Of the four agencies that received over $40 billion in funding for science- related activities under the Recovery Act, DOE received the largest amount of funds. Table 1 shows Recovery Act funding, obligations, and expenditures for these agencies. Of the $35.2 billion it received under the Recovery Act for science-related projects and activities, DOE reported that it had obligated $34.6 billion (98 percent) and spent $18.9 billion (54 percent) as of September 30, 2011. This is an increase from March 10, 2011, when DOE reported that it had obligated $33.1 billion and spent $12.5 billion. Table 2 shows Recovery Act funding, obligations, and expenditures for DOE’s program offices. Our Recovery Act recommendations have focused primarily on the following four DOE programs and projects: The EECBG program, which provides grants to states, territories, tribes, and local communities for projects that improve energy efficiency, reduce energy use, and reduce fossil fuel emissions. The Office of Environmental Management, which cleans up contaminated sites across the country where decades of nuclear weapons research, development, and production left a legacy of dangerously radioactive, chemical, and other hazardous wastes. The LGP, which guarantees loans for energy projects that (1) use either new or significantly improved technologies as compared with commercial technologies already in use in the United States and (2) avoid, reduce, or sequester emissions of air pollutants or man-made greenhouse gases. The Weatherization Assistance Program, which enables low-income families to reduce their utility bills by making long-term energy- efficiency improvements to their homes by, for example, installing insulation, sealing leaks, and modernizing heating or air conditioning equipment. Table 3 shows Recovery Act funding, obligations, and expenditures for these DOE programs as of September 30, 2011. The Recovery Act provided about $3.2 billion for DOE’s EECBG, funding the program for the first time since it was authorized in the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007. DOE awarded this funding as follows: About $1.94 billion as formula grants to more than 2,000 local communities—including cities, counties, and tribal communities. About $767 million as formula grants to the states, five territories, and the District of Columbia. About $40 million for Administrative and Training/Technical Assistance. About $453 million through competitive grants to local communities. Our April 2011 report on the EECBG program focused on the approximately $2.7 billion awarded through formula grants. In that report, we found that more than 65 percent of EECBG funds had been obligated for three types of activities: (1) energy-efficiency retrofits (36.8 percent), which includes activities such as grants to nonprofit organizations and governmental agencies for retrofitting their existing facilities to improve energy efficiency; (2) financial incentive programs (18.5 percent), which includes activities such as rebates, subgrants, and revolving loans to promote recipients’ energy-efficiency improvements; and (3) energy-efficiency and conservation programs for buildings and facilities (9.8 percent), which includes activities such as installing storm windows or solar hot water technology. We also found that DOE did not always collect information on the various methods that recipients use to monitor contractors and subrecipients. As a result, DOE does not always know whether the monitoring activities of recipients are sufficiently rigorous to ensure compliance with federal requirements. In addition, DOE officials have experienced challenges in assessing the extent to which the EECBG program is reducing energy use and increasing energy savings. Most recipients report estimates to comply with program reporting requirements, and DOE takes steps to assess the reasonableness of these estimates but does not require recipients to report the methods or tools used to develop estimates. In addition, while DOE provides recipients with a software tool to estimate energy savings, DOE does not require that recipients use the most recent version. Based on these findings, we recommended that DOE (1) explore a means to capture information on recipients’ monitoring activities and (2) solicit information on recipients’ methods for estimating energy-related impact metrics and verify that recipients who use DOE’s estimation tool use the most recent version. DOE generally agreed with our recommendations and has taken steps to implement them. DOE took action on our first recommendation by collecting additional information related to subrecipient monitoring, in order to help ensure that they comply with the terms and conditions of the award. These changes will help improve DOE’s oversight of recipients. DOE implemented our second recommendation by making changes to the way it collects data to apply a unified methodology to the calculation of impact metrics. DOE officials also said the calculation of estimated impact metrics will now be performed centrally by DOE by applying known national standards to existing recipient-reported performance metrics. The Recovery Act provided about $6 billion to expand and accelerate cleanup activities at numerous