DOD has undergone four BRAC rounds since 1988 and is currently implementing its fifth round. In May 2005, the Secretary of Defense made public more than 200 recommendations that DOD estimated would generate net annual recurring savings of about $5.5 billion beginning in fiscal year 2012. Ultimately, the BRAC Commission forwarded a list of 182 recommendations for base closure or realignment to the President for approval and estimated that BRAC could save DOD annually about $4.2 billion after the recommendations had been implemented. After the BRAC Commission forwarded to the President its list of closure and realignment recommendations, the President was required to review and prepare a report approving or disapproving the BRAC Commission’s recommendations by September 23, 2005. On September 15, 2005, the President approved, and the recommendations were forwarded to Congress, which had 45 legislative days or until adjournment of Congress to enact a joint resolution disapproving of the recommendations on an all-or-none basis; otherwise, the recommendations became effective. The BRAC Commission’s recommendations were accepted in their entirety by the President and not disapproved by Congress and became effective November 9, 2005. The BRAC statute requires DOD to complete recommendations for closing or realigning bases made in the BRAC 2005 round within a 6-year time frame ending September 15, 2011, 6 years from the date the President submitted to Congress his approval of the recommendations. In making its 2005 realignment and closure proposals, DOD applied legally mandated selection criteria that included military value as the primary consideration, as well as expected costs and savings, economic impact to local communities, community support infrastructure, and environmental impact. Military value—which includes such considerations as an installation’s current and future mission capabilities, condition, ability to accommodate future needs, and cost of operations—was the primary criteria for making recommendations as mandated by BRAC law and as reported by both DOD and the Commission. Additionally, in establishing goals for the 2005 BRAC round, the Secretary of Defense, in a November 15, 2002, memorandum initiating the round, expressed his interest in (1) reducing excess infrastructure, which diverts scarce resources from overall defense capability, and producing savings; (2) transforming DOD by aligning the infrastructure with the defense strategy; and (3) fostering jointness by examining and implementing opportunities for greater jointness across DOD. The 2005 round is unlike previous BRAC rounds because of OSD’s emphasis on transformation and jointness, rather than just reducing excess infrastructure. For example, as part of the Army’s efforts to transform its forces, the Army included actions to relocate forces from Europe and Korea to domestic installations, which were part of its larger review of bases worldwide. The 2005 round also differs from previous BRAC rounds in terms of the number of closure and realignment actions. While the number of major closures and realignments is a little greater than individual previous rounds, the number of minor closures and realignments is significantly greater than those in all previous rounds combined. DOD plans to execute over 800 closure and realignment actions as part of the 2005 BRAC round, which is more than double the number of actions completed in the prior four rounds combined. The large increase in the number of minor closures and realignments is primarily attributable to the more than 500 actions involving the Army National Guard and Army Reserve, representing over 60 percent of the BRAC actions. To implement BRAC recommendations, DOD typically must incur various up-front investment costs during the 6-year implementation period in order to achieve long-term savings associated with the recommended actions. Such costs generally include, for example, one-time costs for actions such as military construction and personnel and equipment movement, as well as recurring costs for increased operation and maintenance of facilities and information systems. While savings from this investment may begin to accrue over the implementation period, additional savings typically occur annually on a longer-term basis beyond the implementation period ending in fiscal year 2011. One-time savings may include, for example, reduced costs associated with inventory reduction or elimination of planned military construction. Recurring savings may include for example, reduced sustainment costs associated with maintaining less warehouse space. Net annual recurring savings after the implementation period are calculated by subtracting the annual recurring costs from the annual recurring savings. Expected 20-year savings, also referred to as 20-year net present value savings, takes into account all one-time and recurring costs and savings incurred over the fiscal year 2006 through 2025 time period. For the BRAC 2005 round, the OSD BRAC Office—under the oversight of the Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition, Technology and Logistics)— has monitored the services’ and defense agencies’ implementation progress, analyzed budget justifications for significant differences in cost and savings estimates, and facilitated the resolution of any challenges that may impair the successful implementation of the recommendations within the 6-year completion period. To facilitate its oversight role, OSD required the military departments and certain defense agencies to submit a detailed business plan for each