Skip to main content

Department of Commerce

Jump To:

Recent Reports

View More Reports

Open Recommendations (70 total)

Telecommunications: Agencies Should Fully Implement Established Transition Planning Practices to Help Reduce Risk of Costly Delays

GAO-20-155
Show
1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Commerce The Secretary of Commerce should ensure that the agency's Chief Information Officer takes into account the agency's telecommunications transition risks, mission critical systems, and contingency plans in Commerce's transition time line. (Recommendation 5)
Open
Commerce concurred with this recommendation. Commerce officials provided examples from bureaus and offices that the bureaus and offices take into account the agency's telecommunications transition risks, mission critical systems, and contingency plans in the organizations transition timeline. However, as of January 2024, the department did not provide any supporting evidence. We will continue to follow-up on the department's efforts to implement this recommendation.

Economic and Commercial Diplomacy: State and Commerce Could Build on Efforts to Improve Coordination and Effectiveness

GAO-22-105860
Show
1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Commerce The Secretary of State and the Secretary of Commerce should clarify how their agencies will sustain program leadership over the long term, such as with succession planning, in their guidance cables for the Deal Team Initiative. (Recommendation 7)
Open
As of April 2023, we continue to monitor Commerce's actions in response to this recommendation.

Cybersecurity: Federal Agencies Made Progress, but Need to Fully Implement Incident Response Requirements

GAO-24-105658
Show
1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Commerce The Secretary of Commerce should ensure that the agency fully implements all event logging requirements as directed by OMB guidance. (Recommendation 2)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Advanced Manufacturing: Innovation Institutes Have Demonstrated Initial Accomplishments, but Challenges Remain in Measuring Performance and Ensuring Sustainability

GAO-19-409
Show
1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Commerce The Secretary of Commerce should direct the NIST Director to work with other sponsoring federal agencies to ensure that the Manufacturing USA network-wide performance measures are directly aligned with the network-wide performance goals, the Manufacturing USA strategic objectives and program goals, and the statutory purposes of the Revitalize American Manufacturing and Innovation (RAMI) Act. (Recommendation 2)
Open
Commerce partially concurred with this recommendation according to its response to our report. In March 2020, Commerce stated that it supported the alignment of performance measures with performance goals only for Commerce-sponsored institutes because the other institutes (at the time of our report) were authorized under authorities other than the RAMI Act and were sponsored by agencies other than Commerce. We recognize that Commerce does not have management authority over other the institutes sponsored by other agencies. We believe our report sufficiently characterized the effort to align the network-wide performance measures with network-wide performance goals and Manufacturing USA program goals as a collaborative effort between Commerce and sponsoring agencies that is in keeping with Commerce's coordination functions under the RAMI Act, as amended. GAO's prior work has shown that systems of performance measures benefit from certain key practices, such as creating a hierarchy that breaks down broad, long-term goals and objectives into more specific, near-term performance goals with measurable targets and time frames. Our recommendation was designed to ensure that the Manufacturing USA program performance measurement structure that Commerce has already worked with the other sponsoring agencies to develop more fully aligns with these key practices. According to an August 2023 update from NIST, the interagency working team working on the triennial Manufacturing USA Strategic Plan has agreed to work on developing and implementing network-wide performance goals for the Manufacturing USA program. The team agreed to adapt the NIST-developed framework, including new strategic objectives for the program, as a first step toward strengthening network-wide performance measures. According to NIST's update, the framework, first developed for Commerce-sponsored institutes, leverages GAO recommendations, and links network-wide performance measures to network-wide performance goals, Manufacturing USA strategic objectives and program goals, and the program's statutory purposes. The participating sponsoring agencies also agreed to consider network-wide measurable targets and time frames. According to a NIST official, the interagency consensus described above has been incorporated into the draft triennial strategic plan, which is under review as of March 2024. We will provide a further update when we receive additional information from the agency.

