Information Technology: Departmental Leadership Crucial to Success of Investment Reforms at Interior
Published: 2003-09-12T00:00:00

Fast Facts:

Highlights:
section_title: Why GAO Did This Study
paragraphs: The Department of the Interior is responsible for diverse and complex missions ranging from managing America's public lands, mineral and water resources, and wildlife to providing satellite data to the military and scientific communities. To fulfill these responsibilities, Interior invests over $850 million annually--about 6 percent of its total annual budget--in communications and computing projects and systems. Interior's Office of the Secretary and its Chief Information Officer (CIO) are responsible for overseeing processes for managing these investments to ensure that funds are expended in the most cost-effective way in support of the agency's mission needs. GAO was asked to evaluate (1) departmental capabilities for managing the agency's information technology (IT) investments and (2) the department's actions and plans to improve these capabilities.
section_title: What GAO Found
paragraphs: The Department of the Interior has limited capability to manage its IT investments. Based on GAO's IT Investment Management (ITIM) Framework, which measures the maturity of an organization's investment management processes, the department is carrying out few of the activities that support critical foundational processes. As an initial step to improve its investment management capability, the department has issued a Capital Planning and Investment Control Guide, which describes its approach to IT investment management. However, it has thus far implemented few of the processes described in its own guide. In addition, it has yet to develop an adequate approach to identify existing projects and systems. In order to ensure strong investment management at all levels, the department has also specified a requirement for certifying bureau-level investment processes, but certification has not yet begun. Finally, in order to strengthen the CIO's ability to manage IT investments at all levels, the Secretary of the Interior has issued an order establishing the authority of the bureau-level CIOs; however, the order has not been fully implemented. In order to improve investment management processes, an organization needs to develop and implement a coherent plan, supported by senior management, which defines and prioritizes enhancements to its investment processes. While Interior has undertaken a number of initiatives designed to improve its investment management processes, the department has not yet developed a unified, comprehensive plan to achieve its objective of establishing effective investment management processes, nor has it committed the resources to successfully implement the necessary reforms. Without a well-defined process improvement plan and controls for implementing it, Interior will continue to be challenged in its ability to make informed and prudent investment decisions.

section_title: Letter
paragraphs: The Department of the Interior is responsible for diverse and complex  missions ranging from managing America’s public lands, mineral and water  resources, and wildlife to providing satellite data to the military and  scientific communities. To fulfill these responsibilities, Interior invests over  $850 million annually—about 6 percent of its total annual budgetary  resources—in communications and computing projects and systems. The  Secretary of the Interior and Interior’s Chief Information Officer (CIO) are  responsible for overseeing processes for managing these investments at all  levels of the organization to ensure that funds are expended in the most  cost-effective way in support of the agency’s mission needs.
This report is one of two in response to your request that we evaluate the  Department of the Interior’s information technology investment  management capabilities. As agreed with your offices, our objectives were  to evaluate (1) departmental capabilities for managing the agency’s  information technology (IT) investments, including its ability to effectively  oversee bureau processes, and (2) the department’s actions and plans to  improve these capabilities.
subsections: section_title: Background
subsections: section_title: Interior Has Diverse Missions and IT Investments
paragraphs: The Department of the Interior, created by Congress in 1849, is a  multitiered organization that currently employs approximately 70,000  people in about 2,400 locations throughout the United States. The Secretary  of the Interior heads the agency, which comprises approximately 30 offices  and committees and eight bureaus. Five Assistant Secretaries support the  Secretary of the Interior at the department level. One of these is  responsible for Policy, Management and Budget. The others are responsible  for mission-related matters including Land and Minerals Management,  Indian Affairs, Fish and Wildlife and Parks, and Water and Science.
At the next level of the organization, eight bureaus, aligned with these  Assistant Secretaries, are responsible for achieving Interior’s diverse  missions. Interior’s missions include managing approximately 500 million  acres of land—about one-fifth of the total U.S. land mass—and about 1.8  billion acres of the Outer Continental Shelf; fulfilling the government’s trust  responsibility to American Indians and Alaska Natives; conserving and  protecting fish and wildlife; offering recreational opportunities; managing  the National Park System; providing stewardship of energy and mineral  resources; fostering the sound use of land and water resources; helping  with the management of the National Fire Plan; ensuring the reclamation  and restoration of surface mining sites; and providing scientific  information on resource, natural hazard, and earth science issues. Figure 1  shows how Interior is organized.
Information technology (IT) investments play a vital role in Interior’s ability  to fulfill its missions. Given the diversity of these missions and operating  environments, the character of these investments also varies substantially.
For example, the department uses a land mobile radio infrastructure to  support geographically dispersed public safety and protection missions.  These missions include law enforcement on federal and tribal lands, urban  and wildland firefighting, seismic monitoring, wildlife tracking  management of national parks, and water reclamation activities. In  contrast, Interior’s Minerals Management Service owns systems that track  oil and gas production on public lands and maintains records on royalties  that are due to the federal government and to American Indian tribes.  Interior’s bureaus and associated program offices propose, fund, and  manage these kinds of investments, while certain departmental offices— such as the Offices of Financial Management and Personnel Policy— propose and manage other systems that support administrative functions.  Interior’s National Business Center is responsible for managing and  operating departmental information systems on a fee-for-service basis and  for providing other kinds of administrative support, such as facilities  management.
In fiscal year 2003, Interior invested over $850 million in IT—about 6  percent of its total budget. While the Secretary of the Interior has the  ultimate responsibility for managing these investments—including  overseeing and guiding the development, management, and use of  information resources and information technology throughout the  department—Interior’s CIO is responsible for providing leadership and  oversight for IT investment management processes throughout the agency.  To that end, Interior’s CIO serves as the chair of the department’s IT  Management Council, which oversees “major” investments in IT. About  2,255 of Interior’s staff of about 70,000 are classified as IT professionals.  Thirty-four staff provided direct support to the CIO in the department’s  Office of the CIO during fiscal year 2003.
Appendix I provides additional information about each bureau’s missions,  functions, staffing, and total expenditures on IT for fiscal year 2003.
section_title: Reviews Identified Need for Improving IT Investment Management
paragraphs: Prior reviews of IT projects performed at Interior over the past decade—by  GAO and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as well as Interior’s  Office of the Inspector General (OIG)—have revealed significant  weaknesses in IT investment management practices at both the department  and the bureau levels. Over the last several years, we have issued a series of  reports on Interior’s major IT investments and associated management  practices. In April and July of 1999, we reported that Interior had not  followed sound management practices in the early stages of its effort to  acquire the Trust Asset and Accounting Management System, a system  designed to manage Indian assets and land records. We also reported that,  as a result of poor planning, Interior could not ensure that the system  would meet financial management needs cost effectively or mitigate  system development risks adequately. In September 2000, we reported that  Interior still needed to address significant remaining risks. Among other  things, we recommended that Interior take steps to strengthen its software  development and acquisition processes and that it regularly assess the  progress being made in implementing this system.
