ENVIRONMENTAL 

JUSTICE 

EPA Needs to Take 

Additional Actions to 

Help Ensure Effective 

Implementation 

Report to the Ranking Member, 

Subcommittee on Investigations and 

Oversight, Committee on Science, Space, 

and Technology, House of 

Representatives 

October 2011 

GAO-12-77 

United States Government Accountability Office

GAO 
 United States Government Accountability Office 

Accountability • Integrity • Reliability 

Highlights of GAO-12-77, a report to the 

Ranking Member, Subcommittee on 

Investigations and Oversight, Committee on 

Science, Space, and Technology, House of 

Representatives 

October 2011 

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE 

EPA Needs to Take Additional Actions to Help 

Ensure Effective Implementation 

Why GAO Did This Study 

The Environmental Protection Agency 

(EPA) is responsible for promoting 

environmental justice—that is, the fair 

treatment and meaningful involvement 

of all people in developing, 

implementing, and enforcing 

environmental laws, regulations, and 

policies. In January 2010, the EPA 

Administrator cited environmental 

justice as a top priority for the agency. 

GAO was asked to examine (1) how 

EPA is implementing its environmental 

justice efforts, and (2) the extent that 

EPA has followed leading federal 

strategic planning practices in 

establishing a framework for these 

efforts. To conduct this work, GAO 

reviewed EPA strategy documents and 

interviewed agency officials and key 

stakeholders. 

What GAO Recommends 

GAO is recommending that EPA 

develop a clear strategy to define key 

environmental justice terms; conduct a 

resource assessment; articulate clearly 

states’ roles in ongoing planning and 

future implementation efforts; and 

develop performance measures to 

track the agency’s progress in meeting 

its environmental justice goals. GAO 

provided a draft of this report to EPA 

for comment. EPA disagreed with two 

of GAO’s recommendations, partially 

agreed with one recommendation, and 

did not directly address the remaining 

recommendation. GAO believes that 

the recommended actions will help 

EPA ensure clear, consistent, and 

measurable progress as it moves 

forward in implementing Plan EJ 2014. 

What GAO Found 

In recent years, EPA has renewed its efforts to make environmental justice an 

important part of its mission by developing a new strategy and approach for 

integrating environmental justice considerations into the agency’s programs, 

policies, and activities. Under Plan EJ 2014, the agency’s 4-year environmental 

justice implementation plan, EPA’s program and regional offices are assuming 

principal responsibility for integrating the agency’s efforts by carrying out nine 

implementation plans to put Plan EJ 2014 into practice. An important aspect of 

Plan EJ 2014 is to obtain input on major agency environmental justice initiatives 

from key stakeholders, including the National Environmental Justice Advisory 

Council, the Federal Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice, 

impacted communities, and states. 

In developing its environmental justice framework, which consists of agency 

initiatives, including Plan EJ 2014 and the implementation plans, EPA generally 

followed most of the six leading federal strategic planning practices that we 

selected for review. For example, EPA has generally defined a mission and goals 

for its environmental justice efforts, ensured leadership involvement and 

accountability for these efforts, and coordinated with other federal agencies––all 

consistent with leading practices in federal strategic planning. However, EPA has 

not yet fully (1) established a clear strategy for how it will define key 

environmental justice terms or identified the resources it may need to carry out its 

environmental justice implementation plans, (2) articulated clearly states’ roles in 

ongoing planning and environmental justice integration efforts, or (3) developed 

performance measures for eight of its nine implementation plans to track agency 

progress on its environmental justice goals. Without additional progress on these 

practices, EPA cannot assure itself, its stakeholders, and the public that it has 

established a framework to effectively guide and assess its efforts to integrate 

environmental justice across the agency. 

Extent to Which EPA’s Environmental Justice Efforts Followed Selected Leading Practices in 

Federal Strategic Planning 

Selected leading practices in strategic planning Extent followed 

Define mission and goals 

Define strategies to address management challenges and resource 

needs 

◓

Ensure leadership involvement and accountability 

Involve stakeholders ◓

Coordinate with other agencies 

Develop and use performance measures ◓

Legend:  Fully followed ◓ Partially followed

Source: GAO analysis of EPA data. 

View GAO-12-77 or key components. 

For more information, contact Carolyn Yocom 

at (202) 512-3841, or yocomc@gao.gov. 
Page i GAO-12-77 

Contents 

Letter 1 

Background 4

EPA Is Using an Agencywide Approach to Integrate Environmental 

Justice, with Stakeholders Expected to Play a Major Role 13

EPA Generally Followed Most of the Selected Leading Federal 

Strategic Planning Practices to Develop Its Environmental 

Justice Framework 19

Conclusions 31

Recommendations for Executive Action 32

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 32

Appendix I Scope and Methodology 37 

Appendix II Comments from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 40 

Appendix III GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 43

Tables 

Table 1: Selected Leading Practices in Federal Strategic Planning 12

Table 2: Extent to Which EPA’s Efforts to Integrate Environmental 

Justice Followed Selected Leading Practices in Federal 

Strategic Planning 19

Table 3: Key Attributes of Successful Performance Measures 30

Table 4: Selected Leading Practices in Federal Strategic Planning 38

Figure 

Figure 1: Leadership Responsibilities for Implementing Plan EJ 

2014 15

 Environmental Justice 
Abbreviations 

CEQ Council on Environmental Quality 

EJ environmental justice 

EPA Environmental Protection Agency 

FTE full-time equivalent 

GAO Government Accountability Office 

GPRA Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 

IG Inspector General 

IWG Federal Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice 

NEJAC National Environmental Justice Advisory Council 

NEPA National Environmental Policy Act 

OAR Office of Air and Radiation 

OECA Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance 

OEJ Office of Environmental Justice 

OGC Office of General Counsel 

OMB Office of Management and Budget 

OSWER Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response 

RCRA Resource Conservation and Recovery Act 

This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright protection in the 

United States. The published product may be reproduced and distributed in its entirety 

without further permission from GAO. However, because this work may contain 

copyrighted images or other material, permission from the copyright holder may be 

necessary if you wish to reproduce this material separately. 

