Summary

In response to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Energy's (DOE) controls over the products and services it provided to non-DOE entities, primarily other federal agencies, to determine whether DOE: (1) had adequate controls over the work it performed; (2) properly implemented those controls; and (3) controls conformed to pertinent laws and regulations.

GAO found that: (1) although existing DOE policies concerning non-DOE work generally conformed with the legislative criteria, inconsistent controls at the field-office level did not effectively ensure control; (2) three of the four operations offices responsible for the work performed for non-DOE entities inconsistently implemented DOE controls; (3) implementation varied between the three offices because DOE had no established oversight standards; (4) DOE did not track its own indirect oversight costs or recover them from other federal agencies; (5) DOE did not specifically request monitoring staff allocations from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB); (6) an operations office organizationally moved one contractor group from DOE oversight after DOE raised concerns about the appropriateness of the group's non-DOE work; and (7) DOE did not perform a formal evaluation to determine whether the private sector could conveniently or cheaply perform the group's work.