The Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics has been designated DOD’s Corrosion Executive. The Corrosion Executive is supported by staff assigned to the Corrosion Office. The Corrosion Office was initially established in 2003 as an independent activity within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, reporting directly to the Corrosion Executive. In 2004, the Corrosion Office was formally assigned to the Defense Systems Directorate. The direct chain of command went through the Defense Systems Directorate, which provided management and administrative support. Following a reorganization of the Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics organization in 2006, the Corrosion Office was moved to the Systems and Software Engineering Directorate. The Corrosion Office no longer reports directly to the Corrosion Executive. Appendix III depicts DOD’s organizational structure to address corrosion. The Corrosion Office is led by the Special Assistant for Corrosion Policy and Oversight and works closely with the Corrosion Prevention and Control Integrated Product Team, which has representatives from the military services and other DOD organizations to accomplish the goals and objectives of the Corrosion Office. Several working teams have also been established to conduct work in the seven areas making up the corrosion strategy: policy and requirements; impact, metrics, and sustainment; science and technology; communications and outreach; facilities; training and doctrine; and specifications, standards, and product qualification. The Defense Acquisition Guidebook contains guidance regarding the defense acquisition system, which exists to manage the nation’s investments in technologies, programs, and product support necessary to achieve the National Security Strategy and support the United States Armed Forces. This guidebook contains specific guidance regarding acquisition strategies, which define the approach a program manager will use to achieve program goals. Among other things, an effective strategy minimizes the time and cost required to satisfy approved capability needs. DOD’s directive on the defense acquisition process states that program managers shall consider corrosion prevention and mitigation when making trade-off decisions that involve cost, useful service, and effectiveness. Moreover, on November 12, 2003, the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics issued a policy memorandum stating that corrosion prevention should be specifically addressed at the earliest phases of the acquisition process by decision authorities at every level. DOD has had long-standing problems in funding, identification of impacts, and development of metrics, and these are continuing. DOD’s implementation of its long-term corrosion strategy, as required under 10 U.S.C. § 2228(c), has been hindered by weaknesses in these three critical areas. First, the Corrosion Office does not review the services’ corrosion programs or annual budget requests, even though this is required by 10 U.S.C. § 2228(b)(3). Second, the Corrosion Office has made only minimal progress in identifying corrosion impacts. Third, the Corrosion Office has not developed results-oriented metrics, even though we have previously recommended that it do so. Although 10 U.S.C. § 2228(b)(3) requires the Corrosion Office within OSD to review the annual funding requests for the prevention and mitigation of corrosion for each military service, the Corrosion Office has not done so. The Corrosion Office does not review comprehensive corrosion data from the services on their programs and funding requests because (1) DOD has not required the services to provide budget information to the Corrosion Office and (2) the services lack an effective mechanism for coordinating with the Corrosion Office with respect to their corrosion funding requests. None of the four services has a designated official or office to oversee and coordinate corrosion activities, including identifying annual servicewide funding requirements. Without a requirement or mechanism for reporting service funding information, the Corrosion Office officials said they are unable to review the services’ complete corrosion-related funding information, and thus DOD is hampered in its ability to provide oversight of the services’ funding requests. The Corrosion Office currently has oversight over only a small portion of departmentwide corrosion spending that is provided through a separate appropriations account. The Corrosion Office reviews and selects for funding the projects that are proposed by the services based on a combination of criteria, including: whether a project would benefit more than one service, whether it is projected to be completed within 2 years of its initial funding, the availability of matching funds; and the return on investment that it offers. For fiscal year 2006, DOD and the military services funded about $24 million for corrosion strategy efforts. Of this amount, $19 million was spent on 29 corrosion-related projects and about $5 million on contractor support, training, outreach, and other administrative activities. The DOD Corrosion Office projects a combined average return on investment of 42.5 to 1 for the $19 million, or a projected savings of $809 million over the life of the projects. The services frequently bypass the Corrosion Office to obtain their funding for corrosion-related efforts. We reviewed the President’s