Page ii GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
 

Page 1 GAO-12-77 

United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548 

October 6, 2011 

The Honorable Donna F. Edwards 

Ranking Member 

Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight 

Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

House of Representatives 

Dear Ms. Edwards: 

The concept of environmental justice is based on the belief that 

communities with large numbers of minority or low-income residents 

frequently shoulder a disproportionate share of environmental and 

health risks. Many of these communities are located in areas within 

close proximity to sources of pollutants that can adversely affect both 

the environment and human health. For more than 15 years, the 

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been responsible for 

leading the federal government’s approach to environmental justice—

that is, the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people 

regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the 

development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, 

regulations, and policies. Specifically, an executive order signed in 

1994,1 calls for all federal agencies to incorporate environmental justice 

into their programs, policies, and activities to the greatest extent 

practicable and permitted by law. It also calls on EPA to take the lead in 

chairing an interagency workgroup created to help federal agencies 

make environmental justice part of their missions. However, over the 

years, EPA’s efforts in integrating environmental justice have come 

under criticism, both from within and outside the agency. For example, 

in 2004 and 2006,2 EPA’s Inspector General (IG) made a number of 

recommendations to improve EPA’s environmental justice efforts. In 

 1

Exec. Order No. 12898, “Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority 

Populations and Low-Income Populations,” 59 Fed. Reg. 7629 (Feb. 11, 1994). 

2

EPA Office of Inspector General, Evaluation Report: EPA Needs to Consistently 

Implement The Intent of The Executive Order on Environmental Justice, Report No. 2004-

P-00007, March 1, 2004. And, EPA Office of Inspector General, Evaluation Report: EPA 

Needs to Conduct Environmental Justice Reviews of Its Programs, Policies, and Activities, 

Report No. 2006-P-00034, September 18, 2006. 

 Environmental Justice 
 

addition, in 2005,3 we recommended that EPA take steps to incorporate 

environmental justice into its rulemaking processes for clean air 

regulations and, in 2007,4 testified that EPA’s efforts in doing so were 

incomplete. EPA subsequently took actions to address many of these 

recommendations, but some actions are still needed. 

In a January 2010 memo to EPA staff, the EPA Administrator cited 

environmental justice as one of the agency’s top priorities. To communicate 

this priority within the agency and externally, EPA identified environmental 

justice as a cross-cutting strategy in its fiscal year 2011-2015 agencywide 

strategic plan. Additionally, in July 2010, EPA issued its draft Plan EJ 

2014—the agency’s road map for integrating environmental justice into its 

programs. This plan was released in final form in September 2011.5 Plan 

EJ 2014 identifies three key goals: (1) to protect the environment and 

health in communities overburdened by pollution; (2) to empower 

communities to take action to improve their health and environment; and 

(3) to establish partnerships with local, state, tribal, and federal 

governments and organizations to achieve healthy and sustainable 

communities. In addition, in December 2010, the Administration hosted the 

first White House Forum on Environmental Justice. This event brought 

together environmental justice community leaders; state, local, and tribal 

government officials; cabinet members; and other senior federal officials for 

a discussion on creating a healthy and sustainable environment for all. In 

light of this renewed interest in environmental justice, you asked us to 

examine EPA’s environmental justice efforts. 

This report responds to your request that we review EPA’s environmental 

justice efforts. Our objectives were to examine (1) how EPA is implementing 

 3

GAO, Environmental Justice: EPA Should Devote More Attention to Environmental Justice 

When Developing Clean Air Rules, GAO-05-289 (Washington, D.C.: July 22, 2005). 

4

GAO, Environmental Justice: Measurable Benchmarks Needed to Gauge EPA Progress 

in Correcting Past Problems, GAO-07-1140T (Washington, D.C.: July 25, 2007). 

5

Because EPA’s Plan EJ 2014 and associated implementation plans were not finalized 

until September 2011 as we were preparing to issue our report, our analysis is based on 

our review of draft versions of these documents. However, after EPA’s plans were publicly 

released, we reviewed these final documents and determined that they did not 

substantively differ from the draft versions on which our conclusions and 

recommendations are based. Therefore, throughout this report, except where necessary 

to ensure clarity, we do not distinguish between draft and final versions of EPA’s Plan 

EJ 2014 and its implementation plans. 

Page 2 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
 

its environmental justice efforts and (2) the extent to which EPA is following 

leading strategic planning practices in establishing a framework for 

integrating environmental justice in its programs, policies, and activities. 

To conduct this work, we reviewed the executive order, relevant EPA 

guidance, and interviewed senior officials within individual program offices in 

the agency’s headquarters as well as senior officials in EPA regions. We 

also interviewed other stakeholders, including selected members of EPA’s 

National Environmental Justice Advisory Council and a number of national 

associations that represent state environmental agencies, including the 

Environmental Council of States and the Association of State and Tribal 

Solid Waste Management Officials. To determine how EPA is implementing 

its environmental justice efforts, we identified key offices with environmental 

justice responsibilities by reviewing and analyzing EPA documents as well as 

interviewing officials from EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and Office 

of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, among others. To determine 

the extent to which EPA is following leading practices in developing a 

framework for integrating environmental justice in its programs, policies, and 

activities, we compared EPA’s strategic planning efforts for environmental 

justice to leading practices in federal strategic planning. These include (1) 

practices required at the federal department/agency level under the 

Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA),6 which we have 

previously reported also can serve as leading practices for planning at lower 

levels within federal agencies such as individual programs or initiatives;7 (2) 

practices identified in Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidance to 

federal agencies for implementing GPRA’s requirements;8 and (3) related 

leading practices that GAO’s past work has identified.9 

 6

Pub. L., No. 103-62 (Aug. 3, 1993). 

7

For example, see GAO, Foreign Aid Reform: Comprehensive Strategy, Interagency 

Coordination, and Operational Improvements Would Bolster Current Efforts, GAO-09-192 

(Washington, D.C.: Apr. 17, 2009), p. 31. 

8

OMB, Circular A-11, Section 210: Preparing and Submitting an Agency Strategic Plan, 

2010. 

9

For example, see GAO, Executive Guide: Effectively Implementing the Government 

Performance and Results Act, GAO/GGD-96-118 (Washington, D.C.: June 1, 1996); Tax 

Administration: IRS Needs to Further Refine Its Tax Filing Season Performance 

Measures, GAO-03-143 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 22, 2002); and Managing for Results: 

Strengthening Regulatory Agencies’ Performance Management Practices, 

GAO-GGD-00-10 (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 28, 1999). 

