Summary

In February 2006, we briefed Congress on the results of our review of various contracting issues related to the Gulf Coast hurricanes. We conducted this work under the Comptroller General's statutory authority in order to assess how three agencies--the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), and the General Services Administration (GSA)--planned for and conducted oversight of several key contracts in support of Katrina and Rita response and recovery efforts.

We focused our efforts on contract planning and oversight. During the course of our work, the agencies informed us that they are taking a number of steps to address the issues that we identified, and we reflected those actions in the briefing where appropriate.