Summary: In response to a congressional request, GAO reviewed: (1) how the Department of the Interior's Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE) ensures that the amount of regulatory funds requested by each state is appropriate; (2) whether states conducted required audits of their program activities; and (3) what deficiencies states reported and the action Interior took to resolve them.
GAO found that: (1) OSMRE has established a review process to ensure that states' regulatory funding requests are appropriate, under which OSMRE grant managers review the applications for completeness and accuracy; (2) states are generally meeting the audit requirements, although some states are not timely completing program audits; (3) some states claimed to have submitted audit reports, but the cognizant federal agencies did not acknowledge receipt; (4) some state audits uncovered internal control deficiencies or disallowed certain costs; and (5) Interior has resolved or is in the process of resolving all of the deficiencies within its jurisdiction.
