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We initiated this report to address allegations on failures of the Department of Energy to provide effective oversight of travel card use by a political appointee. This report also presents findings related to a limited number of other political appointees and Department senior executives (collectively, “Executives”). Our review substantiated four of the five items noted in the allegation regarding misuse or abuse of the rules and regulations related to the political appointee. We did not substantiate the allegation related to use of split disbursements.

The Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014 requires Federal agencies to develop, implement, and manage agency-wide information security programs. Agencies are also required to provide acceptable levels of security for the information and systems that support their operations and assets.

In 2020, the Department of Energy implemented Department Order 486.1A, Foreign Government Sponsored or Affiliated Activities (Order), which prohibits Department and Laboratory employees from participating in foreign Government-sponsored talent recruitment programs and restricts other foreign Government-sponsored activities or affiliated activities with a foreign country of risk. We initiated this inspection to determine if the Department and its National Laboratories are complying with the Order.

In August 2023, the Office of Inspector General received an allegation that a contractor had not provided any deliverables supporting the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) $90 million Safety, Analytics, Forecasting, Evaluation, and Reporting (SAFER) system. The allegation claimed that the project was halfway through its 5-year contract period, but it had been “staggeringly unproductive given the money spent.”