Infrastructure Investment
and Jobs Act Progress
Report—Year Two
March 7, 2024 j Project No. 24-N-0026
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To find out more about the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Inspector General activities related to the
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, visit our website.
Report Contributors
Kelly Chavarria
Jason Elkins
Chad Garland
Eric Lewis
Claire McWilliams
Adam Seefeldt
Abbreviations
EPA U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
FY Fiscal Year
IIJA Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act
OIG Office of Inspector General
Pub. L. Public Law
SRF State Revolving Fund
Cover Image
Examples of different U.S. Environmental Protection Agency programs receiving Infrastructure
Investment and Jobs Act funding. From top to bottom: Pollution Prevention, Water Infrastructure, and
Clean School Buses. (EPA images)
Are you aware of fraud, waste, or abuse in an
EPA program?
EPA Inspector General Hotline
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW (2431T)
Washington, D.C. 20460
(888) 546-8740
(202) 566-2599 (fax)
OIG.Hotline@epa.qov
Learn more about our OIG Hotline.
EPA Office of Inspector General
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW (2410T)
Washington, D.C. 20460
(202) 566-2391
www.epaoiq.gov
Subscribe to our Email Updates.
Follow us on X (formerly Twitter) @EPAoiq.
Send us your Project Suggestions.
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Foreword
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, or IIJA, was signed into law on November 15, 2021, providing for
significant investments in the nation's drinking water and wastewater infrastructure projects, environmental
cleanups, clean school buses, and other environmental projects. The IIJA appropriates over $60 billion to the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from fiscal year 2022 through 2026, the largest appropriation that the
Agency has ever received. Since the IIJA was enacted, the EPA Office of Inspector General has been engaged in
timely and relevant oversight work. This second annual IIJA progress report provides updates on our oversight of
the EPA's execution of that funding through January 31, 2024.
As I said in my September 2023 testimony to Congress, our oversight work responds directly to risks associated
with major supplemental appropriations like those of the IIJA. For example, we anticipate increased risks related
to the Agency's spending of IIJA funds, the vast majority of which will be awarded as loans, grants, or rebates to
nonfederal entities under programs such as the State Revolving Fund and Clean School Bus Programs. While the
funding mechanisms might be familiar, we are concerned about the capacity of these recipients and their
subrecipients to handle this money efficiently and effectively.
Additionally, we assess the EPA as facing at least two significant management challenges related to the IIJA, as we
noted in The EPA's Fiscal Year 2024 Top Management Challenges report, issued November 2023. One
management challenge, which is managing grants, contracts, and data systems, concerns the influx of about
$102 billion in supplemental appropriations to fund EPA programs under the IIJA and the Inflation Reduction Act.
This increased funding brings greater risks of fraud, waste, abuse, and noncompliance with both federal and EPA
funding requirements. Another challenge, overseeing, protecting, and investing in water and wastewater systems,
addresses the EPA's oversight responsibility for strengthening and securing the cyber and physical security at
tens of thousands of public drinking water systems and publicly owned wastewater treatment systems.
Finally, we are working with the EPA and outside stakeholders to improve fraud awareness and strengthen internal
controls on IIJA projects. Fraud briefings, coordination with other federal and state agencies, and other forms of
outreach continue to be important in our efforts to prevent and detect fraud, waste, and abuse, and to ensure
the Agency's efficiency and effectiveness. We also continue to leverage our in-house data analytics capabilities to
improve transparency surrounding the EPA's IIJA spending and to help detect fraud risks or other threats to that
spending.
Having spent these last two years focusing on preventing fraud, waste, and abuse in EPA programs receiving IIJA
funds, it is now time for us to turn toward detecting fraud, waste, and abuse. This is why I declared 2024 our "Year
of Fighting Fraud." In the next year and beyond, we expect to dedicate significant effort to ensuring that the EPA
uses its infrastructure funds efficiently and effectively.
Sean W. O'Donnell
Inspector General
To report potential fraud, waste, abuse, misconduct, or mismanagement, contact the OIG Hotline at (888) 546-8740 or OIG.Hotline@epa.gov.
