Introduction

This is GAO's first annual report to Congress in response to a new statutory requirement that GAO identify federal programs, agencies, offices, and initiatives, either within departments or governmentwide, which have duplicative goals or activities. Congress asked GAO to conduct this work and to report annually on our findings.¹ This work will inform government policymakers as they address the rapidly building fiscal pressures facing our national government. GAO's most recent update of its annual simulations of the federal government's fiscal outlook underscores the need to address the long-term sustainability of the federal government's fiscal policies. ² Since the end of the recent recession, the gross domestic product has grown slowly and unemployment has remained at a high level. While the economy is still recovering and in need of careful attention, there is widespread agreement on the need to look not only at the near term but also at steps that begin to change the long-term fiscal path as soon as possible without slowing the recovery. With the passage of time, the window to address the challenge narrows and the magnitude of the required changes grows. GAO's simulations show continually increasing levels of debt that are unsustainable over time absent changes in current fiscal policies.

In this report we are including 81 areas for consideration based on GAO's prior and ongoing work. We present 34 areas where agencies, offices, or initiatives have similar or overlapping objectives or provide similar services to the same populations; or where government missions are fragmented across multiple agencies or programs. These areas span a range of government missions: agriculture, defense, economic development, energy, general government, health, homeland security, international affairs, and social services. Within and across these missions, this report touches on hundreds of federal programs, affecting virtually all major federal departments and agencies. Overlap and fragmentation among government programs or activities can be harbingers of unnecessary duplication. Reducing or eliminating duplication, overlap, or fragmentation could potentially save billions of tax dollars annually and help agencies provide more efficient and effective services. The areas identified in this report are not intended to represent the full universe of duplication, overlap, or fragmentation within the federal government. We will continue to identify additional issues in future reports.

Given today's fiscal environment, we also present in this report 47 additional areas-beyond those directly related to duplication, overlap, or fragmentation-describing other opportunities for agencies or Congress to consider taking action that could either reduce the cost of government operations or enhance revenue collections for the Treasury. These cost-savings and revenue opportunities also span a wide range of federal government agencies and mission areas.

Many of the issues included in this report are focused on activities that are contained within single departments or agencies. In those cases, agency officials can generally achieve cost savings or other benefits by implementing existing GAO recommendations or by undertaking new actions suggested in this report. However, a number of issues we have identified, particularly in the duplication area, span multiple organizations and therefore may require higher-level attention by the executive branch or enhanced congressional oversight or legislative action.

In some cases, there is sufficient information available today to show that if actions are taken to address individual issues summarized in this report, financial benefits ranging from the tens of millions to several billion dollars annually may be realized by addressing that single issue. For example, while the Department of Defense is making limited changes to the governance of its military health care system, broader restructuring could result in annual savings of up to $460 million. Similarly, we developed a range of options that could reduce federal revenue losses by up to $5.7 billion annually by addressing potentially duplicative policies designed to boost domestic ethanol production. Likewise, we identified a number of other opportunities for cost savings or enhanced revenues such as reducing improper federal payments totaling billions of dollars, or addressing the gap between taxes owed and paid, potentially involving billions of dollars. Collectively, these savings and revenues could result in tens of billions of dollars in annual savings, depending on the extent of actions taken.

In other cases, precise estimates of the extent of unnecessary duplication among certain programs, and the cost savings that can be achieved by eliminating any such duplication, are difficult to specify in advance of congressional and executive branch decision making. In some instances, needed information on program performance is not readily available; the level of funding in agency budgets devoted to overlapping or fragmented programs is not clear; and the implementation costs that might be associated with program consolidations or terminations, among other variables, are difficult to predict. For example, we identified 44 federal employment and training programs that overlap with at least one other program in that they provide at least one similar service to a similar population. However, our review of three of the largest programs showed that the extent to which individuals receive the same services from these programs is unknown due to program data limitations. In addition, Congress' determinations in making policy decisions and actions that agencies may take would affect the potential savings associated with any given option.³ Nevertheless, considering the amount of program dollars involved in the issues we have identified, even limited adjustments could result in significant savings.