Between 1995 and 2001, we reported on Interior’s efforts to acquire a land  and mineral case processing system called Automated Land and Mineral  Record System(ALMRS)/Modernization and raised concerns about the  Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) and the prime contractor’s abilities to  complete, integrate, and test the new software system and complete the  current schedule. Among other things, we recommended that BLM take  steps to strengthen its IT investment management processes and systems  acquisition capabilities. ALMRS was terminated in 1999, but many of the  management weaknesses we had identified remained. In 2000 and 2001, we  reported that BLM had been working to implement our recommendations,  and we further recommended that BLM develop a plan to integrate all of  the corrective actions necessary to implement our recommendations and  establish a schedule for completing them.
In August 2002, Interior’s OIG reported that the department did not have a  process to ensure that IT capital investments or projects focused on  departmental mission objectives or federal government goals and  initiatives—principally because of its decentralized approach to IT  investment management. The OIG further stated that only 20 investment  projects—representing over 24 percent of the total—were subject to  departmental review and approval in fiscal years 2002 and 2003 through  submission of capital asset plans. Therefore, about $1 billion in Interior IT  investment projects were not subject to department-level review and  approval during those 2 years.
Consistent with these reports, OMB reported in the President’s fiscal year  2003 budget that Interior was putting large sums of public funds at high risk  for failure and that it had not complied with applicable legislative  requirements that were established in the Paperwork Reduction Act of  1995 and the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996. OMB also reported that the  department had not been able to adequately identify major projects within  its IT portfolio or to demonstrate through adequate business cases the need  for all of the major projects that it did identify. In addition, out of the 23  federal agencies included in the fiscal year 2003 budget supplemental  document entitled Performance Information for Major IT Investments,  the Department of the Interior was one of only two agencies that were  unable to provide the type of information on the actual performance of  their IT investments. In the Presidentís fiscal year 2004 budget, OMB  reported that Interior had made significant strides toward more fully  identifying its IT investments and strengthening the business cases that it  developed for major IT projects, although 20 of its 35 initial submissions  remained on OMB’s at-risk list.
section_title: Information Technology Investment Management Maturity Framework
paragraphs: Our IT Investment Management (ITIM) maturity framework, issued in  May 2000, is a useful tool that can help Interior to improve its IT investment  management capabilities. The ITIM framework can be used to determine  both the status of an agency’s current IT investment management  capabilities and what additional steps need to be taken to put more  effective processes in place. The ITIM framework establishes a hierarchical  set of five maturity stages. Each stage builds upon the lower stages and  represents increased capabilities toward achieving both stable and  effective (and thus mature) IT investment management processes. Except  for the first stage—which largely reflects ad hoc, undefined, and  undisciplined decision and oversight processes—each maturity stage is  composed of critical processes that are essential to satisfying the  requirements of that stage. These critical processes are defined by key  practices that include organizational commitments (e.g., policies and  procedures), prerequisites (e.g., resource allocation), and activities (e.g.,  implementing procedures). Key practices are the specific conditions that  must be in place and tasks that must be performed for an organization to  effectively implement the necessary critical processes.
Figure 2 shows the five ITIM stages and a brief description of each stage.
While the ITIM framework defines critical processes and key practices in  general terms, our work at multitiered organizations, such as the Postal  Service and the Department of Justice, showed that specific roles and  responsibilities may vary by organizational tier. For example, in such  organizations, department-level management has overall responsibility for  a process, while component-level management is responsible for ensuring  that applicable requirements defined by the department are met and that  operational units such as program offices take primary responsibility for  performing the day-to-day activities that are described by ITIM, in  accordance with management expectations. In such an environment, the  presence of well-established and managed processes at lower levels of the  organization can provide a level of assurance to the department concerning  the quality and reliability of proposals for new investments, information  reported on the actual performance of projects, and budget requests.
In an agency like Interior, in which organizations at different levels execute  various aspects of IT investment management, it is essential that top  agency management establish and oversee processes throughout the  agency to ensure that effective investment management practices are being  adhered to. Over the past decade, Congress has enacted a series of laws  that require centralized management and performance reporting to ensure  that agencies can demonstrate that they are making the best funding  decisions to support their mission needs.  The Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996  specifically requires that the head of each agency designate a CIO to  implement a process that maximizes the value and assesses and manages  the risk of IT investments. Under the Clinger-Cohen Act, the Department of  the Interior’s CIO has the ultimate responsibility for ensuring the cost- effectiveness of decisions made by program managers to expend funds on  IT in support of the agency’s mission needs. Therefore, even though  individual bureaus have CIOs or similar officers, the department’s CIO  must monitor and evaluate the performance of its IT investment portfolio  as a whole and report to the Secretary on compliance with applicable laws  and policies.
section_title: Scope and Methodology
paragraphs: To determine the department’s capabilities for managing its information  technology (IT) investments, including its ability to effectively oversee  bureau processes, we used several different criteria. To evaluate the  underlying investment management processes we used our Information  Technology Investment Management: A Framework for Assessing and  Improving Process Maturity, Exposure Draft (ITIM Framework). We  applied the framework as it is described in the exposure draft, except that  we used a revised version of the IT Asset Inventory critical process, called  IT Project and System Identification, after discussion with departmental  officials at the beginning of this engagement. This revised critical process  has been used in our evaluations since June 2001.  At the start of our  evaluation, we requested that the department conduct a self-assessment  using the ITIM as criteria. Using this self-assessment and the supporting  documentation as a starting point, we worked with Interior officials to  further support their conclusions.  Based on the department’s  acknowledgement that it had only executed two of the key practices in  Stage 3, we did not independently assess the capabilities at this stage or at  Stages 4 and 5 of the framework. In our evaluation, an ITIM key practice  was rated as “executed” only when we found sufficient evidence that the  practice was already in place at the time of the review. We rated all other  key practices as “not executed.”
To gain additional insight into the department’s ability to oversee its  components’ IT investment management processes, we reviewed  documentation and conducted interviews on the department’s efforts to  put the necessary management structures in place, whether the department  had clearly defined what was expected of the bureaus, and whether it held  the bureaus accountable to the necessary standards.  In order to evaluate  the success of the department’s oversight activities, we also assessed the  capabilities of Interior’s components. To determine the capabilities of the  components, we collected documentation describing bureau CPIC and  investment management processes and spoke with responsible officials at  eight bureaus (the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Bureau of Land  Management, the Bureau of Reclamation, the Minerals Management  Service, the National Park Service, the Office of Surface Mining  Reclamation and Enforcement, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the  U.S. Geological Survey) and the National Business Center.
