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Open Recommendations (63 total)

IT Portfolio Management: OMB and Agencies Are Not Fully Addressing Selected Statutory Requirements

GAO-25-107041
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3 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of the Interior The Secretary of the Interior should direct the department CIO to ensure that the Federal CIO is consulted in performing high-risk IT investment reviews, as prescribed by FITARA. (Recommendation 30)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Department of the Interior The Secretary of the Interior should direct the department CIO to ensure that its high-risk IT investment reviews document the extent to which these causes can be addressed (e.g., action items with due dates), as prescribed by FITARA. (Recommendation 31)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Department of the Interior The Secretary of the Interior should direct the department CIO to work with OMB to ensure that annual reviews of their IT portfolio are conducted in conjunction with the Federal CIO and the Chief Operating Officer or Deputy Secretary (or equivalent), as prescribed by FITARA. (Recommendation 29)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Single Audits: Interior and Treasury Need to Improve Their Oversight of COVID-19 Relief Funds Provided to Tribal Entities

GAO-25-106741
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of the Interior The Secretary of the Interior should develop and implement procedures for tracking the implementation of corrective action plans, including tracking repeat single audit findings, to ensure that tribal recipients take appropriate and timely action to correct single audit findings. (Recommendation 2)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Oil and Gas: Interior Urgently Needs Leadership and Oversight to Address IT System Development Failure

GAO-24-107223
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2 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of the Interior The Secretary of the Interior should direct Interior's CIO to ensure its new IT investment baseline management policy meets OMB requirements and strengthens internal controls to ensure baselines are approved by appropriate milestones. (Recommendation 1)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Department of the Interior The Secretary of the Interior should direct Interior's CIO to strengthen IT leadership and oversight by implementing leading practices in executive-level IT governance for major IT investments including the AFMSS 2 replacement. (Recommendation 2)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Sexual Harassment: Actions Needed to Improve Prevention Training for Federal Civilian Employees

GAO-24-106589
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of the Interior The Secretary of the Interior should develop and implement a plan to evaluate the department's required sexual harassment prevention training to identify needed improvements. The evaluation plan should include an assessment of training content and implementation to determine whether revisions are needed to better align with management practices to enhance the effectiveness of sexual harassment prevention training. (Recommendation 1)
Open
The Department of the Interior concurred with this recommendation. We have not yet received information on their efforts to address the recommendation and we will update its status once information is received.

Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands: Greater Transparency Could Improve Worker Ratio Reports

GAO-24-106698
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of the Interior The Secretary of the Interior should ensure that the Assistant Secretary for Insular and International Affairs works with the CNMI government and, as appropriate, other U.S. agencies to determine what steps can be taken to improve transparency of the analytical approach CNMI uses to create its annual worker ratio report. Such steps could include communicating in greater detail, through CNMI's Standard Operating Procedure document and worker ratio report, the analytical approach CNMI took to categorize unknown workers as either U.S. or foreign, as well as the implications of the unknown portion for the ratio.
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Offshore Oil and Gas: Interior Needs to Improve Decommissioning Enforcement and Mitigate Related Risks

GAO-24-106229
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2 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of the Interior The Secretary of the Interior should direct the BSEE Director to strengthen BSEE's approach to proactively overseeing and enforcing decommissioning deadlines, including by (1) assessing the effectiveness of enforcement tools to incentivize compliance and data and practices supporting their timely use, and (2) identifying and implementing regulatory or policy changes as needed in consultation with BOEM, such as by providing clear timelines or other trigger criteria for use of existing enforcement tools and identifying additional enforcement tools. (Recommendation 1)
Open
Interior agreed with this recommendation. According to BSEE's fiscal year 2025 budget justification, the agency is developing a strategy that will include a risk assessment; objectives and performance measures; and roles, responsibilities, and resource needs to address these issues. As of August 2024, BSEE has established a project team that plans to review regulations, policies, and standard operating procedures and, by June 2025, recommend changes to ensure more consistent decommissioning enforcement.
Department of the Interior The Secretary of the Interior should ensure the BOEM Director completes planned actions to assess and revise qualification procedures to address decommissioning capacity and compliance history in consultation with BSEE, such as through qualification and disqualification criteria or fitness to operate standards. (Recommendation 4)
Open
Interior agreed with this recommendation. BOEM posted in the spring 2024 regulatory agenda a target date of January 2025 for publication of a proposed rule on fitness to operate standards. As of August 2024, BOEM told us it is coordinating with BSEE to develop a fitness to operate standard, anticipates releasing a proposal in 2024, and is targeting completion of this effort by December 2026.
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