tftD srAf	U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Inspector General	20-P-0204
£ M M t>	H	June 30,2020
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At a Glance
Why We Did This Project
The U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency's Office of
Inspector General conducted
this audit to determine whether
(1)	the Office of Research and
Development oversees and
monitors grants awarded to
universities in accordance with
applicable laws, regulations,
policies, and procedures, and
(2)	university grantees are
completing agreed-upon work
that meets the defined purpose
of the grant.
The purpose of post-award
monitoring is to conduct
oversight and monitor a
recipient's performance and
management of assistance
agreements. There are two
main programmatic oversight
activities: baseline monitoring
and advanced monitoring.
This report addresses the
following:
•	Operating efficiently and
effectively.
•	Improving EPA research
programs.
This project addresses a key
EPA management challenge:
•	Improving data quality and
filling identified data gaps.
Address inquiries to our public
affairs office at (202) 566-2391 or
OIG WEBCOMMENTS@epa.gov.
List of OIG reports.
EPA Needs to Improve Oversight of Research
Assistance Agreements
What We Found
Although the ORD has recently made improvements
to its oversight of research assistance agreements,
we found that project officers did not always complete
baseline monitoring accurately or in a timely manner,
enforce recipient compliance with progress reporting
requirements, or document the review of recipient
progress reports.
The EPA's lack of
compliance with
assistance agreement
oversight requirements
can put EPA research
funds at risk.
In addition, of the 12 sampled assistance agreements, 11 were completed and
final reports were submitted. Two of the 11 final recipient reports did not
demonstrate that agreed-upon work was completed. Also, we found that the ORD
is not consistently posting research assistance agreement results on its website.
Recommendations and Planned Agency Corrective Actions
We recommend that the assistant administrator for Research and Development:
•	Verify that baseline monitoring and post-award monitoring responsibilities are
completed accurately and in a timely manner.
•	Require that project officers enforce recipient reporting requirements and
document reviews of interim and final reports.
•	Require that final report reviews include a narrative noting how the project
officer determined that results were achieved.
•	Verify that the Grantee Research Project Results website is updated and
accurate.
•	Provide training to all ORD project officers on required post-award monitoring
responsibilities.
•	Update and correct the Grantee Research Project Results website for
missing and inaccurate information.
•	Require that all abstracts, report summaries, and publications for all ORD
research assistance agreements be placed on the EPA's website.
The EPA agreed with our recommendations and provided acceptable planned
corrective actions and estimated completion dates. The recommendations are
resolved with corrective actions pending.
Noteworthy Achievement
The ORD's National Center for Environmental Research developed and
implemented a final report checklist following discussions with the OIG.

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