tftD S7^
U.S. Environmental Protection Aaencv
«T	V X„. V cilia. r.vicouv/M «gc..oy	2007-P-00030
I	I 0fflce of Inspector General	August 20,2007
At a Glance
Why We Did This Review
We sought to determine:
•	What barriers exist that
prevent the National
Environmental Information
Exchange Network
(Network) from achieving
maximum usage, and steps
the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA)
can take to overcome them.
•	Whether EPA has developed
Network performance
measures that align with its
Strategic Plan.
•	How EPA could improve
key system development
processes for analyzing costs
and ensuring Network use for
new systems and upgrades.
•	How EPA could assist the
Network governance bodies
in accomplishing their
missions.
Background
The Exchange Network is
EPA's approach (and expected
preferred method) for the
exchange of environmental data
among Network partners. As
of January 2007, 48 States and
2 tribes used the Network.
EPA has invested more than
$162 million on the Network.
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/2007/
20070820-2007-P-00030.pdf
Catalyst for Improving the Environment
Improved Management Practices Needed
to Increase Use of Exchange Network
What We Found
Although EPA established a partnership with the Exchange Network's
governance bodies to assist them with accomplishing Network initiatives, more
improvements are needed to ensure Network partners fully utilize the Network.
These partners include EPA, States, tribes, territories, and other parties with
whom EPA and States exchange information. EPA should improve its methods
for selecting and prioritizing which data flows to implement. EPA also needs to
take further steps to complete measurements of Network initiatives to ensure
investments are delivering expected results. In addition, EPA needs to improve its
internal system development practices to ensure EPA offices perform cost benefit
analyses for new or upgraded environmental systems. Further, EPA should
strengthen its policies to define when offices should utilize the Network for
receiving environmental information.
The Exchange Network Business Plan stresses the importance of having an
effective collaborative partnership between EPA, the Network governance bodies,
and the Network partners. Since EPA intends for the Exchange Network to
become the preferred method for exchanging environmental data and foresees
expanding the Network, EPA should take steps to improve Network use. Without
taking action, EPA would not know when or whether its partners would adopt the
Network as the preferred method to share data with EPA. As such, EPA
investments in the Network would not yield the desired outcomes.
What We Recommend
We made various recommendations, including that the EPA Office of
Environmental Information:
•	Execute the Exchange Network Marketing and Communications plan and
evaluate data flows for Network implementation,
•	Develop a new plan for completing the Exchange Network performance
measures project,
•	Develop policies and procedures to guide program offices to use the Network
and conduct Exchange Network Cost Benefit Analysis, and
•	Include the Exchange Network in the Enterprise Architecture.
In general, the Agency agreed with the report's findings and recommendations.
We have summarized the Agency's comments in the following report chapters and
included the Agency's complete response in Appendix C.

-------