budget justification for fiscal year 2006 and identified more than $97 million for service-specific corrosion mitigation-related projects in addition to those reviewed by the Corrosion Office. These projects had not been submitted to the Corrosion Office for review, and Corrosion Office officials told us that they lacked any information about the $97 million and the status of the associated efforts. Because corrosion-related projects may be included under other maintenance projects or budget accounts, it is likely that there is more funding that we have not identified. According to recent corrosion cost studies conducted by DOD, the annual corrosion costs for Army ground vehicles and Navy ships alone were identified to be $2.019 billion and $2.438 billion, respectively. Without comprehensive reviews of the services’ corrosion-related programs and proposed funding requests, the Corrosion Office cannot fulfill its oversight and coordination role for the department. None of the four services has a designated official or office to oversee and coordinate corrosion activities, despite a recommendation by the Defense Science Board that they do so. Currently, multiple offices in the services are responsible for corrosion programs and related budgets. For example, several Air Force offices are responsible for corrosion-related matters: maintenance issues belong to the Air Force Corrosion Prevention and Control Office, corrosion policy for weapon systems is managed by an office within the Air Force Maintenance Directorate, and corrosion policy for infrastructure is handled by the Air Force Civil Engineering Directorate. None of these offices has comprehensive knowledge about corrosion activities throughout the Air Force. Without a designated official or office for corrosion, the services do not have the mechanism or capability to fully identify their annual servicewide corrosion funding requirements. DOD has acknowledged since 2002 that the identification of cost, readiness, and safety impacts is critical to the implementation of its corrosion strategy. We recommended in 2003 that DOD complete a study to identify these impacts, and further recommended in 2004 that DOD accelerate its efforts in order to complete the baseline prior to its original estimated date of 2011. According to DOD, the purpose of the study is to document where corrosion problems exist, identify their causes, and prioritize them for funding according to their relative severity in terms of their impact on DOD costs, readiness, and safety. In August 2004, after developing a cost-estimating methodology, a DOD contractor began a study to determine the total cost of corrosion for military equipment and facilities across the services. DOD currently plans to complete this cost study by 2009, 2 years earlier than originally planned. The study uses fiscal year 2004 costs as a measurement baseline and consists of several segments, to be completed sequentially. To date, it has made some progress in identifying corrosion cost impacts. For example, in April 2006, DOD completed the Army ground vehicle and Navy ship corrosion segments of this study. Several segments remain to be completed, including Army and Marine Corps aviation. Corrosion Office officials told us that progress has been slower than expected, primarily because of a lack of corrosion data. Table 1 shows the corrosion cost segments included in the study and their planned completion dates. The two completed studies generated data that could be potentially useful for developing initiatives aimed at reducing long-term corrosion costs, but DOD lacks an action plan for using these data. For example, the studies estimate the annual corrosion costs for Army ground vehicles and Navy ships at $2.019 billion and $2.438 billion, respectively. Costs are segregated in multiple ways, such as costs incurred at the depot, organizational, and intermediate maintenance levels; costs incurred while addressing a corrosion problem (corrective); costs incurred while addressing a potential problem (preventive); and direct costs incurred on end items or removable parts. However, the Corrosion Office has not developed an action plan on how it will use these data, or the data expected from future cost studies, to develop corrosion prevention and mitigation strategies. Without an action plan, DOD could miss opportunities for achieving long- term corrosion cost savings. Finally, although it acknowledges the importance of identifying corrosion impacts related to readiness and safety, DOD has made virtually no progress in assessing these impacts. DOD officials told us that they decided to identify cost impacts before they identify readiness and safety impacts because more information is available regarding costs, and identifying cost impacts is an important step towards identifying readiness and safety impacts. They said that some of their efforts will shift to readiness and safety as the cost impact study approaches completion. In June 2004, we reported that DOD lacked results-oriented metrics in its corrosion strategy and, as a result, could not effectively monitor progress toward achieving the goals of the corrosion strategy. In May 2005, DOD updated its November 2004 long-term corrosion strategy, but the update still does not contain results-oriented metrics for measuring progress toward targeted, quantifiable goals. In the strategy update, DOD has catalogued the aspects of corrosion prevention