United States General Accounting Office

GAO Resources, Community, and Economic

Development Division

August 1995 Natural Resources

Management Issue Area

Plan

Fiscal Years 1996-97

GAO/IAP-95-16

Foreword

As the investigative arm of Congress and the nation’s auditor, the General

Accounting Office is charged with following the federal dollar wherever it

goes. Reflecting stringent standards of objectivity and independence, GAO’s

audits, evaluations, and investigations promote a more efficient and

cost-effective government; expose waste, fraud, abuse, and

mismanagement in federal programs; help Congress target budget

reductions; assess financial information management; and alert Congress

to developing trends that may have significant fiscal or budgetary

consequences. In fulfilling its responsibilities, GAO performs original

research and uses hundreds of databases or creates its own to compile and

analyze information.

To ensure that GAO’s resources are directed toward the most important

issues facing Congress, each of GAO’s 35 issue areas develops a strategic

plan that describes its key issues and their significance; the objectives and

focus of its work; and the planned major job starts. Each issue area relies

heavily on input from congressional committees, agency officials, and

subject-matter experts in developing its strategic plan.

The Natural Resources Management issue area reviews the Department of

the Interior and its bureaus, the Department of Agriculture’s Forest

Service, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the National Marine Fisheries

Service and other oceanic programs within the Department of Commerce’s

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Together, these

agencies are responsible for about 650 million acres, or about 30 percent,

of the nation’s total surface area; another 1.4 billion acres of ocean floor;

and an infrastructure of buildings, roads, dams, and other facilities valued

at about $200 billion. These assets generated about $6.7 billion in revenues

in fiscal year 1994.

GAO’s work in natural resources management generally focuses on

improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the federal government in

fulfilling its stewardship responsibilities. The principal issues are

• increasing revenues by obtaining a better return for the sale or use of

natural resources on federal lands or by eliminating or reducing federal

subsidies;

• improving efficiency within and coordination among the four primary

federal land management agencies—the National Park Service, the Bureau

of Land Management, the Fish and Wildlife Service within Interior, and the

Forest Service within Agriculture;

Page 1 GAO/IAP-95-16
Foreword

• improving collaboration and consensus-building among federal and

nonfederal stakeholders to address problems or issues related to natural

resources; and

• assessing whether agencies are meeting, or changes need to be made to,

existing production and conservation requirements.

In the following pages, we describe our objectives and planned work on

these issues. Because unanticipated events may significantly affect this

plan, our planning process allows for updating the plan and responding

quickly to new emerging issues. If you have any questions or suggestions,

please call me at (202) 512-7756 or one of my associates Barry T. Hill, at

(202) 512-8021 or James K. Meissner at (206) 287-4810.

James Duffus III

Director

Natural Resources Management Issues

Page 2 GAO/IAP-95-16
Contents

Foreword 1

Table I: Key Issues 4

Table II: Planned

Major Work

6

Page 3 GAO/IAP-95-16
Table I: Key Issues

Issue Significance

Increasing revenues: Do opportunities

exist to increase revenues either by

obtaining a better return on the sale or use

of natural resources on federal lands or by

eliminating or reducing existing subsidies?

Opportunities may exist to increase revenues by obtaining a better return on the sale or

use of natural resources on federal lands as well as by eliminating or reducing existing

subsidies. Operating federal land management agencies more like profitable businesses

could save taxpayers billions of dollars a year and reduce the growing shortfall between

maintenance and reconstruction needs and the funds available to meet these needs.

Improving efficiency: Can federal land

management agencies become more

efficient?

The four primary federal land management agencies—the National Park Service, the

Bureau of Land Management, and the Fish and Wildlife Service within Interior and the

Forest Service within Agriculture—are in the process of downsizing and restructuring.

They are also beginning to consider which functions and programs to eliminate or turn

over to state and local governments or the private sector. In addition, legislation has

been introduced to ease regulatory controls on federal land managers and to simplify

and expedite planning and other procedural requirements. The effectiveness of these

efforts as well as the potential to reduce costs, increase efficiency, and improve service

to the public by coordinating and integrating functions, systems, activities, and programs

among the four agencies are important issues to Congress.

Coordinating federal and nonfederal

approaches to managing natural

resources: Do barriers exist to

implementing broader approaches to meet

the government’s two basic stewardship

mandates: (1) sustain long-term commodity

production and use on federal lands and (2)

conserve natural resources for future

generations?

Many problems or issues relating to natural resources management transcend the

existing boundaries of the four primary federal land management agencies. These

agencies believe that broader approaches to problem-solving are required to address

activities originating across ownership boundaries and have begun to test approaches

that require, among other things, increased collaboration and consensus-building among

federal and nonfederal stakeholders.

