Federal Reports

Semiannual report to Congress for April 1, 2021 through September 30, 2021.

On behalf of the Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, it is my pleasure to present this Semiannual Report to Congress, covering the period from April 1, 2021 to September 30, 2021. I continue to be grateful for the opportunity to lead this extraordinary group of managers, auditors, investigators, and support staff, and I’m extremely proud of their exceptional work.During this reporting period, we issued twelve audit and evaluation reports, and recommended several ways to improve NRC and DNFSB safety, security, and corporate management programs. We also opened nine investigative cases and completed nine, three of which were referred to the Department of Justice, and seven of which were referred to NRC management for action.Our reports are intended to strengthen the NRC's and the DNFSB's oversight of their myriad endeavors and reflect the legislative mandate of the Inspector General Act, which is to identify and prevent fraud, waste, and abuse. Summaries of the reports herein include reviews of the NRC's prohibited security ownership process; enterprise risk management process; nuclear materials and waste oversight process; use of request for additional information process; oversight of decommissioning trust funds; grant proposals and awards oversight; DNFSB compliance with Improper Payment Laws; and, the DNFSB safety culture and climate survey. Further, this report includes summaries of cases involving interference with inspection findings, inaccurate information in an inspection test report, theft of the NRC's laptop computers, retaliation for a differing professional opinion, mismanagement of a desk audit, and claim of a hostile work environment.

We conducted this evaluation due to the growing homeless crisis and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) establishing a goal of ending homelessness. Our objective was to evaluate the challenges that participating public housing agencies (PHA) face in meeting the goals and objectives of the HUD Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (VASH) program.The results from our limited review may help HUD in addressing PHAs’ challenges in addressing homelessness among veterans. In addition, the results of our review will help HUD determine what is working and not working toward meeting its VASH goals and objectives.We sent an electronic questionnaire to a universe of 662 PHAs with a HUD VASH program. The majority of responding PHA executives and designated points of contact found that they had excellent or good relationships with their designated Veterans Affairs Medical Centers (VAMCs) and local HUD field offices to help administer their HUD VASH programs. In addition, the respondents believed that the local HUD and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) field offices had excellent or good working relationships. Also, respondents expressed that the HUD requirements, including waivers and alternative requirements, were helpful in meeting their program goals and objectives. However, respondents were not able to use all of their allocated program vouchers. One of the reasons was the high cost of housing.

The NASA Office of Inspector General examined the costs associated with the Station’s continued use and maintenance, risks to its structure, NASA’s utilization of the ISS, and the Agency’s plans for commercialization of low Earth orbit.

We produced this Management Advisory to notify Small Business Administration (SBA) officials of serious concerns about potential improper payments in SBA’s Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program.Our review of Treasury’s analysis of processed COVID-19 EIDL and emergency EIDL grants from March to November 2020 revealed that SBA’s lack of adequate pre-award controls during this period of review led to 75,180 COVID-19 EIDLs totaling over $3.1 billion and 117,135 emergency EIDL grants totaling over $550 million being disbursed to potentially ineligible recipients. Our preliminary review of Treasury’s DNP analytical summaries indicated SBA should reassess controls to ensure only eligible recipients obtained COVID-19 EIDLs and emergency EIDL grants. A portion of these applications have been identified as potential fraud risks in previous OIG reports. A significant percentage of COVID-19 EIDLs and emergency EIDL grants that Treasury found in federal data sources had also been identified in earlier OIG audit reports. SBA’s lack of adequate front-end controls to determine eligibility contributed to the distribution of COVID-19 EIDLs and emergency EIDL grants to potentially ineligible recipients.SBA should take immediate action to limit improper payments by strengthening existing controls and implementing additional internal controls to address improper payments, especially through the use of the DNP portal.To prevent potential improper payments, we recommended SBA use the batch match or continuous monitoring functions available in Treasury’s Do Not Pay portal to identify potentially ineligible applicants before disbursing COVID-19 EIDL program funds.

Resilience and Continuity. Semiannual Report to Congress for April 1, 2021 - September 30, 2021.