Environmental Protection: Status of EPA's Efforts to Create a Central
Information Office (Statement/Record, 04/29/99, GAO/T-RCED-99-177).

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the Environmental
Protection Agency's (EPA) information management initiatives, focusing
on the: (1) status of EPA's efforts to create a central office
responsible for information management, policy, and technology issues;
and (2) major challenges that the new office needs to address in order
to achieve success in collecting, using, and disseminating environmental
information.

GAO noted that: (1) EPA estimates that its central information office
will be operational by the end of August 1999 and will have a staff of
about 350 employees; (2) the office will address a broad range of
information policy and technology issues, such as improving the accuracy
of EPA's data, protecting the security of information that EPA
disseminates over the Internet, developing better measures to assess
environmental conditions, and reducing information collection and
reporting burdens; (3) EPA recognizes the importance of developing an
information plan showing the goals of the new office and the means by
which they will be achieved but has not yet established milestones or
target dates for completing such a plan; (4) although EPA has made
progress in determining the organizational structure for the new office,
it has not yet finalized decisions on the office's authorities,
responsibilities, and budgetary needs; (5) the agency has not performed
an analysis to determine the types and the skills of employees that will
be needed to carry out the office's functions; (6) EPA officials told
GAO that decisions on the office's authorities, responsibilities,
budget, and staff will be made before the office is established in
August 1999; (7) on the basis of GAO's prior and ongoing reviews of
EPA's information management problems, GAO believes that the success of
the new office depends on the agency's addressing several key challenges
as it develops an information plan, budget, and organizational structure
for that office; and (8) most importantly, EPA needs to: (a) provide the
office with the resources and the expertise necessary to solve the
complex information management, policy, and technology problems facing
the agency; (b) empower the office to overcome organizational challenges
to adopting agencywide information policies and procedures; (c) balance
the agency's need for data on health, the environment, and program
outcomes with the call from the states and regulated industries to
reduce their reporting burdens; and (d) work closely with its state
partners to design and implement improved information management
systems.

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

 REPORTNUM:  T-RCED-99-177
     TITLE:  Environmental Protection: Status of EPA's Efforts to
	     Create a Central Information Office
      DATE:  04/29/99
   SUBJECT:  Environmental monitoring
	     Reporting requirements
	     Centralization
	     Information resources management
	     Strategic information systems planning
	     Government information dissemination
	     Computer security
	     Federal agency reorganization
	     Federal/state relations
	     Data integrity

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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION: Status of EPs Efforts to Create a
Central Information Office GAO/T-RCED-99-177 United States General
Accounting Office

GAO Testimony Before the Subcommittee on VA, HUD, and Independent

Agencies, Committee on Appropriations, U. S. Senate To Be Released
at 9: 30 a. m., EDT, Thursday April 29, 1999

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

Status of EPA's Efforts to Create a Central Information Office

Statement for the Record by Peter F. Guerrero Director,
Environmental Protection Issues, Resources, Community, and
Economic Development Division

GAO/T-RCED-99-177

  GAO/T-RCED-99-177

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: We appreciate the
opportunity to present this statement for the record, which
discusses our preliminary observations based on our ongoing work
for this Subcommittee concerning the Environmental Protection
Agency's (EPA) information management initiatives. Specifically,
this statement provides information on (1) the status of EPA's
efforts to create a central office responsible for information
management, policy, and technology issues and (2) the major
challenges that the new office needs to address in order to
achieve success in collecting, using, and disseminating
environmental information. Our final report will be provided in
August 1999.

EPA estimates that its central information office will be
operational by the end of August 1999 and will have a staff of
about 350 employees. The office will address a broad range of
information policy and technology issues, such as improving the
accuracy of EPA's data, protecting the security of information
that EPA disseminates over the Internet, developing better
measures to assess environmental conditions, and reducing
information collection and reporting burdens. EPA recognizes the
importance of developing an information plan showing the goals of
the new office and the means by which they will be achieved but
has not yet established milestones or target dates for completing
such a plan. Although EPA has made progress in determining the
organizational structure for the new office, it has not yet
finalized decisions on the office's authorities, responsibilities,
and budgetary needs. Nor has the agency performed an analysis to
determine the types and the skills of employees that will be
needed to carry out the office's functions. EPA officials told us
that decisions on the office's authorities, responsibilities,
budget, and staff will be made before the office is established in
August 1999.

