Federal Reports

We investigated allegations that an oil and gas production company claimed improper allowances for offshore Federal mineral leases in the Pacific Ocean. The company submitted royalty refund requests to the Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR) for previously unclaimed oil and gas transportation allowances and gas processing allowances. The royalty refund requests raised suspicion at ONRR because the company had not claimed such allowances previously and because the royalty refund requests covered the regulatory maximum allowable period of 6 years.We found the company’s royalty refund requests were incorrect and poorly documented; however, we found no evidence the company intended to deceive or defraud ONRR. We found the company submitted claims on incorrect forms, improperly designated expenses associated with a pipeline it owned, and failed to provide ONRR with source documents that fully supported its royalty refund requests.We also found that the company owes unpaid mineral royalties to ONRR. The company reduced current Federal mineral royalty payments submitted to ONRR in an attempt to recoup funds included in its prior requests in anticipation that ONRR would eventually approve its claims for payment. As of April 2021, ONRR had denied the company’s royalty refund requests pending further review, and ONRR is continuing to work with the company to either approve the refund claims or recover any unpaid Federal mineral royalties.

National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) Semiannual Report to the NCUA Board and the Congress highlighting our accomplishments and ongoing work for the 6-month period ending March 31, 2021.

In this semiannual report, we discuss both the major accomplishments and activities of OIG from October 1, 2020 through March 31, 2021, as well as its goals and future plans.

Our objective was to determine whether the Social Security Administration (SSA) met all requirements of the Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019 (PIIA) in the Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 Agency Financial Report (AFR) and accompanying materials. In addition, we evaluated the Agency’s efforts to prevent and reduce improper payments.

DHS did not comply with Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019 (PIIA) in fiscal year 2020 because it did not achieve and report an improper payment rate of less than 10 percent for 2 of 12 programs reported in its FY 2020 Agency Financial Report. DHS complied with Executive Order 13520 by properly compiling and making available to the public its FY 2020 Quarterly High-Dollar Overpayment reports. We made two recommendations to DHS to follow Office of Management and Budget requirements and ensure the Federal Emergency Management Agency continues its remediation process to reduce improper payments. DHS concurred with both recommendations.