Federal Reports

Kansas made progress by plugging orphaned wells with IIJA initial grant funding; however, we identified issues with its grant performance.

In 2019, the Office of Inspector General initiated an investigation related to Pantex Plant’s (Pantex) management and operating contractor, Consolidated Nuclear Security, LLC (CNS), after CNS disclosed to the Government credible evidence that production technicians fraudulently recorded timesheet hours that they did not work. The investigation found that CNS submitted payment claims for production technicians’ hours worked and recorded on timesheets; however, the hours had not been worked. In 2024, the case was settled and CNS paid the Department $18,400,000 to capture the loss of claimed labor hours.
We initiated this audit to determine whether the CNS timekeeping irregularities that occurred at Pantex had adverse impacts to operations.

CNS timekeeping irregularities at Pantex resulted in adverse impacts to operations. Specifically, CNS experienced:

• Production delays; 
• Negative impacts to conduct of operations, which was a program put in place to ensure worker, public, and environmental protection;
• Additional costs for training and security clearances of $8.4 million to replace the production technicians who were terminated or placed on administrative leave; and 
• Increases in weapons quality incident reports following the termination of production technicians.

We attributed the adverse impacts to operations to a lack of CNS oversight over timekeeping. CNS responded by implementing an attendance verification process and requiring production technicians to badge in and out upon arrival to and departure from the plant; CNS was actively monitoring the implementation of its attendance verification process. The current contractor, PanTeXas Deterrence, LLC., will take over the attendance verification process.

We did not have any recommendations. Pantex’s contractors, CNS and PanTeXas Deterrence, LLC., took action to address the primary causes of the timekeeping internal control failures.

At the request of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) Supply Chain, we examined the cost proposal submitted by a contractor for (1) outage and supplemental maintenance and modification services and (2) support services at TVA’s nuclear plants.  Our examination objective was to determine if the cost proposal was fairly stated for a planned $975 million contract.

In our opinion, the contractor’s cost proposal was overstated.  Specifically, we determined the application base for the contractor’s proposed markup rate for the recovery of general and administrative (G&A) costs did not reflect TVA’s intent as provided for in the request for proposal (RFP).  We notified TVA of the inconsistencies for use in their negotiations.  Subsequently, TVA informed us the parties agreed to (1) apply the G&A markup rate to unburdened noncraft wages to more accurately reflect TVA’s intent for reimbursing G&A costs, (2) reduce the G&A rate, and (3) remove the G&A application on noncraft staff augmentation labor.  In addition, the contractor did not propose a rate for long-term temporary assignments, as requested in the request for proposal. 

In August 2024, we conducted unannounced inspections of four 3 U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) short-term holding 4 facilities in the San Diego area — two Border Patrol facilities and 5 two Office of Field Operations ports of entry.  We found that CBP 6 facilities generally met the National Standards on Transport, 7 Escort, Detention, and Search for food and beverages, supplies 8 and hygiene items, bedding, and medical care.  We also found 9 areas of noncompliance at the facilities, including: 10  11 • One Border Patrol facility did not comply with duration of 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 detention standards, which generally limit time in custody to 72 hours.  The facility held more than half of its detainees longer than this standard.    • CBP did not comply with relevant standards of processing, documenting, and storing detainees’ personal property.    • All facilities could not always provide U.S.-equivalent medication to detainees in a timely manner.    22 • One Border Patrol station did not meet cleanliness and 23 24 sanitation standards.