Federal Reports

Sean Langston, a former Amtrak supervisor based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, pleaded guilty and was sentenced for his role in a wide-ranging pandemic fraud scheme on July 30, 2024, in Chester County, Pennsylvania State Court. Langston was sentenced to 6 months in prison, 6 months home incarceration and was ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $295,418. Our investigation found that Langston fraudulently applied for and received two Economic Injury Disaster loans and a Paycheck Protection Program loan totaling $268,487.The employee was previously terminated for falsely claiming and accepting payment for regular pay, overtime pay, and compensatory time for days he did not work and for using his company-owned vehicle for unauthorized purposes during work hours, including personal business.

Objects orbiting Earth such as satellites and debris continue to increase in number, making space contested and congested. Preventing collisions is crucial to protecting the safety of space activities and assets.In June 2018, the White House issued Space Policy Directive-3, National Space Traffic Management Policy (SPD‑3), acknowledging that the number of space objects was increasing while the activity and architecture to ensure space safety, including existing traffic management activities, was becoming inadequate.Currently, the Department of Defense (DOD) is providing basic space situational awareness data and potential collision notifications to space operators. SPD‑3 directs the transfer of certain responsibilities for providing data and services from DOD to the Department of Commerce, specifically to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) Office of Space Commerce (OSC), which is responsible for the coordination of space-related issues, programs, and initiatives within the Department.Our audit objective was to assess OSC’s progress in providing space situational awareness data and space traffic management services in accordance with SPD-3. We found that (1) OSC is behind schedule in providing basic space situational awareness data and services and (2) a new approach to space traffic management is not yet defined and remains a distant goal.We made five recommendations to help OSC develop a realistic program timeline and meet its SPD-3 responsibilities.

This report contains information about recommendations from the OIG's audits, evaluations, reviews, and other reports that the OIG had not closed as of the specified date because it had not determined that the Department of Justice (DOJ) or a non-DOJ federal agency had fully implemented them. The list omits information that DOJ determined to be limited official use or classified, and therefore unsuitable for public release.The status of each recommendation was accurate as of the specified date and is subject to change. Specifically, a recommendation identified as not closed as of the specified date may subsequently have been closed.

As part of our annual audit plan, we performed an audit of costs billed to the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) by Emerson Process Management Power and Water Solutions, Inc., (Emerson) under Contract No. 14688 for distributed control systems products and services. Our audit objective was to determine if costs billed to TVA under Contract No. 14688 were in accordance with the contract's terms. Our audit scope included about $8.2 million in costs billed to TVA by Emerson during fiscal years 2022 and 2023.In summary, we reviewed $6,039,332 in invoices billed under the largest 14 purchase orders (POs), all of which were for fixed price projects, and determined the fixed price POs were billed in accordance with the milestone payment schedules that had been authorized. However, we determined Emerson did not comply with the contract requirements to build up its fixed price POs using the contract pricing, resulting in an overstatement of $702,108 to the fixed price POs. Further, about $1.3 million of the pricing was not from Emerson’s pricing books. In addition, we determined (1) TVA project managers did not have enough information to effectively review the fixed price proposals to verify compliance with the contract prior to the issuance of the POs, which could have prevented Emerson’s noncompliance, and (2) the fixed price projects were not competed, although the contract stated it was TVA’s intent to compete any fixed price work awarded under the contract.