On the basis of our prior and ongoing reviews of EPA's information
management problems, we believe that the success of the new office
depends on the agency's addressing several key challenges as it
develops an information plan, budget, and organizational structure
for that office. Most importantly, EPA needs to (1) provide the
office with the resources and the expertise necessary to solve the
complex information management, policy, and technology problems
facing the agency; (2) empower the office to overcome
organizational challenges to adopting agencywide information
policies and procedures; (3) balance the agency's need for data on
health, the environment, and program outcomes with the

GAO/T-RCED-99-177 Page 1

call from the states and regulated industries to reduce their
reporting burdens; and (4) work closely with its state partners to
design and implement improved information management systems.

Background In October 1998, the EPA Administrator announced plans
to create an office with responsibility for information
management, policy, and

technology. This announcement came after many previous efforts by
EPA to improve information management and after a long history of
concerns that we, the EPA Inspector General, and others have
expressed about the agency's information management activities.
Such concerns involve the accuracy and completeness of EPA's
environmental data, the fragmentation of the data across many
incompatible databases, and the need for improved measures of
program outcomes and environmental quality.

The EPA Administrator described the new office as being
responsible for improving the quality of information 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, the information office
would (1) ensure that the quality of data collected and used by
EPA is known and appropriate for its intended uses, (2) reduce the
burden of the states and regulated industries to collect and
report data, (3) fill significant data gaps, and (4) provide the
public with integrated information and statistics on issues
related to the environment and public health. The office would
also have the authority to implement standards and policies for
information resources management and be responsible for purchasing
and operating information technology and systems.

Progress Is Being Made, but Key Questions on Resources and
Strategies Remain Unresolved

Under a general framework for the new office that has been
approved by the EPA Administrator, EPA officials have been working
for the past several months to develop recommendations for
organizing existing EPA personnel and resources into the central
information office. Nonetheless, EPA has not yet developed an
information plan that identifies the office's goals, objectives,
and outcomes. Although agency officials acknowledge the importance
of developing such a plan, they have not established any
milestones for doing so. While EPA has made progress in
determining the organizational structure of the office, final
decisions have not been made and EPA has not yet identified the
employees and the resources that will be needed. Setting up the
organizational structure prior to developing an

GAO/T-RCED-99-177 Page 2

information plan runs the risk that the organization will not
contain the resources or structure needed to accomplish its goals.

Information Plan Is Needed

Although EPA has articulated both a vision as well as key goals
for its new information office, it has not yet developed an
information plan to show how the agency intends to achieve its
vision and goals. Given the many important and complex issues on
information management, policy, and technology that face the new
office, it will be extremely important for EPA to establish a
clear set of priorities and resources needed to accomplish them.
Such information is also essential for EPA to develop realistic
budgetary estimates for the office.

EPA has indicated that it intends to develop an information plan
for the agency that will provide a better mechanism to effectively
and efficiently plan its information and technology investments on
a multiyear basis. This plan will be coordinated with EPA s
agencywide strategic plan, prepared under the Government
Performance and Results Act. EPA intends for the plan to reflect
the results of its initiative to improve coordination among the
agency's major activities relating to information on environment
and program outcomes. It has not yet, however, developed any
milestones or target dates for initiating or completing either the
plan or the coordination initiative.

Organizational Structure Is Not Yet Determined

In early December 1998, the EPA Administrator approved a broad
framework for the new information office and set a goal of
completing the reorganization during the summer of 1999. Under the
framework approved by the EPA Administrator, the new office will
have three organizational units responsible for (1) information
policy and collection, (2) information technology and services,
and (3) information analysis and access, respectively. In
addition, three smaller units will provide support in areas such
as data quality and strategic planning.

A transition team of EPA staff has been tasked with developing
recommendations for the new office's mission and priorities as
well as its detailed organizational and reporting structure. In
developing these recommendations, the transition team has
consulted with the states, regulated industries, and other
stakeholders to exchange views regarding the vision, goals,
priorities, and initial projects for the office.

GAO/T-RCED-99-177 Page 3

One of the transition team's key responsibilities is to make
recommendations concerning which EPA units should move into the
information office and in which of the three major organizational
units they should go. To date, the transition team has not
finalized its recommendations on these issues or on how the new
office will operate and the staff it will need.

