Federal Reports

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Standard Programs and Processes (SPP) 04.021, TVA Inventory Management Process, defines "surplus" as material that is not expected to be used within the next 3 years by TVA. Due to the risk of disposing of needed materials, and as a result of employee concerns shared during organizational effectiveness reviews at Cumberland and Kingston Fossil Plants in 2015, we initiated an evaluation of TVA's coal plant surplus materials process. The objective of our evaluation was to determine if coal plant materials designated for surplus were appropriate. The scope of our evaluation was materials surplused between October 1, 2013, and March 31, 2017. We found that materials designated as surplus at active and transitional plants were generally appropriate. Of the $49.7 million of surplused materials from October 1, 2013, to March 31, 2017, less than 1 percent was repurchased by coal plants. However, retired plant materials may have been surplused unnecessarily resulting in missed opportunities to redeploy materials, including inventory and noninventory, within the fleet. Based on our review of TVA SPPs and best practices, we identified opportunities for TVA to improve its redeployment of both inventory and noninventory materials in future plant retirements. In addition, we identified conflicting criteria related to the time frame used in designating materials as surplus.

We determined that two DHS Components – CBP and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) created their own internal authorizations for executive protection details and staffed them without clear legal authority. We made two recommendations to the DHS secretary to direct CBP and ICE to (1) discontinue security details pending a legal review by the DHS General Counsel and (2) develop directive regarding the scope and circumstances when a security detail is permitted for DHS component heads including the requirements for departmental level authorization; pending the results of the legal review.

Blue Cross Blue Shield Association claimed $68,605 of unallowable fiscal intermediary contract Medicare postretirement benefit costs on its Final Administrative Cost Proposals for fiscal years 2011 through 2015.