Professional Audit Review Team

GAO reviewed the results of the Professional Audit Review Team's (PART) evaluation of the Energy Information Administration (EIA) for the period July 1994 through September 1995.

GAO found that: (1) 78 to 84 percent of the recipients of two major EIA reports were satisfied with the reports' data and content; (2) most recipients used the reports several times a year for trend information and basic facts and found them to be useful for forecasting; (3) 84 percent of the respondents thought the reports were timely, but some wanted the data sooner; (4) EIA has provided InterNet access to the information to improve timeliness; (5) respondents believed that the reports could be made more useful by improving certain features and expressed concern about the completeness of some of the data; (6) users of the three limited-distribution EIA reports found the hard copy of the reports to be more useful than the InterNet or the diskette alternatives; (7) over 50 percent of the hard copy report users believed that they would have difficulty in obtaining reasonably comparable data if EIA discontinues these reports because they lack electronic access and it would increase their costs; (8) EIA has taken actions to improve the reports' relevancy and quality, but it may have to eliminate, reduce publication frequency of, or consolidate certain reports due to budget cuts; and (9) EIA has a quality assurance program to ensure that it is providing quality data, but reduced funding could affect all programs.