The guidance issued by the Department requires the components to pursue the recovery of cleanup costs of $50,000 or more and to include in the annual report to the Congress each site’s name and location, the recovery status, the amount recovered, and the cost of pursuing the recovery. This field includes information such as progress in conducting investigations and contracts awarded for cleanup. The Defense components are required to report both the costs shared with non-DOD parties at the time of cleanup and the costs that they recovered from non-DOD parties after cleanup. Conclusions

The cost recovery data in the Department’s annual environmental cleanup report for fiscal year 1999 are not useful to the Congress or the Department for management or oversight because they are inaccurate, inconsistent, and incomplete. These problems limit the ability of the Congress and the Department to determine the extent to which recoveries may offset environmental cleanup costs. Recommendations for Executive Action

To ensure that the Congress and the Department of Defense have accurate, consistent, and complete information on cost recovery efforts, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Installations and Environment to modify existing guidance in areas where it is silent or unclear and provide specific guidance for (1) defining the types of cost sharing arrangements that should be reported, (2) calculating the costs of pursuing recovery, (3) reporting both cumulative and fiscal year data, and (4) capturing and reporting amounts spent by non-DOD parties under cost sharing arrangements.
What GAO Found

The cleanup of contaminated Department of Defense (DOD) sites could cost billions of dollars. Private contractors or lessees that may have contributed to such contamination may also be responsible for cleanup costs. DOD and other responsible parties either agree to a cost sharing arrangement with the responsible parties conducting the cleanup or DOD conducts the cleanup and attempts to recover the other parties' share after the cleanup. On the basis of a GAO study, DOD issued guidance requiring its components to identify, investigate, and pursue cost recoveries and to report on them in the Defense Environmental Restoration Program Annual Report to Congress. The data on cost recoveries from non-Defense parties included in the Department's report for fiscal year 1999 were inaccurate, inconsistent, and incomplete. As a result, neither Congress nor DOD can determine the extent of progress made in recovering costs or the extent to which cost recoveries may offset cleanup costs. Data on cost recoveries included throughout the annual report were also missing from the appendix. Thus, DOD may not know whether all potential cost recoveries have been actively pursued and reported.