Department of Energy

This fact sheet provides information on the Department of Energy's (DOE) compliance with documentation and reporting requirements for its Major System Acquisitions, which are defined as projects critical to fulfilling an agency's mission. GAO looks at whether certain key documents for each Major System Acquisition have been approved by senior DOE management. These documents include a mission needs statement, a project plan, and an independent cost estimate. Approval of these documents is required before or at the start of a project, which begins upon the completion of the conceptual design.

GAO found that: (1) as of June 1992, 27 of 37 DOE MSA had progressed beyond the conceptual design stage and had an estimated total project cost of about $35 billion; (2) seven MSA did not have approved mission needs statements providing project justification relative to the DOE mission; (3) nine MSA did not have an approved project plan describing the project and establishing approved cost, schedule, and technical baselines; (4) ten MSA did not have an independent cost estimate for the entire project's total cost, used to validate the original project cost estimate; (5) DOE had not approved key documents for many of the projects because the projects had been in transition to or from MSA status or were being rescoped, revised, or redirected; (6) 8 of the plans were not up to date for 18 MSA which had approved project plans, and several had been out of date for 2 years or more, costing $50 million greater or less than the approved total project cost; and (7) out of date key approval documents and project plans raise questions about the level of involvement DOE management has had in the early stages of many critical projects.