Environmental Liabilities: Long-Term Fiscal Planning Hampered by Control Weaknesses and Uncertainties in the Federal Government's Estimates

摘要

The nations military installations and nuclear weapons production facilities have accumulated many types of waste and contamination over the years. The federal government estimated its environmental liability to clean up this waste at $249 billion in fiscal year 2004, representing the federal governments third largest reported liability. It represents a significant future outflow of funds at the same time as many other competing demands for federal dollars, but is currently not auditable. GAO was asked to address (1) the nature and extent of the governments environmental liabilities, (2) the extent to which Energys and Defenses processes and controls were designed to estimate and report environmental liabilities in accordance with federal accounting standards, and (3) the nature and types of uncertainties that are currently not estimable but could affect the cost of cleanup.