Page 3 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
 

Our analysis was based primarily on our review of draft versions of EPA’s 

Plan EJ 2014 and its implementation plans because these documents 

were not finalized until mid-September 2011, as we were preparing to 

issue our report. Nevertheless, we did review the final plans and 

confirmed that they were not substantively different from the draft 

versions on which we based our conclusions and recommendations. We 

did not assess EPA’s draft Plan EJ 2014 Outreach and Communications 

plan as part of our analysis because, at the time of our review, this plan 

was still in the early stages of development. We also compared EPA’s 

environmental justice plans and activities to recommendations made by 

its Inspector General (IG) in 2004 regarding the agency’s environmental 

justice efforts and interviewed EPA officials on efforts the agency had 

taken to implement these recommendations. We conducted this 

performance audit from May 2010 through September 2011, in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 

sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 

findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that 

the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and 

conclusions based on our audit objectives. Appendix I provides a more 

complete description of our scope and methodology. 

The following section discusses Executive Order 12898, EPA’s 

framework for integrating environmental justice into the agency’s 

missions, key environmental justice stakeholders, and leading practices in 

strategic planning. 

Background 

Executive Order 12898 On February 11, 1994, the President signed Executive Order 12898 to 

address environmental justice concerns in minority and low-income 

populations. The executive order requires federal agencies to, among 

other things: 

 make achieving environmental justice part of their missions by 

identifying and addressing, as appropriate, disproportionately high 

and adverse human health or environmental effects of programs, 

policies, and activities on minority and low-income populations; 

 develop an agencywide environmental justice strategy that should (1) 

promote the enforcement of health and environmental laws in lowincome and minority population areas; (2) ensure greater public 

participation in agency decision making; (3) improve research and 

Page 4 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
 

data collection associated with environmental justice issues; and (4) 

identify minority and low-income patterns of consumption of natural 

resources; 

 submit their environmental justice strategies to the Federal 

Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice convened by 

the EPA Administrator, which is then to report governmentwide 

progress to the Executive Office of the President; and 

 undertake certain activities, such as ensuring that documents are 

concise, understandable, and readily accessible and translating 

documents, where appropriate, to support public participation. 

Executive Order 12898 calls on EPA and other federal agencies to 

address disproportionately high human health and environmental impacts 

on minority populations and low-income populations. The Council on 

Environmental Quality (CEQ), in the Executive Office of the President, 

oversees the federal government’s compliance with the executive order, 

as well as with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). In enacting 

NEPA in 1970, Congress declared that “it is the continuing responsibility 

of the Federal Government to use all practicable means, consistent with 

other essential considerations of national policy, to improve and 

coordinate Federal plans, functions, programs, and resources” to, among 

other things, “assure for all Americans safe, healthful, productive, and 

aesthetically and culturally pleasing surroundings.” Further, Congress 

mandated that before federal agencies undertake a major federal action 

significantly affecting the environment, they must consider the 

environmental impact of such actions on the quality of the human 

environment, such as cultural, economic, social, or health effects 

including those on populations and areas with environmental justice 

concerns. To accomplish this mandate, NEPA regulations require, among 

other things, that federal agencies evaluate the likely environmental 

effects of proposed projects using an environmental assessment or, if the 

projects would likely significantly affect the environment, a more detailed 

environmental impact statement evaluating the proposed project and 

alternatives. In its 1997 NEPA guidance, CEQ suggested definitions for 

key environmental justice terms to help federal agencies identify and 

address environmental justice concerns in fulfilling their NEPA 

responsibilities. For example, CEQ’s guidance proposed that agencies 

identify low-income populations by using the annual statistical poverty 

thresholds from the Bureau of the Census Current Population Reports. 

Further, the CEQ guidance identified two definitions for minority 

population: (1) the minority population of the affected area exceeds 50 

Page 5 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
 

percent; or (2) the minority population percentage of the affected area is 

meaningfully greater than the minority population percentage in the 

general U. S. population.10 Moreover, in discussing whether human 

health or environmental effects are disproportionately high, CEQ’s 

guidance suggests that agencies consider three factors: (1) whether 

effects of proposed actions are significant or above generally accepted 

norms; (2) whether effects of proposed actions on minority, low-income,

and tribal population are significant and appreciably exceed risk to the

general population; and (3) whether minority, low-income, or tribal 

populations are affected by the cumulative impacts of proposed actions. 

 

EPA’s Framework for 

Integrating Environmental 

Justice 

EPA’s framework for integrating environmental justice into the agency’s 

missions includes four major plans: (1) EPA’s Fiscal Year 2011-2015 

Strategic Plan, (2) Plan EJ 2014, (3) Plan EJ 2014’s Implementation 

Plans, and (4) Plan EJ 2014 Outreach and Communications Plan. 

EPA’s Fiscal Year 2011-2015 Strategic Plan. EPA’s strategic plan 

provides a blueprint for how the agency expects to accomplish its 

priorities, including environmental justice. In addition to outlining strategic 

goals for advancing EPA’s mission to protect the environment and human 

health, it also outlines cross-cutting fundamental strategies that lay out 

specifically how EPA is to conduct its work over the next 5 years. These 

strategies include (1) expanding the conversation on environmentalism, 

which will involve engaging and empowering communities and partners—

including those who have been historically under-represented—to support 

and advance environmental protection and human health, and (2) working 

for environmental justice and children’s health, which will involve reducing 

and preventing harmful exposures and health risks to children and 

underserved, disproportionately impacted low-income, minority, and tribal 

communities. EPA officials said that they expect that both strategies will 

influence the work of every program and regional office throughout the 

agency, especially with respect to environmental justice. 

Plan EJ 2014. Named in recognition of the 20th anniversary of Executive 

Order 12898, Plan EJ 2014 is EPA’s overarching strategy for 

implementing environmental justice in the agency’s programs, policies, 

 

10The guidance defines “minority” as individuals who are members of the following groups: 

American Indian or Alaskan Native; Asian or Pacific Islander; Black, not of Hispanic origin; 

or Hispanic. 

Page 6 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
 

and activities. Plan EJ 2014 is a 4-year plan designed to help EPA 

develop stronger relationships with communities and increase the 

agency’s efforts to improve environmental conditions and public health in 

overburdened communities.11 According to EPA officials, the activities 

outlined in the plan are aligned with and support EPA’s commitments in 

the 2011-2015 strategic plan. 

Plan EJ 2014 defines three elements that are to guide EPA’s actions to 

advance environmental justice across the agency and the federal 

government: (1) cross-agency focus areas, (2) tools development efforts, 

and (3) program initiatives. The cross-agency focus areas are meant to 

address issues or functions that require work by all programs or agencies 

and serve to promote environmental justice across EPA and the federal 

government. The five cross-agency focus areas are 

 Rulemaking—providing guidance and support for all agency rule 

writers and decision makers so they can better include environmental 

justice concerns in rules being written throughout the agency. 

