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Open Recommendations (86 total)

Critical Infrastructure Protection: Agencies Need to Enhance Oversight of Ransomware Practices and Assess Federal Support

GAO-24-106221
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Transportation The Secretary of Transportation should, in coordination with CISA, co-SRMAs, and sector entities, assess ransomware risks to the transportation systems sector. (Recommendation 9)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Critical Infrastructure Protection: Agencies Need to Enhance Oversight of Ransomware Practices and Assess Federal Support

GAO-24-106221
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2 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Transportation The Secretary of Transportation should, in coordination with CISA, co-SRMAs, and sector entities, determine the extent to which the transportation systems sector is adopting leading cybersecurity practices that help reduce the sector's risk of ransomware. (Recommendation 10)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Department of Transportation The Secretary of Transportation should, in coordination with CISA, co-SRMAs, and sector entities, develop and implement routine evaluation procedures that measure the effectiveness of federal support in helping reduce the risk of ransomware to the transportation systems sector. (Recommendation 11)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Federal Regulation: Selected Emerging Technologies Highlight the Need for Legislative Analysis and Enhanced Coordination

GAO-24-106122
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Transportation The Secretary of Transportation should provide the public with information on the NETT Council's completed and planned efforts to evaluate relevant emerging technologies. (Recommendation 2)
Open – Partially Addressed
DOT agreed with this January 2024 recommendation and told us that the agency plans to issue a series of annual reports that will outline the Nontraditional and Emerging Transportation Technology (NETT) Council's completed activities. DOT issued the first of these reports in December 2023. However, this report does not include information on the council's planned efforts, such as technologies that the council has prioritized for future evaluation or member agencies' plans to implement NETT Council recommendations. Until DOT regularly provides the public with information on the status of both the council's completed and planned activities, the NETT Council may continue to miss an opportunity to help ensure that it is accountable for achieving its goals of identifying and resolving regulatory gaps related to emerging transportation technologies.

Discretionary Transportation Grants: DOT Should Improve Transparency in the Infrastructure for Rebuilding America Program

GAO-24-106378
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Transportation The Secretary of Transportation should ensure that Office of the Secretary officials establish quality control procedures to verify that the conflict-of-interest screening and eligibility determination documentation is complete for Multimodal Project Discretionary Grant program applications. (Recommendation 1)
Open
DOT concurred with this recommendation. In May 2024, DOT officials stated that they have revised the Multimodal Project Discretionary Grant (MPDG) evaluation guidelines for the FY 2025 - 2026 round of funding to clarify the conflict-of-interest screening and eligibility determination documentation requirements. DOT is current evaluating MPDG applications for award; once this process is complete GAO will verify the use of these revised procedures.

Discretionary Transportation Grants: DOT Should Improve Transparency in the Infrastructure for Rebuilding America Program

GAO-24-106378
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Transportation The Secretary of Transportation should clearly define, in the Multimodal Project Discretionary Grant program evaluation plan and Notice of Funding Opportunity, how an application may qualify as an "exemplary project of national or regional significance that generates significant benefits in one of the project outcome areas." (Recommendation 2)
Open
In January 2024, as part of its formal agency comments on GAO's report, DOT disagreed with this recommendation. In May 2024, DOT officials stated that the Department does not believe further clarification in the NOFO regarding how a project may be exemplary is necessary. They also noted that the application of the "exemplary" as well as the determination of whether projects are exemplary is at the discretion of the Department (and delegated advisors including the Senior Review Team members). However, we continue to believe that DOT should implement our recommendation for the reasons outlined in the report. Specifically, according to Office of Management and Budget guidance, the NOFO should clearly describe all criteria, including any sub-criteria. Clearly defining what constitutes "exemplary project" criteria would enhance the consistency and transparency of the program and provide better information to applicants. GAO will continue to monitor the status of this recommendation.

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

GAO-24-105980
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Transportation The Secretary of Transportation should ensure that the department (a) reviews the department's authorities related to applications of AI and (b) develops and submits to OMB plans to achieve consistency with the Regulation of AI Applications memorandum (M-21-06). (Recommendation 24)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

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

GAO-24-105980
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Transportation The Secretary of Transportation should ensure that the department updates its AI use case inventory to include all the required information, at minimum, and takes steps to ensure that the data in the inventory aligns with provided instructions. (Recommendation 25)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

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

GAO-24-105658
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Transportation The Secretary of Transportation should ensure that the agency fully implements all event logging requirements as directed by OMB guidance. (Recommendation 12)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Discretionary Transportation Grants: DOT Should Better Align Its Application Evaluation Process with Federal Guidance

GAO-24-106280
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Transportation The Secretary of Transportation should ensure that the RAISE NOFO identifies all selection factors, such as those used when creating a selection portfolio or other process to facilitate award decisions. (Recommendation 4)
Open – Partially Addressed
As of June 2024, DOT has partially addressed this recommendation. In our report, we found that DOT did not include all of the factors it used to create the selection portfolio in the FY 2022 RAISE NOFO. Specifically, DOT did not tell applicants that it sought to make at least one award to each state or territory that applied for a RAISE award. OMB Guidance requires federal agencies to list any program policy or other factors, other than the merit criteria, that the agency may use in selecting applications (such as geographical dispersion) in the NOFO. In response to our recommendation, the Department included a statement in the FY 2024 RAISE NOFO that "the Secretary may, depending on the pool of qualified applications, seek to award at least one project per state or territory." Upon the completion of DOT's application evaluation and award selection process for the FY 2024 funding round, we will review the award decisions to assess whether the final selection factors used to make the FY 2024 decisions were included in the NOFO.
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