Managing for Results: EPA's Efforts to Implement Needed Management
Systems and Processes (Stmnt. for the Rec., 04/15/97, GAO/T-RCED-97-133).
GAO discussed the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) efforts to
improve its methods of establishing priorities, allocating resources,
and measuring performance.
GAO noted that: (1) in March 1996, the EPA Administrator announced plans
to create a new Office of Planning, Analysis, and Accountability; (2)
the office was established in January 1997; (3) in the interim, an EPA
work group composed of employees on temporary assignment started to
develop the new planning, budgeting, and accountability system; (4)
however, the work group was not fully staffed, and the development of
the new system is still in the early stages; (5) the new Office of
Planning, Analysis, and Accountability will not be fully staffed before
July 1997; (6) EPA faces long-term challenges to obtain the scientific
and environmental data needed to fully support its new system; (7)
although much environmental information has already been collected, many
gaps exist and the data are often difficult to compile because divergent
data collection methods have been used; (8) likewise, much effort is
still required to identify, develop, and agree on a comprehensive set of
environmental measures to link the agency's activities to changes in
environmental conditions; and (9) without environmental measures, EPA
has to rely solely on administrative measures, such as the number of
permits issued or inspections made, to measure its performance or
success.
--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------
REPORTNUM: T-RCED-97-133
TITLE: Managing for Results: EPA's Efforts to Implement Needed
Management Systems and Processes
DATE: 04/15/97
SUBJECT: Strategic planning
Mission budgeting
Management information systems
Accountability
Statistical data
Federal agency reorganization
Environmental monitoring
Strategic information systems planning
Federal/state relations
IDENTIFIER: EPA National Environmental Goals Project
EPA National Environmental Performance Partnership System
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Cover
================================================================ COVER
Before the Subcommittee on VA, HUD, and Independent Agencies,
Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives
For Release
on Delivery
Expected at
10 a.m. EDT
Tuesday
April 15, 1997
MANAGING FOR RESULTS - EPA'S
EFFORTS TO IMPLEMENT NEEDED
MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS AND PROCESSES
Statement for the Record by
Peter F. Guerrero, Director,
Environmental Protection Issues,
Resources, Community, and Economic
Development Division
GAO/T-RCED-97-133
GAO/RCED-97-133T
(160394)
Abbreviations
=============================================================== ABBREV
EPA -
NAPA -
NEPPS -
GPRA -
============================================================ Chapter 0
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
We appreciate the opportunity to present this statement for the
record, which discusses the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA)
efforts to improve its methods of establishing priorities, allocating
resources, and measuring performance. As you know, EPA is currently
developing a new approach for managing its strategic planning,
budgeting, and accountability processes. The new approach, known as
the planning, budgeting, and accountability system, responds to the
National Academy of Public Administration's (NAPA) April 1995
recommendation that EPA improve and integrate its management
processes.\1
In response to this Subcommittee's continuing interest in how EPA
sets priorities and helps to manage the nation's environment, we
reviewed the status of EPA's efforts to (1) establish an Office of
Planning, Analysis, and Accountability to develop and implement an
integrated planning, budgeting, and accountability system and (2)
ensure that the agency has comprehensive scientific and environmental
data and appropriate environmental measures of progress in carrying
out its strategic planning, budgeting, and accountability processes.
Our testimony today is based on the preliminary results of our
ongoing work for the Subcommittee. A final report on our work will
be provided to the Subcommittee this summer.
In summary, our preliminary findings are as follows:
-- In March 1996, the EPA Administrator announced plans to create a
new Office of Planning, Analysis, and Accountability. The
office was established in January 1997. In the interim, an EPA
work group composed of employees on temporary assignment started
to develop the new planning, budgeting, and accountability
system. However, the work group was not fully staffed, and the
development of the new system is still in the early stages. The
new Office of Planning, Analysis, and Accountability will not be
fully staffed before July 1997.
-- EPA faces long-term challenges to obtain the scientific and
environmental data needed to fully support its new system.
Although much environmental information has already been
collected, many gaps exist and the data are often difficult to
compile because divergent data collection methods have been
used. Likewise, much effort is still required to identify,
develop, and agree on a comprehensive set of environmental
measures to link the agency's activities to changes in
environmental conditions. Without environmental measures, EPA
has to rely solely on administrative measures, such as the
number of permits issued or inspections made, to measure its
performance or success.
--------------------
\1 Setting Priorities, Getting Results: A New Direction for EPA,
NAPA (Apr. 1995).
BACKGROUND
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:1
In an April 1995 report, the National Academy of Public
Administration recommended that EPA establish specific environmental
goals and strategies to attain them, and use comparative risk
analyses to select priorities and develop strategies for specific
programs. NAPA also said that EPA should consolidate its planning
and budgeting functions, use the budget process to allocate resources
to the agency's priorities, and establish accountability by setting
and tracking benchmarks and evaluating performance. The NAPA study's
recommendations are similar to the requirements for federal agencies
established by the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993
(GPRA). Under GPRA, agencies must establish strategic plans, by
September 30, 1997. GPRA also requires agencies to submit to the
Office of Management and Budget, beginning for fiscal year 1999,
annual performance plans, including annual performance goals and
performance measures. The first annual performance plans are to be
submitted in the fall of 1997.