 Permitting—initially emphasizing EPA-issued permits that provide 

opportunities for helping overburdened populations; in the future, 

focusing on permits that would enable EPA to address the cumulative 

impacts of pollution on these populations. 

 Compliance and enforcement—targeting pollution problems that tend 

to affect disadvantaged communities, and providing these 

communities with opportunities for input into the remedies sought in 

enforcement actions. 

 Community-based action—engaging with overburdened communities 

and providing grants and technical assistance designed to help them 

address environmental problems. 

 Administrationwide action on environmental justice—establishing 

partnerships and initiatives with other federal agencies to support 

 11EPA uses the terms “overburdened community,” “overburdened population,” 

“disproportionately burdened,” and “disadvantaged community” interchangeably to refer to 

communities that may have a disproportionate share of environmental or health hazards, 

or may be economically disadvantaged. 

Page 7 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
 

holistic approaches to addressing environmental, social, and 

economic burdens of affected communities. 

EPA’s four tools development efforts focus on developing the scientific, 

legal, and resource areas, as well as data and information areas that 

support environmental justice analysis, community work, and 

communications and stakeholder engagement. For example, in March 

2010, EPA held a symposium on the science of disproportionate impact 

analysis. In June 2010, the agency followed with an environmental justice 

analysis technical workshop. According to EPA officials, the agency is 

also working to develop a computer-based screening tool, known as EJ 

SCREEN, to assist with identifying the location of communities with 

potential environmental justice concerns. 

The program initiatives focus on specific EPA programs, mainly the national 

programs.12 Plan EJ 2014 calls on EPA national program managers to 

identify relevant programmatic items that could benefit communities with 

environmental justice concerns. For example, according to EPA program 

documents, the Community Engagement Initiative in EPA’s Office of Solid 

Waste and Emergency Response (OSWER) could benefit communities with 

environmental justice concerns. This initiative focuses on identifying steps 

EPA can take to encourage communities and stakeholders to participate in 

developing and implementing hazardous materials policy and in evaluating 

the effectiveness of the agency’s actions. The initiative also focuses on 

identifying ways to institutionalize policy changes that aim to improve 

community engagement and environmental justice in the long-term, day-today operation of OSWER program activities. In addition, according to EPA 

program documents, the U.S. Mexico Border Program, managed in the 

Office of International and Tribal Affairs, seeks to address environmental 

justice issues along the border shared by the two countries. This program is 

a cooperative effort designed to address pollutants that enter shared 

waterways, affecting the health of border residents as well as degrading the 

environment in both nations. 

Plan EJ 2014 Implementation Plans. As guides for program and regional 

offices, EPA has developed implementation plans for every cross-agency 

focus area and developmental tool in Plan EJ 2014. Each implementation 

 12EPA’s national program offices consist of the following: Office of Air and Radiation, 

Office of Water, Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, Office of Chemical 

Safety and Pollution Prevention, and Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. 

Page 8 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
 

plan establishes unique goals and lays out strategies designed to meet 

those goals, and identifies national program offices and regional offices 

accountable for meeting plan goals within specified time frames. For 

example, the permitting plan outlines goals for providing disadvantaged 

communities with access to the agency’s permitting process, and 

ensuring that permits address environmental justice issues to the greatest 

extent practicable. Its strategies call for EPA to develop the necessary 

tools and recommendations to enhance communities’ abilities to 

participate in permitting decisions and to enable agency staff to 

incorporate environmental justice into permits. According to the plan, EPA 

will decide on how to best transmit and implement the permitting tools 

and recommendations by January 2012. 

Plan EJ 2014 Outreach and Communications Plan. In June 2011, EPA 

provided GAO a draft of its EJ 2014 Outreach and Communications Plan. 

The plan reiterates EPA’s commitment to continuing many of its outreach 

and communication activities, such as environmental justice listening 

sessions, as the agency moves forward. The plan identifies four principal 

goals for conducting outreach and communicating both with EPA staff and 

external stakeholders, such as states, on Plan EJ 2014. More specifically, 

the goals of the plan are to (1) inform and share the purpose, vision, 

priorities, and desired or resulting outcomes for Plan EJ 2014; (2) obtain a 

broad range of stakeholder views in the development, implementation, and 

ongoing enhancement/revision of Plan EJ 2014; (3) communicate Plan EJ 

2014’s vision, activities, results, and subsequent revisions to stakeholders, 

partners, and audiences in a consistent and dynamic way; and (4) facilitate 

the development of partnerships with and among EPA’s stakeholders to 

achieve Plan 2014’s goals and translate them into lasting results. 

Key Environmental Justice 

Stakeholders 

A number of external entities have a significant role in helping EPA 

integrate environmental justice into its programs, policies, and activities. 

Key stakeholders include the National Environmental Justice Advisory 

Council (NEJAC), the Federal Interagency Working Group on 

Environmental Justice (IWG), state agencies, and community groups. 

 NEJAC was established by EPA charter pursuant to the Federal 

Advisory Committee Act in 1993. NEJAC provides independent advice 

and recommendations to the EPA Administrator on a broad array of 

strategic, scientific, technological, regulatory and economic issues 

related to environmental justice. The council is comprised of a wide 

spectrum of stakeholders, including community-based groups, 

business and industry, state and local governments, tribal 

Page 9 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
 

governments and indigenous organizations, and non-governmental 

and environmental groups. The council holds public meetings and 

teleconferences, providing a forum focusing on human health and 

environmental conditions in all communities, including minority and 

low-income populations. 

