Fisheries Management

Administration of the Sport Fish Restoration Program Gao ID: RCED-94-4 November 8, 1993

The long-term decline in the quality of sport fishing in the United States prompted the creation in 1950 of the Sport Fish Restoration Program, which seeks to restore, conserve, and enhance the nation's sport fishery resources. During fiscal years 1998-92, the program received nearly $1 billion in federal funding. In response to congressional concerns about the program's rapid expansion and about whether program money was being used for its intended purposes, this report determines (1) the extent to which the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) used these funds to run the program, (2) whether FWS' use of program funds for special investigations helped the agency to achieve the program's goals, (3) whether the states allocated the required amount of funds to freshwater and marine projects, and (4) the extent to which the states programmed funds to enhance fish habitat. GAO limited its review to five coastal states--California, Florida, North Carolina, Texas, and Washington--that historically have either received the largest apportionments of program funds or have underwritten a diverse range of sport fish projects.

GAO found that: (1) FWS administrative and special investigation program costs have increased significantly since 1988; (2) although the majority of the cost deductions are due to new FWS deduction policies and offsetting deductions to fund two major studies, FWS cannot provide a sufficient basis for all the administrative cost deductions from the Sport Fish Restoration Account; (3) FWS cannot ensure that its special investigations are meeting program objectives because many special investigations do not follow established approval procedures; (4) FWS has not established program funding priorities that reflect states' needs; (5) FWS provides minimal oversight of approved projects; (6) four of the five states reviewed equitably distribute funds between freshwater and marine projects in accordance with legislative requirements; (7) one state that had difficulty in meeting its obligations ultimately provided the matching funds required; (8) the states' use of program funds to enhance fish habitat varies; and (9) there are not sufficient data to determine the total amount of program funding used for habitat-related projects.

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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