EPA Paperwork: Burden Estimate Increasing Despite Reduction Claims
(Letter Report, 03/16/2000, GAO/GGD-00-59).

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the
Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) paperwork burden, focusing on:
(1) the general dimensions of EPA's paperwork requirements and the
agency's progress toward reducing the burden that those requirements
impose; (2) the process that EPA used to develop paperwork burden-hour
estimates for its largest information collections as of September 30,
1998, and gauge the credibility of those estimates; (3) EPA's largest
paperwork burden-hour reductions between September 30, 1995, and
September 30, 1998, and gauge the credibility of those reductions; and
(4) EPA's Reinventing Environmental Information initiative and the
agency's new Office of Environmental Information.

GAO noted that: (1) EPA's estimate of the paperwork burden that it
imposed on the public increased from about 109 million burden hours as
of September 30, 1995, to about 119 million burden hours as of September
30, 1998; (2) this 10 million burden-hour increase in paperwork would
have been even greater if EPA had not eliminated about 24 million burden
hours from its estimate during this period; (3) as of September 30,
1998, more than two-thirds of EPA's estimated 119 million burden hours
were imposed on businesses, nearly three-quarters were related to
information collections intended to determine compliance with regulatory
requirements, and about 80 percent were associated with collections in
which responses were mandatory; (4) EPA used a systematic process to
develop annual burden-hour estimates for each of its 14 largest
information collections; (5) that process involved breaking each
collection into specific tasks and subtasks and developing estimates of
the amount of time required for the activity, the number of respondents,
and the frequency with which the activity must be performed each year;
(6) the assumptions that EPA used to develop those estimates were based
on a combination of existing information, past programmatic experience,
information and comments provided by the public, and, to a certain
extent, best guesses; (7) the organizations that provided comments on
EPA estimates said that five of the seven EPA burden-hour estimates they
reviewed were generally accurate but that two of the estimates were too
low; (8) EPA eliminated 24 million burden hours from its estimated
paperwork burden during fiscal years 1995 and 1998; (9) GAO examined 13
information collections that accounted for more than 70 percent of these
burden hours; (10) most of the reductions were because of: (a) revisions
of previous agency estimates that had no impact on the burden borne by
the public; (b) changes in the economy or respondents' technology for
which EPA should not claim credit; or (c) the planned maturation of the
program requirements over time; (11) in contrast, in EPA's annual report
for 1998, the agency said that it had reduced its paperwork burden on
the public by streamlining processes, eliminating outdated provisions,
and consolidating duplicative requirements, and that the reductions had
saved businesses and communities hundreds of millions of dollars; and
(12) GAO could not gauge the credibility of all of EPA's burden-hour
reductions because most of the organizations representing respondents
that GAO contacted did not provide comments.

--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------

 REPORTNUM:  GGD-00-59
     TITLE:  EPA Paperwork: Burden Estimate Increasing Despite
	     Reduction Claims
      DATE:  03/16/2000
   SUBJECT:  Environmental policies
	     Reporting requirements
	     Data collection
	     Interagency relations
	     Statistical methods
	     Projections
	     Government information
IDENTIFIER:  EPA Reinventing Environmental Information Action Plan
	     EPA Toxic Release Inventory

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United States General Accounting Office
GAO

Report to the Chairman

Committee on Small Business

U.S. Senate

March 2000

GAO/GGD-00-59

EPA PAPERWORK
Burden Estimate Increasing Despite Reduction

Claims

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Contents
Page 421        GAO/GGD-00-59 EPA Paperwork Burden
Letter                                                                      1
                                                                             
Appendix I                                                                 44
Program Descriptors
                           Office of Water                                 45
                           Office of Solid Waste and Emergency             46
                           Response
                           Office of Air and Radiation                     47
                           Office of Prevention, Pesticides, and           48
                           Toxic Substances
                                                                             
Appendix II                                                                51
Comments From the
Environmental Protection
Agency
                                                                             
Tables                     Table 1:  EPA's 14 Largest Information          19
                           Collections as of September 30, 1998
                           Table 2: Collection Activities and              21
                           Burden-Hour Estimate Associated With
                           EPA's Information Collection on
                           Disposal of Polychlorinated Biphenyls
                           Table 3:  EPA's Largest Estimated               27
                           Burden-Hour Reductions Between Fiscal
                           Years 1995 and 1998, by EPA Program
                           Office
                           Table 4: EPA's Largest Estimated                28
                           Burden-Hour Reductions Between Fiscal
                           Years 1995 and 1998, by Type of
                           Reduction
                           Table I.1:  EPA Programs Affected by            44
                           Reviewed Information Collections
                                                                             
Figures                    Figure 1:  The Department of the                10
                           Treasury Accounted for Most Federal
                           Paperwork Burden as of September 30,
                           1998
                           Figure 2:  EPA Was One of Six Non-              11
                           Treasury Agencies Whose September 30,
                           1998, Paperwork Estimate Exceeded 100
                           Million Burden Hours
                           Figure 3:  EPA's Burden-Hour Estimates          13
                           Have Exceeded Its Burden-Reduction
                           Goals
                           Figure 4:  EPA's Burden-Hour Estimate           15
                           Was Distributed Among the Main
                           Program Offices
                           Figure 5:  Most EPA Burden Hours Were           16
                           Used to Track Compliance With
                           Regulatory Requirements
                           Figure 6: Most EPA Burden Hours Were            17
                           Directed Toward Businesses
                           Figure 7:  Most EPA Burden Hours Were           18
                           for Mandatory Collections
                                                                             

Abbreviations

EPA       Environmental Protection Agency
EPCRA     Emergency Planning and Community Right-
to-Know Act of 1986
FIFRA     Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and
Rodenticide Act
FQPA      Food Quality Protection Act
ICB       Information Collection Budget
IRS       Internal Revenue Service
MRL       maximum residue level
NPDES     National Pollutant Discharge
Elimination System
OIRA      Office of Information and Regulatory
Affairs
OMB       Office of Management and Budget
PCB       polychlorinated biphenyls
PRA       Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995
RCRA      Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
REI       Reinventing Environmental Information
RISC      Regulatory Information Service Center
TRI       Toxics Release Inventory
TSCA      Toxic Substances Control Act

B-282945

Page 40         GAO/GGD-00-59 EPA Paperwork Burden
     B-282945

     March 16, 2000

The Honorable Christopher S. Bond
Chairman, Committee on Small Business
United States Senate
 
Dear Mr. Chairman:

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), like
other federal agencies, collects information from
the public to carry out its mission. EPA uses the
information that it collects to ensure compliance
with the agency's regulations, to evaluate the
effectiveness of its programs, to determine
eligibility for program benefits, and for other
purposes. However, EPA's information collection
requirements impose a substantial paperwork burden
on the public, and small businesses contend that
they are particularly affected by government
paperwork. The Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) of
1995 was enacted, in part, to minimize the burden
associated with federal information collections
(which is commonly measured in terms of "burden
hours") and envisioned a 25-percent reduction in
governmentwide paperwork burden by the end of
fiscal year 1998.

Because of concerns about EPA's paperwork burden
on small businesses and the rest of the public,
you asked us to review the agency's information
collection requirements. Specifically, you asked
us to (1) describe the general dimensions of EPA's
paperwork requirements and the agency's progress
toward reducing the burden that those requirements
impose; (2) describe the process that EPA used to
develop paperwork burden-hour estimates for its
largest information collections as of September
30, 1998, and gauge the credibility of those
estimates; and (3) describe EPA's largest
paperwork burden-hour reductions between September
30, 1995, and September 30, 1998, and gauge the
credibility of those reductions. As part of the
last objective, you also asked us to provide
information on EPA's Reinventing Environmental
Information (REI) initiative and the agency's new
Office of Environmental Information.

Results in Brief
EPA's estimate of the paperwork burden that it
imposed on the public increased from about 109
million burden hours as of September 30, 1995, to
about 119 million burden hours as of September 30,
1998. This 10 million burden-hour increase in
paperwork would have been even greater if EPA had
not eliminated about 24 million burden hours from
its estimate during this period. Also, EPA
expected that its paperwork burden would continue
to increase during fiscal years 1999 and 2000. As
of September 30, 1998, more than two-thirds of the
agency's estimated 119 million burden hours were
imposed on businesses, nearly three-quarters were
related to information collections intended to
determine compliance with regulatory requirements,
and about 80 percent were associated with
collections in which responses were mandatory. EPA
had more than 300 information collections at the
end of fiscal year 1998, but just 14 of those
collections accounted for more than 60 percent of
the agency's total burden-hour estimate.

EPA used a systematic process to develop annual
burden-hour estimates for each of its 14 largest
information collections. That process involved
breaking each collection into specific tasks and
subtasks and, for each such unit, developing
estimates of the amount of time required for the
activity, the number of respondents, and the
frequency with which the activity must be
performed each year. The assumptions that EPA used
to develop those estimates were based on a
combination of existing information, past
programmatic experience, information and comments
provided by the public, and, to a certain extent,
"best guesses."  We could not gauge the
credibility of all of EPA's burden-hour estimates
because most of the organizations representing
respondents that we contacted did not comment on
those estimates.  However, the organizations that
provided comments said that five of the seven EPA
burden-hour estimates they reviewed were generally
accurate but that two of the estimates were too
low.

EPA eliminated 24 million burden hours from its
estimated paperwork burden during fiscal years
1995 and 1998.1  We examined 13 information
collections that accounted for more than 70
percent of these burden hours. Most of the
reductions were because of (1) revisions of
previous agency estimates that had no impact on
the burden borne by the public, (2) changes in the
economy or respondents' technology for which EPA
should not claim credit, or (3) the planned
maturation of the program requirements over time.
In contrast, in EPA's annual report for 1998, the
agency said that it had reduced its paperwork
burden on the public by streamlining processes,
eliminating outdated provisions, and consolidating
duplicative requirements, and that the reductions
had saved businesses and communities hundreds of
millions of dollars.  We could not gauge the
credibility of all of EPA's burden-hour reductions
because most of the organizations representing
respondents that we contacted did not provide
comments.  However, the organizations that
provided comments said that the underlying
assumptions for four information collections were
credible but that the assumptions for two other
collections were not credible.  We are
recommending that EPA replace some of the burden
hours that it removed from its estimate during
this period because the reduction was contrary to
guidance on how burden hours should be calculated.

EPA's new Office of Environmental
Information-which has incorporated the REI
initiative-began operations less than 6 months
ago, and EPA is still in the process of developing
an action plan for the office.

Background
The PRA of 1995 amended and recodified the PRA of
1980, as amended. The 1995 Act reaffirmed the
principles of the original act and gave new
responsibilities to the Office of Management and
Budget (OMB) and executive branch agencies. Like
the original statute, the 1995 Act requires
agencies to justify any collection of information
from the public by establishing the need and
intended use of the information, estimating the
burden that the collection will impose on the
respondents, and showing that the collection is
the least burdensome way to gather the
information.

The 1995 Act also reauthorized the Office of
Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within
OMB to determine whether agencies' proposals for
collecting information comply with the act.2
Agencies must receive OIRA approval for each
information collection request before it is
implemented. As part of this process, OIRA
requires agencies to submit a form summarizing the
request, along with other materials to justify a
proposed new information collection or to renew an
existing collection. OIRA approval for an agency
to use an information collection can last a
maximum of 3 years and can be renewed through
subsequent OIRA reauthorizations. When OIRA
completes its review of an information collection
request, the information from the form is entered
into a database maintained by the Regulatory
Information Service Center (RISC).3

     OIRA is also required to report to Congress
on agencies' progress in reducing paperwork. To do
so, OIRA develops an annual Information Collection
Budget (ICB) by gathering data from executive
branch agencies on the number of burden hours that
OIRA approved for agency collections of
information at the end of each fiscal year and
agency estimates of the burden in future fiscal
years. The ICB for fiscal year 1999, published in
April 1999, shows the burden-hour estimates as of
September 30, 1998, and projected burden-hour
totals for the ends of fiscal years 1999 and 2000.

