Environmental Protection Issue Area Plan--Fiscal Years 1995-97 (Letter
Report, 06/01/96, GAO/IAP-96-24).
GAO provided information on its Environmental Protection issue area plan
for fiscal years 1995 through 1997.
GAO plans to: (1) evaluate the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA)
management and budget to help ensure that available resources are used
efficiently and effectively; (2) assess the government's management of
hazardous waste site cleanups; (3) review the implementation and
cost-effectiveness of air quality measures required by the Clean Air Act
Amendments of 1990; and (4) identify cost-effective alternatives to
protect the nation's water resources and to ensure safe drinking water
supplies.
--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------
REPORTNUM: IAP-96-24
TITLE: Environmental Protection Issue Area Plan--Fiscal Years
1995-97
DATE: 06/01/96
SUBJECT: Water quality
Cost effectiveness analysis
Hazardous substances
Waste management
Environmental monitoring
Environmental policies
Environmental law
Air pollution control
Intergovernmental relations
Water pollution
IDENTIFIER: Superfund Program
******************************************************************
** This file contains an ASCII representation of the text of a **
** GAO report. Delineations within the text indicating chapter **
** titles, headings, and bullets are preserved. Major **
** divisions and subdivisions of the text, such as Chapters, **
** Sections, and Appendixes, are identified by double and **
** single lines. The numbers on the right end of these lines **
** indicate the position of each of the subsections in the **
** document outline. These numbers do NOT correspond with the **
** page numbers of the printed product. **
** **
** No attempt has been made to display graphic images, although **
** figure captions are reproduced. Tables are included, but **
** may not resemble those in the printed version. **
** **
** Please see the PDF (Portable Document Format) file, when **
** available, for a complete electronic file of the printed **
** document's contents. **
** **
** A printed copy of this report may be obtained from the GAO **
** Document Distribution Center. For further details, please **
** send an e-mail message to: **
** **
** **
** **
** with the message 'info' in the body. **
******************************************************************
Cover
================================================================ COVER
Resources, Community, and Economic Development Division
June 1996
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION ISSUE
AREA PLAN - FISCAL YEARS 1995-97
GAO/IAP-96-24
Abbreviations
=============================================================== ABBREV
GAO -
EPA -
CEQ -
FOREWORD
============================================================ Chapter 0
As the investigative arm of the Congress and the nation's auditor,
the General Accounting Office is charged with following the federal
dollar wherever it goes. Reflecting stringent standards of
objectivity and independence, GAO's audits, evaluations, and
investigations promote a more efficient and cost-effective
government; expose waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in federal
programs; help the Congress target budget reductions; assess
financial information management; and alert the Congress to
developing trends that may have significant fiscal or budgetary
consequences. In fulfilling its responsibilities, GAO performs
original research and uses hundreds of databases or creates its own
to compile and analyze information.
To ensure that GAO's resources are directed toward the most important
issues facing the Congress, each of GAO's 32 issue areas develops a
strategic plan that describes its key issues and their significance,
the objectives and focus of its work, and the planned major job
starts. Each issue area relies heavily on input from congressional
committees, agency officials, and subject-matter experts in
developing its strategic plan.
With the nation's annual environmental compliance costs approaching
$120 billion, GAO's work in the Environmental Protection Issue Area
generally focuses on increasing the cost-effectiveness of
environmental programs. This emphasis recognizes the continuing high
growth in these costs while unmet environmental needs remain.
Consequently, limited public and private environmental resources need
to be used in ways that best protect human health and the
environment. This issue area covers the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA), the Council of Environmental Quality (CEQ), and other
agencies responsible for carrying out environmental laws, policies,
and programs. The principal issues facing the Congress and the
administration in the environmental area are
�evaluating EPA's management and budget to help ensure that available
resources are used efficiently and effectively;
�assessing the government's management of hazardous waste site
cleanups, which are estimated to cost hundreds of billions of
dollars;
�reviewing the implementation and the cost-effectiveness of air
quality measures required by the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990;
and
�identifying cost-effective alternatives to protect the nation's
water resources and to ensure safe drinking water supplies.
In the pages that follow, we describe our key planned work on these
important issues during our 3-year planning period (fiscal years 1995
through 1997). This year's update to the plan contains some slight
changes in emphasis to reflect current congressional interest and
available resources. Also, because unanticipated events may
significantly affect even the best of plans, our planning process
allows for updating this plan during the year as needed to respond
quickly to emerging issues. If you have any questions or suggestions
about this plan, please call me or Stanley J. Czerwinski, Associate
Director, at (202) 512-6511.
Peter F. Guerrero
Director
Environmental Protection Issues
CONTENTS
============================================================ Chapter 1
FOREWORD
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:1
1
TABLE I: KEY ISSUES
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:2
4
TABLE II: PLANNED MAJOR WORK
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:3
6
TABLE I: KEY ISSUES
============================================================ Chapter 2
Issue Significance Objectives Focus of work
-------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------
Management and budget: Do EPA's approaches Continued progress in environmental �Identify ways for EPA and the states to �Performance-and incentive-based
to environmental protection ensure that protection will be costly. Increasingly, achieve environmental results cost- alternatives to current regulatory
resources are optimally targeted and spent? questions are being raised about whether effectively. approaches
environmental spending is targeted on the
highest priority needs. This attention to �Assess ways to enhance the efficiency and �Potential efficiencies and cost savings in
the cost-effectiveness of environmental effectiveness of EPA's management of EPA's budget
programs is especially important with the environmental programs.
increased budgetary pressures at all levels �Opportunities to improve relations between
of government. Greater attention needs to �Examine the effectiveness of EPA and state EPA and the states
be given to performance-based measures of partnerships in reaching environmental
progress coupled with more flexible, objectives.
incentive-based regulatory approaches; more
effective partnerships between EPA and the
states; and better management.