 IWG was established under Executive Order 12898 in 1994. Among 

other things, the IWG provides guidance to federal agencies on 

identifying disproportionately high adverse effects on minority and 

low-income populations, assists in coordinating research and data 

collection conducted by federal agencies, and holds quarterly public 

meetings to share best practices for integrating and addressing 

environmental justice as well as identifying opportunities to enhance 

coordination and collaboration among federal agencies. The IWG is 

comprised of 15 federal agencies and several White House offices.13

 EPA relies on states to help implement its programs under several 

key environmental statutes, such as the Clean Air Act and the 

Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).14,15 Under these 

laws, generally once a state demonstrates and is approved by EPA as 

meeting the relevant criteria, the state accepts key day-to-day 

responsibilities, such as permitting and monitoring, and in some 

programs primary enforcement. As such, states are key stakeholders 

in EPA’s environmental justice efforts, because the states will be 

largely responsible for carrying out many of the environmental justice 

activities identified by EPA. For example, under the Clean Air Act, 

 13The 15 agencies that comprise the IWG are Department of Defense, Department of 

Health and Human Services, Department of Housing and Urban Development, 

Department of Labor, Department of Agriculture, Department of Transportation, 

Department of Justice, Department of the Interior, Department of Commerce, Department 

of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Management and Budget, Office of 

Science and Technology Policy, Council on Environmental Quality (formerly Office of the 

Deputy Assistant to the President for Environmental Policy), Office of the Assistant to the 

President for Domestic Policy, National Economic Council, Council of Economic Advisers, 

and such other government officials as the President may designate. 

14The Clean Air Act, as amended, is the comprehensive federal law that regulates air 

emissions from stationary and mobile sources. Among other things, this law authorizes 

EPA to establish national ambient air quality standards to protect the public health and 

welfare and to regulate the emissions of hazardous air pollutants. 

15RCRA established federal requirements and EPA regulatory authority for “cradle-tograve” management of hazardous wastes, including a permit program. RCRA also 

established a framework for state management of nonhazardous solid waste. 

Page 10 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
 

EPA has established national ambient air quality standards for certain 

pollutants considered harmful to public health and the environment. 

States are responsible for developing and implementing plans, known 

as State Implementation Plans, to achieve and maintain these 

standards. In carrying out this duty, states set emissions limitations for 

individual sources of air pollution which they incorporate into 

enforceable permits. Similarly, states with hazardous waste programs 

determined to be equivalent to the federal program and authorized 

under RCRA are responsible for carrying out the program including 

such activities as issuing and enforcing permits for the storage, 

treatment, and disposal of hazardous waste. Finally, EPA also works 

with states to implement various environmental grant and loan 

programs, such as the Clean Water and Drinking Water State 

Revolving Funds. Thus, states have the opportunity to consider 

environmental justice in developing their plans and programs, as well 

as in issuing permits and making grants. 

 EPA has worked to include community groups as important 

stakeholders in the agency’s environmental justice decision making. 

According to Plan EJ 2014, EPA envisions a continuous dialogue with 

communities and other stakeholders regarding efforts to integrate 

environmental justice into agency policies and programs. For 

example, EPA’s National Enforcement Air Toxics Initiative and Office 

of Brownfields and Land Revitalization, among others, reflect a focus 

on issues that have been conveyed to EPA from disadvantaged 

communities. Further, EPA has developed various programs and 

tools, such as funding mechanisms, training, technical assistance, 

and information and analytical resources, to help communities 

understand and address their environmental problems. 

Selected Leading Practices 

in Federal Strategic 

Planning 

In 1993, Congress enacted GPRA to improve the efficiency and 

accountability of federal programs, among other purposes, and 

established a system for agencies to set goals for program performance 

and to measure results. GPRA requires, among other things, that federal 

agencies develop long-term strategic plans. The Office of Management 

and Budget (OMB) provides guidance to federal executive branch 

agencies on how to prepare their strategic plans in accordance with 

GPRA requirements. Federal departments and agencies must comply 

with GPRA requirements and are to follow associated OMB guidance in 

developing their department or agencywide strategic plans. We have 

reported that these requirements also can serve as leading practices for 

strategic planning at lower levels within federal agencies, such as 

Page 11 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
 

planning for individual divisions, programs or initiatives. In addition, we 

have reported in the past on federal agencies’ strategic planning efforts 

and have identified additional useful practices to enhance agencies’ 

strategic plans. We have reported in the past that, taken together, the 

strategic planning elements established under GPRA and associated 

OMB guidance, and practices identified by GAO provide a framework of 

leading practices in federal strategic planning. See table 1 for selected 

leading practices in federal strategic planning. 

Table 1: Selected Leading Practices in Federal Strategic Planning 

Selected leading practice Characteristics 

Define the mission and goals A mission statement explains why the agency—or a specific program—exists, what it does, and 

how it does it. 

Strategic goals explain the purpose of agency programs and the results—including outcomes—

that they intend to achieve. 

Define strategies that address 

management challenges and 

identify resources needed to 

achieve goals 

Strategies should address management challenges that threaten an agency’s ability to meet its 

long-term strategic goals. 

Strategies should include a description of the resources needed to meet established goals. 

Ensure leadership involvement and 

accountability 

Only an agency’s senior leadership can ensure that strategic planning becomes the basis for 

day-to-day operations. 

Successful organizations use formal and informal practices to hold managers accountable and 

create incentives for working to achieve the agency’s goals. 

Involve stakeholders Successful organizations involve stakeholders in developing their mission, goals, and strategies 

to help ensure that they target the highest priorities. 

Stakeholders can influence success or failure of agencies’ programs. 

Stakeholders include: Congress and the administration; state and local governments; agency 

staff; agency customers, interest groups, and the public. 

Coordinate with other federal 

agencies 

Agencies can coordinate in defining their mission, goals, and strategies to ensure that programs 

contributing to similar results are mutually reinforcing and efficiently employing federal funds. 

Develop and use performance 

measures 

Performance measures allow an agency to track the progress it is making toward its mission and 

goals, provide managers information on which to base their organizational and management 

decisions, and create powerful incentives to influence organizational and individual behavior. 

Source: GAO analysis. 

Note: We selected the six practices from among GPRA, OMB guidance, and GAO prior work because 

EPA’s environmental justice efforts are in the initial planning stage and we judged these practices to 

be the most relevant for evaluating EPA’s environmental justice strategic planning actions. We did not 

consider all practices from among these sources because our focus was specifically on EPA’s initial 

planning process. 

Page 12 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
 

Page 13 GAO-12-77 

 EPA is implementing an agencywide approach to integrating 

environmental justice efforts, with its national program and regional 

offices taking primary roles. Stakeholders are also expected to play a 

major role in helping EPA integrate environmental justice into its 

programs and policies. 