     The 1995 Act also made several changes in
federal paperwork reduction requirements. For
example, it required OIRA to set goals of at least
a 10-percent governmentwide reduction for each of
fiscal years 1996 and 1997, and at least a 5-
percent reduction in each of the next 4 fiscal
years.4 Therefore, by the end of fiscal year 1998,
the act envisioned a 25-percent reduction in the
number of burden hours that were in place at the
end of fiscal year 1995. The PRA also requires
OIRA to set annual agency goals that reduce burden
to "the maximum practicable" extent. In January
1997, OMB instructed executive branch departments
and agencies to prepare and implement ICBs and
information streamlining plans that would include

".goals and timetables to achieve, by the end of
[fiscal year] 1998, a cumulative burden reduction
of 25 percent from their [fiscal year] 1995 year-
end level, consistent with the governmentwide
burden-reduction goals in the Paperwork Reduction
Act of 1995."

     OIRA classifies modifications in agency
burden-hour estimates as either "program changes"
or "adjustments." Program changes are (1) the
result of deliberate federal government action and
(2) additions or reductions to existing paperwork
requirements that are imposed either through new
statutory requirements or an agency's own
initiative (e.g., the addition or deletion of
questions on a form). Adjustments are not the
result of deliberate federal government action,
but rather are caused by factors such as changes
in the population responding to a requirement or
agency reestimates of the burden associated with a
collection of information. For example, an
increase in the Department of Agriculture's
estimate of the number of burden hours required
for the federal Food Stamp Program because of a
downturn in the economy (thereby increasing the
number of applicants) would be considered an
adjustment. A revision to the Department's
original paperwork estimate because of a better
understanding of the number of respondents or the
time required to complete each application would
also be considered an adjustment. However, an
increase or decrease in the number of burden hours
because of a departmental initiative changing the
number of questions on the food stamp application
(and therefore the time required to complete the
form) would be considered a program change.

     OIRA uses both program changes and
adjustments to calculate the burden associated
with agencies' information collections. The ICB
for fiscal year 1999 reflected the program changes
and adjustments that occurred between September
30, 1997, and September 30, 1998, for each agency.
Previous ICBs did not break year-to-year changes
in agencies' burden hours into program changes and
adjustments.  However, OIRA considers only program
changes relevant to any assessment of agencies'
progress toward the burden-reduction goals
envisioned in the PRA.

Previous Reports and Testimonies
We have reported on the implementation of the PRA,
and on EPA's implementation of the act in
particular, several times in recent years. For
example, in March 1996, we noted that EPA's
estimated paperwork burden was expected to
increase significantly by September 30, 1996.5 We
also reported that some of EPA's burden-reduction
claims appeared to have been overstated. For
example, although EPA claimed to have reduced the
paperwork burden associated with its Toxic Release
Inventory (TRI) by 1.2 million hours, the actual
reduction in burden was about 400,000 hours.6

In June 1996 and June 1997, we testified that the
governmentwide burden-reduction goals envisioned
in the PRA were unlikely to be met.7 In
particular, EPA said that its burden-reduction
efforts between fiscal years 1995 and 1998 would
be more than offset by additional paperwork burden
being added during this period. Among the factors
that EPA cited as preventing the achievement of
the burden-reduction goals were new regulations
under the Clean Air Act Amendments and nearly 14
million hours added in support of expanded
community right-to-know efforts.8

     In July 1998, we reported that OIRA had not
fully satisfied PRA's requirements in any of the
three areas that we examined: (1) reviewing and
controlling paperwork, (2) developing and
overseeing federal information resource management
policies, and (3) keeping Congress and
congressional committees fully and currently
informed about major activities under the act.9 In
the area of paperwork review and control, we noted
that OIRA established agency-specific, burden-
reduction goals late in each fiscal year and at a
level that the agencies expected to
achieve-practices that were unlikely to motivate
the agencies to reduce their information
collection requirements.

     In April 1999, we testified that the ICB for
fiscal year 1999 identified 800 violations of the
PRA in fiscal year 1998 governmentwide, including
collections with expired OIRA authorizations and
collections that were never authorized.10 Even more
troubling, we noted that the summary table in the
ICB reflected the hours associated with
unauthorized information collections ongoing at
the end of the fiscal year as burden reductions.
As a result, agencies could take credit for burden-
reduction accomplishments that had not been
achieved.11 During the testimony, we made several
suggestions regarding how OIRA could improve this
condition, including placing a notice in the
Federal Register notifying the affected public
that they need not provide the agency with the
information requested in an unauthorized
collection.

Objectives, Scope, and Methodology
Our first objective was to describe the general
dimensions of EPA's paperwork requirements and the
agency's progress toward reducing the burden that
those requirements impose. To accomplish this
objective, we obtained data from the ICBs for
fiscal years 1998 and 1999 showing (1) EPA's and
other agencies' burden-hour estimates as of
September 30, 1998, and (2) changes in EPA's
estimates over time. We also obtained data from
RISC describing all of EPA's information
collections (e.g., the purpose, frequency, and
targets of the collections) and the
characteristics of the agency's largest
information collections as of September 30, 1998.

Our second objective was to (1) describe the
process that EPA used to develop paperwork burden-
hour estimates for its largest information
collections as of September 30, 1998, and (2)
gauge the credibility of those estimates. To
accomplish the first part of this objective, we
used data from RISC to identify EPA's 14 largest
information collections, each of which was
expected to impose more than 1 million burden
hours on the public. These 14 EPA information
collections accounted for about 74 million (62
percent) of the agency's 119 million burden hours
in place as of September 30, 1998. (Brief
descriptions of each of these collections are in
app. I.) We then reviewed the information
collection requests that EPA submitted to OIRA for
each of the large collections to identify how the
agency developed its burden-hour estimates,
focusing on the elements in each collection that
accounted for most of the burden hours. We also
interviewed EPA and OIRA staff about the methods,
assumptions, and data used in the estimation
process. To gauge the credibility of the burden-
hour estimates, we reviewed the information
collection requests and interviewed EPA and OIRA
officials and staff.  We also judgmentally
selected and contacted 20 organizations that
either EPA documents or agency officials
identified as having been consulted during the
development of the collection.  While not
respondents themselves, these "consultative
partners" represent businesses and others who
submit information to EPA.  We asked
representatives of these organizations for their
views on the reasonableness of the burden-hour
estimates and the methods and assumptions that EPA
used to prepare the estimates.  Seven of these 20
organizations provided comments on the credibility
of EPA's estimates. The other organizations were
either unfamiliar with the specific burden
measurement methodology at issue, were unfamiliar
with the collection under review, or did not
respond to our request for information.

Our third objective was to (1) describe EPA's
largest paperwork burden-hour reductions between
September 30, 1995, and September 30, 1998, and
(2) gauge the credibility of those reductions. To
accomplish the first part of this objective, we
obtained a list from EPA on all of the agency's
burden-hour reductions that occurred during this
period. We focused our review on 13 of those
reductions, each of which EPA said would reduce
the agency's paperwork burden by at least 400,000
burden hours. These 13 burden-hour reductions
accounted for about 17 million (71 percent) of the
24 million burden hours that EPA eliminated during
this period. (Brief descriptions of the programs
associated with those reductions are in app. I.)
To gauge the credibility of EPA's burden-hour
reductions, we reviewed the information collection
requests and interviewed EPA and OIRA officials
and staff.  We also judgmentally selected and
contacted 13 respondent organizations that either
EPA documents or agency officials identified as
consultative partners in the development of the
collection.12  Six of these organizations provided
comments on the credibility of the reductions. The
other organizations were either unfamiliar with
the specific burden-hour reductions at issue, were
unfamiliar with the collection under review, or
did not respond to our request for information. We
also reviewed relevant EPA documents and spoke
with agency officials to obtain information on the
status of EPA's REI initiative and the agency's
new Office of Environmental Information.

We did not verify the ICB or the RISC data that we
used to provide general statistics on EPA's and
other agencies' paperwork requirements and to
identify the largest collections and burden-hour
reductions. In one information collection, EPA was
unable to identify knowledgeable individuals
within the relevant program office who could
describe how the estimate was developed.
Therefore, the information on the assumptions and
methodology EPA used is limited to the information
within the collection itself, or in EPA or OIRA
files.

We examined the process that EPA used to develop
14 of the agency's more than 300 active
information collections as of September 30, 1998.
Although these 14 collections accounted for the
bulk of the agency's burden hours, we cannot
comment on how the estimates for the other
collections were developed. Similarly, although
EPA took dozens of actions to eliminate burden
hours between fiscal years 1995 and 1998, we can
only comment on the 13 actions that we reviewed
(representing most of the burden hours
eliminated).

The views provided by the organizations
representing respondents that we contacted are not
intended to be representative or exhaustive of all
entities required to comply with the requirements
of these information collections. We did not
attempt to verify these organizations' comments or
to resolve any differences between their views and
the assumptions that EPA used in its analyses.

Finally, it is important to recognize that agency
burden-hour estimates have inherent limitations.
Estimating the amount of time it will take an
individual or an organization to collect and
provide information or how many individuals an
information collection will affect is not a simple
matter. Therefore, the degree to which agency
burden-hour estimates reflect real burden is
unclear. Nevertheless, these are the best
indicators of paperwork burden available, and we
believe they can be useful as long as their
limitations are kept in mind.

We provided a draft of this report to the OMB
Director and the EPA Administrator for their
review and comments. The comments we received are
presented in the "Agency Comments and Our
Evaluation" section at the end of this letter. We
also provided officials at the respondent
organizations with the relevant draft report
sections attributed to them to ensure that we
characterized their comments correctly. All of
them agreed with our characterizations.

EPA's Burden-Hour Estimates Are Increasing
Although the PRA of 1995 envisioned a 25-percent
reduction in federal paperwork between fiscal
years 1995 and 1998, EPA's estimated paperwork
burden increased by about 10 million burden hours
during this period-from 109 million burden hours
to 119 million burden hours. EPA expected that its
paperwork burden would continue to increase during
fiscal years 1999 and 2000. At the end of fiscal
year 1998, more than two-thirds of the agency's
119 million burden hours were imposed on
businesses, nearly three-quarters were related to
information collections intended to determine
compliance with regulatory requirements, and about
80 percent were associated with mandatory
information collections. EPA had more than 300
active information collections at the end of
fiscal year 1998, but just 14 of those collections
accounted for more than 60 percent of the agency's
total burden-hour estimate.

EPA's Estimated Paperwork Burden Exceeded 100
Million Burden Hours
As of September 30, 1998, federal agencies
estimated that they imposed about 7 billion burden
hours of paperwork on the American public. As
shown in figure 1, about 81 percent of the 7
billion burden hours  (or 5.7 billion burden
hours) was associated with paperwork requirements
from the Department of the Treasury, virtually all
of which was from the Internal Revenue Service
(IRS). Most of the non-Treasury paperwork burden
was associated with information collections from
six agencies, one of which was EPA.

Figure 1:  The Department of the Treasury
Accounted for Most Federal Paperwork Burden as of
September 30, 1998

Legend:

DOD     Department of Defense
DOL      Department of Labor
DOT     Department of Transportation
EPA      Environmental Protection Agency
FTC      Federal Trade Commission
HHS     Department of Health and Human Services

Note:  Total burden-hour estimate governmentwide =
7 billion burden hours.

Source: OIRA's ICB for fiscal year 1999.

