There are certain statutory authorities under which the President may draw down articles and services from the inventory and resources of U.S. government agencies. Section 506(a)(1) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended, allows for drawdowns of defense articles from the stocks of DOD and defense services of DOD and for military education and training to foreign countries or international organizations in emergency situations. Before exercising this authority, the President must determine and report to Congress that an unforeseen emergency exists, requiring immediate military assistance that cannot be met under any other law. This special authority was more recently used in 2013 to provide airlift and refueling support for counterterrorism efforts in Mali; in 2014 to provide defense articles and services, as well as military education and training to assist the government of Iraq in combating the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria; and in 2015 to provide military assistance to Ukraine. (See fig. 1.) The maximum aggregate value of drawdowns under Section 506(a)(1) cannot exceed $100 million in any fiscal year. Section 506(a)(2) of the Foreign Assistance Act, as amended, authorizes the President to draw down articles and services from the inventory and resources of any U.S. government agency and military education and training from DOD and use them to assist foreign countries or international organizations in a number of nonemergency situations. Before exercising this authority, the President must first determine and report to Congress that any such drawdown is in the national interest of the United States. The maximum aggregate value of drawdowns under Section 506(a)(2) is $200 million in any fiscal year, with no more than $75 million provided from DOD inventory and resources. Section 552(c)(2) of the Foreign Assistance Act, as amended, authorizes the President to direct the drawdown of commodities and services from the inventory and resources of any U.S. government agency. In order to exercise this authority, the President must determine that an unforeseen emergency exists, that providing assistance in amounts in excess of funds otherwise available is important to the national interests of the United States, and that the unforeseen emergency requires the immediate provision of such assistance. The maximum aggregate value of drawdowns under Section 552(c)(2) in any fiscal year is $25 million. Since 2011, there have been 13 drawdowns of defense articles and services pursuant to the three authorities cited above (see table 1). None of these drawdowns used the Section 506(a)(2) authority. State and DOD are the government agencies primarily charged with planning and executing uses of drawdown authority. State officials said they typically begin the process by developing drawdown proposals under the above authorities when an international crisis arises. Since 2011, officials said they have used drawdowns in conflict situations, such as in Ukraine and Syria. State’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs along with DOD’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), the National Security Council, the Executive Office of the President, and in some cases other executive branch agencies participate in an interagency process to develop a recommendation for articles and services that the U.S. government should provide under the drawdown authorities (see fig. 2). Based on the estimated value and availability of the articles and services, the agencies agree on the parameters of the drawdown to recommend to the President, and State prepares a justification package that includes the Presidential Determination for the President’s signature, which is published in the Federal Register. The President may also delegate authority to make the determination to the Secretary of State, and documents this delegation in a memorandum that is published in the Federal Register. State notifies Congress of the President’s intent to exercise his authority before the President signs the determination and then notifies Congress once the determination has been made. According to State, the steps described above can be completed in about 2 weeks but usually require about 2 months before the implementation of a drawdown can begin. DSCA officials said they execute drawdowns after the President signs the determination by working with the military services and other DOD entities to determine what specific assistance the military services will provide and which of the services will provide it. A DSCA country program director creates an execution order with a maximum number of the articles or services to be provided through the drawdown, which may be updated over time. The country program directors work directly with the military services to track the execution of the drawdown, and the military services are responsible for providing execution data to update an automated database. The military services provide the defense articles and services they have available in their existing inventories. The military services cover the costs of the drawdown from their existing funds and without new appropriations. State officials said that the authority for a drawdown does not expire, and that the drawdown can be used until the maximum authorized dollar amount established for it in the Presidential Determination is reached, or until the crisis has been dealt with or the foreign policy goal has been met. State did not have a means to readily access justification package documents related to presidential use of drawdown authority because it had not assigned responsibility or established a process for centrally managing these documents. Although State policy specifies that the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, Office of Regional Security and Arms Transfers, leads State and interagency processes for presidential drawdowns, the bureau does not manage all of the key documents associated with the use of drawdown authority, nor is there a mechanism to centrally manage such documents. Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government also indicates that all documentation and records should be properly managed and maintained, and that documentation should be readily available for examination. Consequently, it took several months for State to fully respond to our request for key documentation on drawdowns, which includes memorandums to the Secretary of State and Office of the President, and a memorandum of justification containing background information about the crisis a drawdown is intended to address. State officials had to contact individual bureaus that worked on the drawdowns in fiscal years 2011 to 2015 to recover the justification packages that contained background information and context for why the drawdowns were authorized. In addition, State officials initially were not able to readily provide documentation for several drawdowns, such as the 2011 drawdown to Libya, for which State produced documents over 4 months later. State produced documents for a drawdown to Iraq 8 months after our original request. State officials also confirmed that they do not maintain drawdown documents in one centralized place, but that individuals in each of State’s six regional bureaus may maintain documents on drawdowns affecting countries within their purview. We found that there was no single point of contact responsible for consolidating all the drawdown documentation and no mechanism established to maintain key documents related to the President’s drawdown. Without a mechanism to ensure that key documents relating to the use of drawdown authorities are readily available, State is unable to produce documentation on drawdowns in a timely manner, consistent with federal internal control standards. DOD has not closed and has not provided certain reports to Congress on the execution of drawdowns since 2011 despite congressional interest in receiving information regarding assistance provided through drawdowns. In particular, Section 506(b)(2) of the Foreign Assistance Act, as amended, requires that the President keep Congress fully and currently informed of all defense articles, defense services, and military education and training provided under Section 506, including providing a report to Congress detailing what was delivered. The requirement to provide a report does not specify a date by which the reports must be submitted, but instead states that these reports shall be provided upon delivery of such articles, or upon completion of the services or education and training. DOD has provided no Section 506 reports for the eight presidential drawdowns undertaken pursuant to this authority in fiscal years 2013 through 2015. From 2010 until the end of calendar year 2013, DOD was also responsible for providing an annual report to Congress on drawdowns under Section 1247 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010. DOD provided reports to Congress in response to this requirement. Under DOD guidance, DSCA is primarily responsible for preparing Section 506 reports. DSCA practice has been that this reporting requirement arises when all articles, services, or both have been delivered, according to DSCA officials. DSCA officials noted that all of the drawdowns since 2011 are still being executed, meaning that there are still articles and services to be delivered. DSCA officials also noted that they work with State’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs to determine the best time to close a drawdown as completed, and noted that State has not determined to close out any drawdowns since 2011. State officials said that they do not have an active role in DSCA’s reporting to Congress but that they would expect to review Section 506 reports before DOD submits them to Congress. According to DSCA’s guidance, a termination date of not more than 18 months after the initial execution order will be stated in the execution order, unless otherwise directed by the country program director. DSCA officials stated that the termination date and the closure date that would trigger the reporting requirement are not the same. They also stated that if a particular drawdown reached its termination date with authority left (for example, only $10 million of the $25 million authorized has been used), DSCA would not terminate the drawdown if a crisis is still ongoing. For example, in December 2013 the President authorized $60 million in assistance to support African Union-led operations in the Central African Republic, and as of 2015, over $26 million remained undelivered, and the drawdown remains active more than 2 years later. In addition, DSCA officials stated that they may choose not to close a drawdown, even if all the available authority has been used, if a subsequent related drawdown is still active.