At any given time, the United States has military personnel serving abroad in forward-deployed locations to support U.S. strategic interests. The number of personnel and locations vary with the frequency and type of military operations and deployment demands. In general, operational control of U.S. military forces at forward-deployed locations is assigned to the nation’s six geographic, unified overseas regional commands, including Central Command. Central Command’s area of responsibility includes Afghanistan, where military operations have led to the creation of several hundred locations that vary in size and structure to meet mission requirements, and the military service components have been responsible for establishing and maintaining these locations. Some forward operating bases such as Bagram Air Field support thousands of personnel and are large consumers of energy. Forward operating bases generally support a brigade or larger population and are typically composed of temporary or semi-permanent structures that require energy for lighting, heating, and air conditioning; electrical power grids; water and sewage systems; and force protection systems. At the other end of the spectrum, small units at the company level and below have established combat outposts to enhance local operations. These outposts have a short life-cycle and unique configurations. Since these forward-deployed locations can be constructed in a variety of ways, the amount of fuel they consume can vary. Figure 1 shows the forward-deployed locations we visited during the course of our review. Military deployments generally rely on petroleum-based fuels, which power communication equipment, expeditionary bases, tactical vehicles, aircraft, some naval vessels, and other platforms. According to DOD officials, more than 43 million gallons of fuel, on average, were supplied each month to support U.S. forces in Afghanistan in 2011. Equipment such as generators provides power for base support activities such as air conditioning, heating, lighting, and communications, and consumes a significant amount of fuel In Afghanistan, the Defense Logistics Agency-Energy (DLA-Energy) delivers fuel to multiple points of delivery throughout the country via contracted trucking assets, depending on the location of the bases. DLA- Energy tracks the aggregate amount of fuel the services consume based on sales receipts, and the U.S. government pays for fuel that is delivered to each of these designated delivery points. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization delivers fuel in the southern part of Afghanistan. While the cost of fuel represents only about 2 percent of DOD’s total budget, it can have a significant impact on the department’s operating costs. Since the military services prepare their annual budgets based on the approved fuel price projections in the President’s budget, market volatility in the year of execution can result in out-of-cycle fuel price increases that are difficult for the services to absorb. A prior DOD report has estimated that for every $10 increase in the price of a barrel of oil, DOD’s operating costs increase by approximately $1.3 billion. The department has received supplemental appropriations from Congress in prior years to cover budget shortages associated with rising fuel prices. Moreover, the total cost of delivering fuel to a consumer on the battlefield—which includes the aggregate cost of buying, moving, and protecting fuel during combat operations—can be much greater than the cost of the fuel itself. A 2008 Defense Science Board task force report noted that preliminary estimates by the OSD Program Analysis and Evaluation office and the Institute for Defense Analyses showed that the fully burdened cost of a $2.50 gallon of fuel (DLA’s standard price for fuel in 2008) begins at about $15, not including force protection requirements for supply convoys. In addition, fuel delivered in-flight was estimated to cost about $42 a gallon at that time. However, the report notes that these figures were considered low when the report was published in 2008 and, according to DOD officials, in 2011, the cost of a gallon of this fuel had risen to $3.95 (DLA standard price in 2011), making the fully burdened cost of fuel even higher than previously reported. In fiscal year 2009 Congress required the Secretary of Defense to incorporate the fully burdened cost of fuel into its cost analyses, including acquisition analyses of alternatives and program design trade decisions.At the time of our review, DOD officials stated the department was in the process of analyzing the fully burdened cost of fuel and how it will be applied throughout DOD’s acquisition process. DOD has taken steps since our 2009 report to establish an approach for managing overall fuel demand, but is still developing comprehensive guidance to address fuel demand management. In 2009, we reported that DOD faced difficulty in reducing its reliance on fuel at forward-deployed locations because managing fuel demand had not been a departmental priority and its fuel reduction efforts had not been well coordinated or comprehensive. As such, we recommended that DOD develop requirements for managing fuel demand at forward-deployed locations, and DOD concurred with this recommendation. Since that time, DOD has taken several steps to increase its visibility and accountability for fuel demand management, and is developing comprehensive guidance on how DOD will incorporate energy efficiency considerations into operations, planning, and training decisions for current and future military operations. DOD has made