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Table of Contents
The IIJA Provides the EPA with Over $60 Billion 1
The EPA Has Obligated About $17.2 Billion in IIJA Funds 3
The IIJA Funds the OIG's Mission to Conduct Oversight and Review 3
The OIG Notes Its IIJA-Related Spending and Hiring Efforts to Date 3
The OIG's Infrastructure Oversight Work 4
The OIG Embarks on the "Year of Fighting Fraud" 7
The OIG Conducts Outreach to Help Deter Fraud and Improve Efficiency 8
The OIG Continues to Leverage Data Analysis to Detect Grant and Contract Fraud
and Provide Oversight Transparency 9
The OIG Identifies Continuing Challenges for the Agency 10
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The IIJA Provides the EPA with Over $60 Billion
On November 15, 2021, President Joseph R. Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act,
or IIJA, Pub. L. 117-58. The purpose of the IIJA, as it applies to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,
is to advance public health and safety by improving the nation's drinking water, wastewater, and
stormwater infrastructure; cleaning up legacy pollution; investing in environmental and geographic
programs; and enhancing the country's climate resilience. The Act appropriates over $60 billion to the
EPA from fiscal year 2022 through FY 2026, comprising 19 appropriations, largely to existing programs.
For most programs, these funds are available until expended. The IIJA's supplemental appropriations
represent a significant increase in funding for the EPA, whose annual appropriations ranged from about
$7.9 billion to $10.14 billion from FY 2013 through FY 2023. On the next page, Figure 1 shows the EPA's
expected IIJA appropriations by program.
Construction work involving drinking water lead service line replacement. (EPA images)
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Figure 1: IIJA funding by program
STATE AND TRIBAL GRANTS
(•)
Clean Water State Revolving Fund Traditional: $11.713B
Drinking Water State Revolving Fund Traditional: $11.713B *
Lead Service Lines Drinking Water State Revolving Fund: $15B
Emerging Contaminants Clean Water State Revolving Fund: $1B
Emerging Contaminants Drinking Water State Revolving Fund: $4B
Emerging Contaminants Small & Disadvantaged: $5B
Underground Injection Control Grants: $50M
Brownfields: $1.5B
Save Our Seas 2.0: $275M jgt
Pollution Prevention: $100M ill
RECYCLE Act: $75M
Clean School Buses: $5B
SUPERFUND
Remedial cleanups: $3.5B
ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRAMS AND MANAGEMENT
ms
Geographic programs: $1.717B
National Estuary program: $132M
Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi and Ohio Rivers Hypoxia: $60M
Class VI Wells/Underground Injection Control: $25M
Battery Recycling Labeling: $15M
Battery Recycling Best Practices: $10M
Note: B = billion; M = million.
Source: IIJA. (EPA OIG image)
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The EPA Has Obligated About $17.2 Billion in IIJA Funds
USAspending.gov, the federal government's public website for tracking obligations and outlays, reports
that, as of December 31, 2023, the EPA had obligated $17.2 billion in IIJA funding. An obligation is a
promise made by the government to spend money, whereas an outlay occurs when money is actually
paid. As reflected in the OIG dashboard "EPA Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) Spending,"
about 84 percent of the obligated total was for state and tribal assistance grants, about 13 percent was
for Superfund, and about 3 percent was for environmental programs and management.
The spending data show that, while the EPA had obligated about 28 percent of the over $60 billion in
IIJA funds, as of December 31, 2023, the Agency had only expended 6 percent of the total appropriated
funds. Table 1 shows the EPA's IIJA obligations and outlays as reported in USAspending.gov.
Table 1: The EPA's IIJA obligations and outlays
1 Description
1 Amount 1
EPA obligations
$17.2 billion
Percent of obligations to total appropriations
28%
EPA outlays
$3.8 billion
Percent of outlays to total appropriations
6%
Source: OIG analysis of USAspending.gov data. (EPA OIG table)
Note: Data were retrieved on February 5, 2024, and reflect obligations
and outlays as of December 31, 2023.
The IIJA Funds the OIG's Mission to Conduct Oversight and Review
The OIG is an independent office of the EPA charged with promoting efficiency and economy in Agency
operations and detecting and preventing fraud, waste, abuse, mismanagement, or misconduct related
to the EPA's programs and operations. For FYs 2022 through 2026, the IIJA provides us with funding,
most of which is available until expended—commonly referred to as "no-year" funds—for oversight of
the Agency's IIJA-funded programs and operations.
