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Open Recommendations

Trans-Alaska Pipeline: Clarifying the Roles of Joint Pipeline Office Agencies Would Enhance Safety Oversight
GAO-25-107390
Jun 12, 2025
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2 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Bureau of Land Management The Director of BLM should, in collaboration with other JPO agencies, redefine and document the intended outcomes of JPO's safety oversight activities, such as outcomes aiming to inform the public of JPO's oversight efforts. (Recommendation 1)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Bureau of Land Management The Director of BLM should, in collaboration with other JPO agencies, clarify and document JPO agencies' roles and responsibilities, including identifying any potential gaps in TAPS safety oversight. (Recommendation 2)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Identity Verification: GSA Should Demonstrate Its Implementation of Policies for Testing Data Backups on Login.gov
GAO-25-107000
Jun 03, 2025
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
General Services Administration The Administrator of the General Services Administration should direct GSA's Technology Transformation Services division to ensure that Login.gov demonstrates that it fully implemented the policy to test its data backups.
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Intellectual Property: Patent Office Should Strengthen Its Efforts to Address Persistent Examination and Quality Challenges
GAO-25-107218
May 07, 2025
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8 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Patent and Trademark Office The Director of the USPTO should identify ongoing initiatives designed to improve patent examination and quality and take steps to ensure that each initiative is following evidence-based policy-making practices to manage and assess results. For example, initiatives should include clear goals and performance measures, and data collection to support evaluation. (Recommendation 1)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Patent and Trademark Office The Director of the USPTO should formalize, document, and implement an approach for creating, managing, and assessing pilot programs that incorporates leading practices for effective pilot program design. (Recommendation 2)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Patent and Trademark Office The Director of the USPTO should update guidance to better ensure that supervisory quality reviews result in a valid assessment of examiner performance. This should include consideration of how office actions are selected for supervisory quality reviews and how identified errors are reflected in data. (Recommendation 3)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Patent and Trademark Office The Director of the USPTO should implement policies to improve the documentation and transparency of changes made to random quality review outcomes resulting from the OPQA data integrity review process. Such policies should include requiring clear documentation of any change being made to the outcomes, the basis for the change, and the process that led to the change. (Recommendation 4)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Patent and Trademark Office The Director of the USPTO should ensure that the Office of Patent Quality Assessment updates processes to have OPQA's data integrity reviews include an appropriate number of random quality reviews that found compliance. (Recommendation 5)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Patent and Trademark Office The Director of the USPTO should establish an overall statutory patent quality compliance goal and communicate how that goal relates to the issuance of quality patents. (Recommendation 6)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Inflation Reduction Act: Opportunities Exist to Help Ensure GSA Programs Achieve Intended Results
GAO-25-107349
Apr 29, 2025
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3 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
General Services Administration The Administrator of GSA should ensure that the Commissioner of the Public Buildings Service develops a decision-making framework with criteria for evaluating and selecting high-performance green building projects to help ensure GSA makes sound capital investment decisions for its high-performance green building program. (Recommendation 1)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
General Services Administration The Administrator of GSA should ensure that the Commissioner of the Public Buildings Service establishes interim targets with time frames for each of GSA's IRA performance goals. (Recommendation 2)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
General Services Administration The Administrator of GSA should ensure that the Commissioner of the Public Buildings Service publishes all of GSA's IRA performance goals, along with periodic updates on GSA's progress toward meeting the goals, in a single source, such as GSA's IRA website, that is readily available to the agency's stakeholders, including Congress and the public. The statement of each performance goal should include a quantitative target and a time frame for achieving the target. To the extent that GSA has established interim targets with time frames, the goal statements should also include those. (Recommendation 3)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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