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Groundwater Monitoring Activities at Department of Energy Facilities

In 1994, the Department of Energy's (Department) Contract Reform Team concluded that savings could accrue to the government if certain operating functions not essential to the Department's core mission were performed by outside contractors. Over the next several years, the Department initiated actions that required management and operating (M&O) contractors to identify, categorize, and evaluate all of their functions and prepare make-or-buy plans to obtain supplies and services on a least-cost basis subject to program specific make-or-buy criteria. The objective of this audit was to determine whether the Department's M&O contractors (1) identified those functions for which make-or-buy opportunities existed and (2) performed cost-benefit analyses.

The Department's Management and Operating Contractor Make-or-Buy Program

Leasing Land for the Siting, Construction and Operation of a Commercial AM Radio Antenna at Los Alamos National Laboratory

Leasing Land for the Siting, Construction and Operation of a Commercial AM Radio Antenna at Los Alamos National Laboratory

Order authorizing Duke Energy Trading and Marketing, L.L.C to export electric energy to Canada.

Order authorizing Duke Energy Trading and Marketing, L.L.C to export electric energy to Canada.

Improving security for unclassified information systems is one of the top issues facing government organizations today. This issue developed as Federal agencies migrated from a closed architecture, limited-access, mainframe environment to a web-based, client/server architecture, where literally the world may access government systems. The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) confirmed this reality in a series of reports to the Congress culminating in the designation of information system security as a “new Government-wide high-risk area.”

Unclassified Computer Network Security at Selected Field Sites

Federal regulations require that routine bioassay programs be established for workers likely to receive internal radiation doses. Bioassay programs determine kinds, quantities, or concentrations, and, in some cases, locations of radioactive material in the body. The Department of Energy's (Department) bioassay programs consist of two parts. In-vivo (inside the body) measurements include activities like whole-body, lung, and thyroid counting. In-vitro (outside the body) monitoring, on the other hand, includes radiochemical analyses of workers’ urine and fecal samples. Our audit was limited to bioassay analyses of urine samples, which represent 98 percent of all in-vitro analyses. In Fiscal Year (FY) 1999, the Department performed about 69,500 bioassay analyses at the 7 sites reviewed at an estimated cost of $7.7 million. The objective of this audit was to determine whether the Department's contractors obtained bioassay analyses at the lowest prices available.