As shown in figure 2, six non-Treasury agencies
estimated their paperwork burden at more than 100
million burden hours as of September 30, 1998.
EPA's paperwork requirements alone accounted for
about 119 million burden hours, or about 9 percent
of the non-Treasury total.

Figure 2:  EPA Was One of Six Non-Treasury
Agencies Whose September 30, 1998, Paperwork
Estimate Exceeded 100 Million Burden Hours

Legend:
DOD     Department of Defense
DOL      Department of Labor
DOT     Department of Transportation
EPA      Environmental Protection Agency
FTC      Federal Trade Commission
HHS     Department of Health and Human Services
Source: OIRA's ICB for fiscal year 1999.

Increases in EPA Burden-Hour Estimates Are
Expected to Continue
As previously noted, the PRA envisioned a 25-
percent reduction in governmentwide paperwork
burden between September 30, 1995, and September
30, 1998. OIRA set each agency's 3-year burden-
reduction goal at 25 percent. By the end of the
period, some agencies had exceeded the goal. For
example, the Department of Agriculture reduced its
paperwork burden estimate from 131 million burden
hours as of September 30, 1995, to 72 million
burden hours as of September 30, 1998-a 45-percent
reduction. The Department of Veterans Affairs'
paperwork burden estimate decreased from 11.1
million burden hours to 2.6 million burden hours-a
77-percent reduction.13 Overall, agencies outside
of the IRS had reduced their burden-hour estimates
by more than 23 percent between fiscal years 1995
and 1998. However, because IRS constituted about
80 percent of the governmentwide burden-hour
estimate during this period, a 6.9-percent
increase in IRS' estimate nearly offset the other
agencies' burden-hour reductions.14

Some non-IRS agencies did not reduce their
paperwork burden estimates between September 30,
1995, and September 30, 1998. As shown in figure
3, EPA's paperwork estimate increased during this
period from nearly 109 million burden hours to 119
million hours-an increase of about 10 million
burden hours.15 As a result of this increase, EPA's
estimate of its paperwork burden was almost 36
million hours greater than the level envisioned by
the 25-percent burden-reduction goal that OIRA
established for the agency (about 84 million
hours). However, EPA officials noted that the
agency's September 30, 1998, burden-hour estimate
would have been even greater (about 143 million
burden hours) if it had not simultaneously
eliminated about 24 million burden hours of
paperwork during this period. Figure 3 also shows
that EPA anticipated its burden-hour estimate
would increase during fiscal years 1999 and 2000.

Figure 3:  EPA's Burden-Hour Estimates Have
Exceeded Its Burden-Reduction Goals

Source: GAO analysis and OIRA's ICBs for fiscal
years 1998 and 1999.

In the ICB for fiscal year 1999, EPA said that new
statutory requirements were one reason that its
burden-hour totals continued upward during this
period despite the agency's burden-reduction
efforts. For example, EPA noted the following:

ï¿½    Provisions in the Toxic Substances Control
Act (as amended by the Residential Lead-Based
Paint Hazard Reduction Act of 1992) added nearly
2.5 million burden hours for lead hazard education
in fiscal year 1998.
ï¿½    Amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act
would add 0.5 million burden hours for the control
of new contaminants by the drinking water program
in fiscal year 1999.
ï¿½    The Clean Water Act requires the addition of
96,000 small construction sites and 4,000 small
municipalities to the National Pollutant Discharge
Elimination System program, adding about 1.8
million burden hours for the discharge monitoring
reports in fiscal year 2000.16
However, EPA also noted in the ICB that ".the
largest projected increase reflects the Agency's
priority in expanding both the Toxic Release
Inventory (TRI) program and the Chemical Testing
Program."  [Underscoring supplied.] For example,
EPA noted that the adoption of its proposed TRI
rule for persistent bioaccumulative toxics would
increase the program's burden by about 1.3 million
burden hours. EPA also said that the High
Production Volume and Children's Health Effects
chemical testing programs would increase burden by
about 2 million burden hours.

Most EPA Burden Hours Were in Mandatory,
Regulatory, and Business-Directed Collections
     The amount of burden imposed by EPA's
information collections as of September 30, 1998,
varied substantially. EPA estimated that some of
the collections would require less than 100 burden
hours each year, but EPA said others would
annually require more than 10 million hours to
complete. Although EPA had more than 300 active
information collections at the end of fiscal year
1998, just 14 of these collections, each with at
least an estimated 1 million annual burden hours
or more, accounted for nearly 74 million of EPA's
119 million burden-hour estimate.

     EPA's information collections also varied in
terms of their subject matter, with requirements
involving the agency's air, water, pesticides, and
solid waste programs. As evidence of that
diversity, figure 4 shows that EPA's burden-hour
estimates as of September 30, 1998, were fairly
evenly distributed among its four main program
offices-ranging from about 26 million burden hours
for the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency
Response's collections to about 35 million burden
hours for collections initiated by the Office of
Water.

Figure 4:  EPA's Burden-Hour Estimate Was
Distributed Among the Main Program Offices

Note: The "other" category includes such units as
the Office of the Administrator, the Office of
Administration and Resources Management, and the
Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance.
Source: RISC.

     Although EPA's information collections were
quite diverse, they can be described in terms of
several general dimensions in the RISC database,
including the purpose of the collections, the
affected entities, and the respondent's obligation
to respond. As figure 5 shows, nearly three-
quarters of EPA's estimated 119 million burden
hours in place as of September 30, 1998, were
associated with collections that were intended to
track compliance with regulations or laws. Most of
EPA's remaining estimated burden was associated
with information collections that involved
applications for benefits (e.g., grants or
financial assistance).

Figure 5:  Most EPA Burden Hours Were Used to
Track Compliance With Regulatory Requirements

Note: The "other" category includes program
planning, general statistics, audit, and research.
Source: RISC.

     As shown in figure 6, EPA's information
collections primarily affected businesses-about 68
percent of the estimated 119 million burden hours
of paperwork in place as of September 30, 1998.17
Most of the agency's remaining burden (about 28
percent of the total) was imposed on state, local,
or tribal governments. There were some differences
among the program offices regarding those affected
by their paperwork burden. For example, about half
of the 35 million burden hours associated with the
Office of Water's information collections
primarily affected state, local, or tribal
governments-nearly twice the rate of any of EPA's
other offices. Also, virtually all (97 percent) of
the 3.3 million burden hours that EPA imposed on
farms were because of information collection
requirements from the agency's Office of
Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances.

Figure 6: Most EPA Burden Hours Were Directed
Toward Businesses

Note: The "other" category includes the paperwork
requirements imposed on individuals, farms, not-
for-profits, and the federal government.
Source: RISC.

     As figure 7 shows, about 80 percent of the
119 million burden hours that EPA estimated it had
in place as of September 30, 1998, were associated
with information collections for which responses
were mandatory. In these mandatory collections,
the affected members of the public must respond to
EPA's request for information or potentially face
civil or criminal sanctions. About another 19
percent of the agency's burden-hour total was
associated with information collections that
respondents were required to complete to obtain or
retain a benefit, such as a grant or financial
assistance. The remaining burden hours were
voluntary information collections in which the
recipients were under no federal obligation to
respond.

Figure 7:  Most EPA Burden Hours Were for
Mandatory Collections

Source: RISC.

Large EPA Burden-Hour Estimates Were
Systematically Developed
     EPA used a systematic process to develop
annual burden-hour estimates for each of its 14
largest information collections. That process
involved breaking each collection into specific
tasks and subtasks and, for each such unit,
developing estimates of the amount of time
required for the activity, the number of
respondents, and the frequency with which the
activity must be performed each year. The
assumptions that EPA used to develop those
estimates were based on a combination of existing
information, past programmatic experience,
information and comments provided by the public,
and, to a certain extent, "best guesses."  We
could not gauge the credibility of all of EPA's
burden-hour estimates because most of the
organizations representing respondents that we
contacted did not comment on those estimates.
However, the organizations that provided comments
said that five of the seven EPA burden-hour
estimates they reviewed were generally accurate
but that two of the estimates were too low.

Burden Estimates Were Based on Data, Experience,
Public Comments, and "Best Guesses"
As previously noted, 14 EPA information
collections, each with at least 1 million burden
hours, accounted for about 74 million (about 62
percent) of the 119 million burden hours
associated with the agency's paperwork
requirements that were in place as of September
30, 1998. As shown in table 1, EPA's largest
program offices each had at least 3 of these 14
information collections.

Table 1:  EPA's 14 Largest Information Collections
as of September 30, 1998
Burden hours in millions                      
EPA program office/Information collection     
title                                     Estimate
                                          d burden
                                            hours
Office of Water                           
Discharge Monitoring                          13.3
Safe Drinking Water                           12.5
National Pollutant Discharge Elimination       1.0
System:
  State Programs
Subtotal                                      26.8
Office of Solid Waste and Emergency       
Response
Underground Storage Tanks                      6.3
Land Disposal Restrictions                     3.4
Community Right-to-Know                        3.0
Subtotal                                      12.7
Office of Air and Radiation               
Air Operating Permits                          5.3
Preconstruction New Source Review              4.7
Acid Rain                                      2.8
Subtotal                                      12.8
Office of Prevention Pesticides and Toxic 
Substances
Toxic Release Inventory Reporting,             8.0
Recordkeeping,
  Supplier Notification, and Petitions
Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard            7.1
Disclosure
Asbestos in Schools and Model                  2.4
Accreditation Plan
  Programs
LBP Hazard Education Before Renovation         2.3
Polychlorinated Biphenyls Disposal             1.8
Amendments
Subtotal                                      21.6
Total                                         73.9
Source: RISC.

EPA prepared burden-hour estimates for its 14
largest information collections in a systematic
manner. In each case, EPA developed a detailed
list of tasks, and in most cases subtasks,
delineating the specific types of information to
be collected and the methods of collection. For
each task and subtask, EPA estimated the number of
hours per response, the number of respondents, and
the frequency of reporting each year. EPA
developed the burden-hour estimate for each
collection as a whole by multiplying these factors
together and adding the totals.

For example, as shown in table 2, EPA determined
that the information collection requirements
associated with the disposal of polychlorinated
biphenyls (PCB) amendments had three major
categories of tasks: (1) general requirements
related to the collection (e.g., reading the rule
and providing training); (2) reporting activities;
and (3) recordkeeping responsibilities. EPA
divided the first task into the different
respondent groups that it anticipated would be
affected by the information collection. For each
group, EPA estimated the average number of hours
that each respondent group would be required to
devote to these general responsibilities (e.g.,
672 hours for each investor-owned utility) and the
number of respondents (e.g., 265 utilities).  EPA
then calculated the total number of burden hours
that would be required of all respondents for that
task (178,080 burden hours). EPA divided the
second and third tasks, reporting and
recordkeeping, into 24 subtasks for which
respondent burden hours could be estimated.18 For
each subtask, EPA estimated the number of burden
hours per activity, the number of respondents, and
the subtask's resultant burden-hour total.19 EPA's
nearly 1.8 million burden-hour estimate for the
information collection was the sum of all the
subtask estimates.