cost, readiness, and safety impacts that will need to be measured, but it has not quantified them or linked them with targets for improvement. For example, on a table entitled “Potential Revised Metrics Set”, under the column of safety impacts, the “facilities incidents” entry is linked with the description “events over time related to corrosion.” No measurable outcomes are associated with either the designated impact or the description. In addition, DOD officials told us that they cannot establish quantifiable goals regarding corrosion costs until they have completed the corrosion cost baseline, which, as noted earlier, DOD plans to complete sometime in 2009. These officials said that metrics for readiness and safety will likely take several additional years to complete because less information is available regarding readiness and safety impacts than information regarding cost impacts. They told us that the accompanying definitions and procedures will also take several years to complete. The Corrosion Prevention and Control Planning Guidebook encourages the establishment of corrosion prevention and control plans and corrosion prevention advisory teams as early as possible in the acquisition process. However, only 14 of the 51 programs we reviewed actually had both plans and advisory teams. DOD acquisition program officials have taken diverse approaches to corrosion prevention planning. We found that one reason why most programs did not have corrosion prevention plans or corrosion prevention advisory teams is that while they are strongly suggested, these elements are not mandatory. The guidebook developed by the Corrosion Office is intended to assist acquisition program managers in developing and implementing effective corrosion prevention and control programs for military equipment and infrastructure. According to the Corrosion Prevention and Control Guidebook, the corrosion prevention and control plan and the corrosion prevention advisory team should be established as early as possible in the acquisition process. DOD officials told us that establishing both a plan and a team is critical to effective corrosion prevention planning, and they strongly recommend that corrosion prevention planning begin at the start of the technology development phase of acquisition (Milestone A), when the effort is made to determine the appropriate set of technologies to be integrated into the weapon system. They said it should certainly occur no later than the system development and demonstration phase (Milestone B), when the first system and long lead procurement for follow-on systems may be authorized. According to the guidebook, a corrosion prevention and control plan should address a number of things, including system design, including materials and processes to be used for corrosion prevention and control, and should define the membership and organization of the corrosion prevention advisory team. The team should be actively involved in the review of design considerations, material selections, costs, and any documentation that may affect corrosion prevention and control throughout the life cycle of the system or facility. Members should include representatives from the contractors and DOD. In addition to this DOD guidance, the individual services have issued guidance that also calls for incorporating corrosion prevention planning during acquisition of weapon system programs. Most of the acquisition programs we reviewed did not have either plans or advisory teams for corrosion prevention and control. We reviewed a nonprobability sample of 51 major defense acquisition programs from the Army, Navy, and Air Force and found that only 14 of them had both corrosion prevention and control plans and corrosion prevention advisory teams. A total of 20 programs had developed corrosion prevention and control plans, and 18 had established advisory teams. Of the 51 programs, 27 had neither a plan nor an advisory team. Tables 2 and 3 list, by service, the number of programs we reviewed that had developed corrosion prevention and control plans and established corrosion prevention advisory teams. Appendix IV contains information on specific programs that we reviewed. Service acquisition officials told us that they retain broad discretion in developing individual approaches to corrosion prevention planning. We found that planning is inconsistently performed, and that so many different approaches are taken within and among the services that DOD is unable to maintain the oversight needed to ensure that corrosion prevention is being effectively conducted. For example, the degree to which corrosion prevention planning is performed depends on the initiative of the respective acquisition program offices. The Air Force’s C- 17A Globemaster program had a corrosion prevention plan and corrosion prevention team in place early in the acquisition process, several months before it obtained approval to proceed with full-scale development. C-17 officials told us that they took a proactive approach to avoid the corrosion problems experienced by the C-5 and KC-135 programs. In contrast, the Javelin program managed by the Army has not established a corrosion prevention plan or corrosion prevention team, even though the system development and most of its production objectives have been completed. Javelin program officials told us that they have extensive corrosion prevention requirements in the system development specification