As we have reported in the past, the impact of invasive species in the United States is widespread, and their consequences for the economy and the environment are profound. Invasive species affect people’s livelihoods and pose a significant risk to industries such as agriculture, ranching, and fisheries. The cost to control invasive species and the cost of damages they inflict, or could inflict, on property and natural resources are estimated in the billions of dollars annually. For example, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), each year the Formosan termite causes at least $1 billion in damages and control costs in 11 states; USDA also estimates that, if not managed, fruit flies could cause more than $1.8 billion in damage each year. Invasive species continue to be introduced in new locations, with recent examples including the northern snakehead fish in Maryland, the emerald ash borer in Michigan, and the monkeypox virus in the Midwest. Invasive species may arrive unintentionally as contaminants of bulk commodities, such as food, and in packing materials, shipping containers, and ships’ ballast water. Ballast water is considered a major pathway for the transfer of aquatic invasive species. Ballast is essential to the safe operation of ships because it enables them to maintain their stability and control how high or low they ride in the water. Ships take on or discharge ballast water over the course of a voyage to counteract the effects of loading or unloading cargo, and in response to sea conditions. The ballast that ships pump aboard in ports and harbors may be fresh, brackish, or salt water. These waters could potentially contain various organisms that could then be carried to other ports around the world where they might be discharged, survive, and become invasive. Other invasive species may be introduced intentionally; kudzu, for example—a rapidly growing invasive vine that thrives in the southeastern United States—was intentionally introduced from Japan as an ornamental plant and was used by USDA in the 1930s to control soil erosion. Federal agencies implement a variety of invasive species-related programs and activities pursuant to their specific missions and responsibilities. USDA, for example, spends significant resources on prevention and control activities for invasive species that harm agricultural and forest products. USDA is also responsible for preventing infectious diseases, some of which are considered invasive, from spreading among livestock. States also play a major role in addressing invasive species, either through their own programs or through collaboration with or funding from federal programs. Such programs and the amount of resources expended on them vary considerably among the states. In response to concerns that we were losing the battle against invasive species, President Clinton signed Executive Order 13112 in February 1999 to prevent the introduction of invasive species; provide for their control; and minimize their economic, environmental, and human health impacts. The executive order established the National Invasive Species Council, which is now composed of the heads of 11 federal departments and agencies, to provide national leadership on invasive species and to ensure that federal efforts are coordinated and effective, among other things. The executive order also required the Secretary of the Interior to establish a federal advisory committee to provide information and advice to the Council. To achieve the goals of the executive order, the Council was to develop a national management plan that would serve as the blueprint for federal action on invasive species. S. 525, if enacted, would call on the Council to carry out several other activities such as implementing a strategy to share information collected under the proposed legislation and to develop a program for educating the public about certain pathways for invasive species; it would also authorize funds for the Council to carry out these activities. The National Invasive Species Council’s management plan, Meeting the Invasive Species Challenge, issued in January 2001, calls for actions that are likely to help control invasive species, such as issuing additional regulations to further reduce the risk of species introductions via solid wood packing material, developing methods to determine rapid response measures that are most appropriate for specific situations, and devoting additional resources to strengthening inspection services at ports of entry. However, as we observed in our October 2002 report, the plan lacks a clear long-term goal and quantifiable performance criteria against which to evaluate its overall success. For example, the plan does not contain performance-oriented goals and objectives, such as reducing the introduction of new species by a certain percentage or reducing the spread of established species by a specified amount. Instead, the plan contains an extensive list of actions that, while likely to contribute to preventing and controlling invasive species, are not clearly part of a comprehensive strategy. Similarly, many of the actions in the plan call for federal agencies to take certain steps rather than to achieve specific results and do not have measurable outcomes. For example, the plan calls for the Council to work with relevant organizations to “expand opportunities to share information, technologies, and technical capacity on the control and management of invasive species with other countries.” The plan also calls for the Council to support international conferences and seminars. These