To assess Interior’s plans for improving its IT investment management  processes—including oversight of bureau processes—and to identify  potential barriers to their implementation, we obtained and evaluated  documents showing what management actions had been taken and what  initiatives had been planned by the department. In addition, we interviewed  officials in the Offices of Acquisition and Property Management, Budget,  and the Chief Information Officer.
We conducted our work at Interior’s headquarters offices in Washington,  D.C.; bureaus headquarters offices in Arlington, Virginia; Reston, Virginia;  and Lakewood, Colorado; and at the National Business Center in  Englewood, Colorado, from November 2002 through July 2003, in  accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
section_title: Interior’s Capacity to Effectively Manage IT Investments Is Limited
paragraphs: In order to have the capabilities to effectively manage IT investments, a  department should (1) have basic, project-level control and selection  practices in place and (2) manage its projects as a portfolio of investments,  treating them as an integrated package of competing investment options  and pursuing those that best meet the department’s strategic goals,  objectives, and mission. These practices may be executed at various  organizational levels of the agency—including the bureau level—although  overall responsibility for their success remains at the department level.
The Department of the Interior is executing only 7 of the 38 key practices  that are required by the ITIM framework to establish a foundation for IT  investment management and only 2 of the 38 key practices required to  manage investments as a portfolio. In addition, the department’s ability to  oversee the successful implementation and execution of the required  practices is limited, although a number of initiatives have been undertaken  to address this issue. However, efforts to implement the reform initiatives  have not moved forward as specified in implementing memoranda. Until  Interior successfully implements stable investment management practices  throughout the department, it will lack essential management controls over  its IT investments, and it will be unable to ensure that the mix of  investments it is pursuing is the best to meet the department’s strategic  goals, objectives, and mission.
subsections: section_title: Department Demonstrates Few Capabilities for IT Investment Management
paragraphs: At the ITIM framework’s Stage 2 level of maturity, an organization has  attained repeatable, successful investment control processes and basic  selection processes at the project level. Through these processes, the  organization can identify expectation gaps early and take appropriate steps  to address them. According to the ITIM framework, critical processes at  Stage 2 include (1) defining investment board operations, (2) collecting  information about existing investments, (3) developing project-level  investment control processes, (4) identifying the business needs for each  IT project, and (5) developing a basic process for selecting new IT  proposals. Table 1 describes the purpose for each of the Stage 2 critical  processes.
In a multitiered organization like Interior, the department is responsible for  providing leadership and oversight for foundational critical processes by  ensuring that written policies and procedures are established, repositories  of information are created that support IT investment decision making,  resources are allocated, responsibilities are assigned, and all of the  activities are properly carried out where they may be most effectively  executed. In such an organization, the CIO is specifically responsible for  ensuring that the organization is effectively managing its IT investments at  every level. If Interior’s bureaus do not have investment management  processes in place that adequately support the department’s investment  management process, its CIO must take action to ensure that the  department is expending funds on IT investments that will fulfill its mission  needs.
The department is executing 7 of the 38 key practices associated with Stage  2 critical processes (or about 18 percent), primarily as a result of issuing  the IT and Construction Capital Planning and Investment Control  (CPIC) Guide in December 2002 and assigning responsibility for IT  investment management functions to three oversight boards. Among other  things, the CPIC Guide clearly describes the structure of the department’s  IT investment review boards and how authority is to be aligned among  bureau- and department-level boards; it assigns responsibility to the boards  for its proposal selection process.
However, the department has not executed most of the crucial key  practices at the Stage 2 level. For example, information about the expected  and actual cost and schedule for Interior’s IT projects, which could form  the basis for selection decisions, is not being provided to the investment  review boards. In addition, the department has few capabilities for  overseeing IT projects and ensuring that business needs are adequately  identified. Finally, in July 2003 Interior had not yet implemented most of  the investment management processes that it describes in its CPIC Guide,  and thus the members of its boards lacked direct experience in the  execution of ITIM critical processes.
Table 2 summarizes the status of the department’s Stage 2 critical  processes, showing how many associated key practices the agency has  executed. The department’s actions toward implementing each of the  critical processes are discussed in the sections that follow.
To help ensure executive management accountability and adequate  oversight for IT capital planning and investment decisions, an organization  should establish a governing board or boards with responsibility for  selecting, controlling, and evaluating IT investments. According to the ITIM  framework, effective operation of an IT investment board requires, among  other things, that (1) board members have both IT and business knowledge,  (2) board members understand the investment board’s policies and  procedures and exhibit core competencies in using the agency’s IT  investment policies and procedures, (3) the organization’s executives and  line managers support and carry out board decisions, (4) the organization  develop organization-specific process guidance that includes policies and  procedures to direct the board’s operations, and (5) the investment board  operates according to written policies and procedures. (The full list of key  practices is provided later in table 3.)
The department is executing two of the six key practices needed for its IT  investment boards to operate effectively, as specified in the ITIM  framework. Interior’s new CPIC Guide provides a conceptual framework  for the operation of IT investment boards and a description of a five-phase  investment process. It also specifies the membership of Interior’s IT  investment boards in a way that should ensure the integration of technical  and business knowledge as well as the appointment of senior-level  executives to the boards.
In its new CPIC Guide, Interior provides a conceptual overview of the  department- and bureau-level review boards that are now responsible for  overseeing IT investments. At the department level, these boards and their  decision thresholds include the following:  the Management Excellence Council, which is responsible for validating  recommendations made to it by the Management Initiatives Team on IT  investments;  the Management Initiatives Team, which is responsible for reviewing,  evaluating, and approving investments that are expected to cost $35  million or more, and other investments that are otherwise considered to  be major; and   the IT Management Council, which is responsible for reviewing,  evaluating, and approving IT investments that are expected to cost  between $5 million and $35 million.
The Management Excellence Council, chaired by the Secretary of the  Interior and comprising Assistant Secretaries and bureau heads, was  created to provide leadership, direction, and accountability in meeting the  administration’s goals and to provide overall direction for and oversight of  the department’s management reform activities. Its IT investment  management activities include validating the Management Initiatives  Team’s recommendations and recommending strategic investments for the  Secretary’s approval. The Management Initiatives Team, chaired by the  Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget and comprising  Deputy Assistant Secretaries and Deputy Bureau Directors, was  established to support the Management Excellence Council in its broad  activities. In the context of IT investment management, the Management  Initiatives Team’s responsibilities include articulating investment strategy,  validating scoring by the IT Management Council, and resolving duplication  of effort. The IT Management Council, chartered in the CPIC Guide, is  cochaired by the department CIO and a rotating cochair who is elected by  IT Management Council annually; it is composed of the bureau CIOs and  representatives from several departmental offices. The IT Management  Council is responsible for scoring potential investments against a  predetermined set of criteria, maintaining the planning process and the  investment portfolio, and identifying duplication of effort.