As part of our oversight role, we will assess whether the EPA is using its IIJA funds in accordance with
congressionally designated purposes. Our oversight will focus on the execution of IIJA funds; the
efficiency and effectiveness of the programs receiving IIJA funds; and the detection and prevention of
fraud, waste, and abuse. We will do this by continuing to leverage data analytics to develop proactive
fraud-detection methodologies, allowing us to target our audits, evaluations, and investigations on
high-risk programs and recipients.
The OIG Notes Its IIJA-Related Spending and Hiring Efforts to Date
As of January 31, 2024, we had obligated over $33.5 million and expended about $33.0 million, or about
12 percent, of our $269.3 million in appropriated IIJA funds. The no-year IIJA funds allow us the
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flexibility to ramp up our resources and observe the EPA's IIJA implementation across several years to
perform responsive, effective oversight.
We will continue to evaluate our staffing needs to effectively carry out and support our IIJA oversight
mission. Additionally, we will continuously review and assess our expenditures to ensure accurate
accounting and appropriate use of funds received. As the EPA's expenditure of IIJA funds increase, and
our IIJA oversight activities and operation mature, we will regularly reiterate and refine guidance to our
personnel to ensure the propriety of our IIJA expenditures. Table 2 provides an overview of our full-time
equivalents that charged to IIJA funds as of December 16, 2023.
Table 2: The OIG's IIJA full-time equivalents* as of
December 16, 2023
Office IIJA FTEs*
Office of Audit 32
Office of Special Review and Evaluation 20
Office of Investigations 23
Support offices* 36
Total 111
Note: FTE = full-time equivalent.
Source: OIG data as of December 16, 2023. (EPA OIG table)
The numbers in this column were calculated by taking the total
number of hours all EPA OIG personnel charged to the IIJA from
fiscal year 2023 pay period one to fiscal year 2024 pay period six,
divided by the number of compensable hours in a pay period (80),
divided by the number of completed pay periods.
fSupport offices include the OIG Immediate Office, Office of Mission
Support, Office of Strategic Analysis and Results, Office of Information
Technology, Office of Counsel, Office of Congressional and Public
Affairs, and the former Office of the Chief of Staff.
The OIG's Infrastructure Oversight Work
Since the first IIJA progress report, we have focused on reporting on the EPA's ability to execute
available IIJA funds; the efficiency and effectiveness of the programs receiving IIJA funds; and the
detection and prevention of fraud, waste, and abuse. Our internal IIJA working group meets monthly
and focuses on project coordination, overall IIJA program management, outreach strategies, IIJA
spending trends, and reporting. Our year two IIJA oversight work included the issuance of three audit
reports and two management implication reports. The reports focused on grants management, clean
school bus funding, and unspent obligations for programs receiving IIJA funds.
A management implication report is a document that we issue to the Agency to detail our
concerns about and measures for the improvement of a program. It is not an audit or evaluation.
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Completed Projects
The first of our year two IIJA-related reports, a management implication report issued in March 2023,
informed the Agency of certain issues related to the awarding and disbursing of grants. We observed
that grantees and subrecipients may not be fully aware of key fraud prevention and enforcement
measures. As a result, we detailed three areas in which the Agency needs to strengthen its grant-funding
mechanisms. First, the EPA should take stronger steps to clearly communicate the criminal, civil, and
administrative consequences of fraudulent conduct throughout the life cycle of a grant. Second, the EPA
needs to add OIG reporting requirements and whistleblower protection provisions to its standard terms
and conditions. And third, the EPA must ensure that we have timely access to the records and personnel
of grantees and subrecipients.
In September 2023, we issued a report on unliquidated obligations for programs receiving IIJA funding.
We determined that from FY 2018 through 2023, the EPA had over $1.55 biilion in unliquidated
obligations with inactivity of 180 days or more, including about $429 million in IIJA funds in FYs 2022 and
2023. The EPA should review unliquidated obligations for programs that received a substantial increase
through the IIJA to ensure that the funds are used for the intended programs or deobligated in a timely
manner to fund other environmental projects, as appropriate. Rather than sitting idle, awarded funds
could be put to better use by communities that are ready to proceed with environmental projects.