Table 2: Collection Activities and Burden-Hour
Estimate Associated With EPA's Information
Collection on Disposal of Polychlorinated
Biphenyls
Collection activity/task                     Estimated Estimated      Total
                                                burden number of  estimated
                                             hours per respondent     burden
                                               subunit         s      hours
Task 1:  General                                                   
Read rule/Determine applicability/Provide training/
  Update procedures
  Investor-owned utilities                         672       265    178,080
  Rural electrical cooperatives                    200       922    184,400
  Municipal and other governmental entities        200     2,000    400,000
  Industrial/Commercial entities                    44    11,000    484,000
    Subtotal for general task                                     1,246,480
Task 2:  Reporting                                                 
Register PCB transformers                                          
  Industries                                         2    62,500    125,000
  Utilities                                         10     3,005     30,050
Notify the National Response Center of            0.15        20          3
voltage regulator fire
Submit annual voltage regulator reports
  Existing regulators                                2     1,700      3,400
  Newly discovered regulators                     0.25        17          4
Report PCB contaminated natural gas pipeline        20         5        100
Prepare notification to exceed storage for         550         1        550
reuse limitation
Notify public service notification program        0.25        50         13
about abandoned
  natural gas pipes
Submit notification to obtain identification       1.5        25         38
number for disposal
  research and development projects
involving PCBs
Obtain approval for limited research and             6        20        120
development involving PCBs
Obtain approval for self-implemented               100       100     10,000
remediation
Submit notification of changes in                    2        10         20
remediation projects
Provide certification of remediation              0.25       100         25
projects
Notify waste management facility of PCB              2       100        200
waste shipments
Submit copy of deed restriction                      4       100        400
Obtain approval to exceed storage for                3        38        114
disposal limitation
Certify modifications to commercial storage        1.5        10         15
facility
Obtain a Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)        36        36      1,296
PCB
  coordinated approval
Submit changes in the non-TSCA waste                 8         5         40
management
  document
Notify EPA of request for class exemption to         9        25        225
manufacture
  PCBs
Request renewal of class exemption                   9         2         18
Notify EPA of research and development             1.5         3          5
manufacture of PCBs
Submit annual report for waste disposed of          84         7        588
by waste
  generators
Submit modifications form for PCB waste-           1.5       200        300
handling
  facilities
    Subtotal for reporting task                                     172,524
Task 3:  Recordkeeping                                             
Voltage regulator records                            2     1,700      3,400
Natural gas pipeline records                         4       100        400
Contaminated articles stored for reuse             1.5   189,225    283,838
records
Large capacitor records                            0.1   200,000     20,000
Research and development for PCB disposal           12        25        300
records
Retain waivers                                    0.15       100         15
Remediation records                                  1        10         10
Deed notices                                         3       100        300
Remediation site activities records                 20       100      2,000
Sampling/Analysis records                            4        26        104
Disposal attempts records                            4        38        152
Prepare Spill Prevention, Control and               60       500     30,000
Countermeasure
  plans-first year
Adapt existing plan                                  2     2,700      5,400
High efficiency boiler records                      12         1         12
Industrial furnace readings                          3       100        300
Decontamination validation records                   2         4          8
Decontamination sampling records                     2       100        200
Manufacturing, processing, and distributing         12        25        300
PCBs in
  waste materials
Equipment transfer records                          12       150      1,800
    Subtotal for recordkeeping task                                   348,539
Total estimated burden hours for collection                         1,767,543
Source: EPA.

EPA officials told us that the agency's estimates
of the number of burden hours per activity and the
number of respondents for this collection and
other collections were based on a combination of
existing data; past programmatic experience;
information and comments provided by the public;
and, where data and experience were lacking, the
agency's "best guesses." For 13 of the 14
information collections, EPA officials were able
to direct us to a database that they used to
determine the number of respondents or the number
of events associated with each collection.20 For
example, for the information collection on
residential lead-based paint, EPA used databases
developed and maintained by the U.S. Bureau of the
Census and the Department of Housing and Urban
Development to estimate the number of buildings
affected by the collection and, therefore, the
number of respondents. EPA officials were also
able to identify the sources for the agency's
estimates of the time it would take to complete
each particular task and subtask in these
collections. In many cases, the estimates were
based on trend data for either previous versions
of the information collection or related data
provided by other sources.

EPA officials also said that they frequently
consult with the regulated community during the
development of an information collection request
to estimate the burden hours associated with the
collection more accurately. They noted that the
PRA generally requires agencies to provide a 60-
day comment period for their proposed information
collections, and a separate 30-day comment period
while the collection is being reviewed by OIRA.
However, the officials also noted that the extent
and nature of the agency's public consultations is
limited by the PRA's requirements. The PRA (44
U.S.C. 3502) defines a "collection of information"
in the following manner.

".obtaining, causing to be obtained, soliciting,
or requiring the disclosure to third parties or
the public, of facts or opinions by or for an
agency, regardless of form or format, calling
for.answers to identical questions posed to, or
identical reporting or recordkeeping requirements
imposed on, ten or more persons.."

Therefore, a survey or a series of meetings with
10 or more potential respondents to a proposed
information collection would itself constitute a
collection of information, thereby triggering the
OIRA approval process and adding the burden
associated with the collection to the agency's
total.21 EPA officials said that at some point in
the burden-estimation process they often run out
of data and previous experience, and given the
consultation limitations imposed by the statute,
program officials must make a best guess regarding
the burden associated with a collection.

Respondent Organizations Often Considered EPA
Burden Estimates Accurate
We contacted 20 organizations representing
respondents to EPA's 14 largest information
collections to gauge the credibility of the key
assumptions in the burden-hour estimates for those
collections. Seven of the organizations provided
us with comments on the accuracy of EPA's burden-
hour estimates for seven of the collections.22 We
did not attempt to verify these organizations'
comments or to resolve any differences between
their views and the assumptions that EPA used in
its analyses.

The respondent organizations indicated that the
burden-hour estimates for five of the seven
collections (TRI, residential lead-based paint,
air operating permits, acid rain, and underground
storage tanks collections) were generally
accurate. For example, one of the organizations
agreed that it typically takes respondents about
180 hours to complete a form used in the TRI
program, and called EPA's burden-hour estimate
"fair." A representative from another organization
said that EPA's paperwork estimate for the
underground storage tanks collection was "on
target," and said that he had not seen any agency
estimates that were "off base." Another
organization said that four of the five elements
in the air operating permit program were generally
in line with industry estimates. Although the
organization said that EPA's estimate for one
element of the collection was "too low," the
organization did not indicate what it considered a
more accurate estimate.

However, the respondent organizations indicated
that EPA's burden-hour estimates for the other two
collections-safe drinking water and hazard
education before renovation-were too low.
Regarding the safe drinking water program, two
organizations said that EPA's burden-hour
estimates did not reflect what they considered to
be the real paperwork burden imposed by the
information collection because the estimates
frequently did not reflect the real-life
conditions under which respondents operate.
Representatives from one of the organizations said
that the agency's estimates of the time required
to collect, analyze, and report the results of
drinking water samples appeared to be accurate at
the most basic level (e.g., the time that it takes
a lab technician to perform the analysis).
However, they said that EPA did not appear to take
into account other factors that often increase the
amount of time required to complete these tasks.
They said that there are often several reviews of
the analysis performed by other lab and water
facility officials, and that more testing may have
to be done to corroborate the results of the first
analysis before being submitted to EPA. The
respondent organization representatives said that
none of these possibilities seem to be accounted
for in EPA's burden-hour estimate for the
collection, and that any one of them could greatly
affect the time it would take a respondent to
complete the activities necessary to comply with
the agency's paperwork requirements.23

Representatives of two other respondent
organizations were even more critical of EPA's
estimate of the burden associated with the hazard
education before renovation information
collection. They noted that EPA had broadly
defined covered "renovations" to include all
projects that disturbed a space of two square feet
or greater. As a result, they said that the
program's information collection requirements
included a much wider range of renovation projects
(e.g., small home repairs) than they believed EPA
envisioned when it made its burden-hour estimate.
The representatives also said that EPA had
underestimated the amount of time required to
notify residents of a renovation project and
obtain a certification attesting to the receipt of
the notice and related information. They said
EPA's estimate that these actions would only take
about 2 minutes per resident is possible only if
one assumes that all of the residents are at home
at the first notification attempt, and that they
are all willing to sign the certification
immediately. In reality, they said, it commonly
takes the renovator or property owner much longer
to accomplish these tasks than EPA estimated.

Many EPA Burden-Hour Reductions Were Not Agency
Initiatives or Had Little Real Effect
     Although EPA's estimate of its paperwork
burden rose between fiscal years 1995 and 1998,
the agency eliminated about 24 million burden
hours from its estimate during this period. In its
1998 annual report, EPA said that it had reduced
its paperwork burden on the public by streamlining
processes, eliminating outdated provisions, and
consolidating duplicative requirements, and that
the reductions had saved businesses and
communities hundreds of millions of dollars. We
examined 13 actions that accounted for 71 percent
of the 24 million burden hours that EPA eliminated
during this 3-year period. Most of the reductions
were because of (1) revisions of previous agency
estimates that had no impact on the burden borne
by the public, (2) changes in the economy or
technology for which EPA should not claim credit,
or (3) the planned maturation of the program
requirements over time. Respondent organizations
disputed EPA's assumptions underlying two of the
burden-hour reductions but said that the
underlying assumptions for four other information
collections were credible. Lastly, EPA's new
Office of Environmental Information-which has
incorporated the REI initiative-began operations
less than 6 months ago, and EPA is still in the
process of developing an action plan for the
office.

EPA Eliminated 24 Million Burden Hours From Its
Estimate Between Fiscal Years 1995 and 1998
     EPA's burden-reduction efforts predate the
goals envisioned in the PRA of 1995. In March
1995, the EPA Administrator committed to reducing
the agency's January 1, 1995, estimated paperwork
burden by 25 percent by June 30, 1996. EPA
subsequently estimated that its January 1995
burden-hour total was about 101 million hours, so
the agency's goal was to reduce its paperwork
burden by about 25 million baseline hours.
However, EPA officials told us during this review
that the agency recognized these reductions would
be offset by new statutory requirements added
during this period.

     After the PRA was enacted in May 1995, EPA
officials decided to meld the agency's burden-
reduction efforts with the governmentwide goals
envisioned in the PRA and the agency-specific
goals that OIRA later established pursuant to the
act. Because EPA had estimated that its paperwork
burden was about 109 million burden hours as of
September 30, 1995, EPA's goal was to reduce the
agency's burden estimate by 25 percent (about 27
million hours) to 82 million burden hours by
September 30, 1998. In the ICB for fiscal year
1999, EPA said that ".by the end of fiscal year
1998, program changes and adjusted burden
estimates reduced overall burden by more than 24
million baseline hours." However, EPA said that
despite its burden-reduction efforts, the agency's
total paperwork burden estimate had increased by
millions of burden hours since fiscal year 1995
"due to new statutory requirements and new right-
to-know collections."

     In its 1998 annual report, EPA presented a
somewhat different picture of the agency's burden-
reduction efforts during this period.24 In that
report, EPA said that it had exceeded its original
paperwork reduction goal by nearly 2 million hours
"by streamlining processes, eliminating outdated
provisions, or consolidating duplicative
requirements." EPA said that these reductions
"should also save businesses and communities an
estimated $807 million a year."25 Finally, EPA said
that the reductions had offset additional
requirements that had taken effect in recent
years, so "the overall burden associated with
environmental regulations is about the same as it
was 4 years ago."26 However, EPA noted that the
burden "would be considerably higher without the
Agency's concerted effort to rid the system of
unnecessary requirements that do not yield
environmental or public health protection
benefits."

     We based this section of our report on EPA's
claim in the ICB for fiscal year 1999 that it had
reduced the agency's paperwork by 24 million
burden hours by September 30, 1998. According to
OIRA, the ICB is the mechanism by which OMB and
agency chief information officers establish agency
burden-reduction targets and measure the burden
associated with federal information collections.

Thirteen Actions Accounted for Most of EPA's
Estimated Burden-Hour Reductions
     EPA provided us with a listing of all of the
actions that contributed to the 24 million burden
hours that the agency eliminated between fiscal
years 1995 and 1998. Thirteen of these actions,
each involving reductions of at least 400,000
burden hours, accounted for about 17 million (72
percent) of the 24 million burden hours that EPA
eliminated from its estimate. As shown in table 3,
these 13 actions involved information collections
from each of EPA's main program offices.

