BLM, a bureau of the Department of the Interior, administers millions of acres of public land for a variety of uses, including mineral resources development. BLM’s mining law program is responsible for managing the environmentally responsible exploration and development of locatable minerals on public land under the General Mining Law of 1872 and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976. The General Mining Law allows individuals and corporations to prospect for mineral deposits on public lands and locate a claim on the deposits discovered. Since 1993, claimants have been required to pay an annual maintenance fee for each mining claim and site in lieu of performing assessment work as previously required under the General Mining Law. Mining claimants locating new claims or sites must pay a onetime location fee, processing fee, and initial maintenance fee. Thereafter, the maintenance fee is paid annually. Currently, the annual per-claim maintenance fee is $155, the per-claim location fee is $37, and the processing fee is $20. BLM has authority to use receipts from mining claim fees for mining law program operations, although the use of these fees cannot exceed the limits prescribed in BLM’s annual Management of Land and Resources appropriation. BLM headquarters in Washington, D.C., and its 12 state offices manage and oversee mining law program operations. BLM headquarters provides guidance and oversight for the program. Specifically, within headquarters, the Energy, Minerals, and Realty Management group, Division of Solid Minerals, is responsible for overseeing the program. Each state office is headed by a state director who reports to the Director of BLM at headquarters. The state offices manage BLM programs and land in the geographic areas that generally conform to the boundary of one or more states. The state offices are Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Wyoming, and Eastern States. The state offices also provide oversight and program guidance to the district and field offices. Each BLM state office, with the exception of Eastern States, has several district offices and many field offices. The state offices also record and adjudicate mining claims. The district and field offices perform program fieldwork, such as reviewing and approving plans and notices of mining operations, conducting inspections and mineral examinations, and taking enforcement actions. In addition to the state offices, BLM also operates its National Training Center, National Operations Center, and National Interagency Fire Center to provide support to all BLM programs. See figure 1 for a map of BLM state offices and their administrative jurisdictions. The mining law program includes the following activities: processing notices for exploration, processing and approving plans of operations for exploration and recording and adjudicating mining claims, collecting location and annual maintenance fees, production, inspecting notices and plans of operations to ensure compliance with their terms and conditions, taking enforcement actions when terms and conditions have been violated, identifying and eliminating cases of unauthorized occupancy of mining claims, reviewing reclamation plans and financial guarantees, and conducting mineral examinations to determine valid existing rights under the mining laws. BLM is responsible under applicable appropriations laws to ensure that funds appropriated for a specified purpose—such as those funds that BLM’s annual appropriations provide for mining law program operations— are used for that purpose only and are not augmented with funds appropriated for different purposes. As such, BLM issues annual budget directions for all programs, including the mining law program, to outline the importance of proper budget coding and accounting. BLM records all mining law program costs of activities under one subactivity code. BLM’s policy recognizes the importance of accountability for program funds. Specifically, its Fund Coding Handbook states the following: “harging work tasks, employee salaries, procurement items, or equipment purchases to any subactivity other than the benefitting subactivity violates the terms of the Appropriation Act. Similarly, when procurements are charged to a given subactivity simply because ‘money is available there’ but have no direct relationship to that subactivity’s program accomplishment, is a violation of the integrity of managers’ financial management responsibility and both the specific policy decisions and the direction of proper authorities in setting those requirements. Future year program needs and requirements are based in part on the record of past years’ costs and accomplishments. Therefore, records of actual costs and accomplishments must be accurate as possible.” To reasonably assure that designated funds are spent only on mining law program operations, BLM is responsible for designing and implementing an effective system of internal control. Internal control is an integral component of an organization’s management that when properly designed, implemented, and operating effectively, provides reasonable assurance that the following objectives are being achieved: (1) effectiveness and efficiency of operations, (2) reliability of financial reporting, and (3) compliance with laws and regulations. Internal control represents an agency’s plans, methods, and procedures used to meet its mission, goals, and objectives and serves as the first line of defense in safeguarding assets and