Given the challenges noted above, careful, thoughtful actions will be needed to address many of the issues discussed in this report, particularly those involving potential duplication. Additionally, in January 2011, the President signed the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010,⁴ updating the almost two-decades-old Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA).⁵ Implementing provisions of the new act—such as its emphasis on establishing outcome-oriented goals covering a limited number of crosscutting policy areas—could play an important role in clarifying desired outcomes, addressing program performance spanning multiple organizations, and facilitating future actions to reduce unnecessary duplication, overlap, and fragmentation.

As the nation rises to meet the current fiscal challenges, GAO will continue to assist Congress and federal agencies in reducing duplication, overlap, or fragmentation; achieving cost savings; and enhancing revenues. In GAO's future annual reports, we will look at additional federal programs to identify further instances of duplication, overlap, or fragmentation, as well as other opportunities to reduce the cost of government operations or increase revenues to the government. Likewise, we will continue to monitor developments in the areas we have already identified. Issues of duplication, overlap, and fragmentation will be addressed in our routine audit work during the year as appropriate and summarized in our annual reports.

Objectives

Section 21 of Public Law 111-139, enacted in February 2010, requires GAO to conduct routine investigations to identify federal programs, agencies, offices, and initiatives with duplicative goals and activities within departments and governmentwide and to report on its findings. As agreed with key congressional committees, our objectives in this report are to (1) identify federal programs or functional areas where unnecessary duplication, overlap, or fragmentation exists, the actions needed to address such conditions, and the potential financial and other benefits of doing so; and (2) highlight opportunities for additional potential savings or increased revenues. This provision also asked GAO to identify specific areas where Congress may wish to cancel budget authority it has previously provided—a process known as rescission. To date, GAO's work has not identified a basis for proposing specific funding rescissions.

Report at a Glance

We are including 81 areas for consideration drawn from GAO's prior and ongoing work. These areas span a range of federal government missions. Within and across these missions, this report touches on hundreds of federal programs, affecting virtually all major federal departments and agencies. The following interactive graphic gives an overview of the content of this report and summarizes 34 areas of potential duplication, overlap, or fragmentation as well as 47 additional cost saving and revenue-enhancing areas. In addition, links in this graphic will take you to area summaries that present options for the executive branch or Congress to consider. You can also go to Potential Duplication and Other Cost Savings here or in the navigation area on the left to read these area summaries.

Potential Duplication

This report presents 34 areas where agencies, offices, or initiatives have similar or overlapping objectives or provide similar services to the same populations; or where government missions are fragmented across multiple agencies or programs. These areas span a range of government missions: agriculture, defense, economic development, energy, general government, health, homeland security, international affairs, and social services. In some cases, there is sufficient information to estimate potential savings or other benefits if actions are taken to address individual issues. In those cases, financial benefits ranging from hundreds of millions to several billion dollars annually may be realized. In other cases, estimates of cost savings or other benefits would depend upon what congressional and executive branch decisions were made, including how certain GAO recommendations are implemented. Additionally, information on program performance, the level of funding in agency budgets devoted to overlapping or fragmented programs, and the implementation costs that might be associated with program consolidations or terminations, are factors that could impact actions to be taken as well as potential savings. Links in the information below will take you to area summaries that include actions for the executive branch or Congress to consider as well as a "Framework for Analysis" providing the methodology used to conduct the work and a list of related GAO products for further information.