The four EPA programs with the highest unliquidated obligations and IIJA funding are the Clean Water State
Revolving Fund, geographic programs, the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, and Superfund. (EPA images)
In December 2023, we issued an audit and a management implication report on the EPA's Clean School
Bus Program. The audit report sought to determine whether potential supply chain or production delays
could impact the EPA's efforts to disburse and manage IIJA funding allocated for the EPA's Clean School
Bus Program. Under the IIJA, this program will provide $5 billion to replace existing school buses with
zero- or low-emission school buses. The audit found that, while there were no significant supply chain
issues or production delays that impacted the EPA's efforts to disburse funds through the first round of
Clean School Bus Program funding, there could be delays in utilities constructing the needed charging
stations to make the buses fully operational. Thus, the Agency may be unable to effectively achieve
program goals unless it can ensure that school districts will be able to establish the infrastructure
necessary to support the clean buses that they purchase.
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Electric school bus. (EPA image)
The management implication report outlined our concerns that the EPA's lack of verification
mechanisms within the Clean School Bus Program's rebate and grant application process increases risk
for fraud, waste, and abuse. We reviewed the 2022 Clean School Bus rebate program and found that
program data contained potentially inaccurate information. We also identified one instance in which an
entity without any students applied for and received funding, jeopardizing the program's principle of
equitable resource distribution. The failure to require a truthfulness attestation and the lack of a
verification process places funds at risk. We outlined six measures for improvement that the EPA could
take to help prevent potential fraud and establish a process for assessing applicant disclosures. These
included requiring applicants to provide supporting documentation, establishing a validation regimen,
requiring recipients to maintain a documentation archive, highlighting criminal penalties and requiring
signed certifications, requiring notarized attestations and certifications, and increasing oversight of
third-party vendors. By implementing these measures, the EPA will bolster the efficacy of federal award
administration, enhance the authenticity of award applications, and elevate the integrity of the Clean
School Bus Program.
In January 2024, we issued an audit report to determine whether the EPA's reporting of FY 2022 IIJA
obligations and outlays in LJSAspending.gov was complete and accurate. We found that the
EPA's FY 2022 award-level obligations were underreported by $1.2 billion, and its FY 2022 award-level
outlays were underreported by $5.8 billion. This occurred because the EPA's Office of the Chief Financial
Officer did not follow its information technology configuration management procedures. We made
five recommendations that included updating relevant standard operating procedures, conducting
periodic configuration audits, training staff on the content of updated procedures, and streamlining the
manual process used to transfer data to USAspending.gov. Complete and accurate reporting in
USAspending.gov is critical, as it informs the public of the purpose and destination of the funds that the
EPA has awarded to nonfederal entities.
Emerging Projects
We have ten IIJA projects in the planning phase and 19 are ongoing. However, our planning efforts are
not static, and we will modify or add projects in response to challenges, crises, and stakeholder concerns
that arise throughout the year. We call these emerging projects. For example, though it was not
originally part of our year two oversight plan, we initiated an evaluation based on congressional
concerns that the EPA's selection process for the FY 2022 Clean School Bus Program funds, which were
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awarded in the form of rebates, resulted in an imbalance in funded technologies. We expect to initiate
another evaluation on awardee satisfaction with the FY 2022 Clean School Bus rebate program. In
response to stakeholder concerns, we also initiated one evaluation and one audit of the
Agency's implementation of the Build America Buy America Act, which requires that certain materials
used in federally funded infrastructure projects be produced in the United States. We also initiated
several emerging water infrastructure audits and evaluations on lead service line replacements, the
Underground Injection Control Program, state revolving funds' annual financial statement requirement
compliance for FY 2022, and water infrastructure set-aside grants for tribes. Water infrastructure
continues to be a priority since over 70 percent of IIJA appropriations are dedicated to SRFs, and nearly
all SRF funding is distributed to states as grants.
The OIG Embarks on the "Year of Fighting Fraud"
With the release of our Fiscal Year 2024 Oversight Plan and a report detailing our investigative priorities.
we have dubbed 2024 as the "Year of Fighting Fraud." Congress has entrusted the EPA with an
unprecedented $102 billion in combined funding under the IIJA and the Inflation Reduction Act. The
influx of funding from the IIJA alone can reveal capacity issues in the EPA's ability to dispense and
oversee over $60 billion and in the ability of recipients and subrecipients to effectively use the funding.
History shows that such appropriations can also attract bad actors seeking to exploit capacity issues and
defraud the government.
Therefore, in addition to conducting our ongoing and planned projects under the IIJA, we will investigate
allegations of criminal, civil, and administrative misconduct related to fraud, waste, and abuse. To help
detect and prevent fraud, we will proactively review awards for suspicious activity. Inspector General
Sean W. O'Donnell has stated that "partnering this year's oversight plan with a set of robust and focused
investigative priorities sets the stage for the EPA OIG to be the premier fraud-fighting organization in the
environmental space."
