House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) underscored that reforms are needed to provide more oversight of the Department of Energy’s Work For Others program on Monday after a report on the program was released by the Government Accountability Office.
The WFO program allows national laboratories to perform outside work for other federal agencies and non-government organizations.
The GAO report, titled “DOE Needs to Improve Oversight of Work Performed Non-DOE Entities,” concluded that officials failed to ensure that WFO program requirements were met and recommended reforms.
A bipartisan group of Energy and Commerce Committee leaders requested the GAO’s evaluation of the program to ensure operational costs are recovered and outside work does not impede national laboratory missions and facilities.
“With (U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz) implementing a number of agency management reforms, this report underscores the kind of detailed work necessary for the agency to perform more effective oversight of how it spends taxpayer dollars and what it gets for that spending,” Upton said.
The GAO recommended that steps be taken to ensure project approval requirements are consistently met and performance measures are established to gauge the success of the WFO program.
Laboratories should also draft written protocols for charging costs to projects and specify what information annual program reviews should cover, according to the report.