EPA Is Using an 

Agencywide 

Approach to Integrate 

Environmental 

Justice, with 

Stakeholders 

Expected to Play a 

Major Role 

EPA Environmental 

Justice Efforts Primarily 

Rely on Its Program and 

Regional Offices 

EPA’s national program and regional offices are primarily responsible for 

integrating environmental justice considerations into the agency’s 

policies, programs, and activities. Under Plan EJ 2014, each national 

program office, along with selected regional offices, will have a key 

leadership role in helping to integrate environmental justice into the five 

cross-agency focus areas: rulemaking, permitting, enforcement, 

community-based actions, and administrationwide actions. Among other 

things, these offices will be responsible for implementing assigned Plan 

EJ 2014 cross-agency elements, engaging appropriate agency offices 

and regions, identifying and securing resources to ensure 

implementation, and tracking and reporting on progress in these areas. 

For example, EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance 

(OECA), which serves as the national program manager for 

environmental justice and provides general oversight of all agency 

environmental justice activities, and its region 5 office––comprising states 

in the upper midwest––will share responsibility for ensuring that 

environmental justice concerns are incorporated into EPA’s enforcement 

and compliance programs. According to Plan EJ 2014, the goal over the 

next 3 years is to fully integrate environmental justice considerations into 

the planning and implementation of OECA’s program strategies and its 

development of remedies in enforcement actions. To achieve these goals, 

OECA is engaging in a number of activities, such as considering 

environmental justice in the selection of its National Enforcement 

Initiatives––high priority national environmental and compliance problems 

that are addressed through concentrated, nationwide enforcement 

efforts––for fiscal years 2011 through 2013, issuing internal guidance that 

calls for analysis and consideration of environmental justice in EPA’s 

compliance and enforcement program, and increasing efforts to address 

 Environmental Justice 
 

environmental justice concerns by seeking appropriate remedies in 

enforcement actions to benefit over-burdened communities. 

Similarly, EPA’s Offices of Air and Radiation (OAR) and General Counsel 

(OGC), and EPA region 1––comprising the northeastern United States––

are designated as co-leads for carrying out the permitting implementation 

plan. Some of the activities OAR and OGC are undertaking in the permits 

focus area include: developing a plan to engage stakeholders throughout 

the process, soliciting input from both internal and external stakeholders 

about the types of tools and recommendations that have been the most 

effective in advancing environmental justice, and identifying opportunities 

in EPA’s ongoing permit activities to test the most viable tools and 

recommendations. Figure 1 shows the EPA offices responsible for 

implementing Plan EJ 2014. 

Page 14 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
 

Figure 1: Leadership Responsibilities for Implementing Plan EJ 2014 

EPA

Administrator

Office of

International and 

Tribal Affairs

Support for permitting

Office of

Solid Waste

and Emergency

Response and

Regions

2, 3, and 4

Co-leads for

Community

engagement

Office of Air and

Radiation,

Office of

General Counsel,

and Region 1

Co-leads for

permitting

Office of Chemical

Safety and Pollution

Prevention,

Office of Policy,

Office of Research

and Development,

Office of

Environmental

Justice, and Region 9

Co-leads for

rulemaking

Office of

Enforcement

and Compliance 

Assurance and

Region 5

Co-leads for

enforcement

Office of General

Counsel

Lead for legal

tools development

Office of

Environmental

Information

Co-lead for

information tools

development

(EJ SCREEN)

Office of Research

and Development

Lead for science

tools development

Office of 

Administration and

Resources

Management

Lead for resource

tools development

Office of Water and

Region 6

Co-leads for 

administrationwide action

Office of

Environmental

Justice

Co-leads for

Plan EJ 2014 support

and coordination

Office of Chief

Financial Officer

Strategic plan

cross-cutting

strategies 

Deputy

Administrator

Office of Policy

Co-lead for

information tools

development

(EJ SCREEN)

Source: GAO analysis of information from EPA. 

Page 15 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
 

In addition to the program and regional offices, several other offices in 

EPA will have leadership roles in developing environmental justice tools 

in the areas of law, information, science, and resources to help better 

advance the agency’s environmental justice efforts. For example, EPA’s 

Office of Policy and Office of Environmental Information will be co-leads 

in the development of information tools—most notably, EJ SCREEN, 

intended to be a nationally-consistent screening tool for environmental 

justice. According to the implementation plan for information, EJ SCREEN 

will not only help improve environmental justice analysis and decisionmaking, but will also help communities better understand how EPA 

screens for potential environmental justice concerns. Some of the 

activities involved in developing EJ SCREEN include creating a working 

prototype of the tool, obtaining peer review and public comments on the 

prototype, and incorporating the EJ SCREEN into EPA’s common 

mapping software. EPA expects to make EJ SCREEN available to its 

national program and regional offices within the next 3 years. 

Other entities also have important roles in helping to integrate 

environmental justice in the daily activities of EPA, including the agency’s 

Office of Environmental Justice (OEJ) and the Executive Management 

Council’s Environmental Justice Committee. OEJ, which resides in 

OECA, provides support for the EPA Administrator, OECA, and other 

national program and regional offices on all environmental justice 

activities. The Executive Management Council’s Environmental Justice 

Committee, which comprises deputy assistant administrators and deputy 

regional assistant administrators, also plays an important leadership role 

in implementing Plan EJ 2014 by, among other things, providing a forum 

for discussing critical policy issues and helping to establish workgroups or 

subcommittees to address cross-agency efforts. 

Stakeholders Are 

Expected to Play a Major 

Role in Integrating 

Environmental Justice 

Considerations 

EPA expects stakeholders to play a major role in helping to integrate 

environmental justice considerations into EPA’s program, policies, and 

activities. As a result, EPA is renewing its commitment to work with key 

environmental justice stakeholders and exploring new approaches for 

obtaining stakeholder input. 

EPA has renewed its efforts to work with key environmental justice 

stakeholders to advance the agency’s environmental justice 

considerations. For example, EPA has renewed its communications with 

the IWG. In September 2010, EPA and the White House Council on 

Environmental Quality reconvened the IWG for the first time in over a 

EPA Is Renewing Its 

Commitment to Work with Key 

Stakeholders 

Page 16 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
 

decade. At this meeting, the IWG members agreed to hold monthly 

meetings, assign senior officials from each agency to coordinate 

environmental justice activities, organize regional listening sessions in 

2011, hold follow-up IWG Principals Meetings in September 2011 and 

plan a White House forum on environmental justice for environmental 

justice leaders and stakeholders. In addition, each agency was tasked 

with developing or updating its environmental justice strategy by 

September 2011. Moving forward, EPA documents indicate that the 

agency expects that the IWG will help integrate environmental justice by, 

among other things, identifying opportunities for federal programs to 

improve the environment and public health, create sustainable 

economies, and address other environmental justice concerns for 

disadvantaged communities. 

