Mineral Revenues

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information regarding the collection and distribution of mineral revenues from acquired lands, focusing on the: (1) role of the Minerals Management Service (MMS) in collecting mineral revenues; (2) agencies involved and the processes they used to distribute mineral revenues; and (3) accuracy and timeliness of agencies' distributions of fiscal years (FY) 1986 and 1987 mineral revenues to nonfederal recipients.

GAO found that: (1) MMS collects all mineral revenues from leases on acquired lands; (2) for FY 1986 and 1987, MMS collected about $56.4 million and $61.3 million, respectively, in mineral revenues from about 9,030 leases on acquired lands; (3) six federal agencies distributed mineral revenues from acquired lands to many nonfederal recipients in accordance with various laws; (4) nonfederal recipients include states, territories, counties and reclamation projects; (5) in 1987, five surface managing agencies distributed about $53.1 million in mineral revenues from about 7,000 active leases on acquired lands; (6) MMS and the surface managing agencies generally distributed FY 1986 and 1987 mineral revenues accurately and on an annual basis, but the federal government incorrectly retained about 1 percent, or $384,000, of the revenues instead of distributing them to the states; and (7) MMS distributed the retained revenues to the appropriate U.S. Treasury accounts for further state distribution.