and have obtained the advice of corrosion prevention experts located at the Aviation and Missile Research and Development Center. Further, some program officials told us that specific corrosion prevention plans and corrosion advisory teams were not needed because other documents and processes provide the same function. The Navy’s SSN 774 Class submarine program did not have a specific corrosion prevention plan or corrosion prevention advisory team because the program relied heavily on detailed specifications and technical documents and on the experience of similarly designed submarines. Officials from some programs said it was too early in the acquisition process for them to have a plan or team, while those from other programs claimed it was too late. The Air Force KC-135 Replacement program officials told us they do not have a corrosion prevention plan or team because their system is still in the early development phase and they have yet to establish firm dates for their program design reviews. In contrast, Army High Mobility Artillery Rocket System program officials said that it is not sensible to have a corrosion prevention plan or team at this time because their program is currently in full rate production. Some programs we reviewed did not have a corrosion prevention plan or team because program officials told us that upgrades to existing weapon systems may be covered by an existing corrosion prevention plan or team. On the one hand, the Airborne Warning and Control System Block 40/45 upgrade program is a modification to the prime mission equipment of the E-3 aircraft. This program does not have its own corrosion prevention and control team or corrosion prevention advisory team, but rather is covered by the existing plan and team for the E-3 aircraft. On the other hand, a different Air Force program we reviewed represents an upgrade to the avionics system of the existing C-5 aircraft, and its officials told us that corrosion prevention issues are more appropriately addressed at the C-5 aircraft program level. These officials told us that while the C-5 program has an existing corrosion prevention advisory team, it does not currently have a current corrosion prevention plan, though one is under development and expected to be completed at the end of May 2007. We found that one reason most programs have not prepared corrosion prevention plans or established corrosion prevention advisory teams is that these elements are not mandatory. Major acquisition programs perform corrosion prevention planning at their discretion, and that may or may not include having a corrosion prevention plan, a corrosion prevention advisory team, or both. Further, these programs are not required to provide the Corrosion Office information regarding corrosion prevention planning. As a result, the Corrosion Office could not effectively monitor DOD acquisition practices to ensure that corrosion prevention technologies and techniques are being fully considered and incorporated when appropriate. Moreover, these programs may be missing opportunities to prevent future corrosion and thereby mitigate the impacts of corrosion on the costs, readiness, and safety of military equipment. More than 4 years have passed since Congress enacted legislation requiring DOD to establish a corrosion prevention and mitigation program, yet DOD has not met Congress’s expectations. Since the passage of this legislation, we have issued several reports on corrosion and made numerous recommendations to strengthen DOD’s ability to combat corrosion. Further, the Defense Science Board has called for an increased commitment on the part of DOD to prevent and mitigate corrosion, referring to “the importance of leadership commitment and proper incentives for ensuring corrosion is considered early and often in decisions.” DOD’s progress in implementing its corrosion strategy has been stymied by critical weaknesses. These include the absence of DOD guidance directing the services to provide the Corrosion Office with comprehensive data about their annual funding requirements for corrosion prevention and mitigation, the absence of a designated corrosion official or corrosion office within each of the services, and the absence of a DOD action plan to guide use of data in the corrosion cost study to achieve long-term cost savings. Furthermore, the lack of a DOD requirement for all major defense acquisition programs to have both a corrosion prevention plan and a corrosion prevention team could lead to inadequate corrosion prevention and, consequently, long-term corrosion problems throughout the life cycle of weapon systems. These and other weaknesses that we have raised in our previous reports severely hinder DOD’s ability to combat corrosion. Without top DOD and service leadership commitment to addressing these issues, corrosion prevention and mitigation will remain an elusive goal and opportunities to reduce costs, enhance readiness, and avoid safety problems will be lost. To effectively implement DOD’s corrosion strategy and meet congressional expectations expeditiously, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense and the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics provide the necessary leadership and commitment to take the following four actions. To ensure that DOD’s Corrosion Office provides oversight and coordination of the services’ proposed funding requests for corrosion prevention and mitigation