Recommendation: The Secretary of State, in consultation with the Administrator of USAID, should develop performance indicators that would enable State to assess progress toward the strategic objectives and goal of the U.S. conflict minerals strategy going forward. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of State
Status: Open

Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: The Secretary of the Interior should direct BLM to modify its computer program that generates its Bond Review Report to identify all instances in which a state office needs to develop a corrective action plan to address deficiencies, such as an inadequate financial assurance, a late review, or missing data. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of the Interior
Status: Open

Comments: In May 2020, BLM officials stated that they will revise the LR2000 Bond Review Report to identify all instances in which a state office needs to develop a corrective action plan in accordance with BLM policy. They estimate this will be completed by June 2021.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Agriculture should direct the Forest Service to develop a centralized mechanism to record the current estimated cost of reclamation for a mining operation so that this information is readily available for comparison with the financial assurance held. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Department of Agriculture
Status: Open

Comments: As of July 2020, the agency has made progress in implementing this recommendation. Specifically, the agency has modified the bonding portion of the Natural Resource Manager data system to include required data fields to record the initial bond received, adjustments made to required bonding amount, and date of last annual review when a needed adjustment was determined. The agency has also added a remarks field to record any increase or decrease in the estimated cost of reclamation that resulted in the revised required bond amount. The agency is currently working to update its internal guidance so that staff are aware of the requirement and process to document these items. We agreed to check back on the status of that guidance in early 2021 and will update the recommendation status at that time.

Recommendation: Congress should consider amending SMCRA to eliminate the use of self-bonding as a type of financial assurance for coal mine reclamation. (Matter for Consideration 1)

Agency: Congress
Status: Open

Comments: As of July 2020, no further action has been taken by Congress to amend SMCRA to eliminate the use of self-bonding. We will continue to monitor and provide updated information as it becomes available.

Recommendation: To improve the effectiveness of the SEC's conflict minerals disclosure rule, the Secretary of Commerce should submit to the appropriate congressional committees a plan outlining steps that Commerce will take, with associated time frames, to (1) assess the accuracy of the independent private sector audits (IPSA) and other due diligence processes described under section 13(p) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934; (2) develop recommendations for the process used to carry out such audits, including ways to improve the accuracy of the audits and establish standards of best practices for such audits; and (3) acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, and abilities to carry out these responsibilities.

Agency: Department of Commerce
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: Commerce agreed with this recommendation. In response to this recommendation, Commerce indicated in an October 25, 2016 letter to GAO that it has developed a three-step approach which parallels the three distinct elements of the recommendation. To fully implement this recommendation, Commerce needs to submit the said three-step plan, including associated timeframes for their completion, to the appropriate congressional committees. Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act defines "appropriate committees" to mean the Committee on Appropriations, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Committee on Ways and Means, and the Committee on Financial Services of the House of Representatives; and the Committee on Appropriations, the Committee on Foreign Relations, the Committee on Finance, and the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs of the Senate. In a January 2018 email, a Commerce official indicated to GAO that the agency had reviewed the 19 IPSA audits filed by companies in 2016, and the agency plans to complete a review of the 16 IPSA audits filed in 2017 by the end of FY 2018. However, the official noted that the "Department will not undertake the development of recommendations and best practices while the SEC is revising its rule." Commerce cited SEC staff's recent updated guidance and ongoing reviews of the conflict minerals rule, among other things, as their primary reason. However, the SEC staff's updated guidance also clarified that the guidance "does not express any legal conclusion on the rule" and is "subject to any further action that may be taken by the Commission." Therefore, the rule is still in effect, according to SEC staff. We requested a status update in October 2019 and Commerce responded: "In National Association of Manufacturers v. United States SEC, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 135732 (2017), the District Court for the District of Columbia declared an element of the relevant SEC rule unconstitutional, necessitating that the SEC determine how that decision affects overall implementation of the Conflict Minerals rule. Until the SEC completes its deliberative process, makes such determination, and implements any necessary revisions to the rule, the Department does not intend to undertake additional work under Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act with regard to the assessment of the accuracy of the audits and other due diligence processes or recommendations regarding the audits. After which point, the Department will assess how the SEC determination and any revisions to the rule affect the Department's plans for implementing GAO's recommendation."

Recommendation: To ensure effective oversight, strengthen internal controls, and address challenges associated with the hardrock mine plan review process, the Secretary of Agriculture should direct the Chief of the Forest Service to issue a rule that establishes a fee structure for hardrock mine plan processing activities and request the authority from the Congress to retain any fees it collects.

