Compacts of Free Association: Improvements Needed to Assess and Address Growing Migration

In a January 13, 2012 letter, Interior provided a status update to GAO and the Congress on this recommendation. Interior stated that it generally concurred with the recommendation and that it would advise the governors of affected jurisdictions of possible guidelines to develop compact reports. In addition, Interior officials met with staff of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and GAO representatives on January 17, 2012 to discuss approaches to preparing this guidance. Interior targeted a completion date of September 15, 2012 for the guidance at that time. In March 2012, Interior met with three of the four governors of affected jurisdictions, Hawaii, the CNMI, and Guam. According to Interior, the governors reached the consensus that Hawaii would develop a template for developing guidelines by December 2012. Although the completion date was revised, such guidance was not prepared. Section 13 of S. 1237, as introduced June 27, 2013, would have required Interior to identify the amount of compact impact costs in affected jurisdictions for the purpose of permitting the amount of impact cost to be used as in-kind contributions for federal grants. In its statement at a July 11, 2013 Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee hearing on S. 1237, Interior stated that it "has urged the governors [of affected jurisdictions] to develop consistent standards of reporting among themselves, including the definition of FAS migrants, accurate accounting of migrant costs to the affected government, and benefits received by the affected jurisdiction from employment, taxation and consumption." but that it opposed the enactment of Section 13. On August 20, 2013, Interior sent letters to all four governors of affected jurisdictions stating that it was available to provide comments on any guidelines for measurement that the governors may choose to develop and present. Simultaneously, Interior sent a letter to GAO stating that the governing law, P.L. 108-188, does not give Interior authority to mandate either measurement processes or the reporting of impacts to the Congress. Therefore, Interior stated that it was unable to ensure that guidelines for reports to Congress are completed by the affected jurisdictions and that it can take no further action. However, our report found that, though the guidelines were not required under the law, without such guidelines, there were a number of weaknesses in affected jurisdictions' reporting of compact impacts to Interior from 2004 through 2010 related to accuracy, adequacy of documentation, and comprehensiveness. Interior prepared draft guidelines in late 2014, but these were not issued. In March 2016, Interior stated that OIA, in consultation with the leaders from the affected jurisdictions, would develop guidelines for measuring compact impact and that the guidelines would be completed in December 2016. In August 2016, Interior again stated to GAO that the guidelines would be completed by the end of the year, but they were not completed. In September 2017, Interior provided GAO with a draft template for recording costs but stated that, given new leadership at Interior and in the affected jurisdictions, more discussion would be needed before the template can be finalized. We continue to believe that providing more rigorous guidelines to the affected jurisdictions and promoting their use for compact impact reports would increase the likelihood that Interior can provide reliable information on compact impacts to Congress. However, given the passage of time and the lack of completion of previous efforts to prepare the guidance, we have closed this recommendation as unimplemented.

In January 2012, in a status update to GAO and the Congress, Interior stated that it generally concurred with this recommendation and that it will request the bi-lateral Joint Economic Management Committees (JEMs) to consider uses of compact funding for activities within the respective FAS country that may meet both goals. Each JEM included compact impact as a topic of discussion at the March 2012 JEM mid-year meeting. Interior stated that it urged each FAS to program fiscal year 2013 Compact funds in consideration of the adjustments of migrants by undertaking projects such as the preparation of educational materials and videos to help orient possible migrants to the U.S. On this basis Interior notified GAO in May 2012 that it considered the recommendation fully resolved and implemented. The September 2012 annual JEM meetings each included compact impact and ways to address it in their agendas for discussion, as did the subsequent March 2013 mid-year meetings. However, the August and September 2013 annual JEMs did not include compact impact on their agendas. The August 2014, spring 2015, and September 2015 JEMs likewise did not include a discussion of compact impact on their agendas. In March 2016, Interior OIA stated that the concerns of FSM and RMI migrants and affected jurisdictions will be discussed at future meetings of the joint management committees. The August 2016 JEMs included presentations from two non-governmental organizations, one in Hawaii and one on Guam, that had established establish one-stop social services for migrants. However, these service centers were established using grant assistance from the Office of Insular Affairs' Technical Assistance Program, not compact sector grants. In addition, the agendas and discussions at the August JEMs did not include uses of sector grants to address the needs of compact migrants living in affected jurisdictions.