Table 3:  EPA's Largest Estimated Burden-Hour
Reductions Between Fiscal Years 1995 and 1998, by
EPA Program Office
Burden hours in millions                                                   
EPA program office/Information collection title                    Estimated
                                                                     burden
                                                                      hours
                                                                    reduced
Office of Water                                                    
Discharge Monitoring                                                    4.7
National Pretreatment                                                   0.6
Subtotal                                                                5.3
Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response                       
Land Disposal Restrictions                                              1.7
Underground Storage Tanks (1)                                           1.5
Underground Storage Tanks (2)                                           1.3
Oil Pollution Act Facility Response Plan                                0.6
Industrial Furnaces                                                     0.5
Subtotal                                                                5.6
Office of Air and Radiation                                        
Air Operating Permits                                                   3.0
Conformity of General Federal Actions to State                          0.5
  Implementation Plans
Subtotal                                                                3.5
Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances              
Agricultural Worker Protection Standards                                1.1
Maximum Residue Level Petitions on Food                                 0.7
TRI Reporting, Recordkeeping, Supplier Notification,                    0.5
  and Petitions
Data Generation for Registration Activities                             0.5
Subtotal                                                                2.8
Total                                                                  17.2
Source: EPA.

     One of the 13 burden-reduction actions that
we reviewed involved changes to EPA's TRI program,
which reduced the agency's burden-hour estimate by
about 500,000 burden hours. However, our review of
the documents that EPA submitted as part of this
action indicated that final approval for this
change occurred between February 1995 and June
1995-3 to 8 months before the September 30, 1995,
implementation of the PRA. Therefore, the burden
hours that EPA eliminated were not in the
September 30, 1995, baseline from which PRA-
relevant burden reductions could be subtracted. We
did not examine the credibility of this burden-
hour reduction because the action did not occur
within the time period that we reviewed.

Program Changes Often Reflected Planned Evolution
of Programs
     As previously noted, OIRA classifies changes
in burden-hour estimates as caused by either
"program changes" or "adjustments." Program
changes are the result of deliberate federal
government action (e.g., the addition or
elimination of questions on a form), whereas
adjustments are changes in burden estimates that
are caused by factors other than changes in the
actual paperwork requirements (e.g., revisions of
previous burden estimates). As table 4 indicates,
of the 12 large EPA burden-reduction actions
between fiscal years 1995 and 1998 that we
reviewed, 6 were program changes and 6 were
adjustments. Two of the six program changes were
EPA initiatives designed to lessen the burden
associated with the agency's discharge monitoring
reports program and its land disposal restrictions
program. The other four program changes reflected
the planned evolution or "maturation" of the
underlying programs.

Table 4: EPA's Largest Estimated Burden-Hour
Reductions Between Fiscal  Years 1995 and 1998, by
Type of Reduction
Burden hours in millions                                                     
Type of reduction                          Program name             Estimated
                                                                     burden
                                                                      hours
                                                                    reduced
Program changes                                                              
    Agency initiatives                     Discharge Monitoring           4.7 
                                           Land Disposal                  1.7
                                          Restrictions
      Subtotal                                                            6.4
    Program maturations                    Air Operating Permits          3.0
                                           Agricultural Worker            1.1
                                          Protection
                                            Standards
                                           OPA Facility Response          0.6
                                          Plan
                                           Data Generations for           0.5
                                          Registration
                                            Activities
      Subtotal                                                            5.2
Total                                                                    11.6
                                                                             
Adjustments                                                                  
    Reestimations                          National Pretreatment          0.6
                                           Industrial Furnaces            0.5
                                           Conformity of Federal          0.5
                                          Actions to SIPS
                                           MRL Petitions on Food          0.7
      Subtotal                                                            2.3
    Other adjustments                      Underground Storage            1.3
                                          Tanks
                                           Underground Storage            1.5
                                          Tanks
      Subtotal                                                            2.8
Total                                                                     5.1
Grand total                                                              16.7
Source: GAO analysis on the basis of data from
EPA.

Discharge Monitoring Reduction Was Less Than
Initially Estimated
     EPA's largest paperwork burden-hour reduction
between fiscal years 1995 and 1998 came about as a
result of a change to requirements in the Office
of Water's discharge monitoring program. Before
1996, EPA regulations for the program required
permitted municipal and nonmunicipal point-source
dischargers to collect, analyze, and submit data
on the amount of their wastewater discharges at
least once per year and the frequency was
determined on a permit-by-permit basis.  For
example, major dischargers submitted these data on
a monthly basis. In 1996, EPA issued new guidance
that allowed some facilities to report less
frequently.  Specifically, major dischargers that
had maintained effluent discharge levels below the
maximum levels and had no history of poor
compliance or enforcement issues were allowed to
decrease their reporting frequency from monthly to
bimonthly, quarterly, semiannually, or even
annually. EPA said that these facilities could
continue to report less frequently as long as they
maintained the prescribed effluent levels. In
1996, EPA estimated that this program change would
reduce the burden imposed on respondents by 4.7
million burden hours per year-that is a 26-percent
reduction from the agency's previous estimate of
about 18 million burden hours for these reports.

     However, officials in EPA's Office of Water
told us during this review that this program
change had actually produced "significantly less"
than 4.7 million burden hours of reduced paperwork
each year, although they could not say precisely
how much less. The officials said the original 4.7
million burden-hour reduction estimate was a goal
that could have been achieved if all eligible
facilities reported as infrequently as they were
allowed under the new policy. However, they said
that many discharge facilities are not taking
advantage of the program's reduced reporting
option, so the full 4.7 million burden-hour
reduction had not taken place. For example, they
said that some facilities may be continuing to
prepare reports as frequently as they were prior
to the 1996 change pursuant to state or local
requirements. Other facilities may have internal
reporting systems established to prepare the
reports at a certain frequency, and the facilities
may have decided that it would be too expensive to
change those systems. They said still other
facilities may have determined that monthly
monitoring and reporting was needed to ensure that
they maintained the proper level of discharges.

EPA Was Confident in Land Disposal Restriction
Reductions
     The other EPA burden-reduction initiative
involved the agency's land disposal restrictions
program. Before 1997, EPA required generators of
certain types of hazardous waste to provide
notification and certification for each shipment
of hazardous waste. EPA officials said that they
received numerous complaints from the affected
public about how burdensome it was to submit this
notification for every waste shipment,
particularly when the information that had to be
reported rarely changed. In 1997, EPA revised the
regulation to require such notifications only for
the first shipment of each kind of waste to any
given facility. No additional notifications were
required as long as there were no changes to the
waste, the process generating the waste, or the
receiving facility for treatment or disposal of
that waste. EPA estimated that this program change
would reduce paperwork burden on hazardous waste
generators by about 1.7 million burden hours or
about 33 percent from the agency's previous burden-
hour estimate.

     EPA officials told us during this review that
they were confident that their burden-reduction
estimate for land disposal restrictions was
accurate. In fact, they said that their estimate
might understate the actual reduction in annual
burden that has occurred. Unlike in the discharge
monitoring program, the officials said the 1.7
million hour reduction in the agency's burden
estimate for land disposal restrictions accounted
for the possibility that about 20 percent of
covered facilities may want or need to continue
submitting notifications on a more frequent basis
than the program allows.

Maturation Changes Reflect Planned Evolution of
Programs
     According to EPA, some of its information
collections impose more paperwork burden on
respondents in the first years of implementation
than in subsequent years. For example, businesses
seeking environmental permits may spend a
significant amount of time preparing their initial
permit applications, but much less time getting
those permits renewed at a later date. An EPA
regulatory program may require wide-scale training
of employees or the posting of notices in the
first year, but only limited training or notices
in subsequent years. Because of these kinds of
program maturation, the average annual burden
during the first 3 years that the associated
information collections are authorized is greater
than the average annual burden in subsequent 3-
year periods.

     Four of the large EPA burden-hour reductions
that we reviewed were caused by the maturation of
the underlying programs over time, thereby
reducing EPA's estimate of the programs' paperwork
burden when the information collection requests
were submitted to OIRA for reauthorization.

ï¿½    When EPA applied for OIRA reauthorization of
the information collection associated with its air
operating permits program, the agency reduced its
estimate of the average annual burden associated
with the program by about 3 million burden hours.
EPA said this reduction was possible because most
facilities requiring air operating permits had
completed the initial labor-intensive work
necessary to obtain the required permits.
Therefore, EPA expected the average annual burden
to be less in the program's second 3-year period
than it had been during the program's first 3-year
period.

ï¿½    EPA reduced its estimate of the burden
associated with Oil Pollution Act facility
response plans by about 600,000 hours when it
sought reauthorization of the program's
information collection in 1997. The agency said
that upkeep of the response plans during the
second 3-year period would be significantly less
labor intensive than the development of the plans
during the program's first 3-year period.

ï¿½    Also in 1997, EPA reduced its estimate of the
burden associated with its data generation for
registration activities collection from more than
500,000 hours to less than 40,000 hours. EPA said
it did so because four of the five phases of the
reregistration process had been completed during
the period covered by the previous information
collection authorization.

ï¿½    In 1998, EPA reduced its estimate of the
burden associated with worker protection standards
by 1.1 million burden hours because the startup
burden associated with initial program
implementation was no longer applicable in the
program's second 3-year period.

Several of the Burden-Hour Reductions Were
Adjustments to Original Estimates
     Six of the 12 large EPA burden-hour
reductions that occurred between September 30,
1995, and September 30, 1998, were adjustments,
and 4 of these adjustments were reestimates of the
agency's initial burden-hour estimates. The two
other adjustments reflected changes that had
occurred in the regulated industry.

Reestimates Corrected Errors in Original
Calculations
     EPA's reestimates of the number of burden
hours associated with its information collections
were important to ensure that the agency's
paperwork requirements are measured as accurately
as possible. However, none of these reestimates
had any substantive impact on the collections'
respondents; the underlying requirements did not
change. Three of the four EPA burden-hour
reestimates were fairly straightforward.

ï¿½    In 1996, EPA reduced its previous paperwork
estimate for the industrial furnaces information
collection by nearly 500,000 burden hours
primarily because the agency changed its
assumption regarding the number of expected
respondents.27

ï¿½    In its original estimate of the paperwork
burden associated with the development of state
implementation plans, EPA included the burden
imposed by the collection on federal agencies.
However, the PRA does not include burden imposed
on federal employees within the scope of their
employment. When the error was discovered as part
of the collection's reauthorization process in
1998, EPA reduced its burden-hour estimate for
this collection by about 500,000 hours.

ï¿½    When EPA developed its original estimate of
the burden associated with Maximum Residue Level
(MRL) petitions on food, the agency made certain
assumptions regarding the number of respondents
that were later determined to be an overestimate.
In 1996, EPA implemented a new database that
changed these assumptions that contributed to a
reduction of the agency's burden estimate for the
collection by more than 700,000 hours.28

 However, EPA's fourth reestimate during this
period was somewhat more complicated. EPA
initially estimated that the information
collection associated with the national
pretreatment program imposed about 2.3 million
burden hours on the public. When EPA sought
reauthorization of the information collection in
1996, the agency reduced its estimate of the
paperwork burden by nearly 600,000 hours. The
documents that EPA submitted to OIRA indicated the
reduction was primarily accomplished by converting
the burden hours associated with work done by
contractors into dollars and reporting those costs
in another part of the form that the agency
submitted to OIRA. However, this "monetization" of
burden hours is inconsistent with draft guidance
that OIRA subsequently issued in 1997 on how
agencies should calculate burden hours. That
guidance says the following:

"Burden hours are measured taking into account the
full array of personnel required to plan, develop,
prepare and fulfill an information
collection...this includes the time devoted by the
respondent, all employees, partners and associates
of the respondent, and the time of outside
consultants, contractors, legal and financial
advisors hired for the purpose of responding to
the collection of information." [Underscoring
supplied.]