According to EPA officials, EPA plans to work more closely with NEJAC 

in its efforts to integrate environmental justice into the mainstream of 

EPA. In her remarks in July 2009 to NEJAC, the EPA Administrator noted 

that NEJAC’s advice and recommendations will be especially pertinent to 

the agency as it seeks to place greater emphasis on the implementation 

and integration of environmental justice considerations. NEJAC recently 

issued reports with recommendations to the EPA Administrator on a 

variety of matters associated with environmental justice. In 2009,16

NEJAC recommended how EPA––in partnership with federal, state, tribal, 

local governmental agencies, and other stakeholders––can most 

effectively promote strategies to identify, mitigate, or prevent 

disadvantaged communities from being disproportionately burdened by 

air pollution caused by transporting goods. In 2010,17 NEJAC 

recommended the best methods to use to communicate with communities 

on the monitoring of toxic air in schools. Most recently, in May 2011,18

NEJAC made recommendations on the appropriateness of the crossagency focus areas EPA included in its Plan EJ 2014 ways that EPA can 

strengthen specific actions within the five cross-agency focus areas, and 

how EPA can prioritize the five cross-agency focus areas. 

 16NEJAC Report: Reducing Air Emissions Associated With Goods Movement: Working 

Towards Environmental Justice, November 2009. 

17NEJAC Report: Strategies to Enhance School Air Toxics Monitoring in Environmental 

Justice Communities, April 2010. 

18NEJAC Report: NEJAC Comments to EPA Plan EJ 2014, April 2011. 

Page 17 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
 

EPA has also renewed its efforts to work with states to help integrate 

environmental justice efforts. In Plan EJ 2014, EPA observes that for the 

agency to achieve its environmental justice goals, such as incorporating 

environmental justice considerations into the permitting process, EPA will 

have to work more closely with states and provide them with better 

guidance. EPA has subsequently provided several forums to obtain state 

input on Plan EJ 2014. In addition, the agency has highlighted the need 

for state input in over half of the individual implementation plans 

associated with Plan EJ 2014. 

In an effort to ensure that stakeholders’ views play a major role in helping 

to shape EPA’s environmental justice efforts, EPA has stressed and, in 

some cases, begun providing for stakeholder involvement in several key 

environmental justice documents, including EPA’s FY 2011-2015 

Strategic Plan and Plan EJ 2014. For example, according to its strategic 

plan, EPA will address the access barriers faced by historically underrepresented groups to help improve the participation of these groups in 

the decision making process. The plan also calls for the use of traditional 

and new media to help inform and educate the public about EPA’s 

activities and to provide opportunities for community feedback. The need 

for stakeholder involvement is similarly expressed in EPA’s Plan EJ 2014 

draft Outreach and Communications Plan. For instance, the agency’s 

outreach and communications plan has a specific goal of obtaining a 

broad range of stakeholder views on Plan EJ 2014. Accordingly, EPA has 

developed a strategy to reach out to and look for opportunities to engage 

various stakeholders, including community members, businesses, states, 

local representatives, native Alaskan and Hawaiians, and tribes. 

Moreover, according to its draft outreach and communications plan, EPA 

expects to schedule meetings and roundtables with stakeholder groups 

as well as look for opportunities to participate in national conferences and 

meetings held by other organizations to give presentations, seek input, 

and engage with others about Plan EJ 2014. The draft outreach and 

communications plan also specifies that a community engagement and 

stakeholder outreach plan is to be developed for each of the nine Plan EJ 

2014 implementation plans. 

EPA has recently begun employing several new approaches to enhance 

stakeholder input in its environmental justice efforts, including conducting 

quarterly environmental justice outreach teleconferences as well as 

listening sessions on Plan EJ 2014. According to EPA documents, in July 

2010, the agency began hosting quarterly environmental justice outreach 

teleconferences. The teleconferences provide an opportunity for those 

interested in environmental issues to call in and receive information on 

EPA Is Employing New 

Approaches to Obtain 

Stakeholder Input 

Page 18 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
 

EPA’s environmental justice activities. The teleconferences also allow 

stakeholders an opportunity to provide input on environmental justice 

efforts. According to EPA officials, as the work on Plan EJ 2014 

progresses, the quarterly teleconferences will help to better inform the 

public about the agency’s environmental justice activities, as well as 

provide an opportunity for members of disadvantaged communities to call 

in and get information on federal efforts that could benefit them, such as 

grant opportunities. 

In addition, in June 2011, EPA began conducting a series of listening 

sessions on the draft Plan EJ 2014 Considering Environmental Justice in 

Permitting implementation plan. The listening sessions are intended to 

provide an opportunity for EPA to listen to stakeholders’ ideas, concerns, 

and recommendations regarding EPA’s environmental justice permitting 

initiative. According to EPA documents, EPA held six listening sessions in 

June 2011. The listening sessions were organized by stakeholder group, 

that is, there were separate listening sessions with state and local 

governments; business and industry; environmental groups; tribes; 

environmental justice communities and community groups; and Spanishspeaking stakeholders. 

In developing a framework for incorporating environmental justice 

considerations into its policies, programs, and activities, EPA generally 

followed or partially followed the six leading federal strategic planning 

practices that we reviewed (see table 2). 

Table 2: Extent to Which EPA’s Efforts to Integrate Environmental Justice Followed 

Selected Leading Practices in Federal Strategic Planning 

Selected leading practices in federal strategic planning 

Extent 

followed 

Define the mission and goals 

Define strategies that address management challenges and identify 

resources needed to achieve goals 

◓

Ensure leadership involvement and accountability 

Involve stakeholders ◓

Coordinate with other agencies 

Develop and use performance measures ◓

EPA Generally 

Followed Most of the 

Selected Leading 

Federal Strategic 

Planning Practices to 

Develop Its 

Environmental Justice 

Framework 

Legend:  Fully followed ◓ Partially followed 

Source: GAO analysis of EPA data. 

Page 19 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
 

Page 20 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice 

EPA generally followed three leading federal strategic planning practices: 

Define mission and goals. In its Plan EJ 2014, EPA established a mission 

to integrate environmental justice into the agency’s programs and policies 

through its cross-agency focus areas, tools development efforts, and 

program initiatives. The three key goals defined in Plan EJ 2014 generally 

focus on the outcome-oriented results that EPA aims to achieve in 

communities.19 Moreover, the implementation plans associated with Plan 

EJ 2014 contain goals for each of the nine cross-agency focus areas and 

tools development efforts. The implementation plans generally align with 

its overarching environmental justice goals. For example, in its 

implementation plan for the cross-agency focus area on supporting 

community-based action programs, EPA defined its goal as strengthening 

community-based programs to engage overburdened communities and 

building partnerships that promote healthy, sustainable, and green 

communities. 