The department has taken steps to ensure that investment boards are  established at the bureau level also. For example, Interior’s CPIC Guide  requires that investment review boards be established by each of its  bureaus to provide oversight for IT investments that are funded by Interior.
This multilayered review of investments is designed to increase the  likelihood that Interior’s IT investments will meet mission needs.
However, at the time that we concluded our work in July 2003, the  department could not assert that board members exhibited core  competencies in using the IT investment approach because department  level boards had very limited experience with IT proposal selection  processes. Until the department implements an effective IT investment  board process that is well established and understood throughout the  agency, executives cannot be adequately assured that decisions made by  the boards are being well supported and carried out by its executives and  line managers or that each board is operating according to established  policies and procedures.
Table 3 summarizes our ratings for each key practice and the specific  evidence that supports the ratings.
Agency boards, managers, and staff at all levels who are responsible for  decisions about IT investment management must have at their disposal  information about existing investments as well as new ones that are being  proposed. Besides the fundamental business justification for each of the  individual investments, decision makers must also consider the interaction  of each continuing or proposed project with other projects that comprise  the agency’s overall IT environment. In addition, opportunities to  consolidate projects or systems and avoid redundant investments may be  found when proposals are evaluated in this context. The information that  could be used in this analysis includes current and planned system  functions, physical location, organizational owners, and how funds are  being expended toward acquiring, maintaining, and deploying these assets.
A project and system inventory can take many forms and does not have to  be centrally located or consolidated. The guiding principles for developing  the inventory are that the information maintained should be both  accessible—located where it is of the most value to investment decision  makers—and relevant to the management processes and decisions that are  being made. In multitiered organizations, information from an IT project  and system inventory should be accessible and relevant to the decision  processes of boards at all levels of the organization that are responsible for  ITIM activities. An IT project and system inventory is also essential to  successfully implementing certain other critical processes, including IT  Project Oversight and Proposal Selection, and developing a comprehensive  IT investment portfolio.
According to the ITIM framework, organizations at the Stage 2 level of  maturity allocate adequate resources for tracking IT projects and systems,  designate responsibility for managing the project and system identification  process, and develop related written policies and procedures. Resources  required for this purpose typically include managerial attention to the  process; staff; supporting tools, such as an inventory database; inventory  reporting, updating, and query tools; and a method for communicating  inventory changes to affected parties. Stage 2 organizations also maintain  information on their IT projects and systems in one or more inventories  according to written procedures, recording changes in data as required,  and maintaining historical records. Access to this information is provided  on demand to decision makers and other affected parties. (The full list of  key practices is provided in table 4.)
However, the department is not executing any of the seven key practices in  this critical process. It does not have any written standards or existing  repositories of information on Interior’s IT investments that meet ITIM  standards, and it has not assigned responsibility or allocated resources for  this purpose. In April 2003, departmental officials indicated that they are  planning to use the Exhibit 53 report they prepared for OMB as their IT  project and system inventory. However, according to the same officials, the  current Exhibit 53 report for Interior does not constitute a comprehensive  list of its IT investments. Moreover, this report does not include  information on actual project cost and schedule or other information  needed to support IT investment decisions.
Developing an adequate project and system inventory has only recently  become a priority at Interior. As a result, Interior’s IT investment boards do  not currently have the information they need to make well-informed  decisions regarding selecting, controlling, and evaluating investment  decisions. Without information from such an inventory, the department-  and bureau-level boards cannot ensure that duplication among existing and  proposed IT investments is eliminated. In addition, the boards cannot  compare actual project performance with expectations and determine  whether corrective actions should be taken.
Table 4 summarizes our ratings for each key practice.
According to the ITIM framework, effective project oversight requires,  among other things, (1) having written policies and procedures for project  management; (2) developing and maintaining an approved management  plan for each IT project; (3) having written policies and procedures for  oversight of IT projects; (4) making up-to-date cost and schedule data for  each project available to the oversight boards; (5) reviewing each project’s  performance by regularly comparing actual cost and schedule data to  expectations; (6) ensuring that corrective actions for each under- performing project are documented, agreed to, implemented, and tracked  until the desired outcome is achieved; and (7) using information from the  IT projects and systems inventory. (The complete list of key practices is  provided in table 5.) For all IT projects, performance reviews should be  conducted at least at each major life cycle milestone. In an organization  such as Interior, it is essential that the department provide leadership and  oversight of IT project management even though the day-to-day  management of IT investments may be handled by bureau-level staff and  the National Business Center.
The department is executing 1 of the 11 key practices in this critical  process by operating department-level IT investment boards. However, the  other 10 key practices are not being executed, such as those requiring the  development of written policies and procedures for project management or  management oversight of IT projects. Moreover, the department currently  has no consistent way of knowing the extent to which project management  plans are being developed, approved, maintained, and reviewed. As a  result, the department has no mechanisms for ensuring that up-to-date  information on actual costs and schedule are being provided to the IT  investment boards. Finally, Interior lacks an IT projects and systems  inventory to capture performance information that can be used by its  boards in the investment decision process.
According to Interior officials, the department is not executing many of the  key practices for Stage 2 IT project oversight because it currently relies on  the bureaus to perform these management functions. However, since the  department has not developed policies and procedures for the bureaus to  follow in conducting IT project oversight, Interior is running the risk that  under performing projects will not be reported to the appropriate IT  investment board. In the absence of effective board oversight, Interior  executives do not have adequate assurance that projects are being  developed on schedule and within budget.
Table 5 summarizes our ratings for each key practice and the evidence that  supports the ratings.
Defining business needs for each project helps to ensure that projects  support the organization’s mission goals and meet users’ needs. This  critical process creates the link between the organization’s business  objectives and its IT management strategy. According to our ITIM  framework, effectively identifying business needs requires, among other  things, (1) defining the organization’s business needs or stated mission  goals, (2) identifying users for each project who will participate in the  project’s development and implementation, (3) training IT staff adequately  in identifying business needs, and (4) defining business needs for each  project. (The complete list of key practices is provided in table 6.)
The department is responsible for providing leadership and oversight for  the identification and documentation of business needs for IT investments  by issuing written guidance for this critical process and executing the  associated key practices. However, given that knowledge of the actual  business needs of Interior’s departmental offices and programs resides in  the sponsors of IT investments, much of the work of identifying business  processes must necessarily be performed at those levels of the  organization.
The department is executing two of the eight key practices for this critical  process by defining mission goals in strategic planning documents and by  ensuring that appropriately trained individuals identify the needs for its IT  projects. However, the department is not executing the remaining key  practices, such as those that involve ensuring that adequate resources are  being provided and identifying all of its IT projects and systems in an  inventory. As a result, the department could not identify specific users and  business needs for all of Interior’s IT investments at the time of our review.
