Office of Inspector General

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Glance

22-E-0051
June 30, 2022

Why We Did This Evaluation

The U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency's Office of
Inspector General conducted this
evaluation to determine whether
the EPA's process for screening
self-reported violations through
its electronic disclosure, or
eDisclosure, system is effective
and ensures that significant
concerns, such as criminal
conduct and potential imminent
hazards, are addressed by the
Office of Enforcement and
Compliance Assurance.

The goal of the eDisclosure
system is to provide an efficient
mechanism for regulated entities
to self-disclose—that is,
voluntarily discover, report, and
correct—violations of federal
environmental laws and
regulations. Self-disclosed
violations are automatically
processed under the EPA's audit
policies. The EPA subsequently
screens certain eDisclosure
submissions to ensure that
significant concerns, such as
criminal conduct and potential
imminent hazards, are properly
addressed.

This evaluation supports EPA
mission-related efforts:

•	Compliance with the law.

•	Operating efficiently and
effectively.

This evaluation addresses a top
EPA management challenge:

•	Enforcing environmental laws
and regulations.

Address inquiries to our public
affairs office at (202) 566-2391 or
OIG WEBCOMMENTS@epa.gov.

List of OIG reports.

Additional internai Controls Would Improve
the EPA's System for Electronic Disclosure of
Environmental Violations

Without additional internal controls,
the EPA cannot ensure that it
effectively screens regulated
entities' self-disclosures of
environmental violations to identify
and mitigate significant concerns,
such as criminal conduct and
potential imminent hazards. If not
mitigated, these significant
concerns could pose threats to
human health and the environment.

What We Found

The eDisclosure system does not have
adequate internal controls in place to
ensure that the EPA's screening
process is effective and that significant
concerns, such as criminal conduct and
potential imminent hazards, are
identified and addressed by the Office
of Enforcement and Compliance
Assurance and the EPA regions. There
is no formal, written national guidance
or eDisclosure-specific training
available on how EPA staff should

conduct screening or delineate staff responsibilities. As a result, most regions
are inconsistently screening for significant concerns or not screening at all
because they either believe OECA is responsible for that task, do not have
access to the eDisclosure system, or have other resource limitations. Further,
the EPA does not have performance measures and does not systematically
track eDisclosure system data. Finally, the eDisclosure system's reporting tool
does not allow staff to effectively or robustly use or track eDisclosure
submissions.

Without national screening guidance, training, effective monitoring, and Central
Data Exchange improvements, there is a risk that significant concerns are not
being addressed and that the impacts of the EPA's eDisclosure system will
remain limited and unknown.

Recommendations and Planned Agency Corrective Actions

We recommend that the assistant administrator for Enforcement and
Compliance Assurance develop national guidance that includes a process for
screening eDisclosure submissions for significant concerns; provide
eDisclosure-specific training to EPA headquarters and regions to clarify
expectations, establish staff responsibilities, and communicate best practices;
develop performance measures for the eDisclosure system, as well as a
monitoring plan to track its effectiveness; and assess eDisclosure system
functionality to identify and implement improvements.

OECA agreed with all four of our recommendations and proposed acceptable
corrective actions and estimated completion dates. All recommendations are
resolved with corrective actions pending. Where appropriate, we revised the
report based on technical comments provided by OECA.

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