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GAO-25-108093 1 (April 11, 2025)

handle is hein.gao/prtyopnrcns0001 and id is 1 raw text is: G &0 U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 441 G St. N.W. Comptroller General Washington, DC 20548 of the United States April 11, 2025 The Honorable Chris Wright Secretary of Energy U.S. Department of Energy 1000 Independence Ave., SW Washington, DC 20585 Priority Open Recommendations: Department of Energy Dear Secretary Wright: Congratulations on your recent appointment. The purpose of this letter is to call your personal attention to six areas affecting DOE's mission based on prior GAO work and the 30 open priority recommendations to the department, which are enclosed.1 Additionally, there are 227 other open recommendations that we will continue to work with your staff to address. We are highlighting the following areas that warrant timely and focused attention. Specifically: Improving contract, project, and program management. DOE's acquisition and program management for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and Office of Environmental Management (EM) is one of the areas on our High-Risk List. Historically, DOE has struggled to manage programs and projects, including mitigating the risks of uncontrolled changes to scope, cost, and schedule and meeting program and project goals. We identified several priority recommendations to improve DOE's management of its contracts, major projects, and programs. For example, we recommended that EM hold contractors accountable for maintaining a compliant Earned Value Management System to better oversee contractor performance on capital projects and develop effective program-wide performance metrics on reducing risks and costs of hazardous and radioactive waste cleanup. We also recommended that DOE document oversight processes for large nuclear energy demonstration projects to strengthen oversight and improve project performance. Further, we recommended that DOE consistently compare the inventories of software licenses that are currently in use with information on purchased licenses. Addressing nuclear modernization challenges. NNSA is undergoing an ambitious, decades- long, and costly effort to modernize the nation's nuclear security enterprise and the weapons in the U.S. stockpile. We identified several priority recommendations in this area to improve NNSA's ability to manage its enterprise and production modernization efforts. To provide NNSA with a more structured and defensible approach to managing the billions of dollars of work in its Weapons Activities portfolio, we recommended NNSA establish an enterprise-wide portfolio management framework for its weapons stockpile and infrastructure maintenance and 1GAO considers a recommendation to be a priority if when implemented, it may significantly improve government operations, for example, by realizing large dollar savings; eliminating mismanagement, fraud, and abuse; or making progress toward addressing a high-risk or duplication issue. GAO-25-108093 Page 1

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