In April 2003, the department provided training in linking projects to  Interior’s IT strategic plan, but written policies and procedures for business  needs identification have not been formalized. Also, the Exhibit 300 reports  on IT investments that the department produces for OMB in support of the  President’s budget—and which it identifies as the mechanism for capturing  business needs—are not required for nonmajor IT investments. Because  nonmajor projects comprised approximately 67 percent of Interior’s  projects and 45 percent of its total IT expenditures in fiscal year 2003,  business needs were not captured for many of Interior’s projects. The  department was also unable to demonstrate that identified users  participated in project management throughout a project’s life cycle.
Office of Chief Information Officer (OCIO) officials explained that the  department has not provided oversight of the process of identifying  business needs, because it has historically relied on its IT investment  sponsors to determine the business needs of the investments. However,  until the department provides adequate leadership and oversight for this  critical process that is well established and understood throughout the  agency, executives cannot be adequately assured that sponsors of IT  investments are consistently and objectively identifying user needs and  linking investment proposals to the agency’s strategic goals.
Table 6 summarizes our ratings for each key practice and the evidence that  supports the ratings.
Selecting new IT proposals requires an established and structured process  to ensure informed decision making and management accountability.  According to our ITIM framework, this critical process requires, among  other things, (1) making funding decisions for new IT proposals according  to an established process, (2) providing adequate resources for proposal  selection activities, (3) using an established proposal selection process,  (4) analyzing and ranking new IT proposals according to established  selection criteria—including cost and schedule criteria—and  (5) designating an official to manage the proposal selection process. While  initial selection decisions may be made at the bureau level, the department  should have in place clear, established criteria for selection and guidance  regarding the structure and content of IT proposals. (The complete list of  key practices is provided in table 7.)
The department is executing two of the six key practices for this critical  process by identifying the IT Management Council cochairs as the  responsible authorities for the proposal selection process and by using the  CPIC Guide’s funding process to make decisions on IT proposals. These  achievements notwithstanding, the department has yet to implement most  key practices—such as using established criteria to analyze each  investment and prioritizing these investments accordingly. The CPIC Guide  does contain requirements that address several of the objectives of the  critical process for proposal selection, such as establishing a consistent  approach to assessing the costs and benefits of proposed investments and  developing clear performance expectations with quantifiable performance  measures. If implemented, the CPIC Guide would satisfy many of the  requirements of the key practices in this critical process.
Until now, the department has focused on other aspects of its IT investment  management process, such as the review of OMB Exhibit 300s for each  major project, without using the selection criteria that are defined in the  CPIC Guide. Moreover, while fundamental processes for proposal  selection are described in the CPIC Guide, these had not been fully  implemented at the time of our review. In the meantime, Interior’s bureaus  have retained responsibility for selecting IT investments—without benefit  of departmental review. Until the department implements the key practices  described in the ITIM framework, and they are well established and  understood throughout the agency, Interior cannot be adequately assured  that it is consistently and objectively developing and selecting proposals  that best meet the needs and priorities of the agency.
Table 7 summarizes our ratings for the proposal selection critical process.
section_title: Department Is Not Managing Interior IT Investments as a Portfolio
paragraphs: An IT investment portfolio is an integrated, agencywide collection of  investments that are assessed and managed collectively based on common  criteria. Managing investments within the context of such a portfolio is a  conscious, continuous, and proactive approach to expending limited  resources on an organization’s competing initiatives in light of the relative  benefits expected from these investments. Taking an agencywide  perspective enables an organization to consider its investments  comprehensively, so that collectively the investments optimally address the  organization’s missions, strategic goals, and objectives. Managing IT  investments with a portfolio approach also allows an organization to  determine priorities and make decisions about which projects to fund  based on analyses of the relative organizational value and risks of all  projects, including projects that are proposed, under development, and in  operation.
According to the ITIM framework, Stage 3 maturity includes (1) defining  portfolio selection criteria, (2) engaging in project-level investment  analysis, (3) developing a complete portfolio based on the investment  analysis, (4) maintaining oversight over the investment performance of the  portfolio, and (5) aligning the authority of the IT investment boards.
Table 8 summarizes the purposes of each of the critical processes in  Stage 3.
The department provided evidence that it is executing 2 of the 38 key  practices for Stage 3 by establishing and maintaining in its CPIC Guide  written policies and procedures and associated criteria for aligning the  decision-making authority of its IT investment review boards. In its self- assessment, Interior did not claim to be fully executing any other Stage 3  key practices.
At the time of our review, the department’s efforts to implement ITIM were  in the initial stages, since the CPIC Guide had been issued in December  2002.  Moreover, OCIO efforts at IT management reform had to compete for  resources with other ongoing priorities. Until now, Interior has focused its  improvement activities in the preselect and select phases described by its  CPIC Guide. Until the department fully implements the foundational  critical processes in Stage 2 and then the critical processes for portfolio  management in Stage 3, it will lack the capability to consider Interior’s  investments in a comprehensive manner and determine whether it has the  mix of IT investments that best meet the agency’s mission needs and  priorities.
Table 9 summarizes the status of the department’s Stage 3 critical  processes, showing how many associated key practices the agency has  executed.
section_title: Department Has Limited Ability to Oversee IT Investments in the Bureaus
paragraphs: The ability of a department-level CIO to effectively oversee IT investment  management processes throughout the agency depends on the existence of  appropriate management structures with adequate authorities and  sufficient guidance. To its credit, Interior has taken several crucial initial  steps to make this possible; it conducted a study of existing organizational  structures, issued a secretarial order providing broad authorities to its  CIOs, and issued a capital planning and investment control guide that  provided a conceptual framework for improvements to the IT investment  management process. However, Interior’s CIO has taken limited action to  ensure that the secretarial order was implemented and that other required  improvements to the process were made. The department had envisioned a  certification process through which it would hold bureaus accountable for  improving their investment management capabilities, but it has yet to  implement this concept. Until sound management structures and a  certification process are in place, the department’s ability to oversee the  bureaus’ practices for investment management will be limited.
subsections: section_title: Department and Bureau CIOs Are Not Positioned to Provide Leadership for IT Investment Processes
paragraphs: Under the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996, the CIO of each agency is responsible  for effectively managing all of the agency’s IT resources. To comply with  the act, Interior’s CIO is responsible for ensuring that the bureaus are  implementing effective investment management processes that are  appropriately aligned with the department’s processes. Our report on  Maximizing the Success of Chief Information Officers describes the  principles of successful CIO management in leading organizations.  In such  organizations, the CIO has been positioned for success, having been  assigned clearly defined roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities.  Because Interior has multiple levels of IT investment management  authority, it is especially critical that the roles, responsibilities, and  accountabilities of all the CIOs be clearly defined.
