Office of Inspector General

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

At a Glance

What Are Management
Challenges?

The Reports Consolidation Act
of 2000 requires each inspector
general to prepare an annual
statement summarizing what the
inspector general considers to be
"the most serious management
and performance challenges
facing the agency" and to briefly
assess the agency's progress in
addressing those challenges.

To identify these top challenges
for fiscal year 2023, the
U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency Office of Inspector
General considered the body of
our work, as well as our objective
and professional observations,
work conducted by the
U.S. Government Accountability
Office, and Agency
documentation and statements.

Report No. 22-N-0004. EPA's
Fiscal Year 2022 Top
Management Challenges,
identified seven top management
challenges facing the Agency.
We retained all of these
challenges for fiscal year 2023,
with one modification: the
"managing infrastructure funding
and business operations"
challenge was split into two
separate challenges. As such,
we identified eight top
management challenges for the
EPA for fiscal year 2023.

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

List of OIG reports.

The EPA's Fiscal Year 2023 Top Management
Challenges

What We Found

We identified eight top management challenges for the EPA for fiscal year 2023:

1.	Mitigating the Causes and Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change.

The EPA must take a leadership role in addressing climate change and
mitigating its effect on human health and the environment.

2.	Integrating and Leading Environmental Justice Across the Agency and
Government. The EPA must identify and address disproportionately high
and adverse human health or environmental effects on environmental
justice communities.

3.	Providing for the Safe Use of Chemicals. The public must be able to
depend on the EPA's ability to conduct credible and timely assessments of
the risks posed by pesticides, toxic chemicals, and other environmental
chemicals.

4.	Safeguarding Scientific Integrity Principles. The EPA must ground
science-based decisions in principles of scientific integrity to ensure that
human health and the environment are protected by using the best-available
science.

5.	Ensuring Agency Systems and Other Critical Infrastructure Are
Protected Against Cyberthreats. Information technology is a fundamental
and essential resource for the EPA to carry out its mission, and the Agency
must ensure its systems and our nation's critical infrastructure are protected
against cyberthreats.

6.	Managing Business Operations and Resources. The EPA must have
effective business operations to achieve its mission and safeguard taxpayer
dollars.

7.	Enforcing Compliance with Environmental Laws and Regulations.

Through enforcement, the EPA ensures that regulated entities are following
environmental laws and will continue to do so, as enforcement actions
effectively deter future noncompliance.

8.	Managing Increased Investment in Infrastructure. The EPA must ensure
that its infrastructure projects, which constitute the Agency's largest
investment, use Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act appropriations
effectively.

We have identified these as the most serious management and performance
challenges facing the EPA, representing vulnerabilities to waste, fraud, abuse,
and mismanagement or the most significant barriers to the EPA accomplishing
its mission.

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