New GAO Website Targets Urgent Obama Challenges

The Government Accountability Office is launching a new Web site this morning that identifies 13 urgent issues it believes President-elect Barack Obama's administration and transition team must deal with during the next six months.

The site, which will link from the agency's home page, www.gao.gov, will provide a one-minute introductory video for each of the issues which include: national security, oversight of financial institutions and markets; U.S. efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and the upcoming census in 2010. There is also a menu of suggested actions for each issue and links to key GAO reports that cover the topics in greater depth.

The site is a first-ever for the GAO and was prompted by a confluence of national and international problems that Obama will inherit and must immediately address, said GAO's Acting Comptroller General Gene Dodaro.

"This is particularly unique time. You have two wars going on. You have the crisis in the financial markets. This is also the first transition for the Department of Homeland Security,'' Dodaro said. "There are a lot of challenges facing the new administration."

Dodaro also said the GAO was responding to the Presidential Transition Act of 2000, which tapped the agency to assist future presidents during their first days in office. The GAO is a non-partisan, non-profit agency that has traditionally served as an investigative arm for Congress.

Dodaro called John Podesta, former Clinton White House chief of staff who is leading Obama's transition team, and offered to schedule a briefing on the site and the GAO recommendations. The site will highlight 50 cost savings opportunities the GAO has identified in its past work and provide summaries of its past investigations into 28 federal agencies.