of their recommendations. These business plans, which are to be updated every 6 months, include information such as a listing of all actions needed to implement each recommendation, schedules for personnel movements between installations, updated cost and savings estimates based on better and updated information, and implementation completion time frames. DOD has made progress in implementing the BRAC 2005 round but faces challenges in its ability to meet the September 15, 2011, statutory completion deadline. DOD is more than halfway through the implementation period for BRAC 2005 and has made progress thus far. However, DOD faces several challenges to completing BRAC actions at some locations on time. First, DOD expects almost half of the 800 defense locations responsible for implementing BRAC to complete their recommendations within months of the deadline, and about 230 of those locations anticipate completion within the last 2 weeks of the implementation period. Second, some of these locations, which involve the most costly and complex recommendations, have already encountered delays in their implementation schedules. Third, DOD must synchronize relocating over an estimated 123,000 personnel with the construction or renovation of facilities. Finally, delays in interdependent recommendations could have a cascading effect on the timely completion of related recommendations. OSD recently issued guidance requiring the services and defense agencies to provide status briefings to improve oversight of issues affecting timely implementation of BRAC recommendations. However, this guidance did not establish a regular briefing schedule as needed or require the services to provide information about possible mitigation measures for any BRAC recommendations at risk of not meeting the statutory deadline. DOD is more than halfway through the implementation period for BRAC 2005 and has made steady progress thus far. In June 2008, DOD reported to Congress that 59 of 800 affected locations have completed their BRAC actions associated with that location as of December 1, 2007. While much remains to be done, DOD is awarding construction contracts, and DOD officials told us that fiscal years 2008 and 2009 should be the years with the greatest number of construction contract awards. Also, officials told us that high rates of obligation for BRAC military construction funds in fiscal year 2008 indicate that the services and defense agencies are generally meeting schedules for awarding construction contracts. This was the first BRAC round in which DOD required the services and defense agencies that implement the recommendations to prepare business plans for approval by the OSD BRAC Office. These business plans provide information on actions and time frames as well as cost and savings to help guide implementation. Services and defense agencies responsible for implementing BRAC recommendations were required to obtain business plan approval before beginning implementation. Business plans are updated twice a year, represent the most current information available on each recommendation, and serve as a tool for DOD to oversee the implementation of this BRAC round but do not include analysis of the likelihood of completing the recommendation on time. DOD faces several challenges in its ability to implement this round of BRAC by the September 15, 2011, statutory completion deadline. By statute, DOD must complete the recommendations for closing or realigning bases made in the BRAC 2005 round within 6 years from the date the President submitted to Congress his approval of the BRAC Commission’s recommendations. Although DOD has made implementation progress in the last 3½ years since BRAC became effective, the department still faces a number of challenges that could affect its ability to complete all BRAC actions by the statutory deadline. As of June 2008, DOD reported to Congress that about half out of 800 defense locations that are affected by BRAC recommendations expect to complete their BRAC-related actions within the last 9 months of the statutory deadline of September 15, 2011. Further, our analysis of DOD’s data shows that about 60 percent, or about 230, of these 400 locations expect to complete their BRAC actions in September 2011—the last two weeks before the statutory deadline. OSD BRAC officials told us some locations might have reported completion dates near the end of the BRAC deadline to allow extra time, although such a practice could represent potentially inaccurate completion estimates. Still, we believe DOD’s data provide an indicator of the number of locations that have little room for delays in the BRAC completion schedule. Some of the most costly and complex BRAC recommendations that DOD has yet to fully implement have already incurred some setbacks in implementation because of several reasons, including construction problems, the requirement to study environmental impacts, and delays in making decisions about site locations, awarding contracts and acquiring land. According to our analysis, the recommendations discussed are among the most costly, and represent about 30 percent of the total estimated costs to implement this round of BRAC. Many of these recommendations are also complex in that they involve movement of a large number of personnel, large construction projects, and synchronization with other recommendations. Some of the most costly recommendations that have experienced delays are as follows: Close National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency leased locations and realign others to Fort Belvoir, Virginia.