Steel and Aluminum Tariffs: Commerce Should Improve Its Exclusion Request Process and Economic Impact Reviews

GAO-20-517
Show
1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Commerce The Secretary of Commerce should direct BIS to identify, assess, and make program changes to address issues that have impeded timeliness and created the backlog of exclusion requests. (Recommendation 2)
Open
In commenting on the report in September 2020, Commerce concurred with GAO's recommendation. In March 2021, Commerce reported changes they had made to their process and additional actions they would be taking during calendar year 2021. For instance, to reduce issues that have impeded timeliness, Commerce officials stated that they would be issuing new General Approved Exclusions for products demonstrated not to be produced domestically, and would explore additional technical modifications to help automate their process. Commerce also said they would continue to work to identify, assess, and address issues that slow timeliness in the 232 Exclusion Portal. As of November 2023, Commerce officials stated that they planned to issue guidance in 2024 addressing the issues that GAO has raised. GAO will continue to monitor Commerce's efforts to implement this recommendation.

Economic and Commercial Diplomacy: State and Commerce Could Build on Efforts to Improve Coordination and Effectiveness

GAO-22-105860
Show
2 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Commerce The Secretary of State and the Secretary of Commerce should ensure their agencies articulate and agree to a process for making and enforcing program decisions in their guidance cables for the Deal Team Initiative. (Recommendation 8)
Open
As of April 2023, we continue to monitor Commerce's actions in response to this recommendation.
Department of Commerce The Secretary of State and the Secretary of Commerce should ensure their agencies' indicate whether Deal Team participants have the appropriate knowledge, skills, and abilities to contribute and, if not, include a plan with timeframes on how they will address this issue in their guidance cables for the Deal Team Initiative. (Recommendation 9)
Open
As of April 2023, we continue to monitor Commerce's actions in response to this recommendation.

Artificial Intelligence: Agencies Have Begun Implementation but Need to Complete Key Requirements

GAO-24-105980
Show
1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Commerce The Secretary of Commerce should ensure that the department develops a plan to either achieve consistency with EO 13960 section 5 for each AI application or retires AI applications found to be developed or used in a manner that is not consistent with the order. (Recommendation 10)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

2020 Census: Additional Steps Needed to Finalize Readiness for Peak Field Operations

GAO-19-140
Show
1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Commerce The Secretary of Commerce should ensure that the Director of the Census Bureau identifies and implements changes to align census field supervisor screening, authorities, and information flows to allow greater use of the census field supervisor position to provide supervisory support to enumerators. (Recommendation 2)
Open
In its February 2019 action plan, the Bureau indicated having updated the Census Field Supervisor hiring assessment to include questions on supervisory experience, in line with draft documentation provided near the end of our engagement. The Bureau also indicated that, by June 2019, it would communicate as part of supervisor training increased supervisory responsibilities and the need to more actively work with enumerators in answering casework questions. The Bureau informed us in August 2020 that the Bureau would not be altering the information flows for 2020 operations to ensure that census field supervisors receive the same guidance and procedural updates that managers within the area census office receive. As of March 2024, we await Bureau officials to revisit this issue after they conclude analysis related to how field data collection will be managed for the 2030 Census, expected by the end of September 2024. To fully implement this recommendation for the 2030 Census fieldwork, the Bureau's planned or other actions later in the decade will need to demonstrate how the census field supervisors will have the information they need to carry out their responsibilities to provide supervisory support to enumerators.

Steel and Aluminum Tariffs: Commerce Should Improve Its Exclusion Request Process and Economic Impact Reviews

GAO-20-517
Show
1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Commerce The Secretary of Commerce should direct BIS to identify, analyze, and respond to factors in the process that may cause submission errors. (Recommendation 1)
Open
In commenting on the report in September 2020, Commerce concurred with GAO's recommendation. In March 2021, Commerce officials reported that they had taken a number of actions to improve the process, and that they had seen a decline in the number of requests rejected and withdrawn. Officials reported they would take additional actions in calendar year 2021, such as exploring additional technical modifications to the 232 Tariff Exclusion Portal. Commerce said that these actions are intended to reduce the overall number of submission errors, and they will continue to work to identify, analyze, and respond to factors that drive such errors in the Portal as well as improve the 232 Exclusion Process overall. As of November 2023, Commerce officials stated that they planned to issue guidance in 2024 addressing the issues that GAO has raised. GAO will continue to monitor Commerce's efforts to implement this recommendation.
View More Recommendations

Related Pages