This report responds to your subcommittee's request that we examine Department of Defense (DOD) policies and practices regarding cleanup of environmental contamination at government owned, contractor operated (GOCO) plants, as a follow up to our previous reports that showed inconsistent policies and practices on cost sharing. We reviewed nine higher-cost case studies at the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) and the military services (1) to assess the consistency of cost-sharing practices across DOD and (2) to compare the service cleanup estimates against DOD'S. Specifically, we identified the actions taken and the types of arrangements for sharing cleanup costs between the government and other responsible parties, and examined site-specific cleanup cost data.

While expected environmental cleanup costs for unneeded property arising from the 2005 BRAC round are not yet fully known, Department of Defense (DOD) data indicate that about $950 million will be needed to clean up these bases, adding to the estimated $13.2 billion total cleanup cost for the prior rounds. Although DOD's cleanup program has matured compared to prior BRAC rounds, there are still many unknowns and the cleanup estimate for the 2005 round should be considered preliminary. In fact, environmental cleanup costs are likely to increase as more intensive environmental investigations are undertaken, additional hazardous conditions are discovered, and future reuse plans are finalized. Furthermore, Congress does not have full visibility over the total cost of DOD's BRAC cleanup efforts because none of the four reports DOD prepares on various aspects of environmental cleanup present all types of costs past and future to complete cleanup at each base. Compiling a complete picture of all costs requires extracting information from multiple reports, as GAO has done to estimate the total cleanup cost for the four prior BRAC rounds. More complete and transparent cost information would assist Congress in conducting its oversight responsibilities for this multibillion dollar effort.