DOD has been reporting to Congress since fiscal year 2004 on several items related to its training ranges in response to section 366(a) of the Bob Stump National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2003. The act as subsequently amended required annual progress reports to be submitted at the same time as the President submitted the administration’s annual budget for fiscal years 2005 through 2018. The requirement that GAO evaluate the plans submitted pursuant to subsections 366(a) and (b) within 90 days of receiving the report from DOD has also been extended through fiscal year 2018. In our prior reviews of DOD’s Sustainable Ranges Reports, we noted that DOD had not addressed certain required elements when it initially submitted its comprehensive plan in 2004. Further, we noted that it took DOD some time to develop a plan consistent with the basic requirements of section 366. Over time, we found that as DOD reported annually on its progress in implementing its comprehensive plan, it continued to improve its Sustainable Ranges Reports, and it has reported on the actions it has taken in response to prior GAO recommendations. For instance, DOD has included special interests sections for each service providing additional information on areas affecting training capabilities: the goals, actions, and milestones section; the funding requirements section; and the individual range assessments. A specific example is that, over time, the department progressed from using four common goals and milestones to using seven shared goals for which the services have developed their own actions and milestones that are tailored to their missions. We have reported that these new goals and milestones are more quantifiable and are now associated with identified time frames. As part of the preparation of its annual plan, the Secretary of Defense was to conduct an assessment of current and future training range requirements and an evaluation of the adequacy of DOD’s current range resources to meet those requirements. We found that the 2012 Sustainable Ranges Report met the annual statutory reporting requirements for DOD to describe its progress in implementing its sustainable ranges plan and any actions taken or to be taken in addressing training constraints caused by limitations on the use of military lands, marine areas, or airspace. In its 2012 report, DOD provided updates to several elements of the plan required by the act to be included in DOD’s original submission in 2004. These elements included (1) proposals to enhance training range capabilities and address any shortfalls in resources, (2) goals and milestones for tracking planned actions and measuring progress, and (3) projected funding requirements for implementing planned actions, among others. In our review of DOD’s 2012 Sustainable Ranges Report, we found that DOD had implemented 11 of our 13 recommendations since 2004 for expanding and improving its reporting on sustainable ranges. At that time, DOD officials stated that they were still in the process of implementing 2 recommendations. These recommendations were to: (1) develop an integrated training range database that identifies available training resources, specific capacities and capabilities, and training constraints caused by limitations on the use of training ranges, which could be continuously updated and shared among the services at all command levels, regardless of service ownership; and (2) develop a readiness reporting system to reflect the impact on readiness caused by training constraints due to limitations on the use of training ranges. For a complete presentation of prior GAO recommendations and their implementation status, see appendix II. The 2013 Sustainable Ranges Report met the annual statutory reporting requirements for DOD to describe its progress in implementing its sustainable ranges plan and any actions taken or to be taken in addressing training constraints caused by limitations on the use of military lands, marine areas, or airspace. In its 2013 report, DOD provided updates to several elements of the plan required by the act. These elements include (1) proposals to enhance training range capabilities and address any shortfalls, (2) goals and milestones for tracking progress implementing DOD’s sustainment plan, and (3) projected funding requirements for implementing planned actions, among others. In our review of DOD’s 2013 Sustainable Ranges Report, we found that DOD again reported on its proposals to enhance training range capabilities and address any shortfalls in resources. DOD developed these proposals by evaluating current and future training range requirements and the ability of current DOD resources to meet these requirements. In its 2013 report, DOD validated as current the 2012 range assessments and provided an update to the special interest sections developed by each service. For example, as the Marine Corps stated that the special interest section from the 2012 Sustainable Ranges Report was still valid for the 2013 report, the Marine Corps revalidated the issues it identified in the 2012 report and provided updates as needed. The Marine Corps identified several training shortfalls that it is working to remedy, such as the capability to fully exercise a large Marine Air-Ground Task Force in a realistically, doctrinally appropriate training scenario. The area currently used to provide this training is not large enough to accommodate a full-scale, live-fire Marine Expeditionary