United States Government Publishing Office publisher pbl distributor dst United States Government Accountability Office Resources, Community, and Economic Development Division author aut Government Organization text government publication eng GAOREPORTS Legislative Agency Publications gao legislative 2010-08-12 U.S. Government Printing Office 1998-11-04 monographic deposited born digital 20 p. GA 1.13:RCED-99-3 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-RCED-99-3 P0b002ee18037385f f:rc99003 DGPO 2010-08-12 2011-03-28 GAOREPORTS-RCED-99-3 machine generated eng fdlp REPORT GAOREPORTS-RCED-99-3 RCED-99-3 Federal property management Surplus federal property Property disposal Personal property Real property Inventory control systems Letter Report RCED Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Energy's (DOE) efforts to identify and dispose of property that is excess to its needs, focusing on the: (1) criteria the Department uses to guide the identification and disposal of excess property; (2) extent to which the Department's property records reflect what is no longer needed to carry out its missions; and (3) challenges the Department believes exist in identifying excess property and the innovative approaches being used to dispose of this property.<p/>GAO noted that: (1) federal property management regulations include criteria to determine when real property is excess to an agency's needs; (2) however, neither federal property management regulations nor DOE's regulations and guidance include specific criteria to determine when personal property is no longer needed; (3) when property has been identified as excess, guidelines for the disposal process are well defined for both real and personal property; (4) DOE's property records do not consistently provide information that would help identify property that is no longer needed; (5) recent changes to DOE's regulations require that property records identify property that has already been determined to be excess; (6) in July 1998, DOE modified its real property records system to identify property that has been determined to be excess; (7) this system also provides additional information, such as the percentage of a facility currently in use, that could be used to identify other property that is no longer needed; (8) similarly, in May 1998, DOE revised its personal property management regulations to require that contractors' records include information on current usage, such as categorizing property as active, in storage, or excess; (9) however, these regulations do not provide criteria for determining when personal property should be placed in these categories; (10) DOE acknowledges problems with its identification and disposal of excess real and personal property; (11) Department officials cited, for example, a lack of funding for the environmental cleanup of the current inventory of excess real property and a lack of incentives to identify property as excess; (12) because the costs associated with the maintenance and storage of unneeded property are generally not separately identified, little incentive exists to spend the resources necessary to dispose of it; and (13) regardless of the problems, field and program offices have developed some innovative approaches to dispose of property, such as including a performance-based incentive in the site management contract to encourage the contractor operating the site to dispose of excess property during the fiscal year. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-RCED-99-3/html/GAOREPORTS-RCED-99-3.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-RCED-99-3/pdf/GAOREPORTS-RCED-99-3.pdf GAO/RCED-99-3 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-RCED-99-3 Letter Report GAO/RCED-99-3; Department of Energy: Management of Excess Property; Federal property management Surplus federal property Property disposal Personal property Real property Inventory control systems Public Law 101-510 Public Law 103-160