contaminated sites across the country.This funding substantially boosted the Office of Environmental Management’s annual appropriation for cleanup, which has generally been between $6 billion and $7 billion. As of September 30, 2011, DOE had obligated all of the $6 billion in Recovery Act funding. DOE officials told us that they planned to have 92 percent of the funds spent by September 30, 2011, and DOE had expended about 88 percent (nearly $5.3 billion) by that time. As of May 2011, DOE had selected 109 projects for Recovery Act funding at 17 DOE sites in 12 states. DOE designated 80 percent of this funding to speed cleanup activities at four large sites: the Hanford Site in Washington State, Idaho National Laboratory, the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee, and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. DOE generally chose to use Recovery Act funds for cleanup projects that could be started and finished quickly. The majority of the projects selected also had existing contracts, which allowed the department to update and validate new cost and schedule targets within a short time frame. DOE generally funded four types of projects: (1) decontaminating or demolishing facilities, (2) removing contamination from soil and groundwater, (3) packaging and disposing of transuranic and other wastes, and (4) supporting the maintenance and treatment of liquid tank wastes. According to DOE officials, as of the end of May 2011, DOE had completed 28 Recovery Act projects. In July 2010, we reported that DOE has faced challenges in both managing Recovery Act projects and measuring how Recovery Act funding has affected cleanup and other goals. that one-third of Recovery Act-funded environmental cleanup projects did not meet cost and schedule targets, which DOE attributed to technical, regulatory, safety, and contracting issues. DOE took steps aimed at strengthening project management and oversight for Recovery Act projects, such as increasing project reporting requirements and placing tighter controls on when funds are disbursed to sites. By October 2010, DOE had made improvements in both cost and schedule performance. GAO, Recovery Act: Most DOE Cleanup Projects Appear to Be Meeting Cost and Schedule Targets, but Assessing Impact of Spending Remains a Challenge, GAO-10-784 (Washington, D.C., July 29, 2010). very different and potentially misleading information. Second, DOE had not yet developed a clear means of measuring how cleanup work funded by the act would affect environmental risk or the land and facilities requiring DOE cleanup. Third, it is unclear to what extent Recovery Act funding will reduce the costs of cleaning up the DOE sites over the long term. DOE’s estimate of $4 billion in life-cycle cost savings resulting from Recovery Act funding was not calculated in accordance with Office of Management and Budget’s guidance on benefit-cost analysis or DOE’s guidance on life-cycle cost analysis. Our analysis indicated that those savings could be 80 percent less than DOE estimated. Without clear and consistent measures, it will be difficult to say whether or how Recovery Act funding has affected DOE’s cleanup goals. DOE officials define footprint reduction as the “physical completion of activities with petition for regulatory approval to follow.” longer relevant since the Office of Management and Budget now requires contractor and subcontractor jobs to be reported online. In February 2009, the Recovery Act amended the LGP, authorizing DOE to also guarantee loans for some projects using commercial technologies. Projects supported by the Recovery Act must employ renewable energy systems, electric power transmission systems, or leading-edge biofuels that meet certain criteria; begin construction by the end of fiscal year 2011; and pay wages at or above market rates. The Recovery Act originally provided nearly $6 billion to cover the credit subsidy costs for projects meeting those criteria.reduction of $3.5 billion of this funding to be used for other purposes. According to our analysis of DOE data, as of September 30, 2011, DOE’s LGP had obligated about 78 percent of the remaining $2.5 billion in Recovery Act funds, leaving $552 million unobligated. The Recovery Act required that borrowers begin construction of their projects by September 30, 2011, to receive funding, and the unobligated funds expired and are no longer available to DOE. GAO-10-627. Consequently, we reported that DOE’s program management could improve its ability to evaluate and implement the LGP by implementing the following four recommendations: (1) develop relevant performance goals that reflect the full range of policy goals and activities for the program, and to the extent necessary, revise the performance measures to align with these goals; (2) revise the process for issuing loan guarantees to clearly establish what circumstances warrant disparate treatment of applicants; (3) develop an administrative appeal process for applicants who believe their applications were rejected in error and document the basis for conclusions regarding appeals; and (4) develop a mechanism to systematically obtain and address feedback from program applicants and, in so doing, ensure that applicants’ anonymity can be maintained.