GAO told the House energy and mineral resources subcommittee recently that federal oil and gas resource management and revenue collection needs to be comprehensively reassessed.
Over the past few years GAO has evaluated federal oil and gas management and found plenty of material weaknesses such as persistent problems hiring and retaining sufficient and adequately trained staff at the Bureau of Land Management.
According to GAO-09-506T, BLM has lacked the staff to keep up with rapid increases in oil and gas operations on federal lands.
Between 1999 and 2004, applications for permits to drill more than tripled but BLM was unable to keep up with the commensurate increase in its workload, in part, as a result of an ineffective workforce planning process, the lack of key data on workload activities, and a lack of resources, GAO said.
It said BLM could not meet requirements to mitigate environmental impacts of oil and gas development, and its inability to attract and retain sufficient trained staff have kept the agency from meeting requirements to inspect drilling and production of oil and gas on federal lands, something that puts federal revenues at risk – already among the lowest in the world in terms of the percentage of the government’s levy.
