Federal Reports

Under the Commercial Crew Program, SpaceX and Boeing were selected to develop U.S.-based crew transportation capabilities that would be certified by NASA to meet human-rating requirements and begin routine flights to the International Space Station. The SpaceX Crew Dragon received its certification in 2020 and has flown 12 crewed missions to and from the Station since that time. The Boeing Starliner, however, is uncertified as its three flight tests have uncovered a significant number of unexpected issues with varying levels of mission risk that remain.

Why We Did This Report

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Inspector General conducted this audit to determine whether costs claimed by the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program grant recipient, the IRL Council, were allowable, reasonable, allocable, and in accordance with grant terms and conditions for Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act funding in fiscal years 2022 and 2023 and to determine whether the grant recipient demonstrated progress toward achieving program goals and objectives.

Summary of Findings

We identified that 35 percent of the $832,199 spent is not allowable, contrary to the requirements outlined in 2 C.F.R. part 200 and the terms and conditions of the cooperative agreement. For the expenditures we reviewed, we found these were reasonable and allocable. Furthermore, we found that the IRL Council does not adequately monitor the activities of its subrecipients, nor do all its subrecipients have adequate financial management systems, to ensure compliance with all relevant requirements. We determined that the IRL Council did not submit all the reports mandated by regulations and the terms and conditions. Despite these challenges, the IRL Council demonstrated progress implementing the goals stated in its IIJA work plans.

Our objective was to assess the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA’s) spending of grant program administrative funds authorized by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA).

We found that NTIA initially did not maintain a consolidated 10-year spend plan for cost-category allocation under the IIJA program. NTIA manages cost-category allocations annually pursuant to the apportionment process required by the Office of Management and Budget. Although this initially posed a risk to long-term cost tracking, NTIA's decision to use annual plans has allowed it to be more responsive to the changing fiscal needs of the $48.2 billion broadband portfolio, mitigating this concern.

Ten of the transactions we tested, valued at about $324,000, lacked detailed information to link costs to their respective grants. Because NTIA has successfully realigned its administrative framework within the 2.7 percent aggregate cap permitted by law and received congressional approval to manage funds across the portfolio, the inability to trace these transactions to individual grant accounts does not represent a material risk of statutory noncompliance. However, establishing internal controls for the planning and tracking of expenses is considered a best practice to ensure continued statutory compliance in the future.

We made one recommendation to NTIA that it consider implementing controls to plan for and track expenses by each broadband program’s life cycle. NTIA concurred with our recommendation and is working to implement it.