United States Government Publishing Office publisher pbl distributor dst United States Government Accountability Office author aut Government Organization text government publication eng GAOREPORTS Legislative Agency Publications gao legislative 2010-08-12 U.S. Government Printing Office 2005-06-27 monographic deposited born digital 21 p. GA 1.13:GAO-05-680R https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-GAO-05-680R P0b002ee1803a3689 f:d05680r DGPO 2010-08-12 2011-03-24 GAOREPORTS-GAO-05-680R machine generated eng fdlp REPORT GAOREPORTS-GAO-05-680R GAO-05-680R Armed forces abroad Base closures Reporting requirements Base realignments Military bases Military facilities Regional planning Strategic planning Strategic forces DOD Quadrennial Defense Review Correspondence A28059 The Senate Appropriations Committee has expressed concern about the use of military construction budget authority for projects at overseas bases that may soon be obsolete due to changes being considered by DOD military services as well as the need for a more complete picture of future requirements than is typically available in annual budget requests. Accordingly, the conference report accompanying the fiscal year 2004 military construction appropriation bill directed DOD to prepare detailed comprehensive master plans for changing infrastructure requirements for U.S. military facilities in each of the overseas regional commands. In that regard, DOD was required to provide a baseline report on these plans with yearly updates on the status of those plans and their implementation with annual military construction budget submissions through 2009. Additionally, the fiscal year 2004 Senate military construction appropriation bill report required those plans to identify precise facility requirements, the status of properties being returned to host nations, and the funding requirements as well as the division of funding responsibilities between the United States and cognizant host nations. The Senate report also directed us to monitor the master plans developed and implemented for the overseas regional commands and to provide the congressional defense committees with annual assessment reports through fiscal year 2008. Our reports are to include an assessment of the status of the plans; the associated costs; host nation burden-sharing implications; and other relevant information involving property returns to host nations, including residual value and environmental remediation issues. This is our second report that responds to the reporting requirements contained in the fiscal year 2004 Senate military construction appropriation bill report. In our prior work, we found that the overseas regional commands we visited at that time were awaiting decisions on the integrated global presence and basing strategy, as well as final guidance from the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) before completing their master plans for overseas facilities. OSD provided initial guidance in February 2004 to aid the commands in developing their plans. However, that guidance did not include requirements to address environmental remediation, multiple U.S. funding sources available to support infrastructure changes, or residual property values--information that others and we would need to track the commands' progress in implementing overseas basing changes. Accordingly, we recommended in our July 2004 report that OSD include these requirements in its final guidance to the overseas regional commands. In issuing further guidance in October 2004, OSD included requirements to identify information on environmental remediation in accordance with status-of-forces agreements9 and on multiple U.S. funding sources available to support infrastructure changes, but not residual property value issues. For this report, we completed a more extensive assessment of that guidance and its use in developing the overseas master plans DOD submitted to Congress on March 2005. This report discusses the extent to which (1) OSD has provided sufficient guidance to overseas regional commands to meet the reporting requirements contained in congressional mandates and as suggested by GAO; and (2) overseas regional commands complied with the reporting requirements and in doing so, provided information in a complete, clear, and consistent manner, and whether improvements in guidance and reporting were needed. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GAO-05-680R/html/GAOREPORTS-GAO-05-680R.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GAO-05-680R/pdf/GAOREPORTS-GAO-05-680R.pdf GAO-05-680R https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-GAO-05-680R Correspondence GAO-05-680R; Opportunities Exist to Improve Future Comprehensive Master Plans for Changing U.S. Defense Infrastructure Overseas; Armed forces abroad Base closures Reporting requirements Base realignments Military bases Military facilities Regional planning Strategic planning Strategic forces DOD Quadrennial Defense Review