Public Lands

Interior Should Recover the Costs of Recording Mining Claims Gao ID: RCED-86-217 September 10, 1986

GAO reviewed the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) cost-recovery analyses to determine whether it has been recovering the costs associated with recording mining claims.

GAO found that: (1) BLM analyses do not consider many of the costs that the Department of the Interior's cost recovery guidelines specify; and (2) BLM has not performed a new analysis to determine the extent of the unrecovered costs, even though it is aware that its $5 recording fee does not recover program costs. GAO believes that: (1) on the basis of the guidelines, BLM can recover the direct and indirect costs associated with recording mining claims; (2) compliance with Interior's cost recovery policy and guidelines could have increased fee collections by up to $1.7 million in fiscal year 1984; and (3) BLM could realize comparable savings in the future if it followed the guidelines for determining recoverable costs associated with recording mining claims.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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