types of actions are more process-oriented than outcome-oriented; taken individually, the actions may be useful, but judging whether they are successful and have contributed to an overall goal, will be difficult. Federal officials involved in developing the plan told us that they recognize that it has deficiencies and are working on improvements. The Council acknowledged in the plan itself that many of the details of the actions called for would require further development in the implementation phase. The executive director of the Council staff told us that, in her opinion, given the scope of this first-time effort, it would have been unrealistic and difficult to agree on specific measurable goals. She also said that, in many areas, the federal government does not have the data on invasive species conditions needed to set long-term goals and develop better performance measures. She said that many of the actions called for in the management plan are designed to help develop needed data but pointed out that doing so for some aspects of invasive species management will be difficult given the comprehensive data needed. The management plan also called for the Council to establish a transparent oversight mechanism by April 2001 to report on implementation of the plan and compliance with the executive order. This mechanism, however, is just now being set in place. Without this mechanism, the only available measure that could have be used to assess overall progress in implementing the plan was the percentage of planned actions that were completed by the dates set in the plan. By this measure, implementation has been slow. Specifically, federal agencies had completed less than 20 percent of the 65 actions that were called for by September 2002. Council agencies had started work on over 60 percent of the remaining planned actions, however, including some that have a due date beyond September 2002. Several actions in the plan that were completed on time related to the development of the Council’s Web site, which is found at www.invasivespecies.gov. In addition, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Coast Guard, the Department of the Interior, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had sponsored research related to ballast water management. Nevertheless, a vast majority of the members of the Invasive Species Advisory Committee, which we surveyed for our October 2002 report, said that the Council was making inadequate or very inadequate progress. We found several reasons for the slow progress in implementing the plan. First, delays occurred in establishing the teams of federal and nonfederal stakeholders that were intended to guide implementation of various parts of the plan. Second, our review of agencies’ performance plans (prepared pursuant to the Government Performance and Results Act) indicated that while some agencies’ plans described efforts taken to address invasive species under their own specific programs, none of the plans specifically identified implementing actions called for by the plan as a performance measure. Some stakeholders expressed the view that the low priority given to implementing the plan and associated limited progress may be due to the fact that the Council and plan were created by executive order, and thus do not receive the same priority as programs that are legislatively mandated. Finally, we also noted a lack of funding and staff specifically devoted to implementing the plan. To address these shortcomings, we recommended that the Council co- chairs (the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, and the Interior) ensure that the updated management plan contains performance-oriented goals and objectives and specific measures of success and give high priority to establishing a transparent oversight mechanism for use by federal agencies complying with the executive order and reporting on implementation of the management plan. We also recommended that all member agencies of the National Invasive Species Council with assigned actions in the current management plan recognize their responsibilities in either their departmental or agency-level annual performance plans. The agencies generally agreed with our recommendations. Since we issued our report, the Council made significant progress on its first crosscutting budget—one of the planned actions in the management plan that should help to develop performance measures and promote better coordination of actions among agencies. The Office of Management and Budget is currently reviewing the Council’s proposal for the fiscal year 2004 budget cycle. In addition, according to Council staff, the oversight mechanism should be finalized in July 2003, and the first revision to the management plan should be finalized later this summer. According to experts and agency officials we consulted, current efforts by the United States are not adequate to prevent the introduction of aquatic invasive species into the Great Lakes via ballast water of ships, and they need to be improved. Since 1993, federal regulations have required vessels entering the Great Lakes from outside the Exclusive Economic Zone—a zone extending 200 nautical miles from the shore—to exchange their ballast water in the open ocean (that is, water deeper than 2,000 meters) before entering the zone. Exchanging ballast water before arriving in the Great Lakes is intended to serve two purposes: to flush aquatic species taken on in foreign ports from the ballast tanks and to kill with salt water any remaining organisms that happen to require fresh or brackish water.