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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency	18-P-0079
^	\ Office of Inspector General	February 13,2018
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At a Glance
Why We Did This Review
We conducted this review to
determine whether the
U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency's (EPA's) negotiations,
review and approval of state
work plans for compliance
inspections—which are
required as part of Federal
Insecticide, Fungicide, and
Rodenticide Act (FIFRA)
cooperative agreements—
support the achievement of
agency goals and
requirements.
Under FIFRA, the EPA has the
authority to regulate how
pesticides are registered,
distributed and sold, and
whether they are used
appropriately. Through
cooperative agreements, the
EPA's pesticides compliance
monitoring program awards
states approximately
$19 million annually. As part of
the cooperative agreements,
grantees must submit annual
work plans that commit to
performing a certain number of
inspections.
This report addresses the
following:
• Ensuring the safety of
chemicals.
Send all inquiries to our public
affairs office at (202) 566-2391
or visit www.epa.gov/oiq.
EPA Can Better Manage State Pesticide
Cooperative Agreements to More Effectively
Use Funds and Reduce Risk of Pesticide Misuse
What We Found
The EPA cannot ensure that its FIFRA
cooperative agreement funding achieves
agency goals and reduces risks to human
health and the environment from pesticide
misuse. We identified weaknesses in the
processes that underlie the development
and monitoring of FIFRA compliance
inspection work plans. Specifically:
Improvements in developing and
monitoring FIFRA compliance
inspection work plans support
effective and efficient use of
enforcement funding and risk
management.
•	EPA FIFRA Project Officers did not consistently assess whether thefunding
requested by states for compliance inspections was reasonable. We found
that EPA funding per planned inspection can vary significantly among state
cooperative agreements. Moreover, EPA guidance for assessing whether the
funding requested is reasonable was not well defined.
•	The EPA did not use the performance of completed state pesticide
enforcement work plans to improve successive work plans or to demonstrate
whether compliance inspections achieved agency goals and requirements.
Improving how pesticide program cooperative agreements are administered can
provide the EPA with the information it needs to assess the value and benefits of
state compliance inspections and make informed decisions about how many
compliance inspections states can reasonably perform each year. Improvements
will also enable the EPA to determine whether compliance inspection funding
reduces the risks pesticide misuse poses to human health and the environment,
as well as how to better target compliance inspection funding.
Recommendations and Planned Agency Corrective Actions
We recommend that the Assistant Administrator for Enforcement and
Compliance Assurance (1) develop and implement additional FIFRA guidance to
assist Project Officers in evaluating whether funding is reasonable given
projected work plan tasks, and (2) conduct a national review of state work plans
and performance to verify the consistent application of agency guidance and the
achievement of agency goals and requirements. The EPA agreed with our
recommendations and provided acceptable corrective actions.
Listing of OIG reports.

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