In year two of IIJA oversight, the OIG Office of Investigations opened two preliminary inquiries and
three cases involving IIJA-related issues. We initiated one of these cases proactively because we saw a
vulnerability and the potential for fraud related to the Clean School Bus Program. Additionally, we
issued two management implication reports related to mitigating grant fraud vulnerabilities and the
Clean School Bus Rebate Program. As new risks to American taxpayer dollars emerge and evolve, the
Office of Investigations will innovate its approaches, using data to fight fraud.
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The OIG Conducts Outreach to Help Deter Fraud and Improve Efficiency
In year two of IIJA oversight, we have continued our
outreach efforts with external stakeholders. Most
notably, the inspector general gave three
congressional briefings in 2023. In a September
hearing before the U.S. House of Representatives
Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee
on Oversight and Investigations, the inspector
general testified about our oversight of the Clean
School Bus Program. He provided context for two
OIG projects that we had announced the day
before, and he outlined the program's fraud
vulnerabilities. The inspector general also
presented at conferences and met with several
state officials to discuss concerns and challenges
they face in light of the IIJA funding.
OIG components have also conducted outreach with stakeholders regarding IIJA oversight. For example,
in 2023, the Office of Audit and Office of Special Review and Evaluation engaged in more than
75 outreach activities with the Agency, the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency,
the U.S. Government Accountability Office, and the public. Outreach activities include involvement in
IIJA working groups, briefings, interviews, Gold Standard meetings,1 and conferences.
As of January 31, 2024, the Office of Investigations had hosted 212 IIJA-related fraud briefings, reaching
more than 6,000 attendees. It had coordinated and engaged with several grant fund recipients and law
enforcement partners, such as state environmental agencies and programmatic departments, including
Brownfields programs, SRFs, state water development boards, state offices of attorney general, and
state OIGs. The office also coordinated and engaged with several task forces and working groups,
including the U.S. Department of Justice's Procurement Collusion Strike Force, a multiagency task force
dedicated to identifying, deterring, investigating, and prosecuting antitrust crimes related procurement
and grant fraud.
Inspector General Sean W. O'Donnell testifying
before Congress on April 19, 2023. (Photo:
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S.
House of Representatives)
1 "Gold Standard meetings" refers to the joint program review meetings discussed in Office of Management and
Budget Memorandum M-22-12. Advancing Effective Stewardship of Taxpayer Resources and Outcomes in the
implementation of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, dated April 29, 2022. This memorandum requires
agencies to engage with the Office of Management and Budget and the agency's inspector general to discuss
program design, risk mitigation, financial controls, data, tracking, and reporting for implementing the IIJA.
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The OIG Continues to Leverage Data Analysis to Detect Grant and
Contract Fraud and Provide Oversight Transparency
Our Data Analytics Directorate provides an important supporting role to our audits, evaluations, and
investigations by assisting in the collection, analysis, and reporting of data for IIJA oversight projects.
The directorate's work also includes creating data visualizations that the public can use to track the
EPA's IIJA spending and the progress of our IIJA oversight projects.
In March 2023, the Data Analytics Directorate launched an interactive dashboard on the OIG's IIJA
Oversight webpage to inform the public of current EPA obligations and outlays for IIJA projects,
providing transparency on how and where the EPA is implementing its funding. In August 2023, we
updated the dashboard with new information that allows users to view IIJA funding by program and
pinpoint locations receiving the funds. It also lets users identify the congressional districts where the
funds are received and whether a given location is in a census tract identified as being a disadvantaged
community that may qualify for the Justice40 Initiative goals. We also added an option to review the
status of our planned, ongoing, and completed IIJA oversight projects.