Needed Resources Are Still Unknown

Even though EPA has not yet determined which staff will be moved
to the central information office, the transition team's director
told us that it is expected that the office will have about 350
employees. She said that the staffing needs of the office will be
met by moving existing employees in EPA units affected by the
reorganization. The director said that, once the transition team
recommends which EPA units will become part of the central office,
the agency will determine which staff will be assigned to the
office. She added that staffing decisions will be completed by
July 1999 and the office will begin functioning sometime in August
1999.

The funding needs of the new office were not specified in EPA's
fiscal year 2000 budget request to the Congress because the agency
did not have sufficient information on them when the request was
submitted in February 1999. The director of the transition team
told us that in June 1999 the agency will identify the anticipated
resources that will transfer to the new office from various parts
of EPA. The agency plans to prepare the fiscal year 2000 operating
plan for the office in October 1999, when EPA has a better idea of
the resources needed to accomplish the responsibilities that the
office will be tasked with during its first year of operation. The
transition team's director told us that decisions on budget
allocations are particularly difficult to make at the present time
due to the sensitive nature of notifying managers of EPA's various
components that they may lose funds and staff to the new office.

Furthermore, EPA will soon need to prepare its budget for fiscal
year 2001. According to EPA officials, the Office of the Chief
Financial Officer will coordinate a planning strategy this spring
that will lead to the fiscal year 2001 annual performance plan and
proposed budget, which will be submitted to the Office of
Management and Budget by September 1999.

GAO/T-RCED-99-177 Page 4

EPA's New Information Office Will Face Significant Challenges

The idea of a centralized information office within EPA has been
met with enthusiasm in many corners not only by state regulators,
but also by representatives of regulated industries, environmental
advocacy groups, and others. Although the establishment of this
office is seen as an important step in improving how EPA collects,
manages, and disseminates information, the office will face many
challenges, some of which have thwarted previous efforts by EPA to
improve its information management activities. On the basis of our
prior and ongoing work, we believe that the agency must address
these challenges for the reorganization to significantly improve
EPA's information management activities. Among the most important
of these challenges are (1) obtaining sufficient resources and
expertise to address the complex information management issues
facing the agency; (2) overcoming problems associated with EPA's
decentralized organizational structure, such as the lack of
agencywide information dissemination policies; (3) balancing the
demand for more data with calls from the states and regulated
industries to reduce reporting burdens; and (4) working
effectively with EPA's counterparts in state government.

Obtaining Sufficient Resources and Expertise

The new organizational structure will offer EPA an opportunity to
better coordinate and prioritize its information initiatives. The
EPA Administrator and the senior- level officials charged with
creating the new office have expressed their intentions to make
fundamental improvements in how the agency uses information to
carry out its mission to protect human health and the environment.
They likewise recognize that the reorganization will raise a
variety of complex information policy and technology issues.

To address the significant challenges facing EPA, the new office
will need significant resources and expertise. EPA anticipates
that the new office will substantially improve the agency's
information management activities, rather than merely centralize
existing efforts to address information management issues. Senior
EPA officials responsible for creating the new office anticipate
that the information office will need purse strings control over
the agency's resources for information management expenditures in
order to implement its policies, data standards, procedures, and
other decisions agencywide. For example, one official told us that
the new office should be given veto authority over the development
or modernization of data systems throughout EPA.

To date, the focus of efforts to create the office has been on
what the agency sees as the more pressing task of determining
which organizational

GAO/T-RCED-99-177 Page 5

components and staff members should be transferred into the new
office. While such decisions are clearly important, EPA also needs
to determine whether its current information management resources,
including staff expertise, are sufficient to enable the new office
to achieve its goals.

Overcoming Problems Associated With EPA's Decentralized
Organizational Structure

EPA will need to provide the new office with sufficient authority
to overcome organizational obstacles to adopt agencywide
information policies and procedures. As we reported last
September, EPA has not yet developed policies and procedures to
govern key aspects of its projects to disseminate information, nor
has it developed standards to assess the data's accuracy and
mechanisms to determine and correct errors. 1

Because EPA does not have agencywide polices regarding the
dissemination of information, program offices have been making
their own, sometimes conflicting decisions about the types of
information to be released and the extent of explanations needed
about how data should be interpreted. Likewise, although the
agency has a quality assurance program, there is not yet a common
understanding across the agency of what data quality means and how
EPA and its state partners can most effectively ensure that the
data used for decision- making and/ or disseminated to the public
is of high quality. To address such issues, EPA plans to create a
Quality Board of senior managers within the new office in the
summer of 1999.