programs, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense: Direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics to require the military services to provide comprehensive data about their annual funding requirements for corrosion prevention and mitigation efforts to the DOD Corrosion Office, before annual funding requests are sent to Congress. Direct the Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force to designate a corrosion official or a corrosion office within each service that is responsible for corrosion prevention and mitigation, and that the responsibilities of this official or office include identifying the annual funding requirements for corrosion prevention and mitigation efforts throughout the service. To ensure that DOD does not miss opportunities for achieving long-term corrosion cost savings, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense: Direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics to develop an action plan for using the information contained in the Army ground vehicle and Navy ship segments of DOD’s cost impact study. This plan should be completed as expeditiously as possible and be updated in time to support the fiscal year 2009 budget request. This plan should include information on corrosion cost areas having the highest priority and a strategy for reducing these costs. DOD should develop comparable action plans for the information to be derived from cost segments completed in the future. To improve DOD’s ability to avoid or limit corrosion problems experienced by weapon systems, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense: Require major defense acquisition programs to prepare a corrosion prevention plan and establish a corrosion prevention advisory team as early as possible in the acquisition process. In written comments on a draft of this report, DOD partially concurred with each of our four recommendations. In its response, DOD cited actions it planned to take which are generally responsive to our recommendations. In addition, the department provided several technical comments which we considered and incorporated where appropriate. DOD’s comments are reprinted in appendix V. DOD partially concurred with our recommendation to require the military services to provide comprehensive data about their annual funding requirements for corrosion prevention and mitigation efforts to the DOD Corrosion Office before annual funding requests are sent to Congress. DOD stated that a draft Corrosion Prevention and Control Department of Defense Instruction will require the military departments during the annual internal DOD budget process to submit information on the proposed corrosion programs and funding levels to the DOD Corrosion Executive. We believe this action is long overdue and is a step in the right direction if implemented. However, it remains uncertain when the instruction will be approved and what it will look like when finalized. Although the instruction was expected to be approved in November 2006, according to DOD officials, it is still undergoing revision. In addition, the draft instruction, as it is currently written, does not provide enough detail regarding the identification and submission of comprehensive data for funding associated with all corrosion prevention and mitigation efforts throughout DOD. For example, the draft instruction does not specify the type of funding information that is to be obtained by the services and reported to the DOD Corrosion Office. DOD also commented that corrosion prevention and mitigation activities are funded through many different sources, no program elements exist in the military departments that directly tie to corrosion, and many activities are funded to complete corrosion-related work but are not identified as such in budget documents. However, as we stated in our report, we reviewed the President’s budget justification for fiscal year 2006 and were able to readily identify more than $97 million for service-specific corrosion mitigation-related projects for which the Corrosion Office lacked any information. DOD partially concurred with our recommendation that the Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force designate a corrosion official or a corrosion office within each service to be responsible for corrosion prevention and mitigation, and that the responsibilities of this official or office should include identifying the annual funding requirements for corrosion prevention and mitigation efforts throughout the service. DOD stated that the same draft DOD Instruction cited in response to the first recommendation also specifies that the heads of DOD components shall designate a senior individual or office for oversight of corrosion matters, and it directs the Secretaries of the military departments to support this individual or office. DOD stated that the Air Force has already designated such an official. The draft instruction as it pertains to each service having a corrosion executive or a corrosion office responsible for corrosion prevention and mitigation is responsive to our recommendation if implemented. DOD partially concurred with our recommendation to develop an action plan for using the information contained in the Army ground vehicle and Navy ship segments of DOD’s cost impact study. In response, DOD stated that it would be impractical to develop an action plan in time to be used for the 2008 budget cycle. While our recommendation was intended for