preventing and detecting errors, fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement. According to our review of BLM’s data, reports, and relevant appropriations laws, BLM was appropriated for its mining law program approximately $37 million, $40 million, and $38 million for fiscal years 2011 through 2013, respectively. These appropriated funds are available until expended, meaning that BLM may also carry over any unused amounts to subsequent years. Table 1 summarizes the resources available to the program for fiscal years 2011 through 2013. Interior’s appropriation laws require that amounts appropriated to BLM for its mining law program be reduced (i.e., repaid) using mining claim fees that BLM collects. In recent years, BLM has collected funds through its claim fees that more than fully repay its appropriated amounts. For example, according to BLM’s budget documents, it reported mining claim fee collections of approximately $64 million each in fiscal years 2011 and 2012 and $66 million in fiscal year 2013. At the end of the fiscal year, BLM deposits the amount of fees collected into the Department of the Treasury’s General Fund. BLM recorded mining law program expenditures of about $38 million annually for fiscal years 2011, 2012, and 2013. The program’s largest expenditure was for personnel compensation and benefits, ranging from 76 to 80 percent of the program’s total expenditures, over the 3 fiscal years. Its second largest expenditure was for contractual services and supplies, ranging from 17 to 20 percent of the program’s total expenditures. This category includes many types of expenditures, such as travel, communications, utilities, and training. Overall, total reported expenditure trends appeared consistent from year to year. Table 2 summarizes BLM’s reported expenditure amounts for its mining law program by major budget category. BLM has designed internal controls, including policies and procedures, over mining law program funds. However, some of BLM’s policies and procedures are outdated, inconsistent, and not effectively communicated. Our review of transactions also showed that BLM did not effectively implement controls to reasonably assure that mining law program expenditures were properly recorded and supported. Furthermore, our interviews with employees indicated that some employees were not recording hours worked consistent with BLM policy. BLM has a directives system that includes permanent and temporary policies and procedures. Permanent BLM policies and detailed instructions needed to carry out those policies are contained in BLM’s manuals and handbooks and have continuing application to BLM programs. These include the Fund Coding Handbook and the Charge Cards and Convenience Checks for Travel, Purchase, Fleet, and Uniforms section of the BLM Manual, which provide policies related to charging the mining law program as well as other BLM programs. To update its policies, BLM issues instruction memorandums, which are intended to be temporary new policy or instructions that must reach BLM employees quickly. In addition to instruction memorandums, BLM may transmit supplemental information through information bulletins.has policies and procedures that have been updated or revised through BLM these temporary directives. They contain specific policies and procedures for the use and coding of mining law program expenditures and other financial and business processes. However, some of these policies and procedures are outdated, inconsistent, and not effectively communicated. Two instruction memorandums that alert employees to the importance of appropriately charging expenditures to the mining law program include important coding information and provide guidance about charging operational expenditures to the correct account or subactivity. However, these instruction memorandums exclude key information and have not been updated. Instruction Memorandum 2001-144, Obligations from the Mining Law Administration Program, is intended to convey coding policies for charging expenditures to mining law program-related activities, but it does not include updated coding instructions for charges related to reviewing reclamation plans and financial guarantees or an updated expiration date. BLM amended regulations in 2001 to require all mining operations to provide bonds or other financial assurances before beginning exploration or mining operations on BLM land. This is an important mining law program activity because having adequate financial guarantees to pay reclamation costs is critical to ensuring that the land is reclaimed if the mining operators fail to do so. The memorandum was reissued in March 2003, but was not updated to include coding instructions for charging expenditures related to this activity. In addition, Instruction Memorandum 2001-144 also contained inconsistencies in its expiration date information, which could be confusing to users of this guidance. Specifically, the memorandum was reissued in fiscal year 2003 but showed a fiscal year 2002 expiration date. Instruction Memorandum 2004-047, Proper Coding within the Solid Minerals Subactivities, was issued to provide additional guidance on proper coding but lists a priority program element code that is no longer used by BLM for the mining law program.fiscal year 2012, BLM changed the code that was used to capture the cost for mining law program work activity related to trespass and unauthorized occupancy cases. The memorandum shows an expiration date of fiscal year-end 2005.