Although EPA acknowledges its need for agencywide policies
governing information collection, management, and dissemination,
it continues to operate in a decentralized fashion that heightens
the difficulty of developing and implementing agencywide
procedures. EPA's offices have been given the responsibility and
authority to develop and manage their own data systems for the
nearly 30 years since the agency's creation. Given this history,
overcoming the potential resistance to centralized policies may be
a serious challenge to the new information office.

Balancing the Need to Collect More Data and Efforts to Reduce
Reporting Burdens

EPA and its state partners in implementing environmental programs
have collected a wealth of environmental data under various
statutory and regulatory authorities. However, important gaps in
the data exist. For example, EPA has limited data that are based
on (1) the monitoring of environmental conditions and (2) the
exposures of humans to toxic

1 Environmental Information: Agencywide Policies and Procedures
Are Needed for EPA's Information Dissemination (GAO/RCED-98-245,
Sept. 24, 1998).

GAO/T-RCED-99-177 Page 6

pollutants. Furthermore, the human health and ecological effects
of many pollutants are not well understood. EPA also needs
comprehensive information on environmental conditions and their
changes over time to identify problem areas that are emerging or
that need additional regulatory action or other attention.

In contrast to the need for more and better data is a call from
states and regulated industries to reduce data management and
reporting burdens. EPA has recently initiated some efforts in this
regard. For example, an EPA/ state information management
workgroup looking into this issue has proposed an approach to
assess environmental information and data reporting requirements
based on the value of the information compared to the cost of
collecting, managing, and reporting it. EPA has announced that in
the coming months, its regional offices and the states will be
exploring possibilities for reducing paperwork requirements for
EPA's programs, testing specific initiatives in consultation with
EPA's program offices, and establishing a clearinghouse of
successful initiatives and pilot projects.

However, overall reductions in reporting burdens have proved
difficult to achieve. For example, in March 1996, we reported that
while EPA was pursuing a paperwork reduction of 20 million hours,
its overall paperwork burden was actually increasing because of
changes in programs and other factors. 2 The states and regulated
industries have indicated that they will look to EPA's new office
to reduce the burden of reporting requirements.

Working More Effectively With State Counterparts

Although both EPA and the states have recognized the value in
fostering a strong partnership concerning information management,
they also recognize that this will be a challenging task both in
terms of policy and technical issues. For example, the states vary
significantly in terms of the data they need to manage their
environmental programs, and such differences have complicated the
efforts of EPA and the states to develop common standards to
facilitate data sharing. The task is even more challenging given
that EPA's various information systems do not use common data
standards. For example, an individual facility is not identified
by the same code in different systems.

Given that EPA depends on state regulatory agencies to collect
much of the data it needs and to help ensure the quality of that
data, EPA recognizes the need to work in a close partnership with
the states on a wide variety of

2 Environmental Protection: Assessing EPA's Progress in Paperwork
Reduction (GAO/T-RCED-96-107, March 21, 1996).

GAO/T-RCED-99-177 Page 7

information management activities, including the creation of its
new information office. Some partnerships have already been
created. For example, EPA and the states are reviewing reporting
burdens to identify areas in which the burden can be reduced or
eliminated. Under another EPA initiative, the agency is working
with states to create data standards so that environmental
information from various EPA and state databases can be more
readily shared. Representatives of state environmental agencies
and the Environmental Council of the States have expressed their
ideas and concerns about the role of EPA's new information office
and have frequently reminded EPA that they expect to share with
EPA the responsibility for setting that office's goals,
priorities, and strategies. According to a Council official, the
states have had more input to the development of the new EPA
office than they typically have had in other major policy issues
and the states view this change as an improvement in their
relationship with EPA.

Observations Collecting and managing the data that EPA requires to
manage its programs have been major long- term challenges for the
agency. The EPA

Administrator's recent decision to create a central information
office to make fundamental agencywide improvements in data
management activities is a step in the right direction. However,
creating such an organization from disparate parts of the agency
is a complex process and substantially improving and integrating
EPA's information systems will be difficult and likely require
several years. To fully achieve EPA's goals will require high
priority within the agency, including the long- term appropriate
resources and commitment of senior management.

(160489) GAO/T-RCED-99-177 Page 8

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