37 



B-U4161 



Conclusions 



Most of the eight federal agencies' laboratory facilities are at least 30 years 

 old, requiring increased maintenance and repair funding. In Tiscal year 

 1992, six of the eight agencies did not meet the Building Research Board's 

 minimum guideline for funding routine maintenance and repair, and many 

 agencies have a substantial backlog of needed repairs. In addition, 

 inadequate facilities are limiting research capabilities at some federal 

 laboratories. Substantial funding would be needed to provide the proposed 

 new laboratory facilities. 



In recent years, dod, doe, nasa, and usda have irutiated task forces to 

 reexamine their r&d mission and/or improve the effectiveness and 

 efficiency of their laboratory facilities. An important consideration in such 

 reviews is to ensure adequate funding to support laboratory facilities, 

 which may involve (1) reducing expenses by realigning, closing, or 

 consolidating laboratories not essential for fulfilling an agency's rad 

 mission as well as (2) increasing funding to maintain, repair, and upgrade 

 those laboratory facilities considered essential to fulfilling an agency's r&d 

 mission. 



Agency Comments 



We discussed the report's contents with officials from ars. Commerce, 

 tXDD, DOE, EPA, NASA, NiH, and L SGS, who generally agreed with the thrust of 

 our findings. In addition, agencies provided clarifying information to 

 improve the report's technical accuracy, which we incorporated as 

 appropriate. However, as requested, we did not obtain written comments 

 on a draft of this report 



We conducted our review between October 1992 and August 1993 in 

 accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

 Information in this report is based pnmanly on data provided by the eight 

 agencies and mterviews with laborator>' facilities managers, laboratory 

 management, and researchers. As agreed with your office, we did not 

 examine other problems wnth facilities that affect federal agencies' had 

 programs, including staffing ceilings for facilities' personnel, delays and 

 added costs associated with federal procurement requirements, and leaseii 

 laboratory space. See appendix FV for details of our objectives, scope, and 

 methodology. 



As arranged with your office, unless you publicly announce its contents 

 earlier, we plan no further distribution of this report until :iO days from the 

 date of this letter. At that time, we will provide copies of this repon to the 