In response to NAPA's recommendations, in July 1995, EPA created a
task force to study ways to improve the agency's management
processes. In its report, the task force recommended an integrated
system composed of strategic planning, budgeting, and accountability
processes. In the planning process, EPA was to develop a strategic
plan that would be based on the agency's goals. During the budgeting
process, each goal in the strategic plan would be considered, and an
annual performance plan would be prepared showing the agency's
progress to date and plans for future expenditures. During the
accountability process, EPA would determine progress under the annual
plans and use the data on progress to make corrections in the
strategic and annual performance plans.
In March 1996, the EPA Administrator and Deputy Administrator
endorsed the task force's recommendations for developing an
integrated planning, budgeting, and accountability system and
directed that the recommendations be implemented. In making a
commitment to substantially revise the agency's management systems,
EPA officials recognized that the effort would take several years to
complete. The EPA Administrator and Deputy Administrator also
announced plans to create a new office by January 1997 to consolidate
the agency's planning, budgeting, and accountability processes. In
the interim, a work group composed of employees on temporary
assignment was established to begin developing the new system.
EPA IS IN THE PROCESS OF
STAFFING ITS NEW OFFICE
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:2
In January 1997, the EPA Administrator approved the structure and
staffing plans for the new office, called the Office of Planning,
Analysis, and Accountability. The interim work group that had been
assigned to develop the new system was detailed to the new office to
continue its work. The work group has 21 employees, fewer than half
the number that EPA had planned for the group.
The new office is authorized 49 employees. As of the end of March
1997, EPA had published job announcements to fill 26 of the new
positions. EPA officials told us that these announced positions,
which are open only to current EPA employees, will be filled in May
1997. The remaining positions, which are to be announced
governmentwide, are not likely to be filled before July 1997. The
officials told us that the office was not fully staffed when it was
established because time was required to determine the most
appropriate types of skills and work experiences needed and to
implement a competitive process for selecting staff.
Given the office's limited staffing, the development of an integrated
system is in the early stages. For example, EPA is reviewing the
agency's former accountability process to find out what did and did
not work well, contacting other federal agencies to determine how
they account for progress in meeting their goals, and examining
reporting systems in the agency's program offices to identify their
potential use in the new system. EPA hopes to have the
accountability component in place by September 1999. According to
EPA officials, the development of the new budgeting component will
begin after the agency completes its strategic plan in September
1997. They said that EPA's fiscal year 1999 budget will be
structured along the lines of the goals in the strategic plan.
Thus far, the work group members have spent most of their time
developing a strategic plan, which is required by September 30, 1997,
under GPRA. An important part of the new strategic planning process
is the selection of goals and objectives that can be used to guide
the agency's actions and to measure its performance. Although EPA is
making progress toward developing its strategic plan, it has not
completed two studies that are intended to identify the most
appropriate goals for the agency and to provide the latest scientific
information on environmental risk.\2 EPA officials told us that the
September 30, 1997, strategic plan will be updated, as appropriate,
to reflect the final results of these studies, which are likely to be
completed in late 1997 or early 1998.
--------------------
\2 One of the studies, EPA's National Environmental Goals Project, is
being performed to establish a set of long-range national
environmental goals with realistic and measurable milestones for the
year 2005. The other study, the Integrated Risk Project, is being
performed to rank the relative risk of environmental problems, and to
develop methodologies that EPA can use to make future risk rankings.
EPA MUST OVERCOME INFORMATION
CHALLENGES TO IMPLEMENT ITS NEW
SYSTEM
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:3
Although EPA continues to expand and improve the environmental data
it compiles, it still needs to fill data gaps; improve the quality of
its data; integrate information systems; and build the capability to
compile, organize, and analyze the data in ways useful to EPA
managers and stakeholders. In addition to the measures of outputs or
program activities that it currently relies on to assess its
performance, EPA is working to develop environmental measures that
enable the agency to evaluate the impact of its programs on the
environment and determine whether they are achieving the desired
results.
EPA'S ENVIRONMENTAL DATA AND
SYSTEMS NEED TO BE IMPROVED
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:3.1
The need to assess EPA's performance in terms of changes in
environmental conditions substantially increases the demand for
high-quality environmental data. Such data are also needed to
identify emerging problems so that they can be addressed before
significant damage is done to the environment. Despite EPA's efforts
to improve the quality of its data, these data are often unreliable,
and the agency's many disparate information systems are not
integrated. These shortcomings have been raised in various external
and internal reports on EPA, including the Vice President's report on
reinventing government.\3
In its April 1995 report, NAPA also identified the lack of
high-quality data on environmental conditions as a particularly
important problem for EPA. NAPA specifically noted the limited
amount of information based on the real-time monitoring of
environmental conditions. Without monitoring data, EPA must rely on
estimates and limited, site-specific data. NAPA also concluded that
much remains to be done to improve the overall management of
environmental information in the agency. It noted that EPA had over
500 information systems and that program offices, which are
responsible for their own data, use different methods and definitions
to gather data. Furthermore, EPA relies on data compiled by other
federal agencies and the states. According to NAPA, these agencies
and the states also use divergent methods of collecting data.\4
More recently, a 1996 EPA report concluded that the agency needs to
redesign its many disparate fiscal and environmental data systems so
that it and others can measure its success in meeting environmental
goals and determine the costs of doing so.\5 The agency's difficulty
in demonstrating its performance or the impact of its actions is
illustrated by the findings of a team of agency personnel, which was
formed in 1995 to evaluate the agency's needs for environmental
information. The team identified various problems with the
information needed to report on environmental goals, such as gaps in
the data and inconsistencies in the methods of collecting and/or
reporting data across states or federal agencies. Specific examples
include the lack of (1) national reporting on risk reduction at waste
sites, (2) reliable data on the nature and cause of pesticide
poisonings, (3) effective reporting on progress in improving the
nation's water quality, and (4) complete data on air pollutants.
