Page 1 GAO-25-108096 Interior Priority Recommendations
20548
Comptroller General
of the United States
May 9, 2025
The Honorable Doug Burgum
Secretary
U.S. Department of the Interior
1849 C street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20240
Priority Open Recommendations: Department of the Interior
Dear Secretary Burgum:
Congratulations on your appointment. The purpose of this letter is to call your personal attention
to four areas based on GAO’s past work and 14 open priority recommendations, which are
enclosed.
1
Additionally, there are 121 other GAO open recommendations that we will continue
to work with your staff to address.
We are highlighting the following areas that warrant your timely and focused attention.
Specifically:
Improving oversight of oil and gas activities. Interior has faced challenges with effectively
overseeing oil and gas production as well as managing related risks. We have highlighted the
need for Interior to improve its Management of Federal Oil and Gas Resources on our High Risk
List for several years.
2
Specifically, Interior faces challenges related to the compliance data
systems to support the collection, accounting, and verification of revenues—including royalties
paid by companies—from oil and gas production at federal lease sites. For example, Interior has
yet to implement leading practices in executive-level IT governance for its major IT investments,
as we recommended. Interior has also not completed recommendations to assess the cost and
benefits of developing a royalty gap model and to periodically estimate royalty gaps to inform
agency decision-making. Addressing these recommendations would improve its compliance
activities to verify federal oil and gas royalties, potentially increasing collections by tens of
millions of dollars per year.
We have also outlined Interior’s challenges with filling vacancies and maintaining the workforce
it needs to manage oil and gas resources and verify their production and royalties.
Implementing recommendations to address these issues would help Interior’s ability to ensure
the public receives a fair return for resources extracted from federal lands and waters.
1
GAO considers a recommendation to be a priority if when implemented, it may significantly improve government
operations, for example, by realizing large dollar savings; eliminating mismanagement, fraud, and abuse; or making
progress toward addressing a high-risk or duplication issue.
2
GAO, High-Risk Series: Heightened Attention Could Save Billions More and Improve Government Efficiency and
Effectiveness, GAO-25-107743 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 25, 2025).
