GPRA is intended to shift the focus of government decisionmaking, management, and accountability from activities and processes to the results and outcomes achieved by federal programs. New and valuable information on the plans, goals, and strategies of federal agencies has been provided since federal agencies began implementing GPRA. Under GPRA, annual performance plans are to clearly inform the Congress and the public of the (1) annual performance goals for agencies’ major programs and activities, (2) measures that will be used to gauge performance, (3) strategies and resources required to achieve the performance goals, and (4) procedures that will be used to verify and validate performance information. These annual plans, issued soon after transmittal of the President’s budget, provide a direct linkage between an agency’s longer- term goals and mission and day-to-day activities. Annual performance reports are to subsequently report on the degree to which performance goals were met. The issuance of the agencies’ performance reports, due by March 31 of each year, represents a new and potentially more substantive phase in the implementation of GPRA—the opportunity to assess federal agencies’ actual performance for the prior fiscal year and to consider what steps are needed to improve performance, and reduce costs in the future.To meet the reporting requirements for this year, Commerce issued a combined performance report and performance plan. According to Commerce, its basic mission is to promote job creation and improve living standards for all Americans through economic growth, technological competitiveness, and sustainable development. The component agencies that are accountable for the selected key outcomes covered in this report are responsible for providing assistance to distressed communities; forecasting and warning the public about severe weather, such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods; supporting export policies that affect millions of domestic jobs and monitoring hundreds of international trade agreements; and helping stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and providing technical assistance to Russia and newly emerging countries concerning export controls. Activities not covered by the selected outcomes include supporting the domestic and international management of living marine resources, including overseeing 2,000,000 square miles of ocean and 300 marine species; fostering telecommunications policies that promote economic and technical advancement; protecting patents, trademarks, and intellectual property rights; and conducting the decennial census, demographic and economic censuses, and over 200 annual surveys. While Commerce shares responsibilities for these functions with a number of other federal departments and agencies, it has a lead role in one area—promoting economic development in distressed areas. This section discusses our analysis of Commerce’s performance in achieving selected key outcomes and the strategies—particularly those related to strategic human capital management and information technology—that it has in place for achieving these outcomes. On the basis of Commerce’s report, the Economic Development Administration (EDA) made good progress in achieving its two performance goals related to this key selected outcome: (1) to create jobs and private enterprise in economically distressed communities and (2) to build local capacity to achieve and sustain economic growth. In March 1999, we reported that measuring job creation that results from economic development programs is problematic. EDA reports that it adjusted its targets related to creating and retaining permanent jobs based on our report, resulting in conservative targets. In addition, EDA uses multiple measures to assess its performance related to this outcome. Among the achievements that EDA reports were creating or retaining over twice as many jobs in distressed areas as planned, obtaining millions of dollars in private sector investments in distressed communities ahead of schedule, obtaining more state and local funds than anticipated, awarding a larger portion of its grants to areas of highest distress, and decreasing the processing time for grant applications. The one performance measure for which the target was not met was the percentage of Economic Development District and Indian tribe planning grantees whose Comprehensive Economic Development Strategies were submitted on time and were acceptable. Commerce explained that this target is not based on statutory requirements and was originally an estimate. In addition, some delays may have stemmed from new legislation that changed the process for some grantees. EDA said that it is analyzing trends to determine if adjustments need to be made to future targets. EDA presents clear and reasonable strategies for the future, which include the following: providing grants for economic development projects in distressed providing grants to implement economic adjustment strategies in communities that experience sudden losses of jobs and severe economic distress, strengthening and expanding its strategic planning and investment activities through a network of regional planning organizations, and disseminating information on economic development issues affecting distressed communities to entities involved in helping those communities. EDA said that it used program evaluations to develop valid performance measures, verify results, provide a more complete understanding of overall program performance, and improve program performance. EDA also identified specific program evaluations that it had used in the past, as well as evaluations that are currently under way. EDA reports that it plans to collaborate with other federal agencies on ways to evaluate and measure crosscutting activities to improve economic development assistance for distressed communities—a topic that was covered in our September 2000 report. For each of its performance measures, EDA describes the data source, as well as its data validation and verification efforts. In addition, EDA generally discusses data limitations. For example, for two measures related to the ratings that EDA receives from its clients, EDA states that this is the first year that data have been reported and that it will evaluate trends after more years of data are available. