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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Inspector General
At a Glance
2006-P-00006
December 15, 2005
Catalyst for Improving the Environment
Why We Did This Review
We did this review to
determine (1) how the Office
of Enforcement and
Compliance Assurance
(OECA) measures and reports
enforcement and compliance
effectiveness and progress,
and (2) how well OECA's
performance measures
characterize changes in
compliance or other
outcomes, and provide
transparency.
Background
Performance measures allow
the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) to
chart its progress against its
goals. Ensuring compliance
with environmental laws and
regulations is critical to
accomplishing EPA's mission.
EPA must publicly report its
progress in the most
transparent way possible so
stakeholders can determine
whether OECA's strategies,
policies, and programs are
effective.
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/2006/
20051215-2006-P-00006.pdf
EPA Performance Measures Do Not
Effectively Track Compliance Outcomes
What We Found
In response to our first objective, we found that OECA primarily measures
progress in ensuring compliance using output measures. OECA uses several types
of internal performance reports to monitor enforcement and compliance progress
throughout the year, and reports progress to Congress and the public in several
ways. Through these reports, OECA has stated it generally met its annual
performance goals.
In response to our second objective, we found that OECA's 2005 publicly-
reported GPRA performance measures do not effectively characterize changes in
compliance or other outcomes because OECA lacks compliance rates and other
reliable outcome data. In the absence of compliance rates, OECA reports proxies
for compliance to the public and does not know if compliance is actually going up
or down. As a result, OECA does not have all of the data it needs to make
management and program decisions. What is missing most, the biggest gap, is
information about compliance rates. OECA cannot demonstrate the reliability of
other measures because it has not verified that estimated, predicted, or facility
self-reported outcomes actually took place. Some measures do not clearly link to
OECA's strategic goals. Finally, OECA frequently changed its performance
measures from year to year, which reduced transparency.
What We Recommend
We recommend that the Assistant Administrator for Enforcement and Compliance
Assurance:
•	Design and implement a pilot project to verify estimated, predicted, and
facility self-reported outcomes, and report on the pilot's results to
demonstrate the reliability of such performance measures;
•	Improve the linkage/relationship of OECA's goals and measures in EPA
strategic and budgetary documents to improve external understanding and
internal usefulness; and
•	Continue to improve enforcement and compliance performance measures,
while continuing to publicly report key measures annually to provide the
public, Congress, and other specific stakeholders a minimal amount of
comparable trend data.
EPA agreed with all of our report recommendations. We also made other
revisions based on EPA's comments as we determined appropriate.

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