progress in establishing visibility and accountability for fuel demand management since our 2009 report by making organizational changes and issuing an Operational Energy Strategy (operational energy strategy) and related Operational Energy Strategy Implementation Plan (implementation plan) to provide direction for DOD’s overall fuel demand management efforts, including efforts at forward-deployed locations in Afghanistan. Specifically, in our prior report we noted that DOD’s organizational framework did not provide the department with visibility or accountability over fuel demand management issues at forward-deployed locations because there was no one office or official specifically responsible for these issues. We also found that fuel demand reduction efforts were not consistently shared across DOD. Our prior work has shown that visibility and accountability for results are established by assigning roles and responsibilities, establishing goals and metrics, and monitoring performance. Congress and DOD have taken multiple steps to address this issue. For instance, the Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009 established a Director of Operational Energy Plans and Programs (OEP&P) responsible for serving as the principal advisor to the Secretary of Defense for operational energy plans and programs, which includes, among other responsibilities, monitoring and reviewing all operational energy initiatives in DOD. Since its establishment, OEP&P has worked in conjunction with all of the services’ energy offices to provide visibility and accountability for operational energy issues, including fuel demand management issues. For example, with input from the services, OEP&P published the Operational Energy Strategy Implementation Plan in March 2012 that assigns responsibilities for key tasks and specifies milestones and reporting requirements that will provide accountability for implementing the operational energy strategy (see appendix II). Also, in March 2012, DOD established a Defense Operational Energy Board to help provide visibility and accountability over operational energy efforts that included fuel demand management. The board will be cochaired by the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Operational Energy Plans and Programs and the Joint Staff’s Director of Logistics. According to OEP&P officials, the board will help review, synchronize, and support departmentwide operational energy policies, plans, and programs. In addition, the board will monitor and, where necessary, recommend revisions to DOD policies, plans, and programs needed to implement the operational energy strategy. DOD’s operational energy strategy, the implementation plan, and the Defense Operational Energy Board are intended to support departmentwide operational energy efforts while also having a direct impact on DOD’s efforts to manage fuel demand at forward-deployed locations in Afghanistan. Figure 2 provides a timeline of key events in OEP&P’s efforts to manage operational energy issues. To further enhance DOD’s operational energy efforts, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 required the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to designate a senior official under the jurisdiction of the Chairman to be responsible for operational energy plans and programs. In August 2011, the Chairman appointed the Joint Staff’s Director of Logistics to this position with responsibility for coordinating with OEP&P and implementing initiatives pursuant to the operational energy strategy. According to Joint Staff officials, the Joint Staff is committed to addressing operational energy capability gaps and in April 2012 formed a Joint Capabilities Task Group to identify and address fuel demand management issues. The task group’s mission includes: providing recommendations to better integrate operational energy into current and future materiel and nonmateriel solutions to improve operational capabilities, and supporting evaluation of the operational energy requirements process, and providing recommendations through the requisite Functional Capabilities Boards and the Joint Logistics Board to the Joint Capabilities Board or Joint Requirements Oversight Council for validation/decision. According to Joint Staff officials, the Joint Capabilities Task Group will focus on developing a framework for analysis that supports service and DOD efforts to inform leaders such as commanders in Afghanistan about operational energy vulnerabilities. The group will also propose guidance to support the combatant commands in assessing logistics plans and evaluating energy assumptions that will influence the execution of operational plans. OEP&P officials told us that the Joint Staff plays a key role in collaborating with OSD to create policy, develop joint doctrine, and advocate for combatant commander requirements. Joint Staff officials told us their goal is to incorporate energy efficiency guidance into existing joint publications when such documents are up for review. As part of this process the Joint Staff’s Joint Capabilities Task Group will prioritize which guidance documents will be revised first, then work toward updating other applicable guidance documents. According to DOD officials, when these guidance documents are updated, operational energy issues, including priorities for addressing fuel demand management, should be included in the services’ and combatant commanders’ mission planning activities. Our prior work on government performance and management also notes the importance of establishing goals and metrics to assess progress and provide accountability.