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) made limited progress in achieving its performance goal related to this outcome—to advance short-term warnings and forecasts. NOAA reported its fiscal year 2000 performance for this goal using measures such as the lead time and accuracy of forecasts and warnings. Specifically, NOAA met its targets for flash floods and winter storms that are covered by warnings. On the other hand, it did not issue warnings for flash floods, winter storms, and tornadoes with as much lead time as targeted and its false alarm rate for tornado warnings was higher than targeted. NOAA’s performance on one measure—the accuracy of warnings for hurricanes— was not applicable this past year because no hurricanes made landfall during the 2000 season. In some cases, NOAA’s performance stayed about the same as last year even though the target was not met for fiscal year 2000. For example, the reported accuracy for marine forecasts involving winds and waves remained at 50 percent, slightly below the target of 51 percent. Similarly, the reported lead time for severe weather warnings for flash floods increased from 41 minutes to 43 minutes, but fell short of the target of 55 minutes. In reporting on these measures, Commerce’s report offered explanations for its failure to meet targets, which often involved atypical weather conditions. For example, in explaining why it did not meet its three targets for tornado warnings, NOAA noted that the 2000 tornado season had few well-organized storm systems, resulting in fewer and weaker tornadoes that are harder to detect. Similarly, in explaining why it did not meet its target of 20 percent accuracy in 3-day precipitation forecasts, NOAA indicated that the past year had been relatively dry, a factor that can lower the accuracy score. In addition, NOAA noted that this measure was being used for the first time and, therefore, was considered a baseline for this measure. NOAA noted that improvements are difficult to observe on an annual basis and that historical trends show that the agency continues to improve the accuracy and lead time of warnings related to severe weather hazards. NOAA’s strategies for further improving its performance are clear and reasonable. These strategies include continuing its investments in research and new technologies, maintaining continuous satellite coverage, strengthening weather observing and prediction systems, and improving the dissemination of weather forecasts and warnings to the public and others. NOAA also stated that it uses annual program evaluations at its National Weather Service (NWS) field offices as part of its quality control to ensure the reliability of its data and products; however, it did not elaborate on the results of these evaluations. For each of its performance measures, NOAA describes the data source, as well as its data validation and verification efforts. In addition, NOAA generally discusses data limitations. For example, for its measure related to hurricane warnings, NOAA states that there is a large variability in the hurricane warning program due to sample sizes and types of storms. Our prior work drew attention to problems that NWS faced in developing and implementing weather-forecasting technologies. Because of these and other problems, we identified NWS’ efforts to modernize its critical weather systems as a high-risk area in our 1995, 1997, and 1999 high-risk series reports. We made a series of recommendations aimed at helping NWS improve its management of the modernization effort, and NWS has implemented many of those recommendations. Most recently, in January 2001, we removed NWS’ modernization effort from our high-risk list because of the progress NWS had made in addressing our recommendations and in implementing a critical information processing system. NWS is continuing to improve its modernization systems and has reported that these efforts are critical to its ability to improve warnings and forecasts over time. Commerce’s progress made toward ensuring that U.S. businesses have greater access to international markets is unclear for at least three reasons. First, most of the targets related to this outcome were not met and performance for those targets during fiscal year 2000 was lower than performance during fiscal year 1999. For example, the International Trade Administration (ITA) did not meet its target for the number of counseling sessions held with U.S. businesses and held about 20,000 fewer sessions in fiscal year 2000 than it held in fiscal year 1999. ITA stated that the number of counseling sessions did not reflect its level of success given the emphasis on using electronic means to communicate with U. S. firms, but ITA did not describe its efforts to communicate electronically.