DOD to develop an action plan as soon as possible to support near-term funding decisions for corrosion prevention and mitigation efforts, we agree that DOD can not do this in time to be used for the 2008 budget cycle. Therefore, we have modified our recommendation to say that DOD develop an action plan as expeditiously as possible and revise the plan in time to support the fiscal year 2009 budget request. DOD also stated that the DOD Corrosion Prevention and Mitigation Strategic Plan already includes a requirement to select and fund corrosion research projects and integrated product team activities to enhance and improve corrosion prevention and mitigation throughout DOD. DOD further stated that the Military Departments assess and make priorities regarding corrosion based, in part, on funding for the “Top Ten” high cost of corrosion- vulnerable systems. While these efforts may have merit, we still believe that an action plan would provide additional benefits as we recommend. DOD partially concurred with our recommendation to require every major defense acquisition program to prepare a corrosion prevention plan and establish a corrosion prevention advisory team as early as possible in the acquisition process. DOD stated that a corrosion prevention control plan will be developed for all ACAT I programs before preliminary design review and implementation will be reviewed at each milestone. DOD noted that the establishment of a separate, formal Corrosion Prevention Advisory Team may not be necessary for all program levels, though such a team will be established for all ACAT I programs. DOD’s response is essentially responsive to our recommendation if carried out. In subsequent discussions DOD officials told us that they partially concurred because the response in some respects goes beyond our recommendation by requiring that all ACAT I programs have a corrosion prevention control plan and corrosion prevention advisory team. In addition to providing comments to our recommendations, DOD commented about our statement that the development of metrics for readiness and safety will likely take several additional years to complete because DOD officials have placed a higher priority on completing the cost impact studies. DOD commented that this is an inaccurate and dangerous assertion and implies that the department holds safety and readiness, the two linchpins of the operation military mind-set, in lower esteem than cost. In subsequent discussions, DOD officials told us that they decided to identify cost impacts before they identify readiness and safety impacts because more information is available regarding costs, and identifying cost impacts is an important step towards identifying readiness and safety impacts. We have modified our report by incorporating this statement. We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary of Defense and interested congressional committees. We will also make copies available to others upon request. This report will also be available at no charge on GAO’s Web site at http://www.gao.gov. If you or your staff have any questions regarding this report, please contact me at (202) 512-8365 or solisw@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made key contributions to this report are listed in appendix VI. To assess the Department of Defense’s (DOD) efforts to implement its corrosion prevention and mitigation strategy, including the oversight of funding; identification of cost, readiness, and safety impacts; and the development of results-oriented metrics, we reviewed DOD’s funding and progress for corrosion-related projects that it initiated during fiscal years 2005 and 2006. We reviewed the President’s budget justification for fiscal year 2006 for corrosion-related efforts and met with DOD officials within the Comptroller’s Office regarding their oversight of the Corrosion Policy and Oversight Office’s budget. We also met with DOD officials within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics to assess their oversight of programs and funding levels of the military services during the annual budget reviews as well as their monitoring of the services’ acquisition practices. In particular, we met with officials with the Corrosion Policy and Oversight Office responsible for managing, directing, and reviewing corrosion prevention and mitigation initiatives. We met with DOD officials involved with developing DOD’s long-term strategy to prevent and control corrosion. We obtained their assessments and perspectives on corrosion prevention and mitigation programs and strategies; obtained and reviewed DOD policies, procedures, guidelines, and draft instructions for prevention and mitigation of corrosion on DOD military equipment and infrastructure; and discussed additional actions that could be taken to further prevent and mitigate corrosion. We reviewed DOD’s funding requirements for fiscal years 2005 through 2007 and future year projections. To assess the extent to which the military services’ have incorporated corrosion prevention planning in the acquisition of major weapon systems, we conducted a review of 51 major defense acquisition programs from the Army, Navy, and Air Force. These 51 programs were selected based on a nonprobability sample of acquisition programs from the Fiscal Year 2006 Major Defense Acquisition Program List approved by the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics. Navy programs were about half of the programs