In 2002, Interior contracted with Science Applications International  Corporation (SAIC) to study the department and bureau CIO organizations  and determine whether it was in compliance with the requirements of the  Clinger-Cohen Act. SAIC concluded that, in the current environment,  Interior’s CIO did not have adequate power—or the leverage of a formal  structure with clear lines of authority and control of resources—to carry  out its responsibilities under the act. The study pointed to a general lack of  authority and resource control at the bureau level as well, which further  inhibited the CIO’s ability to function. According to SAIC, in most of the  bureaus, the CIOs lacked the authority to effect change among their  subordinate IT staff and decision areas because they cannot allocate or  withdraw funds and do not control hiring, training, or performance  appraisals. On the basis of these findings, SAIC recommended that Interior  establish formal lines of authority from the department’s CIO to the bureau  CIOs and to IT staff at lower levels.
On the basis of the SAIC study, and because of its desire to comply with the  Clinger-Cohen Act, Interior issued Secretarial Order 3244, which  acknowledged that authority and control over management of IT resources  had not been fully established or coordinated in the department, resulting  in significant variability among bureaus and offices in implementing IT  functions and setting funding priorities. To rectify this situation, the order  provides broad authorities to all of Interior’s CIOs. Among other things, the  order requires all bureausto standardize their IT functional areas to  achieve continuity of responsibility and accountability throughout the  department. Specifically, the order calls for establishing a function  described as technology management, which encompasses IT investment  management.
The order assigns approval authority and management responsibility for all  IT assets to bureau CIOs. On the basis of the order, every Interior  organization with 5,000 or more employees must have a separate CIO  position at the Senior Executive Service level. The individual in this  position must be a fully participating member of the executive  leadership/management teams and must report to the Deputy Director or  Director of the bureau. For any office that reports directly to the Secretary  or the Deputy Secretary of the Interior, the department’s CIO will serve as  the CIO if those offices have not designated one. Consistent with the  Clinger-Cohen Act, the order states that the department’s CIO is  responsible for approving all IT expenditures.
Interior’s CIO issued specific direction to the bureaus in November 2002  and in January 2003, indicating how to implement Secretarial Order 3244  and establishing a process for monthly status reporting, which was to begin  on January 31, 2003. However, at the time of our review, only two bureaus  had provided the required monthly status reports, and none of the bureaus  had fully implemented the order. This lack of responsiveness is consistent  with concerns described in the SAIC report that Interior’s CIO currently  lacks adequate support from bureau CIOs to ensure that departmental  efforts at improving IT investment management will be effectively  implemented.
section_title: Department Does Not Follow Through with Certification of the Bureaus’ IT Investment Management Processes
paragraphs: According to the Clinger-Cohen Act and Interior’s own CPIC Guide, the  department should take steps to ensure that Interior's bureaus implement  effective capital planning and investment control processes.  To execute  this responsibility according to project management best practices, the  department should clearly define its expectations for these processes and  then hold the bureaus accountable to the standards it has established.
At the time of our review, the department had specified initial expectations  for the bureaus’ processes. On January 15, 2003, the department CIO issued  a memorandum that called for the bureaus to immediately begin  implementing more formal IT processes, using the CPIC Guide. The  department held training sessions in which bureaus were informed that the  Exhibit 300s they provide to the department for review as part of the  annual budget formulation process must first be reviewed by their own IT  investment review boards. The department emphasized during these  sessions that the bureaus should work on making their Exhibit 53 reports  on IT investments more complete and reliable. Although the Exhibit 53  reports do not include adequate information for IT investment management  purposes—according to the ITIM framework—improving the reports will  bring Interior one step closer to identifying and tracking IT projects and  systems. This is a critical aspect of the investment management process  that will provide better visibility of all IT projects to the department.
Despite this initial instruction on its expectations, the department has yet  to fully implement a certification process through which it can hold  bureaus accountable for their IT investment management processes. With  the issuance of its CPIC Guide in December 2002, the department began to  define some criteria for certification of these processes. The guide states  that, at a minimum, a bureau’s investment review board must maintain a  documented description or charter outlining the bureau’s CPIC process and  the roles and responsibilities of the board, the bureau offices, and any other  entities that are involved in CPIC. In addition, the guide outlines other  departmental expectations—such as six steps that need to be  accomplished in the short term, along with establishing a bureau-level  investment review board—but it does not explicitly state whether these are  required for certification. During our interviews with staff from Interior’s IT  Portfolio Management Division, officials confirmed that the certification  process is still only a concept at Interior and that it has not been well  defined. More specifically, the department has not established a date for  the certification to begin or specified what corrective action will be taken if  a bureau fails to be certified. Implementation of an effective certification  process will provide the department with a mechanism for ensuring that  the bureaus are operating in a manner that is consistent with the policies  and procedures it establishes for ITIM key practices.
Departmental officials confirmed that at the time of our review, OCIO  efforts were concentrated on providing training for the preparation of  bureau Exhibit 300 reports, discussed above, rather than on implementing  the CPIC Guide’s provisions for a certification process. Until the  department focuses resources on defining and enforcing standards for  certifying bureau processes, the risk is high that bureaus may implement IT  investment management processes that do not sufficiently support the  departmental investment management process. Only by institutionalizing  effective processes at both the department and the bureau levels can  Interior ensure that it is optimizing its investments in IT and effectively  assessing and managing the risks of these investments.
section_title: Department’s Efforts to Improve Investment Management Processes and Oversight Are Fragmented and Inadequate
paragraphs: Achieving successful reform of IT management requires an organization to  develop a complete and well-prioritized plan for systematically correcting  weaknesses in its existing capabilities. To properly focus and target this  plan, an organization should first fully identify and assess current strengths  and weaknesses (i.e., create an investment management capability  baseline). As we have previously reported, this plan should, at a  minimum, (1) specify measurable goals, objectives, milestones, and needed  resources and (2) clearly assign responsibility and accountability for  accomplishing well-defined tasks. The plan should also be documented and  approved by agency leadership. In implementing such a plan, it is important  that the organization measure and report progress against planned  commitments and take appropriate corrective action to address deviations.
In order to develop a focus for its reform efforts, Interior has made several  attempts to document existing conditions and identify weaknesses in its  organization. Between 2001 and 2003, OCIO hired three different  contractors to perform studies of existing IT projects and systems,  organizational reporting relationships and functions, and IT investment  management practices. The META Group performed the first study, after  which the SAIC study, described earlier, was completed to assess the  earlier results. G&B Solutions was then contracted to further elaborate and  validate the earlier work, focusing on technical solutions and CIO  authorities. In a separate effort in 2002, the department directed the  bureaus to rate themselves in a number of areas that correspond to areas  evaluated by OMB in the budget process.  Further, on January 15, 2003,  OCIO issued a memorandum that required bureaus to submit descriptions  of their capital planning and investment control processes and IT  investment board charters and to perform self-assessments of their IT  investment management capabilities. However, the effectiveness of this  particular effort was limited because no specific instructions were given on  how to perform the self-assessments; this will lead to difficulties in  comparing results across bureaus.
