The leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee wants the Government Accountability Office to examine whether the Energy Department’s contractor oversight practices are preventing company’s carrying out projects for the agency’s National Nuclear Security Administration from getting work done.
The committee is worried that some of the agency’s “burdensome practices” might “limit the efficiency of work in the nuclear security enterprise and its national lab network,” according to a Sept. 27 letter on committee stationary that Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) and Ranking Member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) sent to Gene Dodaro, the U.S. comptroller general.
The committee leaders specifically requested the GAO’s help in determining:
- “How are data calls made from DOE and the NNSA to its contractors, and to what extent are data calls intended to provide routine performance information to federal program and other managers?”;
- “What sources of data do contractors use to respond to these data calls, and to what extent do enterprise systems reliably capture these data?”;
- “Why do federal program and other managers make these data calls, and to what extent do enterprise systems serve their data needs?’; and
- To what extent would improving the availability and reliability of data useful for federal program and other managers (a) reduce data calls and (b) improve DOE mission performance?”
Other signatories on the letter were:
- Full Committee Vice Chairman Joe Barton (R-Texas).
- Full Committee Vice Ranking Member Kathy Castor (D-Fla.).
- Subcommittee on Energy Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.).
- Subcommittee on Energy Ranking Member Bobby Rush (D-Ill.).
- Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chairman Tim Murphy (R-Pa.).
- Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Ranking Member Diana DeGette (D-Colo.).
