migrants and overcrowding in some holding facilities. In one Border Patrol station, the prolonged custody times contributed to overcrowding in half of its holding rooms. Of the 447 detainees in custody during our site visits, CBP held 187 (or 42 percent) longer than prescribed by the National Standards on Transport, Escort, Detention, and Search (TEDS), which generally limit detention in these facilities to 72 hours. This prolonged detention and overcrowding put a strain on CBP’s resources, resulting in inconsistent compliance with TEDS standards in the El Centro and San Diego areas. The facilities we inspected generally met standards related to providing drinking water, snacks, meals, and supplies, but Border Patrol’s compliance with standards for access to showers, handling of personal property, and access to interpretation services was inconsistent. Finally, Border Patrol’s and OFO’s electronic systems of record had data integrity issues related to tracking of medical services, showers, welfare checks, and meals.

Amtrak (the company) contracted with the independent certified public accounting firm of Ernst & Young LLP to audit its consolidated financial statements as of September 30, 2022, and for the year then ended, and to provide a report on internal control over financial reporting and on compliance and other matters. Because the company receives federal assistance, it must obtain an audit performed in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.As required by the Inspector General Act of 1978, as amended, we monitored the audit activities of Ernst & Young to help ensure audit quality and compliance with auditing standards. Our monitoring focused on two Ernst & Young reports and disclosed no instances in which Ernst & Young did not comply, in all material respects, with generally accepted government auditing standards. We reached this conclusion by monitoring Ernst & Young’s audit activities, which included reviewing its reports, auditor independence and qualifications, audit plans, detailed testing results, summary work papers, and quality controls. We also attended key meetings.

What We Looked AtThe Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has highlighted the importance of developing and maintaining resilient supply chains in essential industries. Citing the significance of the aviation industry to the Nation's economy, the Ranking Members of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and its Subcommittee on Aviation asked us to assess how the Department of Transportation (DOT) tracks the amount of critical aircraft and unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) imports. They also asked for the amount of critical aviation parts that are manufactured in and imported exclusively or near-exclusively from one or two countries. Accordingly, our audit objectives were to (1) determine how DOT is tracking imported aviation products and (2) identify potential impacts on the U.S. aviation industry's supply chains if imported aviation products are unavailable in the future.What We FoundDOT and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) do not track aviation imports or their associated supply chains because there is no requirement to do so. FAA does have access to country of origin information for aviation imports but relies on aviation manufacturers to oversee their suppliers to ensure products are in a condition for safe operation. Other Government agencies collect data on imported aviation parts; however, no agency currently maintains visibility into aviation supply chains, including for UAS. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is in the early stages of working with FAA and other Federal agencies to identify data needed to track aviation supply chains. We identified several vulnerabilities that increase the risk of aviation supply chain disruptions, including the lack of visibility into supply chains, dependence on sole-source or limited suppliers, and lack of access to rare earth metals and elements. Furthermore, COVID-19 led to a significant decrease in the demand for air travel and a corresponding decrease in the need for aviation products, causing additional supply chain disruptions. Disruptions included loss of suppliers, labor shortages, and congestion at shipping ports. Federal legislation has mitigated some of the impact of supply chain challenges on the aviation industry.Our RecommendationsThis report is informational and meant to be responsive to the congressional request. We are not making recommendations.

The Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014 requires the OIG to conduct an annual evaluation of NASA’s information security program. In this year’s review, we examined a sample of NASA- and contractor-owned information systems and assessed the effectiveness of information security policies, procedures, standards, and guidelines against the required metrics.