Brigade exercise. In order to address this shortfall, DOD would like to add 150,000 acres of land to this training area, and it is currently, in conjunction with the Bureau of Land Management, pursuing legislation from Congress in support of this objective. In its 2013 report, DOD also reported on four emerging challenges to training and its training ranges. These four challenges are: renewable energy, the demand for frequency spectrum, threatened and endangered species, and the indirect impacts of increased home-station training. For example, the report stated that as U.S. forces draw down from Afghanistan, the competition for airspace and training ranges is expected to increase to levels that have not been experienced for more than 10 years. During the surge of deployments over that period, demand for airspace and training ranges in the United States was commensurately lower since large numbers of forces were deployed to overseas contingency operations. DOD cited policies, programs, and proactive partnering at the federal, state, and local levels as a means to address this challenge. DOD’s 2013 report also revalidated as current its 2012 annual assessment of the adequacy of existing range resources to meet training requirements. Beginning with its 2013 report, DOD began conducting full range capability and encroachment assessments every 3 years rather than annually, and to validate those assessments in the years between evaluations. DOD’s analysis of range capability and encroachment data over the preceding 10 years had found that there were not significant changes in the data from year to year, and the military services had confirmed this finding. For the 2013 report, DOD asked the military services to validate the range capability and encroachment data from 2012, and to report on any significant changes. All of the military services reported that their range assessment data had not significantly changed from the 2012 report. Officials from all of the military services told us that they did not believe this change negatively affected the Sustainable Ranges Report, and that they believed this change accurately captured range capability and encroachment data. The next planned full range capability and encroachment assessment is to be included in DOD’s 2015 Sustainable Ranges Report. In its 2013 Sustainable Ranges Report, DOD continued to use goals, actions, and milestones to help address the statutory requirement to describe its progress in implementing its comprehensive training range sustainment plan. DOD has developed seven goals in support of this plan. These goals are as follows: to mitigate encroachment pressures on training activities from competing operating space; to mitigate frequency spectrum competition; to meet military airspace challenges; to manage increasing military demand for range space; to address impacts from new energy infrastructure and renewable energy impacts; to anticipate climate change impacts; and to sustain excellence in environmental stewardship. Each military service has developed its own milestones and needed actions for reaching those milestones, using these goals as a common framework. In the 2013 Sustainable Ranges Report, each service provided updates to its milestones and actions. For example, the Army is in the process of implementing the Army Compatible Use Buffer Zone Program at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, to protect the military mission and offset training restrictions, and it reported that approximately 22,000 acres have been conserved and more than $14 million in funding has been spent in support of this milestone. DOD also reported on new milestones that have been identified in support of department goals. For example, the Army is planning to relocate an instrumentation system to Fort Shafter, Hawaii, to enable enhanced home-station training in the Pacific by the end of fiscal year 2013. DOD stated that these goals and milestones will be reviewed and updated annually to ensure that DOD continues to address future training requirements and constraints. In the 2013 Sustainable Ranges Report, DOD met the statutory requirement to track its progress in implementing the comprehensive plan by identifying the funding requirements needed to accomplish its goals. DOD has delineated four funding categories to be used by the services to project their range sustainment efforts: modernization and investment, operations and maintenance, environmental, and encroachment. This section of the report also includes definitions and specific examples for each category, as well as requested funding levels for fiscal years 2013 through 2017. For example, the environmental category is described as funding dedicated to environmental management of ranges, including range assessments, response actions, and natural and cultural resource management planning and implementation. Examples of environmental funding include conducting range assessments and environmental mitigation costs associated with range modernization and range construction. In this section, DOD also provides an explanation of any fluctuations occurring over the 5-year funding period covered in the report. For example, the Army’s modernization and investment funding decreases from $247.0 million in fiscal year 2013 to a projected $49.3 million in fiscal year 2017 as a result of a significant reduction in military construction funding during this period due to DOD’s reduction in the force structure.