Fiscal Year 2024 Agency Breakdown
Agency
Budgetary Resources
% Total
Department of
Transportation
5268,84S,737.876.15
56.76%
Department of
Commerce
548,408,636,450.00
10.22%
Department of Energy
S44,344,182,500.00
9.36%
Environmental
Protection Agency
536,886,900.000.00
7.79%
Department of the
Interior
525.489,034.995.00
5.38%
Corps of Engineers -
Civil Works
517.099,000.000.00
3,61%
Federal
Communications
Commission
514.200,000.000.00
3,00%
Department of
Agriculture
$7,299,6S3.509.89
1.54%
Department of
Homeland Security
55.796.515,000.00
122%
General Services
Administration
53,418,008,000.00
0.72%
Department of Health
51.007,000.000.00
021%
| Total
$473,665,608,777,56
100,00% |
$3.76B
Outlays
$ 17.17B
Obligations
$60.89B
Total Appropriations
Federal Account Summary
Environmental Programs and Management
Hazardous Substance Superfund
State and Tribal Assistance Grants
Legend
~
Outlays
Obligations
Total Appropriations
Hover over each bar to see funding breakdowns. Click on "See details" to navigate to award details,
Please note that account totols shown include administrative funding that is not included in the award
details.
Screen image of IIJA spending dashboard as of February 5, 2024. (EPA OIG image)
The Data Analytics Directorate has been leading an effort to identify the data systems that clean and
drinking water SRF programs use to store information. The EPA will be distributing over $40 billion in IIJA
grants to clean and drinking water SRFs that nonfederal entities, such as states, will loan to cities,
counties, and other nonfederal subrecipients for water infrastructure projects. These nonfederal
subrecipients then may hire contractors and subcontractors to perform the engineering and
construction work. We are responsible for providing oversight of this process, from the EPA's
distribution of the grant money through the completion of the contractors' engineering and
construction work.
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The OIG Identifies Continuing Challenges for the Agency
The EPA's Fiscal Year 2024 Top Management Challenges report, our annual summary of the most serious
management and performance challenges facing the EPA, brings to the forefront two challenges related
to the IIJA. One challenge, which is managing grants, contracts, and data systems, highlights a range of
issues relevant to the EPA's influx of approximately $102 billion in supplemental funding appropriations.
Another challenge, overseeing, protecting, and investing in water and wastewater systems, highlights
the need for strengthening and securing cyber and physical infrastructure at tens of thousands of public
drinking water systems and publicly owned wastewater treatment systems for which the EPA has
oversight responsibility.
Managing grants, contracts, and data systems
Grant oversight is a significant concern, given that about half the EPA's annual budget is distributed
through grants to states, local governments, federally recognized tribes, and others. One state shared
with us its concern that its SRFs will receive more money through the IIJA than it has in previous years
combined. In fact, the EPA will increase the size of the SRFs by about $40 billion for a variety of water
infrastructure projects under the IIJA. In August 2023, we issued a report that found that the
EPA's Office of Water issued a policy memorandum that incorrectly advised states that they do not have
to review single audits of nonfederal entities that borrow money from SRFs. This decision put billions of
dollars at risk because reviewing the results of single audits is one oversight tool that states can use to
minimize and prevent waste, fraud, and abuse of these EPA funds. In July 2023, the EPA sent an updated
memorandum to the states clarifying the requirement for single audits, federal funds, and the
responsibilities of recipients of SRF assistance and state programs. As this example shows, the EPA will
need to improve its controls to effectively manage grants, contracts, and data systems to implement its
programs and achieve its goals.
Overseeing, protecting, and investing in water and wastewater systems
The EPA has oversight responsibility for protecting water and wastewater infrastructure and improving
the sector's security posture for approximately 153,000 public drinking water systems and 16,000
publicly owned wastewater treatment systems. The various cyber and physical threats facing these
systems create challenges for the Agency in both securing them and protecting its investments in the
sector. Cybersecurity remains a high risk governmentwide, given the increased threat from sophisticated
cyberattacks targeting critical infrastructure. This risk has led the Government Accountability Office to
list ensuring the cybersecurity of the nation in its 2023 High-Risk List. Water and wastewater utilities
have implemented a range of security and resilience measures, but many could take further protective
actions to address security gaps. The Agency's efforts to strengthen the resilience of water and
wastewater sector's systems against cyber and physical security threats and to improve oversight of its
investments are, therefore, of paramount importance.
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>«TAL pro"^
Whistleblower Protection
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
The whistleblower protection coordinator's role
is to educate Agency employees about
prohibitions against retaliation for protected
disclosures and the rights and remedies against
retaliation. For more information, please visit
the OIG's whistleblower protection webpage.
Contact us:
Congressional Inquiries: OIG.CoiwessionalAffairs(53epa.gov
Media Inquiries: OIG,PublicAffairs@epa.gov
line EPA OIG Hotline: OIG.Hotline@epa.gov
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