After years of sustained progress, the Defense Department's security clearance program has been removed from the Government Accountability Office's inventory of programs and offices facing significant management challenges. But, the news was not so good for the Interior Department, whose management of oil and gas resources earned it the unenviable distinction as the only new entrant on GAO's biennial high-risk list.

The 185-page report, scheduled to be released on Wednesday afternoon and obtained in advance by Government Executive, highlights 30 troubled programs, with most carry-overs from previous years. Six concerns, including oversight of Pentagon and NASA contracts, have made the list every time since GAO first published it 1990.

The Pentagon significantly improved the timeliness of clearance processing, which had been frequently criticized as inefficient, GAO noted. The watchdog found Defense handled 90 percent of its initial clearances in an average of 49 days. The statutory objective is 60 days. Defense also is expediting its security clearance process for contractors, moving from an average of 128 days in 2008 to 63 days in fiscal 2010, the report said.

Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, whose Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia has held seven hearings on the issue, credited both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations for the enhancements.

"The progress we made on security clearances should serve as a model for future, sustained oversight efforts on other issues," Akaka said. "This will be important for addressing management challenges and making the federal government more efficient, more effective, and more responsive."

The only other issue removed from the list since GAO last updated it in 2009 was planning for the 2010 Census, primarily because the count has been completed and the few remaining activities remain on track.

GAO demonstrated much less faith in Interior's ability to collect its share of billions of dollars in revenue from oil and gas produced on federal lands. The report found that, particularly in the wake of last year's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Interior continues to have problems hiring, training, and retaining enough staff to oversee and manage oil and gas operations on federal lands and waters.

Long-time critics of Interior's former Minerals Management Service -- now the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement -- said the issue should have made the list years ago.

"In 2006, the Department of the Interior's own Inspector General Earl Devaney told the oversight committee that 'short of a crime, anything goes at the highest levels of the Department of the Interior,' " said House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. "It's better late than never, but it shouldn't have taken the worst ecological disaster in history for GAO to place this program onto the high-risk list."