Special Report: DOE-OIG-24-31

September 25, 2024

Using “Lessons Learned” From the Pandemic Relief Programs, Which Suffered Substantial Fraud Losses to Protect the $4.257 Billion Made Available Under the Inflation Reduction Act’s Home Electrification and Appliance Rebates Program

We initiated this special project to highlight opportunities identified by the Office of Inspector General that the Department of Energy should take to reduce fraud in the Home Electrification and Appliance Rebates Program authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

We identified two specific areas of concern:

•  Initially, the State and Community Energy Program Office was not using Pandemic Response Accountability Committee best practices to implement an effective fraud prevention program, including collecting basic data such as social security numbers.  Along the same lines, the State and Community Energy Program Office was not requiring states and U.S. territories to do so.  These best practices were recently learned the hard way by Federal agencies that experienced massive fraud during pandemic relief programs.
• The State and Community Energy Program Office allows states and U.S. territories to rely on Applicant “self-certification” in some circumstances to meet income qualifications.

Management concurred with the recommendations and provided corrective actions that are responsive to our recommendations; therefore, a management decision is not required.  However, the recommendations remain open and should be tracked in the Departmental Audit Report Tracking System until corrective actions are completed.