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March 26, 2008
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Office of Inspector General
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At a Glance
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Why We Did This Review
We evaluated the U.S. Environ-
mental Protection Agency's
(EPA's) Superfund cost recovery
and billing practices at a sample
of National Priority List (NPL)
sites. The objectives were to
determine: (1) What were the
total Superfund expenditures at
NPL sites where a viable business
is the primary responsible party,
and have those expenditures been
recovered? (2) Are EPA regional
offices effectively billing site
costs? (3) Were incorrect costs
corrected and billed to the
appropriate site?
Background
The Comprehensive Environ-
mental Response, Compensation,
and Liability Act (CERCLA, or
Superfund) authorizes the Federal
Government, States, and private
parties to recover Superfund
cleanup expenses (costs) from
potentially responsible parties.
When EPA conducts Superfund
cleanup and oversight work, it
takes actions to recover those
costs from responsible parties.
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/2008/
20080326-08-P-0116.pdf
Catalyst for Improving the Environment
EPA Can Recover
More Federal Superfund Money
What We Found
We found that EPA regions have recovered $165 million of $294 million
(56 percent) of the total Superfund costs from the sites we reviewed.
Potentially responsible parties (PRPs) at these sites have generally paid what
they have been billed. However, EPA has not recovered as much as
$129 million (44 percent) and has determined it will not attempt to recover
between $30 million and $90 million of this amount. This indicates a
potentially significant breakdown in controls over Superfund cost recovery.
Regions generally use similar billing processes to recover their Superfund costs
from private parties, but exceptions exist. As a result of this evaluation, two
EPA regions discovered they should have billed two sites approximately
$1.8 million. These costs are now being billed.
EPA regions have no formal process or information system controls to ensure
staff correct costs assigned to the wrong site. Because of this lack of controls,
we could not determine whether all incorrect costs were corrected and billed to
the appropriate site. One EPA region did not include approximately $8 million
in a negotiated settlement for a site because the costs were incorrectly assigned
to another site.
EPA has limited cost recovery performance measures and does not track the
efficiency of cost recovery. Recommendations in this report will assist EPA in
implementing improved controls for recovering Superfund costs.
What We Recommend
We recommend that EPA (1) enhance cost recovery guidance for all the
regions, (2) implement mechanisms to support calculating how efficiently it is
recovering site costs and tracking corrections, and (3) implement performance
measures to track how efficiently it is recovering these costs. EPA concurred
with our recommendations and has proposed actions to address them.

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