--------------------
\3 Reinventing Environmental Regulation, National Performance Review
(Mar. 16, 1995).
\4 In Environmental Protection: EPA's Problems With Collection and
Management of Scientific Data and Its Efforts to Address Them
(GAO/T-RCED-95-174, May 12, 1995), we testified that our previous
reports had identified long-standing data quality and data management
problems at EPA.
\5 Managing for Results, EPA's Planning, Budgeting, and
Accountability Task Force (Feb. 23, 1996).
EFFORTS TO DEVELOP
ENVIRONMENTAL MEASURES NEED
FOCUS
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:3.2
EPA and the states are devoting considerable attention to developing
environmental indicators or measures for use in assessing programs'
performance and better informing the public about environmental
conditions and trends. Some efforts are just starting, while some of
the agency's program and regional offices and some states have begun
to use these measures in reporting on their programs' performance.
Although EPA and state officials believe that environmental measures
are more useful than measures of activities for assessing programs'
performance, they recognize that scientific and technical issues have
to be addressed before indicators that really measure environmental
conditions and trends can be widely used. Developing and using
environmental indicators for an entire program presents significant
challenges.
The scientific and technical challenges include identifying (1) a
range of health or environmental conditions that can be measured and
(2) changes in these conditions that can be linked to a program's
activities. These tasks are especially difficult because natural
causes, such as changes in weather patterns, and other factors
outside a program's control can affect environmental conditions. In
some cases, data or indicators are not available for a specific
aspect of the environment because of high costs or technical
difficulties. Thus, it could be some time before EPA is able to
develop and use a set of environmental indicators that accurately
reflect the impact of its programs or their results.
According to EPA officials, the agency's and the states' efforts to
develop and use environmental measures have been valuable but
disparate. Furthermore, at a conference convened by EPA in September
1996 to better coordinate these efforts, as well as in interviews
conducted by EPA staff to prepare for the conference, regional and
state representatives cited several concerns. They said, for
example, that (1) clarification is needed on EPA's and the states'
direction in developing goals and indicators, (2) the qualities of a
good indicator are not well understood, and (3) determining whether
the best indicators have been chosen will take many years. The
representatives also believed that the data and resources needed to
develop and use environmental indicators are inadequate.
An additional challenge will be to reach agreement within EPA and
among its stakeholders on the specific environmental indicators that
will be used to measure performance. A consensus may be difficult to
reach because of the potential for debate on what is important about
individual programs and whether a relatively small number of measures
can adequately reflect the effects of an agency's or a program's
activities. EPA will need a set of measures common to all the states
to report to the Congress and the public on the agency's performance
and the state of the nation's environment. At the same time, the
development of national measures, to the extent that such measures
drive the implementation of environmental programs, will reduce the
states' flexibility to tailor the programs to meet local needs and
conditions, a major concern of the states. Reporting on new measures
will also increase the states' costs unless other reporting
requirements are eliminated or reduced.
In May 1995, EPA signed an agreement with state leaders to implement
a new system of federal oversight for state environmental programs.
This new National Environmental Performance Partnership System
fundamentally changes EPA's working relationship with the states
because it places greater emphasis on the use of environmental goals
and indicators, calls for environmental performance agreements
between EPA and individual states, and provides opportunities for
reducing the agency's oversight of state programs that exhibit high
performance in certain areas. As of March 1997, about half of the
states had signed performance partnership agreements to participate
in the system.
EPA's Office of Regional Operations and State/Local Relations is
developing a set of core performance measures, including some
environmental indicators, that the agency's regional offices are to
use in negotiating annual work plans and agreements with the states.
The core measures are to be focused and limited in number,
representing measurable priorities for each of EPA's national program
managers. They are to serve as the minimum measures in performance
agreements with the states, which may develop additional measures to
represent their own environmental or programmatic issues. In
addition, a particular core measure may not be required if a state
can demonstrate that the measure does not apply or cannot be
addressed. According to EPA, its national program managers will
finalize their core measures in April 1997 and its regional staff
will begin negotiations with the states to incorporate the measures
into the agreements for fiscal year 1998. At this point, it is too
soon to know how extensively EPA's regional offices will be
negotiating measures that reflect programs' direct effects on human
health and the environment.
*** End of document. ***