Agency: Department of Agriculture
Status: Open

Comments: As of May 2020, the Forest Service said it has the statutory authority to issue a rule that establishes a fee structure, but it does not have the authority to collect and retain fees for hardrock mine plan processing activities. The Forest Service said it worked with the Department of Agriculture and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to submit a request through the President's Budget for authority from Congress to retain any fees collected from mine operations. The President's Budget for fiscal year 2021, developed by OMB, included such a request to Congress. If Congress grants this authority, the Forest Service said it will issue a rule that establishes a fee structure for hardrock mine operations so it can begin retaining collected fees.

Recommendation: To ensure effective oversight, strengthen internal controls, and address challenges associated with the hardrock mine plan review process, Secretary of the Interior should direct the Director of BLM to issue a rule that assesses fees associated with reviewing hardrock mine plans that involve conducting environmental assessments.

Agency: Department of the Interior
Status: Open

Comments: According to a letter received from the agency in April 2016, BLM expressed concern about whether promulgating a rule to assess cost recovery fees for environmental assessment would result in faster permitting times and noted that such an undertaking may be challenging to complete given resource limitation as a result of other high priority rule making efforts currently underway by BLM. The agency proposed conducting an internal analysis to determine whether requiring cost recovery would result in reduced permitting times and expected that report to be completed by the end of 2017. We contacted the Department of the Interior in April 2020 and it had no new information to provide at that time. We will update the status of this recommendation as more information becomes available.

Recommendation: To strengthen BLM's controls and reasonably assure accountability over mining law program expenditures, both payroll and nonpayroll, the Secretary of the Interior should direct the Director of the Bureau of Land Management to establish procedures for regular and timely communication to all BLM employees on policy and procedural changes affecting the mining law program's expenditure-related processes.

Agency: Department of the Interior
Status: Open

Comments: The Department of Interior's (DOI) Bureau of Land Management (BLM) agreed with our recommendation. In support of closing this recommendation, officials from BLM re-iterated their policy about sending updates regarding guidance changes, which is included in its directives handbook. They also provided us with an example of its timely communication to BLM employees to announce the issuance of its revised Fund Code Handbook. We reviewed the directives handbook and verified that it contains guidance for communicating policy and procedural changes affecting the mining law program's expenditure-related processes. While the guidance in the directives handbook is a good start towards meeting the intent of our recommendation, we communicated to BLM in fiscal year 2019 that the findings in the report were caused in part by inadequate communication processes and the accessibility of the guidance to staff. To address the recommendation, we would like to see evidence that BLM has established procedures to ensure proper communication of changes or policies to the staff using BLM guidance, which includes having written procedures on how BLM publishes updates or communicates policy information, where guidance should be published in BLM's internal page, and the BLM officials who are in charge of that process. In fiscal year 2020, we have sent additional follow-up questions to the agency and are currently waiting for a response. We will continue to monitor the agency's actions to address this recommendation.

Recommendation: To develop an estimate of the scope of work remaining to address uranium contamination on or near the Navajo reservation, Congress should consider requiring that the Environmental Protection Agency take the lead and work with the other federal agencies to develop an overall estimate of the remaining scope of the work, time frames, and costs.

Agency: Congress
Status: Open

Comments: As of September 2020, we are not aware of any legislation being enacted to address this matter for congressional consideration.

Recommendation: In light of the problems BIA has encountered in managing the cleanup at the Tuba City Dump site, the Secretary of the Interior should direct the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs to employ best practices in creating the schedule and cost estimates for the remedial action cleanup phase.

Agency: Department of the Interior
Status: Open

Comments: As of September 2020, BIA and EPA had selected a cleanup option for Tuba City Dump, but BIA had not created schedule or cost estimates for the cleanup action. BIA stated it anticipated completing the cleanup design, which will include cost and schedule estimates, by September 2022. GAO will assess BIA's actions once they are complete.

Recommendation: In light of the problems BIA has encountered in managing the cleanup at the Tuba City Dump site, the Secretary of the Interior should direct the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs to identify and examine any lessons learned from managing the remedial investigation and feasibility study contract and consider these lessons as part of the acquisition planning process for the remedial action contract.

Agency: Department of the Interior
Status: Open

Comments: As of September 2020, BIA and EPA had selected a cleanup option for Tuba City Dump, but BIA had not initiated the acquisition planning process for the future cleanup contract. BIA stated it anticipated completing the cleanup design work, including the acquisition package, by September 2022. GAO will assess BIA's actions once they are complete.