The Department of the Interior has indicated that it intends to create a  comprehensive reform plan with target goals and measurement criteria,  but this plan has not been fully developed. In November 2002, the  department created a Program Management Office to implement IT  management reforms by pulling together various improvement efforts and  prioritizing them. However, as of July 2003, the Program Management  Office did not have a formal charter or a budget, and its manager did not  have a clearly defined role. In addition, this individual’s attention was being  diverted away from issues of IT investment management to address other  concerns, such as Interior’s court-ordered efforts to resolve issues with the  Indian Trust Fund and related information security problems.
The lack of clear accountability and responsibility for improvement efforts  that an office such as this would have provided has resulted in initiatives  that are not well integrated and do not support a unified plan. For example,  no steps have been taken to integrate the requirements of Secretarial Order  3244 for CIO organizations with the bureau certification process  established in the CPIC Guide.  In addition, the multiple efforts to develop  an understanding of current conditions and identify weaknesses in the  existing organization, described above, have not yielded a coherent view,  despite the expenditure of considerable resources.
Without committing to a plan that allows it to systematically prioritize,  sequence, and evaluate improvement efforts, Interior jeopardizes its ability  to establish mature investment processes, which include selection and  control capabilities that would result in greater certainty about the  outcomes of future IT investments.
section_title: Conclusions
paragraphs: The Department of the Interior lacks most of the fundamental IT  investment management practices necessary to effectively and efficiently  manage its IT resources. Only by effectively and efficiently managing these  resources can the department gain opportunities to further leverage its IT  investments and make better allocation decisions among many investment  alternatives. Recent moves by senior executives to define an IT investment  management approach—and to align the IT investment decision review  process with the CIOs at both the department and bureau levels— demonstrate Interior’s realization that reform is necessary. Nonetheless,  the department still finds itself without many of the capabilities it needs to  ensure that Interior’s mix of IT investments best meets the agency’s mission  and business priorities.
Interior’s ability to guide and oversee investment practices throughout the  agency is limited by its lack of mature investment management processes.  The department has recognized that it needs to oversee bureau activities,  and it has begun to establish the authority of bureau CIOs to manage IT  investments and to implement certification of standard investment  processes in the bureaus. However, until the department is able to ensure  mature investment management capabilities at all levels, its ability to  wisely select and effectively manage IT investments will be limited.
Interior’s success in resolving the weaknesses described in this report will  depend on the department’s ability to plan and execute the implementation  of robust investment management and related practices throughout the  agency. However, the department’s efforts have suffered from a lack of  unified planning, clear implementation guidance, supporting resources,  and follow-up on requirements that have been established by the CIO. Until  the department develops a comprehensive plan, supported by top  management, that delineates performance expectations for process  improvements, Interior’s prospects will remain limited for successfully  developing the management capabilities that are necessary to make  prudent decisions that maximize the benefits and minimize the risks of its  IT investments.
section_title: Recommendations
paragraphs: To strengthen Interior’s capabilities for IT investment management and  address the weaknesses discussed in this report, we recommend that the  Secretary of the Interior direct Interior’s CIO to do the following:  Develop a unified, comprehensive plan for implementing  departmentwide improvements to the IT investment management  process that are based on the Stage 2 and Stage 3 critical processes of  our ITIM framework.
Ensure that the plan focuses first on the weaknesses that this report  identifies in the Stage 2 critical processes, before addressing those  associated with higher stages of ITIM maturity, because Stage 2  processes collectively provide the foundation for building a mature IT  investment management process. Specifically:   Establish a timetable for the IT Management Council, Management  Initiatives Team, and Management Excellence Council to begin  operating according to the guidance described in the CPIC Guide.
Develop and issue policies and procedures to guide the IT project  oversight as described by our ITIM framework, including the review  of actual performance information against expected performance by  the investment boards and the implementation of corrective actions  when performance falls below acceptable levels. Implement these  policies and procedures to accomplish the purpose of project  oversight.
Develop and issue policies and procedures to guide the project and  system identification processes as described by the ITIM framework,  including the specification of information required by the investment  management process, the sources of such information, and the  methods for collecting and retaining this information. Implement  these policies and procedures to accomplish the purpose of IT  project and system identification.
Develop and issue policies and procedures to guide the identification  of business needs as described by the ITIM framework, including the  identification of business needs for all projects and the inclusion of  users in project management throughout a project’s life cycle.  Implement these policies and procedures to accomplish the purpose  of identifying business needs.
Establish a timetable for implementing IT proposal selection as  described by Interior’s CPIC Guide.
Ensure that the plan next focuses on Stage 3 critical processes, which  are necessary for portfolio management, because, along with the Stage 2  foundational processes, these processes are necessary for effective  management of IT investments.
To further strengthen the department’s ability to oversee bureau  investment management processes so that it may ensure that  investment management is effectively carried out throughout the  organization, the plan should also  establish a timetable and specific implementation milestones for  Secretarial Order 3244, and  describe acceptable criteria for certification of bureau CPIC  processes and establish a time frame for the certification of these  processes at all bureaus.
Ensure that the plan establishes a baseline of the agency’s capabilities,  specifies measurable goals and time frames, and establishes review  milestones.
Establish a well-defined management structure for directing and  controlling the unified plan with clear authority and responsibility.
Ensure that the Management Excellence Council, which holds  responsibility for department management reform activities, approves  the plan.
Implement the approved plan and report on progress made against the  plan’s goals and time frames to the Secretary of the Interior every 6  months.
section_title: Agency Comments and Our Evaluation
paragraphs: The Department of the Interior’s Assistant Secretary for Policy,  Management and Budget provided written comments on a draft of this  report (reprinted in appendix II). In these comments, the Department of the  Interior concurred with our recommendations and identified actions that it  plans to take to improve IT investment management processes throughout  the department. Specifically, it intends to leverage lessons learned in BLM’s  implementation of the ITIM framework to accelerate the maturing of  department practices. It also intends to develop and implement a  comprehensive plan, approved by the Management Excellence Council, to  address specific weaknesses that we identified in its foundational  investment management practices and to move to full implementation of  Secretarial Order 3244.
In response to the department’s comments, we removed all descriptions of  national critical infrastructure or Trust. In its comments the department  also provided us with additional information that reflects the ongoing  progress it is making in implementing more mature investment  management practices. As we have described in this report, Interior’s  progress has been evident and is ongoing. In particular, the establishment  of the ITMC and the release of the CPIC Guide have provided an  organizational point of focus and a set of procedures to guide IT investment  management. This has enabled the department to begin to implement new  practices with a departmentwide scope. The information the department  provided to us in its comments on the completed evaluation reflects the  continuing implementation of plans described in this report. We strongly  support this ongoing progress, and we will reflect the successful execution  of key practices in following up on our recommendations.
