Sneak Preview: DOE Reviewing Awards for ‘Accountability’
(The following was excerpted from a recent Thompson Grants Compliance Expert article.) The Department of Energy (DOE) is undertaking a review of 179 current financial awards, totaling over $15 billion in assistance, in a new effort “to increase accountability and promote responsible stewardship of American taxpayer dollars.”
Under a May 15 secretarial memorandum entitled “Ensuring Responsibility for Financial Assistance,” the agency said it has begun requesting information from awardees. It initially is prioritizing large-scale commercial projects that require detailed information from awardees, “but this process may extend to other DOE program offices as the reviews progress,” DOE said. The department also announced that it plans to conduct “focused reviews of awards and other forms of financial assistance on a case-by-case basis, especially for the large complex awards,” or of a group of like awards, if this approach will more properly satisfy the goals of the review.
The department notes in the memorandum that “it is the policy of DOE to require that its financial assistance recipients provide written responses and supporting documentation to its information requests within communicated timeframes, and to cooperate with program personnel on any follow up requests, including verbal requests, in a timely manner.” Responses to DOE’s request will be kept confidential and slated “solely for use in managing the awards and as part of its oversight, including audit functions,” the department stated.
If DOE finds that a project is acceptable, then it will proceed, the memorandum explains. However, if DOE determines that a project does not meet the goals of increasing accountability and furthering responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars, “DOE may modify the project or, DOE in its discretion, may terminate the project … as allowed by law.”
(The full version of this story has now been made available to all for a limited time here.)
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