USDA has a broad and far-reaching mission—including improving farm economies and the nation’s nutrition, enhancing agriculture trade, and protecting the nation’s natural resource base and environment—and the department may face the prospect of litigation over its regulations and other actions. As with other federal agencies, where USDA is engaged in judicial litigation—cases brought in a court, including those that are settled—as a plaintiff or a defendant, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and USDA provides technical generally provides legal representation,and subject matter expertise and assists with the case, such as by drafting documents for DOJ to file and conducting research. The types of actions that involve USDA are varied. For example, lawsuits may involve challenges to certain agency actions—such as under provisions of the Endangered Species Act, which permits parties to file challenges to government actions affecting threatened and endangered species, or under the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires federal agencies to prepare a statement identifying the environmental effects of major actions they are proposing or ones for which third parties seek federal approval or funding and that significantly affect the environment. Cases may involve other statutes, such as title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination in employment. Additionally, the Administrative Procedure Act authorizes challenges to certain agency actions that are considered final actions, such as rulemakings and decisions on permit applications. With respect to the payment of attorney fees, in the context of judicial cases, the law generally provides for three ways that prevailing parties can be eligible for the payment of attorney fees by the federal government. First, many statutes contain provisions authorizing the award of attorney fees from a losing party to a prevailing party; many of these provisions apply to the federal government. Second, where there is a fee-shifting statute that allows for the payment of attorney fees by a losing party to a prevailing party but is not independently applicable to the federal government, EAJA provides that the government is liable for reasonable attorney fees to the same extent as a private party (i.e., claims paid under EAJA subsection (b)). Under these first two ways, when a party prevails in litigation against the government and is awarded attorney fees under court order or settlement, the amounts generally are paid from the Department of the Treasury’s (Treasury) Judgment Fund (a permanent, indefinite appropriation that pays judgments against federal agencies that are not otherwise provided for by other appropriations). Third, EAJA provides that in any civil action where there is no fee-shifting statute, prevailing parties generally shall be awarded attorney fees when the government cannot prove that its action was substantially justified (i.e., claims paid under EAJA subsection (d)).settlements are paid from the losing agency’s appropriation. In adversary administrative adjudications—generally, proceedings that are brought in a special agency forum, rather than in a court, and in which the government position is represented—a separate provision of EAJA applies. Specifically, EAJA provides that in adversary adjudications, the government is liable to a prevailing party for reasonable attorney fees when the government cannot prove that its action was substantially justified. When such fees are awarded or agreed to in a settlement, they are generally paid from the agency’s appropriated funds. In this statement, we refer to attorney fees anytime fees were paid, regardless of the source of law authorizing the payment—independently applicable statutory fee-shifting provisions, EAJA subsections (b) or (d), or EAJA’s adversarial adjudication provisions—and whether awarded by a court or administrative forum or provided in a settlement. The payment process differs, however, based on the statute involved and whether the award was made at the administrative level or through the courts, as shown in figure 1. In April 2012, we found that USDA did not report any aggregated data on attorney fee claims and payments made under EAJA and other fee- shifting statutes for fiscal years 2000 through 2010, but USDA and other key departments involved—Treasury and DOJ—maintained certain data on individual cases or payments in several internal agency databases. However, collectively, these data did not capture all claims and payments. USDA officials stated at the time that given the decentralized nature of the department and the absence of an external requirement to track or report on attorney fee information, the information was not centrally tracked and decisions about whether to track attorney fee data and the manner in which to do so were best handled at the agency level. Accordingly, for our April 2012 report, we contacted 33 agencies within USDA to obtain their available attorney fee information. In response, officials from 29 of the 33 USDA agencies told us that they did not track or could not readily provide us with this information. These officials generally stated that this is because their agencies deal with few or no attorney fee cases, the payment amounts are minimal, another agency within the department tracked this, or the agency did not need this information for internal management purposes. For example, an Acting Director in the USDA Farm Service Agency