We are sending copies of this report to interested committees of Congress,  to the Secretary of the Department of the Interior, and to the Chief  Information Officer of the Department of the Interior. Copies will be made  available to others upon request. In addition, the report will be made  available at no charge on the GAO Web site at http://www.gao.gov.
If you have any questions regarding this report, please contact me at  202-512-6240 or at koontzl@gao.gov. Additional GAO contact and staff  acknowledgments are listed in appendix III.  .
section_title: Bureau Missions, Functions, and IT Investments
paragraphs: BIA provides federal services to approximately 1.4 million  American Indians and Alaska Natives who are members  of 562 federally recognized tribes in the 48 contiguous  United States and in Alaska. The bureau administers  43,450,267 acres of tribally owned land, 11,000,000 acres  of individually owned land, and 443,000 acres of federally  owned land held in trust status. The bureau’s mission is to  promote and support tribes on their future path through  self-determination and to reduce administration by the  bureau in nontrust areas.
BLM administers over 264 million surface acres of public  land, about one-eighth of the land in the U.S., and  approximately 700 million acres of federal subsurface  mineral estate. Most of these lands are in the West and  Alaska, and they are dominated by extensive grasslands,  forests, high mountains, arctic tundra, and deserts. BLM is  responsible for the management and use of a variety of  resources on these lands, including energy and minerals,  timber, forage, wild horse and burro populations, fish and  wildlife habitat, recreation sites, wilderness areas, and  archeological and historical sites. BLM balances the goals  of providing opportunities for environmentally responsible  recreation and commercial activities; preserving natural  and cultural heritage resources; reducing threats to public  health, safety, and property; providing land, resource, and  title information; providing economic and technical  assistance to Indian tribes and island communities;  understanding and planning for the condition and use of  the public lands; and restoring at-risk resources and  maintaining functioning systems.
USFWS is the primary federal agency responsible for the  protection, conservation, and renewal of fish, wildlife,  plants, and their habitats. It manages migratory bird  populations, restores interjurisdictional fisheries,  conserves and restores wildlife habitat, administers the  Endangered Species Act, and assists foreign  governments with their conservation efforts. USFWS  oversees the Federal Aid in Fish and Wildlife Restoration  Programs, which distribute hundreds of millions of dollars  earned from excise taxes on fishing and hunting  equipment to state fish and wildlife agencies. USFWS is  the steward for nearly 93 million acres of public lands,  including 529 refuges of the National Wildlife Refuge  System, and it manages 67 national fish hatcheries for the  restoration of the nation's fishery resources. USFWS also  works closely with partnership activities for assisting  voluntary habitat development and fostering aquatic  conservation for fish and wildlife habitat on nonfederal  lands.
MMS manages the nation's natural gas, oil, and other  mineral resources on the Outer Continental Shelf. The  agency also collects, accounts for, and disburses more  than $5 billion per year in revenues from federal offshore  mineral leases and from onshore mineral leases on  federal and Indian lands. MMS includes two major  programs, Offshore Minerals Management and Minerals  Revenue Management. Offshore Minerals Management  manages the mineral resources on the Outer Continental  Shelf and has three regions: Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico,  and the Pacific. Minerals Revenue Management collects,  accounts for, and distributes revenues associated with  mineral production from leased federal and Indian lands.
NPS manages 379 parks and various historic  preservation, conservation and recreation programs, and  hosts 287 million visitors annually. The National Park  System encompasses approximately 83.6 million acres in  over three hundred areas, of which more than 4.3 million  acres remain in private ownership. There are three  principal categories used in classification: natural areas,  historical areas, and recreational areas. NPS's four goal  categories are to preserve park resources; to provide for  the public enjoyment and visitors’ experience of parks; to  strengthen and preserve natural and cultural resources  and enhance recreational opportunities managed by  partners; and to ensure organizational effectiveness in  supporting NPS's mission.
OSM is the lead federal agency for carrying out the  mandates of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation  Act, whose goal is to protect society and the environment  from the adverse effects of surface coal mining  operations. OSM’s mission goal of Environmental  Restoration addresses mining that occurred prior to the  passage of Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act  in 1977, while its goal of Environmental Protection  addresses mining since 1977. Environmental Restoration  is accomplished through the Abandoned Mine Land  Program, whose main purpose is to restore a safe and  clean environment. As part of this, the Appalachian Clean  Streams Initiative supports local efforts to eliminate  environmental and economic impacts of acid mine  drainage from abandoned coal mines. Environmental  Protection focuses on current coal mining and is  accomplished with the Surface Mining Program, which  oversees 4.4 million acres of surface coal mines in 26  states and on the lands of three Indian tribes. The  principal means of delivering environmental protection is  through 24 primacy states that receive federal grant  funding.
USBR has developed and manages a limited natural  water supply in the 17 western states. USBR works to  meet the increasing water demands while protecting the  environment and the public's investment. USBR has 348  reservoirs with a total storage capacity of 245 million acre- feet of water, 58 hydroelectric power plants, and over 300  recreation sites. USBR is the nation’s second largest  producer of hydroelectric power in the western United  States, generating more than 40 billion kilowatt hours of  energy annually. USBR is the nation's largest water  wholesaler; its water usage includes irrigation for one out  of every five western farmers (140,000)—about 10 million  acres of irrigated land; 10 trillion gallons of municipal,  rural, and industrial water for over 31 million people;  habitat support for wildlife refuges, migratory waterfowl,  fish, and threatened and endangered species; and  irrigation projects and potable water supplies for Indian  tribes. USBR provides flood control benefits and drought  contingency planning and assistance, and it provides  water-based recreation activities for about 90 million  visitors a year.
USGS is the nation’s principal natural science and  information agency. USGS conducts research, monitoring,  and assessments to contribute to understanding the  natural world—lands, water, and biological resources.  USGS provides reliable, impartial information in the form  of maps, data, and reports containing analyses and  interpretations of water, energy, mineral and biological  resources, land surfaces, marine environments, geologic  structures, natural hazards, and dynamic processes of the  Earth; this information is used to understand, respond to,  and plan for changes in the environment. USGS  describes, documents, and gains understanding of natural  hazards and their risks through the study of earthquakes,  volcanoes, landslides, geomagnetic field changes, floods,  droughts, coastal erosion, tsunamis, wild land fire, and  wildlife disease. Environmental and natural resources  activities deal with physical, chemical, biological, and  geological processes in nature and the impact of human  actions on natural systems through studies including data  collection, long-term assessments, ecosystems analysis,  and the forecasting of future changes.
section_title: Comments from the Department of the Interior
section_title: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments
subsections: section_title: GAO Contact
section_title: Acknowledgments
paragraphs: In addition to the individual named above, William G. Barrick, Joanne  Fiorino, Peggy A. Hegg, Alison Jacobs, Mary Beth McClanahan, and Nik  Rapelje made key contributions to this report.
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