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 2005-05-19 monographic deposited born digital 29 p. GA 1.13:GAO-05-682R https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-GAO-05-682R P0b002ee18037193b f:d05682r DGPO 2010-08-12 2011-03-28 GAOREPORTS-GAO-05-682R machine generated eng fdlp REPORT GAOREPORTS-GAO-05-682R GAO-05-682R Building codes Buildings Data collection Federal facilities Safety regulation Safety standards Standards and standardization Weather Correspondence A24398 A Congressional letter, dated June 30, 2004, to the Comptroller General expressed concern that the federal government may not have a uniform approach to protecting its facilities from lightning strikes. As a result, Congress requested a GAO study on issues related to whether the federal government should adopt a uniform standard for lightning protection systems. We selected four agencies for this study--the General Services Administration (GSA), the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), and the Department of Defense (DOD). These agencies hold over 80 percent (in terms of square footage) of the government's owned and leased property. The objectives of this study were to determine (1) to what extent these selected federal agencies use applicable lightning protection standard(s) to help protect buildings they own from lightning strikes; (2) how these selected federal agencies assess the need for lightning protection systems on their buildings; (3) what practices and lightning protection standard(s) the General Services Administration uses when leasing privately owned buildings; and (4) what data exist related to the financial impact of lightning protection and damage to the federal government, such as the number of buildings with lightning protection systems, the costs associated with installing lightning protection systems, and the costs to repair buildings struck by lightning. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GAO-05-682R/html/GAOREPORTS-GAO-05-682R.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GAO-05-682R/pdf/GAOREPORTS-GAO-05-682R.pdf GAO-05-682R https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-GAO-05-682R Correspondence GAO-05-682R; Federal Real Property: Lightning Protection Systems for Federal Buildings; Building codes Buildings Data collection Federal facilities Safety regulation Safety standards Standards and standardization Weather