Federal Reports

Why We Did This Report

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Inspector General conducted this evaluation to determine whether the EPA’s oversight and implementation of air quality monitoring resulted in underreported air pollution. 
 

Summary of Findings

Our statistical analyses indicate that pollution levels increase when certain air quality monitoring sites are offline. When some ambient air quality monitoring sites were offline, fine particulate matter air pollution increased on average by about 4 percent for daily monitoring sites and 9 percent for 1-in-3 monitoring sites. Further analyses indicated that 35.70 percent of sites that operated intermittently rather than daily had worse air quality on average when they were offline. While the results of our analyses do not indicate malicious behavior at any specific site, they demonstrate that there is a risk of underreported air pollution. 

The OIG issued this memorandum to help VHA determine whether additional actions are needed to address significant cost concerns and potential issues about patients’ length of stay and quality of care for residential substance use disorder treatment provided under community care contracts with two third-party administrators (TPAs). The OIG found the contracts do not require community providers to use designated billing codes, which could lead to VHA overpaying providers for these services. Though VHA has amended the contract for one TPA, negotiations are ongoing with the other; until this occurs, overpayments to the second TPA—which were over $268 million for FYs 2023 and 2024—will continue.

The OIG is also concerned that lax oversight of the TPAs could lead to VHA overpaying for these services because TPAs may bill for unnecessary treatment that could needlessly lengthen the time a veteran receives care. Further, the OIG is concerned about the quality of residential substance use disorder treatment veterans receive in the community and suggests greater oversight could mitigate financial risk as well as safeguard the care veterans receive.

The OIG notes that while VHA has taken steps to create a new payment policy and has completed a contract modification with the first TPA to clarify the use of billing codes, VHA should apply those changes to current and future contracts and monitor whether these changes control costs. The OIG also suggests VHA consider consulting with mental health staff at authorizing VA facilities for feedback on improving the care veterans receive in the community for these services.

The United States Coast Guard (Coast Guard) does not have a comprehensive system to initiate, investigate, and report suspension and revocation (S&R) actions of merchant mariner (mariner) credentials, and therefore cannot ensure the suitability of all mariners.  We found:  • The Coast Guard did not always investigate allegations of mariner misconduct because it has not developed a comprehensive case management system for the S&R process, nor has it developed internal procedures specifying which systems and processes Investigating Officers should use when investigating allegations. • The Coast Guard processes to obtain and record essential S&R information in its Merchant Mariner Licensing and Documentation (MMLD) database are not always effective, which leads to transmitting inaccurate information to the maritime community and the public. • The MMLD database is limited in its capabilities to store S&R decisions in a way that supports program oversight. • The Coast Guard does not have formal policies requiring Investigating Officers to document the reason(s) for not pursuing a preliminary case, resulting in reduced transparency. 

In fiscal year (FY) 2024, the U.S. Postal Service handled more than 11.6 million undeliverable Parcel Select packages that were scanned as return-to-sender. The Postal Service must process these packages at the post offices that serve the original delivery address and the return address. To receive these returns, the addressee must pay postage, which totaled about $138 million in FY 2024. A U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General (OIG) investigation found these packages to be vulnerable to theft. 

DOI is not consistently reducing cybersecurity risks by remediating software vulnerabilities that have been rated as the most severe.