STA?.
. *. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency	12-P-0519
I' IfcJl \ Office of Inspector General	June 5>2012
p
4*
22
At a Glance
Why We Did This Review
We sought to determine
what progress the U.S.
Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) made in
completing its corrective action
plan to close out the Agency-
level weakness on data
standards.
Background
In fiscal year 2005, EPA
recognized data standards as an
Agency-level weakness, and
the Office of Environmental
Information developed a
corrective action plan to
address this weakness. EPA's
corrective action plan was
based on completing three
concurrent courses of action.
These actions include
(1) communicating with EPA
program offices on the need to
implement data standards more
fully, (2) tracking program
implementation of data
standards, and (3) verifying
progress in implementing data
standards.
EPA Data Standards Plan Completed
But Additional Steps Are Needed
For further information, contact
our Office of Congressional and
Public Affairs at (202) 566-2391.
The full report is at:
www.epa.gov/oiq/reports/2012!
20120605-12-P-0519.pdf
What We Found
Although EPA completed the steps listed in its corrective action plan to close out
the Agency-level weakness on data standards, the actions taken were either
incomplete or lacked steps to help management determine the overall
effectiveness of the Agency's implementation of data standards. In particular, we
determined that EPA:
•	Developed a data standards training program. However, management
took no steps to identify who needed the training, track whether the
appropriate personnel took the training, or obtain feedback from staff on
the training to ascertain the training's effectiveness.
•	Created data standards report cards. However, these report cards are
inaccurate because EPA offices did not update the system used to create
the report cards. Also, the report card format is such that management
could not clearly see whether individual offices were in compliance with
data standards.
•	Completed two conformance reviews to determine system compliance
with the data standards. However, management made no plans to conduct
additional reviews.
What We Recommend
Based on our on-going discussions with EPA officials, we modified the draft
report recommendations to be consistent with the new strategy EPA plans to take
to implement data standards. As such, among other recommendations, we
recommend that the Assistant Administrator for Environmental Information:
•	Update the data standards guidance available to EPA offices.
•	Implement a new data standards communication plan.
•	Provide specific instructions to EPA offices for updating the Registry of
EPA Applications and Databases.
•	Create a high-level data standards report card for senior executives.
•	Develop a new strategy for ensuring compliance with data standards.
Planned Agency Corrective Actions
The Agency concurred with the recommendations and provided a complete
corrective action plan to address our revised recommendations.

-------