     OIRA officials and staff told us during our
review that EPA submitted this proposed burden-
hour reduction for approval in 1996, shortly after
the enactment of the PRA when guidelines on
calculating burden hours had not been developed.
They said that it was not a conscious decision on
OIRA's part to approve a burden-hour reduction
that monetized burden hours. They noted that they
subsequently disapproved other EPA attempts to
reduce their burden-hour estimates by monetizing
burden, and that if a similar burden-hour
reduction was submitted to them today it would
probably be disallowed. 29

Other Adjustments Reflected Changes in Economy or
Technology
     The last of the 12 largest burden-hour
reductions between fiscal years 1995 and 1998,
were 2 adjustments in EPA's underground storage
tank program totaling 2.8 million burden hours.
Our review of agency documents and conversations
with EPA officials who were responsible for the
program indicated that these adjustments were
primarily caused by two factors: (1) reductions in
the number of underground storage tanks in the
economy and (2) the industry's development of new,
less burdensome technologies for developing the
information needed for the collection.

     Like the agency's reestimates, these
adjustments were needed to more accurately measure
the burden associated with EPA's information
collections. However, the two adjustments differed
from the agency's reestimates in at least one
respect; they reflected real reductions in the
amount of paperwork burden borne by the affected
public.

Respondent Organizations Said Some Burden-Hour
Reductions Were Credible
     To gauge the credibility of the reductions
taken, we contacted 13 organizations representing
respondents to 10 of the 12 information
collections involved in these large burden-hour
reductions.30 Representatives from 6 organizations
provided information on 7 of the 10 burden-hour
reductions.31 We did not attempt to verify these
organizations' comments or to resolve any
differences between their views and the
assumptions that EPA used in its analyses.

     The respondent organizations indicated that
four of the seven burden-hour reductions (worker
protection standards, air operating permits, and
the two underground storage tank actions) were
generally credible. For example, a representative
from one organization agreed that the information
collections related to the underground storage
tank program were less burdensome than in the past
because of, among other things, a decline in the
number of such storage tanks and the use of new
leak-detection technology in the industry. Another
representative told us that the paperwork burden
associated with EPA's worker protection program
had declined because most of the program's
paperwork-intensive requirements had been
completed.

     However, the respondent organizations
disagreed with EPA's burden-hour reductions
regarding two other collections-discharge
monitoring reports and data generation for
registration activities, and could not either
agree or disagree with the collection on the MRL
program. Regarding discharge monitoring,
representatives of one organization said that
EPA's assumption that the number of burden hours
should be reduced by 26 percent was erroneous.
Just as EPA program officials told us during our
review, the respondent organizations said many
fewer respondents had been able to take advantage
of the less frequent reporting options than EPA
had anticipated because of continued state or
local reporting requirements, the expense
associated with changing the businesses'
established processes, or for other reasons.

     As previously noted, EPA reduced its annual
burden-hour estimate for the data generation
collection in 1997 from more than 500,000 hours
per year to less than 40,000 hours per year
because four of the five phases of the process had
been completed. Two respondent organizations that
we contacted said that EPA's current estimate of
the annual paperwork burden still associated with
this program was too low (and, therefore, the
burden reductions should not have been taken) for
a variety of reasons. First, they said program
respondents are having to resubmit data for the
first phases of the data generation program
because data they had previously submitted (1) had
become dated because of a backlog at EPA, (2) had
been lost by EPA staff, or (3) was improperly
prepared because of unclear and changing EPA
requirements. They also said that the fifth phase
of the data generation process would be much more
burdensome than EPA estimated. Therefore, they
said that EPA should not have eliminated the more
than 500,000 burden-hours in paperwork associated
with this collection that was removed in 1997, and
that the original estimate was too low.

Most EPA Office of Environmental Information
Efforts Are Still in the Planning Stage
     In the ICB for fiscal year 1999, EPA said
that several agencywide initiatives had the
potential for large burden reductions within the
next 3 to 5 years. The agency said that the most
encompassing of these initiatives was a recently
initiated reorganization plan that would bring
together all of the agency's information programs
into a new office to better manage the agency's
information resources. Another initiative
described in the ICB was the agency's REI
initiative, which EPA described as focused on data
quality and building the infrastructure needed to
identify and eliminate obsolete, duplicative, and
unnecessary paperwork requirements.

     EPA officials told us during this review that
the REI initiative had been merged with the
creation of the new Office of Environmental
Information, which was officially launched in late
October 1999. Projects that had been started under
the REI initiative, such as data standardization,
electronic reporting, and facility registration,
are now being administered by the Office of
Environmental Information. EPA officials said the
new office has four main organizational units
responsible for (1) information policy and
collection; (2) information technology and
services; (3) information analysis and access; and
(4) information planning, resources, and outreach.
Overall, they said the office would ultimately be
responsible for improving the quality of data used
within EPA and provided to the public and for
developing and implementing the goals, standards,
and accountability systems needed to bring about
these improvements. To this end, they said the
Office of Environmental Information would

ï¿½    ensure that the quality of data collected and
used by EPA is known and appropriate for its
intended uses,
ï¿½    reduce the burden on the states and regulated
industries of collecting and reporting data,
ï¿½    fill significant data gaps, and
ï¿½    provide the public with integrated
information and statistics on environmental and
public health issues.

We recently reported on the status of EPA's Office
of Environmental Information. In April 1999, we
said that the creation of the new office to make
fundamental improvements in the agency's data
management activities was a step in the right
direction. 32 However, we said that the success of
the office depended on EPA's (1) providing the
office with the necessary resources and expertise,
(2) empowering the office to overcome
organizational challenges, (3) balancing the
agency's need for data with calls to reduce
reporting burden, and (4) working closely with the
states to design and implement improved
information management systems. We noted that EPA
had not developed an information plan to show how
the agency intended to achieve the goals
established for the new office.

In September 1999, we again supported the creation
of the new Office of Environmental Information but
said that one of the office's most pressing
challenges would be to develop a plan that
identifies clear priorities for the office and the
resources it will need to make significant
improvements in information management.33 We
recommended that the EPA Administrator direct the
program manager of the new office to develop an
action plan detailing the key steps that the
agency needs to take to ensure that EPA's
environmental and regulatory data are sufficiently
complete, compatible, and accurate to meet its
needs. EPA concurred with our recommendation and
said that its forthcoming information strategic
plan should provide the overall strategy needed to
ensure the completeness, compatibility, and
accuracy of the agency's environmental data. EPA
officials told us during this review that the
Office of Environmental Information expects to
finalize its fiscal year 2000 action plan by April
2000.  They said the plan would include priorities
and milestones for the new office for the
remainder of fiscal year 2000 and will be a basis
for the broader information strategic plan.

     Although EPA indicated in the ICB that the
new Office of Environmental Information had the
potential to reduce the agency's information
collection requirements in the next 3 to 5 years,
officials in that office told us that most of
their efforts were still in the planning stage.
For example, they said that the agency is
developing a central receiving facility that will
allow respondents to report environmental
information electronically through a single,
standard point of entry.  We continue to believe
that the development of an action plan for the
Office of Environmental Information detailing the
strategies, resources, benchmarks, and milestones
for completing specific actions would help ensure
that EPA meets its information management goals.

Conclusions
     Although EPA's paperwork burden-hour estimate
as of September 30, 1998, represented less than 2
percent of the governmentwide estimate, EPA was
one of only six non-Treasury agencies with an
estimated 100 million-plus burden hours.
Furthermore, EPA's paperwork burden is expected to
grow even larger in the future. The size of the
agency's burden-hour estimate, the frequent
mandatory nature of the reporting requirements,
and the fact that the paperwork is primarily used
to determine compliance with environmental
statutes and regulations underscore the importance
of understanding how accurately EPA's paperwork
burden is measured and whether EPA is doing all it
can to keep the burden as low as possible.

     Our review of the process that EPA used to
develop paperwork burden-hour estimates for its
largest information collections indicated that the
agency is preparing the basic elements of those
estimates in a logical and systematic manner. EPA
usually identifies dozens of tasks and subtasks
that must be performed as part of the collections
and uses available data and experience to develop
estimates of the time required for each element
and the number of respondents. The respondent
organizations that we contacted said that most of
the burden-hour estimates on which they could
comment were generally accurate.

     However, some of the respondent organizations
said that two of EPA's burden-hour estimates were
not realistic. We could not independently
determine whether these organizations' concerns
about these collections were valid or
representative of most respondents' views.
According to EPA officials, the agency frequently
consults with the regulated community during the
development of its information collection
requests, but these officials said that EPA is
constrained in this endeavor by the PRA's
definition of a collection of information. We
recognize that the PRA limits EPA's efforts to
obtain large amounts of information regarding the
burden associated with its information
collections. Nevertheless, the contacts that EPA
says it already has with its "consultative
partners" should provide the perspectives needed
to improve the perceived quality of EPA's burden-
hour estimates without requiring a new collection
approval.

     A substantial portion of the burden hours
that EPA reduced from its estimates between fiscal
years 1995 and 1998 were because of revisions of
previous estimates, changes in the targeted
industries, or the expected maturation of
programs. EPA's revisions of agency paperwork
estimates had no real impact on the burden being
borne by the public. The underlying reporting and
recordkeeping requirements did not change, only
EPA's method of measuring their effect. Also,
adjustments reflecting changes in the underground
storage tank industry, while important to ensure
the accuracy of the agency's burden estimates, are
reductions in burden hours for which EPA should
not claim credit. In fact, OIRA does not consider
reestimates and adjustments relevant to
determining whether agencies are making progress
toward the burden-reduction goals envisioned in
the PRA. Finally, reductions in burden-hour
estimates because respondents no longer have to
develop initial permits or repost one-time
notices, although technically "program changes,"
are quite different than reductions resulting from
conscious efforts on the part of the agency to
reduce the frequency of reporting requirements or
the length of those requirements.

     Therefore, EPA's claim in its annual report
that it had reduced its paperwork burden "by
streamlining processes, eliminating outdated
provisions, or consolidating duplicative
requirements" was misleading. More than 60 percent
of the burden hours that EPA reduced during fiscal
years 1995 and 1998 were not in these categories.
Also misleading was EPA's statement that these
reductions had saved businesses and communities
hundreds of millions of dollars. Reductions in
agency burden-hour estimates because of math
errors, erroneous assumptions, and conversion of
burden hours to dollars on a form that the agency
submits to OMB have no effect on businesses' or
communities' paperwork requirements or their
expenditures. Also, changes to burden-hour
estimates because initial, paperwork-intensive
program phases have been completed should not be
characterized as saving respondents time or money.

     The ICB is the official record of agencies'
information collection requirements. Under OIRA's
burden-measurement procedures, both program
changes and adjustments are used to estimate the
burden associated with an agency's information
collections, and both are reflected in the year-
end estimates printed in the ICB. Therefore,
federal agencies could have reduced their total
burden-hour estimates by 25 percent (or more)
between fiscal years 1995 and 1998 solely by
revising those estimates. Although not the case at
EPA, agencies may achieve these reductions by
continuing to collect information in violation of
the PRA after their OIRA information collection
authorizations expire.

     Obtaining an accurate measure of agencies'
paperwork requirements is important. However, it
is not clear that burden-hour reductions that are
based on reestimates, changes in the economy, or
violations are what Congress had in mind when the
PRA was enacted. Therefore, if Congress and the
public want a fuller picture of how the PRA's
burden-reduction goals are being implemented, they
will have to carefully review the information in
OIRA's ICB reports to determine which agencies are
accomplishing burden-hour reductions via
substantive program changes, adjustments, or as a
result of violations of the act. In the ICB for
fiscal year 1999, OMB provided information that,
for the first time, allowed readers to calculate
the extent to which changes in agencies' burden-
hour estimates between fiscal years 1997 and 1998
were caused by program changes, adjustments, and
violations.

