Office of Inspector General
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
At a Glance
22-P-0001
November 8, 2021
Why We Did This Audit
The Digital Accountability and
Transparency Act of 2014
requires the inspector general to
review a statistically valid sample
of the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency's spending
data submitted under the Act to
assess the completeness,
accuracy, timeliness, and quality
of the data sampled, as well as
the EPA's implementation and
use of the data standards
established by the Office of
Management and Budget and
U.S. Department of the Treasury.
To satisfy this requirement, we
performed this audit on fiscal
year 2020 fourth-quarter financial
and award data submitted to the
Department of the Treasury by
the EPA's Office of the Chief
Financial Officer.
This audit supports EPA mission-
related efforts:
•	Compliance with the law.
•	Operating efficiently and
effectively.
This audit addresses top EPA
management challenges:
•	Complying with key internal
control requirements (data
quality).
•	Fulfilling mandated reporting
requirements.
Address inquiries to our public
affairs office at (202) 566-2391 or
OIG WEBCOMMENTS@epa.gov.
List of OIG reports.
EPA's Fiscal Year 2020 Fourth-Quarter
Compliance with the Digital Accountability
and Transparency Act of 2014
The DATA Act requires
the EPA to report
accurate financial and
award data on
USAspending.gov.
What We Found
We found that the EPA substantially complied with
the requirements of the Digital Accountability and
Transparency Act of 2014 and submitted financial
and award data to the Department of the
Treasury's DATA Act Broker on time. Our
nonstatistical and statistical tests of the
EPA's DATA Act submissions—including those tests that assessed the data
attributes of completeness, accuracy, and timeliness—determined that the
EPA's fiscal year 2020 fourth-quarter financial and award data were of "higher"
quality, as defined by the CIGIE FAEC Inspectors General Guide to
Compliance under the DATA Act, dated December 4, 2020. The CIGIE DATA
Act Guide outlines four levels of data quality: excellent, higher, moderate, and
lower.
While the data achieved an assessment of "higher" quality, we found that the
EPA had not fully implemented the data standards established by the Office of
Management and Budget and the Department of the Treasury. We identified
specific data inconsistencies and control deficiencies that indicate the EPA
could improve its internal controls over implementing data standards and
preparing its DATA Act submissions.
Recommendations and Planned Agency Corrective Actions
We recommend that the assistant administrator for Mission Support update
the EPA's policies and procedures to address the errors identified in this audit,
as well as update the EPA's grants management system to align with the
DATA Act data standards and provide training to improve the consistency of
data entry.
The EPA agreed with our six recommendations and provided acceptable
planned corrective actions and estimated completion dates. We consider the
recommendations resolved with corrective actions pending.

-------