on the list. A program is designated a major acquisition program either by the Secretary of Defense, or because it is estimated to require a total expenditure of more than $365 million in research, development, test, and evaluation funds or require a total expenditure of more than $2.19 billion in procurement funds. Our program selection represented the functional capability areas for battle space awareness, focused logistics, force application, force protection, and joint training and included air, ground, and sea weapon systems. In particular, we selected and reviewed 13 Army programs, 25 Navy programs, and 13 Air Force programs. We met with officials responsible for managing the acquisition programs and with officials having primary responsibility for overseeing corrosion prevention and mitigation within the respective services. We obtained and reviewed military service policies and instructions that establish corrosion prevention and control program requirements. For the acquisition programs we selected, we obtained and reviewed documents, including the acquisition strategy, acquisition plan, and corrosion prevention and control plans, as well as related information establishing corrosion prevention advisory teams and other reports used for tracking and monitoring corrosion-related design initiatives and corrections. In particular, we discussed the barriers that exist to more effectively employing corrosion control at program initiation and acquisition. We also reviewed the recommendations of the Defense Science Board report on corrosion control issued in October 2004, and obtained DOD’s related responses and actions taken to better address its strategy for corrosion prevention and mitigation. We met with Corrosion Policy and Oversight Office officials regarding their concurrence and the related actions taken to date. We conducted our work from April 2006 through January 2007 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. We did not validate the data provided by DOD. However, we reviewed available data for inconsistencies and discussed the data with DOD. We determined that the data used for our review were sufficiently reliable for our purposes. In addition to the individual named above, Harold Reich, Assistant Director; Leslie Bharadwaja; Larry Bridges; Tom Gosling; K. Nicole Harms; Charles Perdue; Cheryl Weissman; and Allen Westheimer made key contributions to this report.

Summary: Corrosion can have a deleterious effect on military equipment and infrastructure in terms of cost, readiness, and safety. Recognizing this concern, the Bob Stump National Defense Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 2003 required the Department of Defense (DOD) to designate an official or organization to oversee and coordinate efforts to prevent and mitigate corrosion. Recently, the National Defense Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 2006 directed GAO to examine the effectiveness of DOD's corrosion prevention and mitigation programs. In addition, GAO evaluated the extent to which DOD has incorporated corrosion prevention planning in acquiring weapon systems. GAO reviewed strategy documents, reviewed corrosion prevention planning for 51 recent major weapon system acquisitions, and interviewed DOD and military service officials. DOD continues to have problems that hinder progress in implementing its corrosion prevention and mitigation strategy. While it has created a Corrosion Policy and Oversight Office, that office lacks the ability to oversee and coordinate its efforts throughout DOD, as envisioned by Congress. For example, DOD's office does not review all of the services' proposed funding requests for corrosion programs, even though it is required to do so, because DOD has not directed the services to provide such information and none of the services has a designated official or office to oversee and coordinate servicewide corrosion activities. Without comprehensive reviews of the services' corrosion-related programs and proposed funding requests, the office cannot fulfill its oversight and coordination role. DOD has made some progress in identifying corrosion cost impacts, but it has not identified readiness and safety impacts. It recently completed corrosion cost impact studies for Army ground vehicles and Navy ships, identifying an estimated $4.5 billion in annual corrosion costs. Although the studies provided potentially useful data for reducing these costs, DOD has not developed an action plan to apply these data to developing corrosion prevention and mitigation strategies. Without an action plan, it could miss opportunities to achieve long-term cost savings. DOD has not yet developed results-oriented metrics, although GAO has previously recommended that it do so. Without top DOD and service leadership commitment to address these issues, corrosion prevention and mitigation will remain elusive goals and opportunities to reduce costs, enhance readiness, and avoid safety problems will be lost. Most of the weapon system acquisition programs GAO reviewed had not incorporated key elements of DOD corrosion prevention guidance. GAO found that only 14 of the 51 programs reviewed had both corrosion prevention plans and advisory teams, as encouraged in the DOD guidance. The primary reason most programs did not have these two elements is that they are not mandatory. As a result, these programs may be missing opportunities to prevent and mitigate corrosion.