&EPA InSight
This supplement to EPA InSight contains up-to-date policy information from the
Administrator/Deputy Administrator to all EPA employees.
Mission and Management September 1992, No. 1 EPA-175-N-92-005
Below is an oral statement from Administrator Bill
Reilly to the U.S. House Energy and Commerce
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
(Chairman John Dingell, D-MI) - July 8,1992:
....AT EPA the mission of environmental protection is
paramount. It is the reason why people come to work for
us. It explains the special zeal of EPA's people It is
what people from other agencies often notice and
comment on. Two things stand out about EPA people.
First, they are highly committed to protecting the
environment. EPA is not one of those agencies where,
when you walk through the corridors, you feel the
adrenalin running out of your shoes. Second, EPA gets
the job done.
LOOKING BACK over the 21-year history of EPA, it's
impressive how much the Agency has achieved and
how successful this country has been in achieving the
Nation's environmental goals We brought the Great
Lakes back. Lake Erie, whose tributary caught fire in the
late 1960s, was dying—choking in algae, nutrients, fecal
coliform, and chemicals. Last year, it produced a record-
breaking take of commercial fish We reduced carbon
monoxide and sulfur dioxide in cities by one-third or
more. We eliminated two-thirds of the particulates from
the air in our cities. We eliminated 97 percent of lead
emissions. We banned ozone-depleting chemicals and
aerosols and canceled numerous cancer-causing
chemicals. We are now cleaning up Superfund sites at
the rate of one per week. Yesterday in New Jersey we
achieved our one-hundredth clean up
I COULD GO ON But my point is, don't lose sight of
the fact that, in no other area of public policy where the
Nation has defined goals for itself, have we met them
as unmistakably and indisputably as in the
environmental area
A REPORTER recently commented to me that it's not
politically correct to acknowledge the successes we have
had with the environment Well, maybe not But it is
true, and it must not be overlooked by anything we
have done with respect to contractors
... MUCH OF MY TIME at EPA has been spent
delivering a message that says we have achieved a great
deal over the last 20 years. But to continue our success,
we will have to do things differently. We will have to
pay more attention to science and to risk analysis to help
us set realistic priorities. We will have to pay more
attention to the big threats to health and the environment
and less attention to the problems scientists tell us matter
less.
WE WILL have to pay more attention to economics
because...there are many other important claims on scarce
public and private resources.
WE WILL have to pay more attention to industry itself,
which is paying for our environmental progress and, to
an unprecedented degree, is achieving cost-effective
progress under voluntary programs I also think industry
can move with us beyond reflexive confrontation to
cooperative problem-solving with new technologies,
market-based pollution-trading programs, and
performance-based regulations.
Contracts pose a fundamentally similar challenge to
us—a challenge to broaden our concept of mission. We
are not eco-cowboys We are 18,000-plus people, soon to
have a budget, we hope, of $7 billion, obligating $1.2
billion annually on our contracts and purchases. To
husband the public's money, we need to clamp down
harder and faster on contractor abuses. We will. To
retain the public trust, we need to give contract
management a much higher priority at EPA. We will.
To get the job done—which requires spending money
carefully, keeping public confidence, and maximizing the
use of our resources—we need to elevate the priority we
give to rewarding good contract management. We will.