Assessing production and conservation

requirements: Are federal agencies with

land management responsibilities meeting

existing production and conservation

requirements or are changes needed?

Federal land management agencies and other federal agencies must comply with

existing production and conservation laws and regulations. The extent of their

compliance as well as the reasons for any noncompliance and the extent to which these

agencies are held accountable are important to Congress’s oversight responsibilities.

Congress is also considering changes to substantive conservation requirements,

including the Endangered Species Act and the wetlands provisions of the Clean Water

Act.

Page 4 GAO/IAP-95-16
Table I: Key Issues

Objectives Focus of work

—Evaluate ways to obtain a better return on the sale or use of natural

resources on federal lands, recover reasonable program costs, and provide

a revenue base that can be used to better manage federal lands and

resources.

—Identify opportunities to eliminate or reduce subsidies that are no longer

needed, benefit the wrong parties, or degrade or encourage abuse of

natural resources.

—Assess ways to operate federal land management agencies more like

profitable businesses.

—Potential sources of additional revenues, including fees,

and the purposes, beneficiaries, and impacts of subsidies

— Impacts of managing federal lands more like a

profitable business and of emphasizing the combinations

of land uses that are most valuable while safeguarding

nonmarketable resources

—Recommend ways for federal land management agencies to reduce

costs, increase efficiency, and improve service to the public.

—Provide alternative approaches to downsize federal land management

agencies.

—Identify opportunities to simplify and expedite federal land management

planning and procedural requirements.

—Recommend ways to improve federal land management agencies’ ability

to account for the $6 billion a year appropriated to them and to measure

program benefits as required by law.

— Duplication of systems, functions, activities, and

programs among agencies and opportunities to link

proposed reforms

— Agencies’ efforts to identify functions and programs to

eliminate or turn over to state and local governments or

the private sector

— Agencies’ efforts to provide their land managers

greater flexibility in complying with planning and

procedural requirements

—Agencies’ compliance with the Chief Financial Officers

Act and the Government Performance and Results Act

—Identify potential ways to improve federal and nonfederal collaboration to

address problems or issues that transcend existing ownership boundaries.

—Evaluate options to accomplish basic stewardship mandates while easing

regulatory controls on private landowners and other nonfederal parties.

—Assess approaches to improve the scientific and socioeconomic data

available to help Congress make informed public policy decisions on

natural resources management.

—Barriers to federal and nonfederal collaboration and

consensus-building and options for overcoming them

— Alternatives to command-and-control regulations to

accomplish basic stewardship mandates, including

incentives, education, and technical assistance

— Adequacy of available scientific and socioeconomic

data, including gaps, duplication, or overlap

—Identify opportunities to improve agency compliance with existing

production and conservation requirements.

—Determine the impact of existing individual conservation or protection

laws or regulations on federal land managers’ ability to meet their basic

stewardship mandates.

— Changes in programs, systems, activities, and projects

to improve compliance with existing laws and regulations

— Sources of conflicts among laws and regulations and

options to mitigate or eliminate the conflicts

Page 5 GAO/IAP-95-16
Table II: Planned Major Work

Issue Planned major job starts

Increasing revenues —Assess efforts by the Forest Service to obtain a better return for special uses of its lands.

— Assess potential sources of additional revenues, including increasing fees and decreasing

subsidies.

Improving Efficiency — Assess efforts by the four primary federal land management agencies to downsize,

streamline, and restructure.

— Assess the potential for consolidating functions, systems, activities, or programs among

the four agencies.

— Evaluate the effectiveness of the four agencies’ ongoing efforts to identify functions and

programs to eliminate or to turn over to others.

— Assess agencies’ compliance with the Chief Financial Officers and Government

Performance and Results Acts.

— Identify potential savings in the administration’s fiscal year 1997 budget for the four

agencies.

Coordinating federal and nonfederal

approaches to managing natural

resources

— Evaluate the administration’s efforts to identify and address barriers to implementing

broader approaches to environmental and natural resources management.

— Identify barriers to the four agencies’ efforts to increase cooperation with other federal

agencies and ways to overcome those barriers.

— Identify barriers to federal and nonfederal collaboration and consensus-building and ways

to overcome them.

— Identify data and systems problems within the Department of the Interior and the Forest

Service and ways to solve them.

Assessing 

production and conservation

requirements

— Identify ways to protect endangered species while easing the act’s impact on managing

federal lands and on private property rights.

— Analyze reasons for, impact of, and ways to mitigate the nation’s declining commercial fish

populations.

— Assess the viability of maintaining a commercial timber program.

— Identify internal threats to the national parks and ways to address them.

Page 6 GAO/IAP-95-16
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