Other Cost Savings

Given today's fiscal environment, this report also summarizes 47 additional areas—beyond those directly related to duplication, overlap, or fragmentation—where the government can achieve other cost savings or enhance revenue collections. These other cost savings and revenue opportunities also span a wide range of federal government missions and agencies. In many cases, there is sufficient information to show that if actions are taken to address individual issues summarized, financial benefits ranging from tens of millions to tens of billions of dollars annually may be realized. In other cases, however, estimates for savings or revenues would depend upon the nature and scope of congressional and executive branch decisions, or additional programmatic data may be needed. Links in the information below will take you to area summaries that include estimated cost savings or additional revenues, if available, and actions for the executive branch or Congress to consider. These areas summaries also contain a "Framework for Analysis" providing the methodology used to conduct the work and a list of related GAO products for further information.

Scope & Methodology

For the purposes of our analysis, we considered "duplication" to occur when two or more agencies or programs are engaged in the same activities or provide the same services to the same beneficiaries. We used the term "overlap" when multiple agencies or programs have similar goals, engage in similar activities or strategies to achieve them, or target similar beneficiaries. We used the term "fragmentation" to refer to those circumstances in which more than one federal agency (or more than one organization within an agency) is involved in the same broad area of national need. The presence of fragmentation and overlap can suggest the need to look closer at the potential for unnecessary duplication. However, determining whether and to what extent programs are actually duplicative requires programmatic information that is often not readily available. In certain instances in this report, we use the term "potential duplication" to include duplication, overlap, or fragmentation.

To identify federal programs or functional areas where unnecessary duplication, overlap, or fragmentation exists, we reviewed GAO's ongoing and previously completed work. In some instances, issues related to potential for duplication, overlap, or fragmentation were identified from GAO's body of work ⁶ specifically examining these issues across government. This body of work included GAO's reviews of a variety of federal programs, such as those related to training, employment, and education and social services. In other instances, we drew examples of potential duplication, overlap, or fragmentation from our ongoing audits and evaluations not specifically focused on these issues but where they were identified as challenges to the efficient and effective operation of certain federal programs or activities we reviewed. While our report includes examples where duplication, overlap, or fragmentation can hinder program performance and cause inefficiencies, we recognize that there could be instances where some degree of program duplication, overlap, or fragmentation may be warranted due to the nature or magnitude of the federal effort.

We also considered the work of other agencies such as the Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Office. While the work of other agencies informed our selection of specific areas for this year's report, we only included issues where we had current work or could update prior work within our reporting time frames. Therefore, this report is not a comprehensive survey of all government programs where unnecessary duplication, overlap, or fragmentation may exist. Rather, this report highlights a number of federal programs and activities where GAO's work indicates these issues exist. Each issue area contained in this report lists the relevant GAO reports and publications upon which it is based. Those prior reports contain additional information on GAO's supporting work and methodologies. For issues based on GAO work that has not yet been published or those that update prior GAO work, we provide additional information on the methodologies used in that ongoing work or update in the Framework for Analysis section of the issue area.

To identify the actions needed to address unnecessary duplication, overlap, or fragmentation, we reviewed and updated prior GAO work and recommendations and in some cases completed ongoing work or conducted new work to identify what additional actions agencies may need to take and Congress may wish to consider. In some instances, the long-standing nature or significance of certain issues, especially those that transcended more than one agency, led us to suggest the potential need for heightened congressional oversight. To identify the potential financial and other benefits that might result from actions addressing duplication, overlap, or fragmentation, we reviewed and updated prior GAO work and conducted ongoing work with a specific focus on the potential for cost savings. In some cases, we had sufficient information to show that if actions are taken to address the individual issues summarized in thisreport, opportunities for financial benefits ranging from the tens of millions to several billion dollars annually might be realized. Estimating the benefits that could result from eliminating unnecessary duplication, overlap, or fragmentation was not possible in some cases because information about the extent of unnecessary duplication among certain programs is not available. Further, the financial benefits that can be achieved from eliminating duplication, overlap, or fragmentation were not always quantifiable in advance of congressional and executive branch decision making, and information was not readily available on program performance, the level of funding devoted to overlapping programs, or the implementation costs and time frames that might be associated with program consolidations or terminations.

