If you had not already seen it, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a new report yesterday entitled GAO-13-379 Defense Management: Additional Information Needed to Improve Military Departments' Strategies for Corrosion Prevention and Control.

According to the report, “corrosion costs DOD billions of dollars annually by taking critical systems out of action and creating safety hazards. Recognizing the need for coordinated corrosion prevention and control efforts and planning, House Report 112-78 directed the military departments to develop corrosion prevention strategies that support the DOD Corrosion Prevention and Mitigation Strategic Plan. The House Report directed GAO to evaluate the long-term strategies developed by the Corrosion Executive of each military department and to report the findings to both the Senate Armed Services Committee and the House Armed Services Committee. GAO assessed the extent to which the military departments (1) coordinated with the Corrosion Office to ensure consistency of their strategic plans with DOD’s overarching goals and objectives and conformity with DOD Instruction 5000.67; and (2) included characteristics of a comprehensive strategic plan in their respective plans. GAO reviewed relevant legislation, the corrosion prevention strategic plans of DOD and the military departments, and interviewed DOD corrosion officials.”

The report went on to make two recommendations "to improve future updates of the military departments’ strategic plans for corrosion prevention and control. DOD did not concur with the recommendations. DOD stated that the military departments’ plans linked to overarching goals and objectives and disagreed with the criteria GAO used to assess the plans. GAO continues to believe that these recommendations are valid as discussed in the report.”