GAO-04-648R – NASA Compliance With Cost Limits for ISS (House and Senate briefing charts)

Download full briefing at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04648r.pdf

April 2, 2004

The Honorable John McCain

Chairman

The Honorable Ernest Hollings

Ranking Minority Member

Committee on Commerce, Science,

and Transportation

United States Senate

The Honorable Sherwood L. Boehlert

Chairman

The Honorable Ralph Hall

Ranking Minority member

Committee on Science

House of Representatives

Subject: NASA: Compliance with Cost Limits

Section 202 of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Authorization Act of 2000 (P.L. 106-391) requires that GAO verify NASA’s accounting
for amounts obligated against established limits for the space station and
related space shuttle support. Under the act, obligations are limited to $25 billion for
the space station and $17.7 billion for shuttle support. In the past, we reported that
NASA was unable to provide detailed support for the amounts it had reported as
obligated against the limits. Thus, we could not verify the amounts NASA reported to
Congress in its fiscal year 2002 through 2004 budget requests.

NASA’s did not report obligations to date against the space station and shuttle cost
limits as part of its fiscal year 2005 budget request. Therefore, there was nothing for
us to audit this year and we were unable to perform the audit called for by section
202 of the act. As a result, we have no basis for verifying NASA’s charges against the
limits. We have provided a copy of the slides to NASA officials and they agreed with
our conclusion.

As discussed with your staff, the enclosed slides summarize current and past
reporting issues on these legislative restrictions. If you or your staff have any questions about the slides, please contact me at (202) 512-9505 or by e-mail at
kutzg@gao.gov or Diane Handley, Assistant Director, at (404) 679-1986 or by e-mail at
handleyd@gao.gov.

Gregory D. Kutz

Director, Financial Management and Assurance

Enclosures

Download full briefing at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04648r.pdf