. THERE ARE NO EXCUSES for our inattention to this
problem. But we caught it before disaster struck We are
not, apparently, dealing with widespread corruption or
gross incompetence The practical result of our cultural
problem has been one of failure in accountability EPA
managers have not been considered vested with authority
for contract management, nor have they been held
responsible for the results It is hard to recognize cross
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-programmatic problems without accountability. For
example, splitting the contract management functions
between program offices and the Office of Administration
and Resources Management has allowed accountability to
fall between the cracks. There have been some
reasonably important external bathers, beyond our
control, to quality contract management, such as
ambiguity in the allowable cost language of the Federal
Acquisition Regulations, closeout audit backlogs within
the Defense Contract Auditing Agency and the IG’s
Office, and the budget limitations concerning full-time
employees These reasons are not an excuse for our
problems. But we are working constructively with other
agencies to address them
LET ME BRIEFLY REVIEW the steps we have taken
to date We have formed a Standing Committee on
Contract Management We have created a Federal
Contract Management Board which includes important
representatives from outside our Agency. We have
appointed senior counsels in vulnerable areas, such as
the ARCS area and the Office of Research and
Development. With respect to resources, we have
requested 94 additional workyears for the Inspector
General. As indicated earlier, we have had a 76 percent
increase in the resources provided to the Inspector
General on our watch We are now proposing an
increase that would result in, if granted, one out of every
40 employees at EPA working for the IG We have also
set aside $3 million for new procurement staff for this
year With -respect to the Computer Sciences
Corporation Technical Operations and Support Services
contract, we have cancelled waivers of educational
requirements involving 165 CSC employees We have
also cancelled years four and five of the TOSS contract
We have terminated the CSC Technical Support Services
contract at the National Contracts Payment Center in
Research Triangle Park, where we risked compromising
confidential business information We have undertaken
a whole host of actions in response to audits, including
increased security and field visits
I WILL EFFECT a reorganization of OARM to create
a new Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Agency’s
business-like functions, including procurement, contract
management, and comptroller duties This will raise the
visibility of contract management within the Agency We
are also evaluating a system whereby administrative
contracting officers would be placed in program offices--
as opposed to OARM--to handle all contract management
duties
WITH RESPECT to contract planning, we are
instituting a requirement that a comprehensive contract
management plan be developed before a contract can be
awarded We are reviewing all contracts for improper
disclosures of confidential business information. WITH
RESPECT to research and development, we declared
extramural management of R&D contractors a “material
weakness” in our 1990 and 1991 financial management
mtegnty reports. In 1991, we established eight
management steps in ORD to improve perceived
weaknesses
BEGINNING IN 1991, we sent ORD reviewers to each
remote lab to correct contract practices in response to
interim findings and have issued a series of new policies.
In March, we reassigned the Duluth Lab Director to other
duties pending an IG investigation, and we are now
considenng appropnate actions against other EPA
employees at the Duluth Lab. We cancelled three
contracts with Asci Inc., which were criticized by the IG
IN NOVEMBER 1991, we issued an implementation
plan for improvmg ARCS contract management We
terminated a Superfund ARCS contract in Region IV.
There will be more We lowered program management
costs to the level targeted m the 1992 Appropriations Bill
We are currently at 15 percent, down substantially from
where we were We prohibited award fees to contractors
rated only “minimally satisfactory.” An ARCS Council
has been formed with senior officials.
WITH RESPECT to our Office of Policy, Planning, and
Evaluation, we established a contract management
oversight group, consisting of two contract officers and
an experienced contract manager on detail to OPPE from
a program office This oversight group has accomplished
the following It established a five-year acquisition
strategy, with an emphasis on competition and cost
control It provided guidance to every professional
employee in OPPE It removed all but two contractors
from OPPE’s physical space. It overhauled standard
contracting procedures. It established an on-line contract
tracking system And it established a permanent group
to report directly to the OPPE deputy.
WITH RESPECT to training, we trained over 85 percent
of our SES employees. The Air Force Institute of
Technology will provide advance training in the fall
MR CHAIRMAN, our lack of accountability is in the
past All EPA employees, from senior managers all the
way down the line, must understand the importance of
quality contract management in pursuing the
environmental mission The changes outlined here will
succeed in changing our culture to one where mission
and management are married
EPA HAS LED THE WAY in achieving the
environmental objectives this Nation has set for itself
There isn’t a state or city, a lake, river or harbor that isn’t
better off because of this fact. We have been first in
advancing the standards of environmental protection.
I now want us to be first in the management of
contracts.
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