Hazardous and solid waste: Is the government Under the Superfund law, hazardous waste �Provide the Congress with information to �Federal budget implications of completing
effectively managing waste programs and cleanups are expected to cost billions of aid in its reauthorization of hazardous cleanups
ensuring that hazardous waste dollars and take decades. The federal (Superfund) and solid waste legislation.
sites are cleaned up cost-effectively? government faces the largest liability, �Federal and state responsibilities for
potentially hundreds of billions of �Examine ways to improve the efficiency, cleanups
dollars. Concerns about this program center cost-effectiveness, and pace of cleanups as
on the slow pace and high cost of cleanups well as waste management. �Innovative methods and technologies to
as well as inefficiencies in administering encourage waste management and cleanup,
the program. With the law up for including incentives for private voluntary
reauthorization, these issues are the cleanups and accelerated cleanup processes
subject of much debate.
Air quality: Is the federal government While the overall quality of our nation's �Assist the Congress in its oversight of �EPA's efforts to revise its air quality
implementing the Clean Air Act Amendments air has improved, air pollution problems EPA's implementation of the Clean Air Act standards and to improve the accuracy of
cost-effectively and are emerging issues, continue. In the next few years, the Clean Amendments of 1990. its air quality modeling
such Air Act Amendments of 1990 require EPA to
as climate change, being appropriately establish more regulations to reduce acid �Review how EPA ensures that it considers �The adequacy and usefulness of cost-
addressed? rain, ozone-forming emissions, and airborne the most cost-effective control measures benefit and other analyses that EPA uses to
toxic chemicals. These new regulations are when implementing regulations to address air make its regulatory decisions
expected to add significantly to the annual quality problems.
costs of compliance, which now exceed $25 �The costs and timing of the federal
billion. Concerns about these costs and �Assess agency initiatives to address government's role in reducing greenhouse
other challenges to achieving these emerging issues, such as climate change. gases
reductions have focused attention on the
use of innovative and cost-effective
approaches. In addition, the buildup of
carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping
gases in the earth's atmosphere has raised
concerns about the greenhouse effect and
global warming. The United States is the
world's largest contributor to carbon
dioxide emissions, and costly actions may
be needed to mitigate climate changes.
Water quality: Is the government cost- Annual costs to control water pollution are �Identify ways to ensure that compliance �Opportunities to improve the cost-
effectively protecting expected to increase significantly in the costs bring commensurate benefits. effectiveness of decisions to address water
surface water, groundwater, and drinking coming years--reaching around $65 billion quality problems
water? by the year 2000. Local governments and �Provide the Congress with information to
private industries will bear most of these assist in its reauthorization of the Clean �The progress of federal, state, and local
costs. The increases are primarily Water and Safe Drinking Water Acts. governments in responding to the most
attributable to the costs for treating significant water quality concerns
wastewater and meeting new federal mandates
for protecting drinking water. �Legislative options for achieving water
quality goals cost-effectively
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TABLE II: PLANNED MAJOR WORK
============================================================ Chapter 3
Issue Planned Major Job Starts
------------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------
Management and �Assess how well EPA's regulatory reform initiatives decrease
budget reporting requirements for businesses and provide states and
businesses with increased flexibility to implement environmental
programs.
�Review EPA's justification for its fiscal year 1997 budget
request.
�Review the effectiveness of EPA's planning and budgeting
processes.
�Review EPA's peer review process that assesses the quality of
scientific data used in its regulatory decisions.
Hazardous and �Determine if EPA has corrected previously reported deficiencies in
solid waste recovering its costs, contracting, and setting priorities for
cleanups in its management of the Superfund program.
�Identify ways to perform more cost-effective cleanups of hazardous
waste sites at federal facilities.
�Assess priority setting for cleaning up hazardous waste sites at
federal facilities.
�Identify which states have already assumed some Superfund cleanup
program responsibilities and what their responsibilities are.
�Review how efficiently and effectively states manage cleanups of
Superfund hazardous waste sites.
�Review "best practices" in state programs that offer private
businesses incentives to voluntarily clean up hazardous waste sites.
Air quality �Assess how accurately EPA's computer model predicts reductions in
emissions from motor vehicles.
�Review the quality and usefulness of cost benefit analyses to help
ensure the cost-effectiveness of air quality regulations.
�Review developed countries' progress in reducing greenhouse gas
emissions and identify factors affecting their progress.
Water quality �Examine the states' needs for and spending of federal funds to
finance the construction of wastewater treatment facilities.
�Assess the progress of federal, state, and local governments in
responding to the most significant water quality concerns.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*** End of document. ***