White House Needs to Assess Infrastructure Developments in US Arctic Regions, Agency Says

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) -The White House and the Coast Guard both have strategies to address the US infrastructure gaps in the Arctic but they do not include ways to measure the progress being made, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report.

"[T]he White House designated the Arctic Executive Steering Committee as the interagency group responsible for federal Arctic coordination and published a national strategy. However, the strategy does not establish goals and measures as GAO recommended in April 2020," the report said on Wednesday.

The Coast Guard has published its own Arctic strategy, but it too has not yet implemented the GAO's recommendations from June 2016 to develop a means to measure progress in addressing capability gaps, the report said.

"Without implementing GAO's recommendations, the results of government-wide and Coast Guard efforts cannot be demonstrated, and decision makers cannot gauge the extent of federal progress in addressing maritime infrastructure and capability gaps," the report said.

Three of the five recommendations that the GAO made in previous Arctic region reports in April 2020 and June 2016 have yet to be implemented, the report added.

The Executive Office of the President should develop a strategy for Arctic maritime infrastructure with goals and measures, the US Coast Guard should develop measures for assessing how its actions have helped to mitigate Arctic capability gaps and the Coast Guard should also systematically assess progress, according to the report.