     Although most of EPA's burden-reduction
actions were consistent with OIRA's burden-measure
procedures, we concluded that one such action was
not. We believe that the nearly 600,000 burden
hours that EPA subtracted from its estimate for
the national pretreatment program in 1997 by
converting contractor burden hours to dollars
should be added back to the agency's burden-hour
estimate. This "monetization" practice is contrary
to current OIRA guidance on how burden hours
should be measured, and OIRA staff said the
reduction would not currently be allowed.

Recommendation
We recommend that the Administrator of EPA correct
the agency's burden-hour estimate for the national
pretreatment program in the RISC database and
future editions of the ICB by including in its
estimate the nearly 600,000 burden hours that were
converted to dollars.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation
     On February 10, 2000, we sent a draft of this
report to the Administrator of EPA and the
Director of OMB for their review and comment.
OIRA officials only suggested several technical
and wording changes that we incorporated as
appropriate, but the OIRA Deputy Director said
neither OIRA nor OMB would comment on the draft
report's findings or recommendation.

     On February 24, 2000, the Director of EPA's
Office of Information Collection provided written
comments on the draft report, which are reproduced
in appendix II.  The Director said that EPA would
examine the report's recommendations and make the
necessary corrections to its information
collection requests.  He also said that the report
appeared to be accurate in its characterization of
EPA's information collection requests and burden
hours.  However, he also said that EPA had two
overarching comments on the report.  First, he
said the comments from the 10 respondent
organizations were not a representative sampling
of the regulated entities and should be clearly
portrayed as anecdotal views.  Second, he said
that consistent with OMB guidelines, EPA
calculates burden and burden reductions on the
basis of agency requirements, and does not
consider state and/or local government
requirements or respondents' voluntary actions
when making those determinations.  In addition, he
said that although our "assertion that [EPA's]
burden-reduction estimates are misleading is
technically correct," the agency believes that the
finding is too narrowly focused and fails to fully
acknowledge the agency's other burden-reduction
efforts, such as compliance assistance centers and
changes in EPA's audit policy.

     We stated in the Objectives, Scope, and
Methodology section of the draft report EPA
reviewed that the views of the respondent
organizations we contacted were not intended to be
representative or exhaustive of all entities
required to respond to the agency's information
collections.  We also said that we did not attempt
to resolve any differences between their views and
the assumptions that EPA used in its analyses.  In
this final report, we noted that we did not verify
these organizations' comments, and we added
similar language in two other sections of this
report.

     We also eliminated a recommendation that was
in the draft report on which the Director's second
comment was based.  Although EPA collects more
paperwork through its discharge monitoring program
than the agency's current burden-hour estimate,
some of that paperwork is based on state or local
government requirements or is voluntarily
submitted and, therefore, is not technically a
federal information collection.  Finally, the
other types of EPA regulatory burden reduction
efforts that the Director mentioned, while
important, were outside the scope of our review of
the agency's information collection requirements.

     As arranged with your office, unless you
publicly announce the contents of this report
earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30
days after the date of this report.  At that time,
we will send copies of this report to Senator John
F. Kerry, Ranking Minority Member, Senate
Committee on Small Business; Representatives David
McIntosh and Dennis J. Kucinich, Chairman and
Ranking Minority Member, Subcommittee on National
Economic Growth, Natural Resources, and Regulatory
Affairs, House Committee on Government Reform; the
Honorable Carol M. Browner, Administrator of EPA;
and the Honorable Jacob J. Lew, Director of OMB.
We will make copies available to others on
request.

     If you have any questions regarding this
report, please contact me or Curtis Copeland on
(202) 512-8676. Key contributors to this
assignment were Joseph Santiago and Ellen Grady.

Sincerely yours,
 

L.Nye Stevens
 Director, Federal Management and
 
 
 
 
  Workforce Issues

_______________________________
1In this report, we use the term "between fiscal
years 1995 and 1998" to refer to the period from
September 30, 1995, until September 30, 1998.
2The PRA requires the OMB Director to delegate the
authority to administer all functions under the
act to the OIRA Administrator, but does not
relieve the OMB Director of responsibility for the
administration of those functions.
3RISC is part of the General Services
Administration but works closely with OMB to
provide the president, Congress, and the public
with information on federal regulatory policies.
4The original act contained burden-reduction
goals, but the goals had expired.
5Environmental Protection: Assessing EPA's
Progress in Paperwork Reduction (GAO/T-RCED-96-
107, Mar. 21, 1996).
6The TRI is a source of information about toxic
chemicals that are being used, manufactured,
treated, transported, or released into the
environment. According to section 313 of the
Emergency Planning and Community Right-To-Know Act
and section 6607 of the Pollution Prevention Act,
EPA must maintain a publicly accessible database.
TRI contains information on the release and other
waste management activities of toxic chemicals by
facilities that manufacture, process, or otherwise
use them.
7Paperwork Reduction: Burden Reduction Goal
Unlikely To Be Met (GAO/T-GGD/RCED-96-186, June 5,
1996) and Paperwork Reduction: Governmentwide
Goals Unlikely To Be Met (GAO/T-GGD-97-114, June
4, 1997).
8Right-to-know requirements involve the disclosure
of health and environmental information to the
public and are contained in such statutes as the
Safe Drinking Water Act, the Emergency Planning
and Community Right-to-Know Act, and the
Residential Lead-based Paint Hazard Reduction Act.
9Regulatory Management: Implementation of Selected
OMB Responsibilities Under the Paperwork Reduction
Act (GAO/GGD-98-120, July 9, 1998).
10Paperwork Reduction Act: Burden Increases and
Unauthorized Information Collections (GAO/T-GGD-99-
78, Apr. 15, 1999).  Only one of these
unauthorized collections was from EPA.
11The ICB for fiscal year 1999, for the first time,
included information on "corrected" program
changes that allowed readers to calculate the
extent to which year-to-year changes in all
agencies' burden-hour estimates were caused by
violations.  However, the end-of-year totals for
each agency in the summary table were not adjusted
for these violations.
12Some of these 13 organizations were the same
organizations that provided comments on the
credibility of EPA's burden-hour estimates.
13However, the ICB for fiscal year 1999 indicated
that most of the burden hours that the Departments
of Agriculture and Veterans Affairs reduced from
their estimates between fiscal years 1997 and 1998
represented information collections that the
agencies continued to use in violation of the PRA
after their OIRA authorizations had expired.
14See GAO/T-GGD-99-78.
15Other agencies whose burden-hour estimates
increased during this period include the
Department of Commerce (from 8.2 million to 13.5
million burden hours) and the Federal
Communications Commission (up from 22.6 million to
30.3 million burden hours).
16We did not determine how much discretion these
statutory requirements provided EPA in the
development of the related information
collections. However, we have previously noted
that the amount of regulatory discretion that
statutes provide agencies can vary significantly.
See Regulatory Burden: Some Agencies' Claims
Regarding Lack of Rulemaking Discretion Have Merit
(GAO/GGD-99-20, Jan. 8, 1999).
17RISC data do not differentiate between large and
small businesses.
18EPA actually divided the reporting task into 43
subtasks. However, EPA determined that some of
these subtasks did not apply to the known
respondents. Because EPA did not estimate any
burden hours for these subtasks, we did not
include them in table 2.
19EPA also estimated that each activity would occur
once a year.
20EPA officials were unable to identify any
database that the agency used to calculate the
burden-hour estimate for the safe drinking water
collection because all of the staff involved in
developing the original estimate had left the
agency.
21In fact, OMB's instructions for submitting
information collection requests state that
"agencies should not conduct special surveys to
obtain information on which to base hour burden
estimates. Consultation with a sample (10 or more)
of potential respondents is desirable."
22Twelve organizations either did not respond to
our request for information or said they could not
provide information. Comments we received
regarding one other collection were principally
about the cost of collecting the information
requested, not the accuracy of EPA's burden-hour
estimates.  Some organizations provided comments
about more than one information collection.
23In commenting on this report, EPA said that its
burden-hour estimate for the safe drinking water
collection does not include respondent activities
that go beyond what the agency requires for lab
analysis.
24Reinventing Environmental Protection: 1998 Annual
Report, EPA (Mar. 1999).
25EPA reiterated these statements in a July 1999
report entitled Aiming for Excellence:  Actions to
Encourage Stewardship and Accelerate Environmental
Progress.
26In fact, EPA's burden-hour estimate for the end
of calendar year 1994 was about 80 million
hours-about 40 million burden hours less than at
the end of fiscal year 1998.
27However, as part of the collection's
reauthorization in 1999, EPA discovered a math
error in the 1996 burden-hour estimate.  EPA has
subsequently increased its burden-hour estimate to
account for this error.
28Some of this burden-hour reduction was also
caused by the maturation of the MRL program and
other factors.
29OMB subsequently disallowed two other EPA
attempts to reduce their burden-hour estimate by
monetizing burden hours. One was in the discharge
monitoring program in which EPA was attempting to
reduce its burden-hour estimate by about 7 million
burden hours. The other was in the underground
storage tank program in which EPA was trying to
reduce its burden-hour estimate by 5.7 million
burden hours.
30We did not contact respondents regarding the math
error in the industrial furnaces collection or the
erroneous inclusion of federal paperwork burden in
the state implementation plans collection.
31Respondent organizations for the remaining three
burden-hour reductions either did not respond to
our request for information or said they had no
information to provide.
32Environmental Protection: Status of EPA's Efforts
to Create a Central Information Office (GAO/T-RCED-
99-147, Apr. 13, 1999).
33Environmental Information: EPA Is Taking Steps to
Improve Information Management, but Challenges
Remain (GAO/RCED-99-261, Sept. 17, 1999).

Appendix I
Program Descriptors
Page 47         GAO/GGD-00-59 EPA Paperwork Burden
One part of our review of the Environmental
Protection Agency's (EPA) paperwork requirements
focused on the agency's 14 information collections
with the largest burden-hour estimates as of
September 30, 1998. Another part of the review
focused on the agency's 13 largest burden-hour
reductions between September 30, 1995, and
September 30, 1998. As table I.1 shows, the 21 EPA
programs underlying these collections involved the
agency's 4 main program offices, and some programs
were represented in both the largest collections
and the largest burden-hour reductions sections of
the report. Each of these 21 information
collections is briefly described following table
I.1.1

Table I.1:  EPA Programs Affected by Reviewed
Information Collections
                                 Burden-  Burden-
EPA program office/Information   hour     hour
collection                       estimate reduction
                                s        claim
Office of Water                           
Discharge Monitoring                X        X
National Pretreatment                        X
National Pollutant Discharge        X         
Elimination System: State
  Programs
Safe Drinking Water                 X         
Office of Solid Waste and                      
Emergency Response
Community Right-to-Know             X         
Land Disposal Restrictions          X        X
Underground Storage Tanks           X        X
Industrial Furnaces                          X
Oil Pollution Act's Facility                 X
Response Plans
Office of Air and Radiation                    
Air Operating Permits Program       X        X
Pre-Construction New Source         X         
Review
Acid Rain Program                   X         
Conformity of General Federal                X
Actions to State
  Implementation Plans
Office of Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic
Substances
Toxic Release Inventory             X        X
Reporting, Recordkeeping,
  Supplier Notification, and
Petitions
Residential Lead-Based Paint        X         
Hazard Disclosure
LBP Hazard Education Before         X         
Renovation
Asbestos in Schools and Model       X         
Accreditation Plan
  Programs
Polychlorinated Biphenyls           X         
Disposal Amendments
Agricultural Worker Protection               X
Standards
Data Generation for Registration             X
Activities
Maximum Residue Limit Petitions              X
on Food

Note: There were two underground storage tank
burden-reduction claims between September 30,
1995, and September 30, 1998. In addition, our
initial review included a burden-reduction claim
pertaining to the toxic release inventory. This
claim is not included in our final burden-hour
reduction analysis because it occurred before the
time period of our review.
Source:  EPA.

