At a Glance: EPA Can Improve Incident Readiness with Better Management of Homeland Security and Emergency Response Equipment


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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency	20-P-0066
I'	\ Office of Inspector General	January 3,2020
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At a Glance
Why We Did This Project
The U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency's (EPA's)
Office of Inspector General (OIG)
conducted this audit to determine
whether the EPA has the needed
and required homeland security
and emergency response
(HS/ER) equipment, whether the
EPA efficiently manages and
tracks that equipment, and
whether the equipment is readily
available for potential homeland
security or emergency response
incidents.
The EPA's Office of Emergency
Management, within the agency's
Office of Land and Emergency
Management, works with federal
partners to maintain capabilities
to respond to emergencies. The
EPA's Office of Homeland
Security, within the Office of the
Administrator, provides
agencywide leadership and
coordination for planning,
prevention, preparedness and
response to homeland security
incidents. Also, within the EPA,
four special teams and all
10 regions respond to homeland
security or emergency response
incidents.
This report addresses the
following:
• Operating efficiently and
effectively.
Address inquiries to our public
affairs office at (202) 566-2391 or
OIG WEBCOMMENTS@epa.gov.
EPA Can Improve Incident Readiness with Better
Management of Homeland Security and
Emergency Response Equipment
What We Found
The EPA needs to improve its management of
HS/ER equipment. Specifically:
The EPA did not identify the HS/ER
equipment needed to respond to a
nationally significant incident.
The EPA did not fully use its agencywide
equipment system to track the availability
of EPA-owned HS/ER equipment.
The EPA's special teams need to address the status of HS/ER
equipment that is unused or broken.
The EPA needs to improve
its management of its
HS/ER equipment, worth
over $40 million, so that it
can adequately track the
equipment it needs to fulfill
its responsibilities during
an incident in a cost-
effective manner.
While the EPA has successfully responded to past incidents, there is a risk
that—until it identifies a list of HS/ER equipment it needs to meet its
responsibilities during an incident—the agency may not have the correct
equipment to respond to future incidents. Also, while the EPA spends
$554,310 annually on the Agency Asset Management System (AAMS), which
has the ability to manage and track the EPA's equipment, the agency is not
using this functionality. Instead, the EPA spent an additional $2,365,938 to
track the equipment outside of AAMS, making it difficult for the EPA to have an
accurate inventory of HS/ER equipment. Compounding this problem is the
mismanagement of unused or broken equipment.
Recommendations and Planned Agency Corrective Actions
We recommend that the agency create and maintain an official agencywide list
of the equipment needed for incidents, maintain one official agencywide
management and tracking system for HS/ER equipment, update AAMS to
include missing equipment, implement controls to verify and record the status
of unused or broken equipment, and verify the implementation of internal
controls to justify the agency keeping unused or broken equipment.
The EPA agreed with two recommendations but did not provide corrective
actions, and it disagreed with the remaining three recommendations. Thus, all
recommendations in this report are unresolved with resolution efforts in
progress.
List of OIG reports.

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