Open Recommendations

Develop a platform operation plan with established procedures for tracking, staging, and organizing any mail moved off the docks to ensure it is timely entered into mail processing.

Develop plans to orient and train employees to effectively perform operations before they start completing the new mail processing operations

Work with labor unions to successfully staff future Regional Processing and Distribution Centers to allow for successful transitions for the Postal Service and its employees.

Develop contingency plans to handle low employee availability when implementing network changes.

Develop plans to provide facility specific training to management staff before they oversee the new mail processing operations.

Implement plans to hire sufficient managerial staff when implementing future network changes.

We recommend that within 60 days of this memorandum, Treasury’s Acting Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy ensures that Treasury orders and directives are updated as necessary to accurately reflect the Treasury officials currently performing the Customs revenue functions. This may include appointing an official to serve as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax, Trade and Tariff Policy or issuing a revised Treasury Directive.

Ensure lessons learned from the ML-2’s acquisition, contract, and project management are codified to inform future development efforts

Conduct a thorough analysis of the feasibility of utilizing the fixed-price option, and if NASA determines that it will not be exercised, remove the option from the ML-2 contract

1. We recommend that the NOAA Administrator direct the NOAA Deputy Undersecretary of Operations to ensure NESDIS identifies the NCCF effort as a program or project in accordance with DAO 208-16.

2. We recommend that the NOAA Administrator direct the NOAA Deputy Undersecretary of Operations to ensure NESDIS implements appropriate, formal management controls for the NCCF.

3. We recommend that the NOAA Administrator direct the NOAA Deputy Undersecretary of Operations to ensure NESDIS delivers official requirements to OCS for development of the NCCF.

4. We recommend that the NOAA Administrator direct the NOAA Deputy Undersecretary of Operations to ensure NESDIS directs OCS to comply with all aspects of NESDIS requirements management policy.

5. We recommend that the NOAA Administrator direct the NOAA Deputy Undersecretary of Operations to ensure NCCF financial, project, and performance data is reported to OMB via the Federal IT Dashboard, in accordance with federal budget guidance.

6. We recommend that the NOAA Administrator direct the NOAA Deputy Undersecretary of Operations to ensure NESDIS updates the NESDIS penetration testing process to ensure: (a) penetration testers have adquate access to examine all system components, (b) penetration test findings are documented in Plans of Action and Milestones (POA&Ms) in the security system of record, (c) penetration tests are conducted prior to the creation of the Security Assessment Report (SAR) that supports the annual authorization process, and (d) the SAR includes penetration test results and any testing limitations that testers encountered.

7. We recommend that the NOAA Administrator direct the NOAA Deputy Undersecretary of Operations to ensure NESDIS includes root cause analysis and closure as part of the POA&M process.

8. We recommend that the NOAA Administrator direct the NOAA Deputy Undersecretary of Operations to ensure NESDIS conducts an after-action review to determine the root cause(s) of the security weaknesses detailed in the OIG penetration test report and creates POA&M(s) to resolve the root cause(s).

9. We recommend that the NOAA Administrator direct the NOAA Deputy Undersecretary of Operations to ensure NESDIS migrates the NCCF cloud system to a FedRAMP approved high-impact cloud platform or provides the equivalent protection.

10. We recommend that the NOAA Administrator direct the NOAA Deputy Undersecretary of Operations to ensure NESDIS revises NCCF security documents to ensure security controls align with the high-impact security requirements.

11. We recommend that the NOAA Administrator direct the NOAA Deputy Undersecretary of Operations to ensure NESDIS updates the NCCF's analysis of alternatives to include moving to a multi-region architecture and document a risk and cost-based decision on how NESDIS will meet the NCCF's availability requirements.

EXIM’s Office of Policy Analysis and International Relations should consider conducting a study with existing EEP exporters, to identify the key factors resulting in the decision to utilize EXIM for financing the EEP export. These key factors should then be assessed for potential inclusion into future outreach efforts with potential U.S. exporters to expand EEP transaction opportunities.

EXIM’s Chief Banking Officer should consider establishing periodic internal reporting of specific EEP outreach efforts by their office such that those efforts can be assessed for effectiveness in identifying and securing EEP authorizations. The reporting should include the type of outreach held, the attendees and any follow up meetings resulting from the outreach.

The Deputy Commissioner should accelerate discussions with the Treasury Department to finalize the audit rate methodology for the 2022 Treasury Directive.

The Deputy Commissioner should document, in a formal and comprehensive manner, the processes, related requirements, pertinent discussions, and meetings regarding the development of the methodology established to ensure compliance with the 2022 Treasury Directive.

The Deputy Commissioner should establish procedures and controls to ensure that the appropriate field in AIMS is updated to include the taxpayer’s reported TPI plus unreported income identified during the examination in order to develop a measure of post-audit TPI.