Office of Water

Discharge Monitoring
EPA's National Pollutant Discharge Elimination
System (NPDES) program, established by the Clean
Water Act, prohibits the discharge of pollutants
through a "point source" (e.g., a pipe or a ditch)
directly into United States waters unless
dischargers have an NPDES permit. Permits are
issued by EPA-approved states or by EPA regional
offices. One way that EPA monitors compliance with
the program is by collecting information from
permitees on the amount of their discharges.

National Pretreatment Program
The national pretreatment program is a cooperative
effort of federal, state, and local environmental
agencies to protect water quality and is
administered by EPA as part of the NPDES program.
The purpose of the national pretreatment program
is to reduce the level of pollutants discharged by
industry and other wastewater sources into
municipal sewer systems. To ensure that their
discharges do not exceed the established limits,
some sources must pretreat their wastewater
discharges to reduce the level of pollutants
before releasing the discharges to the publicly
owned treatment works. The information collected
as part of the pretreatment program includes data
from industrial users on the content of the
discharges, their schedule for installing
pretreatment equipment, and anticipated discharges
of wastes that violate pretreatment standards.

National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System:
State Program
State NPDES-permitting authorities may also
administer a sludge management program within
their jurisdictions, including all of the
monitoring, reporting, and recordkeeping
associated with the program. To obtain authority
to operate a sludge program, a state must submit a
description of its program to EPA, a draft
memorandum of agreement with the EPA regional
office, and copies of the state's relevant
statutes and regulations.

 Safe Drinking Water
The Safe Drinking Water Act, as amended in 1996,
contains several major areas of emphasis,
including (1) improving the way that EPA sets
drinking water safety standards and develops
regulations on the basis of various factors,
including good science and data, sound risk
assessment, and effective risk management; (2)
establishing new prevention approaches, including
provisions for operator certification, capacity
development, and source water protection; (3)
providing better information to consumers,
including consumer "right-to-know" reports; and;
(4) expanding funding for states and communities.
When a state or public water system seeks a
variance or exemption from the act's requirements,
EPA requires them to submit information to
determine whether the variance or exemption is
appropriate.

Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response

Community Right-to-Know
The Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know
Act of 1986 (EPCRA) establishes requirements for
federal, state, and local governments and industry
regarding emergency planning and reporting on
hazardous and toxic chemicals. The community
right-to-know provisions are designed to help
increase the public's knowledge and access to
information on the presence of hazardous chemicals
in their communities and releases of these
chemicals into the environment. Some of EPCRA's
reporting requirements include (1) requiring local
emergency-planning committees to develop a
contingency plan for responding to chemical
emergencies, (2) requiring facilities to
immediately notify the state and local governments
of releases of certain hazardous chemicals, (3)
ensuring public access to material safety data
sheets, and (4) requiring certain facilities to
annually report their releases of specified toxic
chemicals by completing a toxic chemical inventory
form.

Land Disposal Restrictions
The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA),
as amended in 1984, established the authority for
EPA's land disposal restriction program. The
program is designed to protect groundwater from
contamination by requiring hazardous wastes to be
physically or chemically altered to reduce their
toxicity before disposal. The program requirements
apply to most hazardous wastes once a treatment
standard has been established. At the point at
which the waste is created, the generator must
determine the waste characteristics for deciding
on its proper treatment and disposal methods. To
track the waste that is generated, treated,
transported, stored, or disposed, EPA imposes
notification, certification, and recordkeeping
requirements on generators and others.

Underground Storage Tanks
RCRA required EPA to develop a comprehensive
regulatory program for underground storage tanks
containing petroleum or other hazardous
substances. EPA's underground storage tank program
requires owners and operators of such tanks to
record and report certain activities. For example,
owners and operators must keep records on
inspections and test results, repairs or upgrades,
and site assessment results after closing a tank.
Also, owners must notify state or local
authorities of the existence of these tanks, their
leak prevention and leak detection measures, and
the permanent closure of any of these tanks.

Industrial Furnaces
EPA regulations promulgated under RCRA require
owners and operators of boilers and industrial
furnaces that burn hazardous waste to obtain
operating permits and to maintain certain records
demonstrating that they meet the agency's
requirements. For example, the regulations require
them to (1) maintain records of all hazardous
wastes from boilers and industrial furnaces
showing how the waste was treated, stored, or
disposed and (2) develop and maintain contingency
plans to minimize unanticipated damage from any of
these processes.

Oil Pollution Act's Facility Response Plan
The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 requires owners or
operators of oil storage facilities that are
classified as "substantial harm facilities" to
prepare a plan for responding to a worst-case
discharge of oil or substantial threat of such a
discharge into navigable water bodies or onto
adjoining shorelines. The act also requires
facility response plans to describe training and
periodic unannounced drills or exercises. EPA
requires the owners and operators of these
facilities to develop and implement a
corresponding training and drill/exercise program.
EPA regulates non-transportation-related
facilities, while the Coast Guard regulates marine
transportation-related facilities and vessels.

Office of Air and Radiation

Air Operating Permits Program
Pursuant to the Clean Air Act, all states are
required to develop and implement air operating
permits programs under EPA's guidance. In these
programs, major stationary sources of air
pollution are required to obtain operating permits
to ensure compliance with the act. The permits are
comprehensive documents that consolidate all
federal, state, and local requirements applicable
to air pollution sources, and that include a
schedule of compliance, monitoring, and reporting
requirements.

Pre-Construction New Source Review
     Air pollution permits under the Clean Air Act
are also required for businesses that build new
pollution sources or make significant changes to
existing pollution sources. Referred to as
"preconstruction" or "new source review" permits,
they are intended to ensure that new emissions do
not cause significant health or environmental
threats, and that new pollution sources are well
controlled. Like the air operating permits, the
new source review permits include a schedule of
compliance, monitoring, and reporting
requirements.

Acid Rain Program
The 1990 Clean Air Act amendments established the
acid rain program to reduce emissions of sulfur
dioxide and nitrogen oxides-the primary pollutants
that cause acid rain. The acid rain program sets a
permanent cap on the amounts of these pollutants
that may be emitted by electric utilities
nationwide and allows flexibility for individual
utility units to select their own methods of
compliance. The information collection
requirements for this program include monitoring
emissions, transferring allowances, and completing
annual compliance certifications.

Conformity of General Federal Actions to State
Implementation Plans
EPA established national air quality standards
under the Clean Air Act, and state and local
governments are responsible for developing and
implementing plans to attain these national
standards. However, there was concern that certain
federal actions, such as the leasing of federal
land or construction of federal office buildings,
would interfere with state and local plans.
Therefore, Congress amended the act in 1990 to
prohibit the federal government from taking
actions that do not conform with state plans. As a
result, EPA requires federal entities to collect
certain information and to follow specific
procedures in making conformity determinations.
Although most of the information needed to make
these determinations is developed by federal
entities, some information is obtained from
private organizations.

Office of Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic
Substances

Toxic Release Inventory Reporting, Recordkeeping,
Supplier Notification, and Petitions
EPCRA and the Pollution Prevention Act direct EPA
to require owners or operators of certain
facilities that manufacture, process, or otherwise
use any of over 600 listed toxic chemicals and
chemical categories to report annually to EPA and
to the states on their chemical transfers and
releases into the environment and their waste
management activities for such chemicals. The
information gathered in this report is stored in a
database known as the Toxic Release Inventory,
which is maintained at EPA, is available through
the Internet and is used by EPA and parts of the
public sector.

Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard Disclosure
Requirements
Under the Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard
Reduction Act of 1992, sellers or lessors of
housing constructed before 1978 are required to
disclose known information on the presence of lead-
based paint and lead-based paint hazards. In
addition, the sellers or lessors must provide
purchasers and renters with an EPA publication on
lead awareness before selling or leasing the
housing unit.

Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard Education
Before Renovation
Pursuant to the Toxic Substances Control Act
(TSCA) and the Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard
Reduction Act, individuals or firms that conduct
renovation activities on pre-1978 housing must
obtain a signed acknowledgment from the
owner/occupant of that housing unit before
conducting most renovation activities. To comply
with this requirement, contractors performing
renovations in common areas of multifamily housing
or individual units must also provide copies of
EPA's publication on lead awareness to the
appropriate owners and occupants.

Asbestos in Schools and Model Accreditation Plan
Programs
Under the Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act
of 1986, public and private schools are required
to (1) develop and maintain a management plan that
addresses how the school will protect the
occupants from exposure to asbestos and (2) ensure
that persons who inspect for asbestos, develop
management plans, and design or conduct response
actions are properly trained and accredited. EPA
requires that the management plan be made
available to all concerned persons, such as
faculty, staff, parents, or other interested
parties. The model accreditation plan assures that
persons who inspect for asbestos, develop the
management plan, and design or conduct response
actions are properly accredited, and that states
will adopt appropriate accreditation programs.

Polychlorinated Biphenyls Disposal Amendments
TSCA directs EPA to regulate the marking,
disposal, manufacturing, processing, distribution,
and use of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB). PCBs
are chemicals found in items such as common
household appliances, electrical transformers, and
fluorescent lights. EPA's PCB regulations contain
information collection requirements to ensure that
PCBs are managed in an environmentally safe
manner.

Agricultural Worker Protection Standards
Under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and
Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), EPA works in partnership
with the states to implement programs designed to
protect workers from risks posed by pesticides.
One of these programs-worker protection
standards-is intended to reduce the risk of
pesticide poisonings and injuries among
agricultural workers and pesticide handlers,
reduce or eliminate exposure to pesticides, and
establish procedures to respond to exposure-
related emergencies. The standards require basic
safety training and distribution and posting of
information about pesticide hazards as well as
pesticide application information.

Data Generation for Reregistration Activities
Under FIFRA, EPA must assess the health and safety
data for pesticides originally registered before
November 1984. Before 1984, only acute testing or
short-term environmental testing was required for
many pesticides before registration. However, EPA
later determined that data on chronic health
effects and long-term environmental effects were
necessary in many cases. Therefore, FIFRA
established a process for EPA to obtain or develop
the information that it needed to reevaluate the
previous registrations. EPA is responsible for
determining, with the use of updated information
on a chemical, whether a pesticide product could
cause an unreasonable adverse effect on human
health or the environment. Pesticide registrants
seeking to reregister their products are required
to generate (and report to EPA) a level of data on
the previously registered pesticides that was
equivalent to what was now required of new
registrations. In addition, pursuant to the Food
Quality Protection Act (FQPA), which amended
FIFRA, when reevaluating these pesticide
reregistrations, EPA must consider the potential
toxic effects of these pesticides on infants and
children.

Maximum Residue Limit Petitions on Food
Under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, as
amended by FQPA, before a pesticide can be
registered for use on food or feed, EPA must
establish a tolerance for the maximum amount of
pesticide residue permitted. Paperwork
requirements under this program include the
submission of a request for a tolerance or an
exemption from a tolerance and the submission of
data so that EPA can make its tolerance
determination.

_______________________________
1These program descriptors were developed using
information obtained from EPA program officials
and the EPA Internet sites for the various program
offices.

Appendix II
Comments From the Environmental Protection Agency
Page 53         GAO/GGD-00-59 EPA Paperwork Burden

*** End of Document ***