US Government Accountability Office GAO

Four strategic outcomes identified by EDA and FEMA for the Economic RSF range from stabilising disaster-affected businesses to leaving communities with a greater understanding of future risks. EDA 'tracks some outputs of the Economic RSF related to key activities, such as stakeholder coordination, technical assistance, and access to funding, which are communicated through nonpublic end-of-mission reports' (p.14), but the GAO found 'that EDA does not consistently track and report on the Economic RSF's progress toward achieving its strategic outcomes' (p.15). 'EDA can help the Economic RSF monitor, assess, and communicate its success in achieving its strategic outcomes by leveraging available reporting frameworks. For example, agencies can reinforce accountability for collaborative efforts by using strategic and annual performance plans and reports to account for results. In lieu of direct measurement, EDA could use its annual performance report to describe how the Economic RSF’s activities have contributed to achieving its strategic outcomes' (p.15).

EDA used 26 performance measures for fiscal year 2024 to assess its progress toward its strategic goals and investment priorities (p.38). 'EDA’s performance measures generally incorporated several attributes of successful performance measures [clarity, objectivity, measurable target and limited overlap] but did not assess EDA’s disaster recovery work' (p.40), 'which is a core EDA activity. The measures also did not assess key activities EDA has identified as central to its disaster recovery work: awarding disaster recovery grants, coordinating the Economic RSF, and supporting development of economic recovery strategies' (p.41). By contrast the measures did cover grantmaking for other programmes, down to travel and tourism. 'After EDA’s investment priorities were updated by law in January 2025, EDA stopped using five measures related to equity and environmentally sustainable development' (p.41-42), and of the 21 measures still in use, '12 did not address the updated investment priorities, including economic recovery resilience' (p.42).

EDA’s measures related to job creation and retention and private investment rely on grantee-reported data. 'The reliability of EDA's performance measures is unknown because EDA does not validate grantee-reported data. Agencies are required to have verification and validation procedures in place to help ensure the accuracy and reliability of performance data' (p.44). The check existed and was dropped: EDA 'previously conducted randomized site visits in two regions annually to validate a sample of grantee-reported data', covering seven infrastructure grants, but 'suspended these procedures during the COVID-19 pandemic and, as of December 2025, had not resumed them' (…) Validating performance data is a required and critical step to ensure that EDA’s performance measures are based on reliable information’ (p.44).

Of 292 disaster recovery grants for construction projects and revolving loan funds awarded from 2014 through 2022, '55 percent of grantees reported that their projects did not create or retain jobs or generate private investment after 3 years. After 6 years, about 31 percent of grantees continued to report no job creation, job retention, or private investment’ (p.42). All this vis-à-vis the goal behind EDA’s establishment to help state and local stakeholders develop the conditions and amenities needed to grow business, create jobs, and expand investment in economically distressed areas (p.8). 'EDA’s performance measures may not fully capture the range of intended outcomes of its disaster recovery grants' (p.42), nevertheless ‘2023 supplemental appropriation provided EDA with disaster recovery funding for flood mitigation, disaster relief, long-term recovery, and restoration of infrastructure. 'However, whether EDA's grants achieved these or other intended outcomes is not known because EDA does not collect such information' (p.42).

'EDA has partially implemented the leading practice of developing and updating written guidance and agreements. Specifically, it maintains operating documents for the Economic RSF but has not updated them to reflect recent significant changes' (p.19). The documents - a concept of operations, a field operations manual, a training approach and a partnership and communication strategy - date from June 2021. ‘However, EDA has not updated its operating documents to reflect significant recent changes to the framework and its own operating procedures’ (p.19). For example, in December 2024 the national framework was reissued with a changed list of participating agencies, but 'the Departments of Energy and Transportation are now participating agencies, but the Economic RSF's operating documents do not discuss coordination with them’ (p.19). Updating them 'would provide participating agencies with a consistent understanding of their responsibilities and better position them to support future Economic RSF missions' (p.45).

The July 2025 internal assessment by FEMA found that 'the Economic RSF has limited readiness capacity - the lowest among the six RSFs' (p.18), with EDA having no staff available for missions and facing administrative challenges. The operational consequence followed: 'As of April 2026, EDA did not have any active Economic RSF missions and had declined at least one request from FEMA to coordinate the RSF following the 2025 California wildfires' (p.18) – in view of its limited capacity, EDA was ‘developing a process to more rigorously review mission requests’ (p.18). The 2024 Water Resources Development Act requires a dedicated disaster recovery office and a deployable team 'as soon as practicable' (p.19). ‘In April 2026, EDA’s workforce had decreased to 185 employees, comparable to fiscal years 2015–2018 but a reduction from 324 employees in fiscal year 2023’ (p.18).