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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Inspector General
At a Glance
2005-P-00024
September 19, 2005
Why We Did This Review
To enforce its regulations and
achieve maximum compliance,
a regulatory agency must know
its entire regulated universe.
We sought to determine how
well the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA)
Office of Enforcement and
Compliance Assurance
(OECA) knows the
composition and size of its
regulated universe, as well as
how OECA determines and
reports compliance levels
across the regulated universe.
Background
OECA compiled its regulated
universe table to provide
consistent numbers when
presenting compliance
information to Congress, the
public, and other stakeholders.
The information also aids EPA
in making management
decisions about compliance and
enforcement resource
allocations. In the universe
table issued in September 2001,
OECA reported an inventory of
approximately 41.1 million
regulated entities.
For further information, contact
our Office of Congressional and
Public Liaison at (202) 566-2391.
To view the full report,
click on the following link:
www.epa.qov/oiq/reports/2005/
20050919-2005-P-00024.pdf
Catalyst for Improving the Environment
Limited Knowledge of the Universe of
Regulated Entities Impedes EPA's Ability to
Demonstrate Changes in Regulatory Compliance
What We Found
OECA has limited knowledge of the diverse regulated universe for which it
maintains responsibility. OECA has not updated its universe table since
generating it in 2001, even though some universe figures for reviewed program
areas have changed substantially. EPA has used the 2001 table as a source for
describing the size of its regulated universe in public documents. Various data
quality issues impact OECA's ability to adequately identify the size of its
regulated universe and associated compliance information. OECA concentrates
most of its regulatory activities on large entities and knows little about the
identities or cumulative impact of small entities. OECA cannot effectively use
universe figures to assist with its regulatory activities. OECA does not develop
programmatic compliance information, adequately report on the size of the
universe for which it maintains responsibility, or rely on universe figures to assist
with planning.
OECA's limited universe knowledge prevents it from determining overall
compliance levels in five of the six regulatory program areas we reviewed. This
hinders OECA's ability to generate valid programmatic compliance information
and effectively determine program success. In addition, OECA lacks adequate
transparency in publicly reporting some currently available compliance
information.
What We Recommend
We recommend that OECA biannually update publicly released universe figures,
and produce complete, reasonably accurate, and current universe data. Further,
OECA should better describe its enforcement and compliance role, develop an
objective to obtain better reporting from States, and request EPA program offices
to analyze and report on the cumulative impact of violations from small entities.
Also, we recommend that OECA develop and publish information that
demonstrates changes in compliance levels, and better share existing compliance
data and analyses that will provide external stakeholders with an improved
understanding of programmatic compliance levels. EPA agreed with some of our
recommendations, but not those related to biannually updating universe figures,
developing an objective to obtain better reporting from States, or for developing
programmatic compliance information.

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