stated that because so few cases are filed against the agency, there is little value in tracking the data. We reported that the remaining 4 USDA agencies we contacted either had mechanisms to track information on attorney fees, or were able to compile this information manually using hard copy files, or directed us to publicly available sources where we could obtain the information. These four agencies were: (1) the National Appeals Division (NAD), an agency that conducts hearings of administrative appeals of adverse actions by certain USDA agencies; (2) the Office of Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights (OASCR) an agency that adjudicates employee discrimination complaints; (3) USDA’s Office of Administrative Law Judges (OALJ); and (4) the Forest Service, which is responsible for managing its lands for various purposes—including recreation, grazing, and timber harvesting— while ensuring that such activities do not impair the lands’ long-term productivity. In our April 2012 report, we identified one program agency at USDA—the Forest Service—that maintained attorney fee data. The Forest Service maintained the data in two different information sources: (1) a spreadsheet that tracked the amounts of attorney fees and costs awarded or settled, among other items, for environmental litigation, including cases filed under the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Forest Management Act, and the Endangered Species Act; and (2) a separate accounting code in the USDA financial database.discuss these two sources in further detail below. We reported that the attorney information maintained by these four agencies varied with respect to the time frame for which data were available, whether the agency had information on the amount awarded versus the amount paid, and the statutes under which the cases were brought, among other information. Further, in April 2012, we reported that given the differences in attorney fee information available across the 4 USDA agencies and the limitations identified below, it was difficult to comprehensively determine (1) the total number of claims filed for attorney fees, (2) who received payments, (3) in what amounts, and (4) under which statutes. Specifically, we found: The total number of claims filed for attorney fees could not be determined. Two USDA agencies—NAD and OALJ—that provided information on attorney fee data did not maintain data about claims for attorney fees that were filed but denied. As a result, we concluded that the number of claims filed may be understated for these agencies. Information on who received the payment was not always recorded. Payment of attorney fees may be made to one or more parties or directly to the attorney. Agencies that had information on attorney fees sometimes identified a particular party in the case, as opposed to everyone who received payments. For example, we reported that the Forest Service spreadsheet listed 241 cases with attorney fees all of which identified the first-named party in the case, but 46 cases did not identify the payee. Given that attorney fees may be paid to the first named party, to other parties in the case, or to attorneys, we concluded that the first named party may not reliably identify who actually received the attorney fee payment. Data on actual attorney fee payments made were not consistently available. We also reported that 2 of the 4 agencies— NAD and OALJ—provided information on award or settlement amounts rather than attorney fee payment amounts. Amounts awarded reflect the attorney fee award included in a decision or settlement, and amounts paid reflect the actual amount the agency paid. According to DOJ officials at the time, award or settlement amounts may differ from payment amounts because award amounts may increase because of added interest expense before payment is disbursed. Moreover, DOJ and agency officials stated that award or settlement amounts may increase or decrease as a result of subsequent legal proceedings (e.g., a prevailing party could appeal the award amount, and an appeal could change the amount the agency ultimately paid). In addition, decisions and settlement agreements may not separate attorney fees and costs from damages, a fact that prevents agencies and Treasury from knowing exactly how much was allocated for each purpose. We concluded that in these instances, the attorney fee amounts cannot be determined. Statutes under which the case was brought were not always recorded. Last, we found that the Forest Service did not track information on the statutes underlying the award or payment because the Forest Service financial database does not have a statute field, and according to the official who collected the spreadsheet data, he did not research statute information because of time constraints. However, the Forest Service official estimated that between two-thirds and three-quarters of the Forest Service natural resource cases involve challenges under the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Forest Management Act, the Endangered Species Act, or a combination of these acts. In our April 2012 report, we found that the Forest Service was the only program agency that was able to provide us with attorney fee data across the 11-year period and gathered information on attorney fees and cost awards associated with cases from three sources—Forest Service regional officials, a Forest Service-commissioned university study, and publicly available court documents.