Blockchain in Finance: Legislative and Regulatory Actions Are Needed to Ensure Comprehensive Oversight of Crypto Assets

"What GAO Found

Blockchain allows users to conduct and record tamper-resistant transactions that multiple parties make without a central authority, such as a bank, when used for financial transactions. Because of these characteristics, blockchain-related products and services have the potential to produce cost savings, faster transactions, and other benefits over their traditional counterparts. However, these benefits have not been fully realized. Furthermore, the significant risks these products pose have been realized and negatively affected consumers and investors. For example, crypto assets have experienced price volatility. Also, the bankruptcy of FTX Trading Ltd., a prominent crypto asset trading platform, led to the discovery that a substantial portion of the platform's assets might be missing or stolen, according to bankruptcy-related documents.."
Blockchain 

Overseas Real Property: State's Initial Assessment of Natural Hazard Risks Faced By its Posts

"In 2020, the State Department created a Climate Security and Resilience program. The program assesses the risk natural hazards pose to each of its 294 locations around the world.

State selected 8 natural hazards for its assessment: coastal flooding, riverine flooding, tsunamis, earthquakes, water stress (i.e., lack of fresh water to meet demand), extreme heat, extreme wind, and landslides. State's assessment of the risks these hazards pose can help it develop and prioritize ways to adapt.

Its first risk review, as of May 2022, suggests half of facilities at highest risk are in East Asia and the Pacific, as shown by our interactive map..."
Overseas property 

AIR POLLUTION Opportunities to Better Sustain and Modernize the National Air Quality Monitoring System

"What GAO Found

The ambient air quality monitoring system is a national asset that provides standardized information for implementing the Clean Air Act and protecting public health. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and state and local agencies cooperatively manage the system, with each playing different roles in design, operation, oversight, and funding. For example, EPA establishes minimum requirements for the system, and state and local agencies operate the monitors and report data to EPA.
 

 Officials from EPA and selected state and local agencies identified challenges related to sustaining the monitoring system. For example, they said that infrastructure is aging while annual EPA funding for state and local air quality management grants, which cover monitoring, has decreased by about 20 percent since 2004 after adjusting for inflation (see fig.). GAO found inconsistencies in how EPA regions have addressed these challenges. GAO’s prior work has identified key characteristics of asset management, such as identifying needed resources and using quality data to manage infrastructure risks, which can help organizations optimize limited resources. By developing an asset management framework that includes such characteristics, EPA could better target limited resources toward the highest priorities for consistently sustaining the system.."
National Air Quality Monitoring 

Climate Chang: Information on Potential Economic Effects Could Help Guide Federal Efforts to Reduce Fiscal Exposure

"Methods used to estimate the potential economic effects of climate change in the United States—using linked climate science and economics models—are based on developing research. The methods and the studies that use them produce imprecise results because of modeling and other limitations but can convey insight into potential climate damages across sectors in the United States.

The two available national-scale studies that examine the economic effects of climate change across U.S. sectors suggested that potential economic effects could be significant and unevenly distributed across sectors and regions. For example, for 2020 through 2039, one study estimated between $4 billion and $6 billion in annual coastal property damages from sea level rise and more frequent and intense storms. Also, under this study, the Southeast likely faces greater effects than other regions because of coastal property damages (see figure)

Information about the potential economic effects of climate change could inform decision makers about significant potential damages in different U.S. sectors or regions. According to several experts and prior GAO work, this information could help federal decision makers identify significant climate risks as an initial step toward managing such risks. This is consistent with, for example, National Academies leading practices, which call for climate change risk management efforts that focus on where immediate attention is needed. The federal government has not undertaken strategic government-wide planning to manage climate risks by using information on the potential economic effects of climate change to identify significant risks and craft appropriate federal responses. By using such information, the federal government could take an initial step in establishing government-wide priorities to manage such risks..."
Climate Change

CULTURAL PROPERTY: Protection of Iraqi and Syrian Antiquities

"U.S. agencies and the Smithsonian Institution (Smithsonian) have undertaken five types of activities to protect Iraqi and Syrian cultural property since 2011, which include awareness raising, information sharing, law enforcement, overseas capacity building, and destruction prevention. For example, the Department of Homeland Security reported coordinating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies to open 18 Iraqi and Syrian cultural property cases—such as those regarding smuggling by individuals and international criminal organizations—between 2011 and February 2016. To enhance the capacity of partners overseas, the Department of State (State), the government of Iraq, and others established an archaeological and cultural management training facility in Erbil, Iraq. In addition, to prevent destruction, the Smithsonian and others trained Syrian antiquities professionals to use sandbags and other materials to protect ancient mosaics at a Syrian museum, reportedly resulting in the successful protection of the museum collection when it was bombed..."
Iraqi and Syrian antiquities