Department of the Interior OIG

The OIG investigated allegations of contract fraud and misuse of Federal funds related to a municipal boat access site renovation partially funded by a grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS).We did not substantiate allegations of contract fraud or the misuse of Federal funds. The...

We completed a verification review of Recommendations 58 to 64, presented in our evaluation report, A New Horizon: Looking to the Future of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (CR-EV-MMS-0015-2010), issued December 2010. Our objective for this review was to determine...

For this inspection, we summarized the common themes and problems in award acquisition and management across 19 products—9 contract audits, 3 grant audits, 1 inspection, and 6 management advisories—that we issued to bureau officials over 4 years, ending July 31, 2017, related to awards made for...

OIG investigated allegations that offshore oil and gas company employees and contractors illegally discharged oil into the Gulf of Mexico.We determined offshore workers Luke Ball, Darryl Plaisance, and William Smith intentionally discharged oil into the Gulf while operating aboard a platform located...

The OIG investigated allegations that a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) review of its own failures in oversight of a Federal grant was biased and that USBR or Office of the Solicitor employees made false statements during our initial investigation of the grant.We did not find any evidence that...

The OIG initiated an investigation after an inventory of a safe located in the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) Office of Law Enforcement and Security (OLES), found that thousands of dollars in gift cards were unaccounted for.We found 119 gift cards in the safe, valued at $2,345, and property...

OIG investigated allegations that Joseph Dubois filed a fraudulent surety bond to secure a contract at the Pine Hill School, Ramah Chapter of the Navajo Nation, NM.We found that the Ramah Navajo School Board contracted Dubois to renovate a building at the Pine Hill School. The contracts required him...

The OIG investigated allegations that a Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) senior official approved or directed the approval of two drawdowns totaling approximately $3.1 million from an Operation, Maintenance, and Replacement (OMR) Trust Fund designated for a regional rural water system (RWS) at a time...

The OIG investigated approximately $1,600 in fraudulent charges that were made on several Government charge cards issued to a U.S. Geological Survey employee.We found no evidence that the employee made the fraudulent charges and we discovered that a friend of the employee may have been responsible...

We reviewed the process the DOI’s Executive Resources Board (ERB) used to reassign senior executives to determine whether the ERB complied with Federal legal requirements and U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) guidance. Although the Deputy Solicitor expressed his belief that the process met...