In light of the long-term fiscal imbalances that the federal government faces, we highlighted other opportunities for potential cost saving or revenue enhancements in addition to those associated with duplication, overlap, or fragmentation. Specifically, we reviewed and updated the existing groupings of major cost-saving opportunities that had previously been identified and summarized on GAO's Web site, ⁷ drawn from our past reviews of government programs at high risk of fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement or in need of restructuring. Similar to the duplication, overlap, and fragmentation work, we also reviewed our ongoing and recently completed work to determine whether the existing areas could be updated within the reporting time frames for this report, and we identified additional opportunities for consideration in areas where we had updated information available. We provided estimates of the cost savings or revenue enhancements, where available. At the beginning of each section, we include tables listing the areas for consideration, including information on the agencies and programs⁸ involved and cost savings or revenue enhancements, if available.

We will continue to examine issues related to duplication, overlap, and fragmentation in our ongoing work. In our future mandated annual reports, we will look at additional federal programs to identify further instances of duplication, overlap, or fragmentation as well as highlight additional opportunities to reduce the cost of government operations or increase revenues to the government. Likewise, we will continue to monitor developments in the areas we have already identified. Issues of duplication, overlap, or fragmentation also may be addressed in our routine audit work during the year and will be summarized in our mandated annual reports as appropriate.

This report is based substantially upon ongoing audits and previously completed GAO products, which were conducted in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards (GAGAS), or with GAO's Quality Assurance Framework, as appropriate. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. In one instance GAGAS did not apply to the work we did to identify the revenue enhancement opportunity pertaining to unobligated balances in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Customs User Fee Account. This work reviewed the agency's justification for certain estimates in the President's annual budget request to Congress rather than an audit and was performed in accordance with all relevant sections of GAO's Quality Assurance Framework. The framework requires that we plan and perform the engagement to obtain sufficient and appropriate evidence to meet our stated objectives and to discuss any limitations in our work. We believe that the information and data obtained, and the analysis conducted, provide a reasonable basis for any findings and conclusions in this product. For issues being reported on for the first time, GAO sought comments from the agencies involved and incorporated their comments, as appropriate. We briefed the Office of Management and Budget on a draft of this report. We conducted the work for the overall report from February 2010 through February 2011.

Report Contacts

Please direct questions about specific potential duplication and other cost savings areas discussed in this report to the GAO area contact identified on each area's page.

This report was prepared under the coordination of Patricia Dalton, Chief Operating Officer, who may be reached at (202) 512-5600, or DaltonP@gao.gov; and Janet St. Laurent, Managing Director, Defense Capabilities and Management, who may be reached at (202) 512-4300, or StLaurentJ@gao.gov.

This report was signed by:

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Gene L. Dodaro

Comptroller General of the United States

Abbreviations

Footnotes

1) Pub. L. No. 111-139, § 21, 124 Stat. 29 (2010), 31 U.S.C. § 712 Note.

2) GAO, (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 15, 2010). Additional information on the federal fiscal outlook, federal debt, and the outlook for the state and local government sector is available at:

3) The mandate calling for this report also asked GAO to identify specific areas where Congress may wish to cancel budget authority it has previously provided-a process known as rescission. To date, GAO's work has not identified a basis for proposing specific funding rescissions.

4) Pub. L. No. 111-352, 124 Stat. 3866 (2011).

5) Pub. L. No. 103-62, 107 Stat. 285 (1993).

6) For example, see GAO-AIMD-97-146, Managing for Results: Using the Results Act to Address Mission Fragmentation and Program Overlap (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 29, 1997); GAO/GGD-00-106, Managing for Results: Barriers to Interagency Coordination (Washington, D.C.: Mar 29, 2000); and GAO-05-325SP 21st Century Challenges: Reexamining the Base of the Federal Government (Washington, D.C.:Feb. 2005).

7) See http://www.gao.gov/highrisk/opportunities/.

8) To provide the most current information, we cited only those programs that were identified in GAO reports published in 2008 or later.