Ensure leadership involvement and accountability. As previously 

discussed, EPA’s senior leadership has taken a number of steps to 

demonstrate its commitment to involving its leaders in advancing 

environmental justice in the agency, including giving the senior 

administrators of EPA program and regional offices lead responsibility for 

implementing Plan EJ 2014’s cross-agency focus areas. EPA has also 

developed measures to ensure accountability for achieving its 

environmental justice mission. For example, EPA has required its national 

program offices to incorporate environmental justice priorities in their 

fiscal year 2012 National Program Manager Guidance documents. The 

guidance documents are annual plans that set forth each national 

program office’s priorities and key actions for the upcoming year that 

support EPA’s strategic plan and annual budget.20 The guidance also 

provides annual direction to regional offices on how to work with states on 

 

19The three key goals are to (1) protect the environment and health in low-income and 

minority communities; (2) empower communities to take action to improve their health and 

environment; and (3) establish partnerships with local, state, tribal, and federal 

governments and organizations to achieve healthy and sustainable communities. 

20The national program offices that issue National Program Manager Guidance are the 

Office of Air and Radiation, Office of Water, Office of Solid Waste and Emergency 

Response, Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention and Office of Enforcement 

and Compliance Assurance. In addition, the Office of Environmental Information, and 

Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Relations included environmental justice 

priorities in their offices’ fiscal year 2012 program guidance. 

EPA Generally Followed 

Three Leading Federal 

Strategic Planning 

Practices 
 

national priorities and serves as a mechanism to hold the regional offices 

accountable for specific levels of performance. For example, we reviewed 

the fiscal year 2012 National Program Manager Guidance from OAR and 

found that it included plans to consult with communities, develop 

programs and policies that reflect environmental justice concerns, and 

work with EPA regional offices to help educate and raise states’ 

awareness of opportunities to address environmental justice issues. In 

addition, EPA officials told us that fiscal year 2011 is the first year that the 

agency aligned its performance-based pay system to hold all senior 

executives accountable for advancing its environmental justice goals and 

mission. Specifically, EPA directed its senior executives to make 

individual commitments in their fiscal year 2011 annual performance 

plans for advancing the agency’s environmental justice agenda. 

Coordinate with other federal agencies. As previously discussed, EPA 

has made establishing partnerships with federal agencies a part of its 

overarching environmental justice goals in Plan EJ 2014 and has made 

fostering administrationwide action on environmental justice a crossagency focus area in the plan. Moreover, in addition to reconvening the 

IWG, EPA has a number of other interagency initiatives under way that 

support its Plan EJ 2014. For example, in June 2009, EPA jointly 

established the Partnership for Sustainable Communities with the 

Departments of Housing and Urban Development and Transportation to 

support environmental justice and equitable development by coordinating 

federal actions on housing, transportation, and environmental protection. 

According to information on EPA’s Web site, the three agencies worked 

together to distribute nearly $2 billion in grants in 2009 to recipients that 

included EPA Environmental Justice Showcase Communities to support 

vital transportation infrastructure, equitable comprehensive planning, and 

brownfields cleanup and reuse.21

 21Through its Environmental Justice Showcase Communities Program, EPA provides its 

regional offices funding to bring together governmental and non-governmental 

organizations to pool their collective resources and expertise on the best ways to achieve 

real results in selected communities with environmental justice issues. 

Page 21 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
 

As of June 2011, EPA partially followed three of the leading practices in 

federal strategic planning that we reviewed. Without additional progress 

on these practices, EPA cannot assure itself, its stakeholders, and the 

public that it has established a framework to effectively guide and assess 

efforts to accomplish its environmental justice goals. Specifically, EPA 

has not yet fully: 

 established a clear strategy for how it will define key environmental 

justice terms or identified the resources it may need to carry out its 

environmental justice implementation plans; 

 articulated clearly states’ roles in ongoing planning and environmental 

justice integration efforts; and 

 developed performance measures for eight of its nine implementation 

plans to track agency progress on its environmental justice goals. 

EPA has taken actions to address many of the management challenges 

regarding the agency’s efforts to integrate environmental justice into its 

programs and policies. However, the agency has not yet developed a 

strategy for how it will address one principal, long-standing challenge: the 

agency’s lack of standard and consistent definitions for key environmental 

justice terms. In addition, EPA has yet to identify the budgetary and 

human resources that may be needed to implement is agencywide 

environmental justice plans. We have reported in the past that a primary 

purpose of federal strategic planning is to improve the management of 

federal agencies. In doing so, it is particularly important for agencies to 

develop strategies that address management challenges threatening their 

ability to meet long-term strategic goals.22 In addition, strategies should 

include a description of the resources needed to meet established 

goals.23

EPA Partially Followed 

Three Leading Practices in 

Federal Strategic Planning 

Defined strategies that address 

management challenges and 

identify resources needed to 

achieve goals 

Management challenges. EPA officials told us that they have taken a 

number of actions to address the management challenges identified by 

 22GAO, Managing for Results: Critical Issues for Improving Federal Agencies’ Strategic 

Plans, GAO/GGD-97-180 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 16, 1997). 

23GAO, U.S. Tsunami Preparedness: NOAA Has Expanded Its Tsunami Programs, but 

Improved Planning Could Enhance Effectiveness, GAO-10-490 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 

28, 2010). 

Page 22 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
 

the EPA IG.24 For example, to address the EPA IG’s finding that the 

agency lacked a clear mission for its Office of Environmental Justice, EPA 

has clarified and communicated the office’s role through agency guidance 

and memoranda.25 Additionally, EPA has addressed what the EPA IG 

considered a lack of a clear vision for integrating environmental justice by 

outlining the agency’s approach to environmental justice in its 

agencywide fiscal year 2011-2015 strategic plan under its cross-cutting 

strategy for environmental justice and children’s health.26 Further, EPA 

has addressed the lack of a comprehensive strategic plan to help guide 

its agencywide efforts to integrate environmental justice by establishing 

its Plan EJ 2014 and associated implementation plans. However, EPA 

has yet to establish a strategy for how it will provide standard and 

consistent definitions for key environmental justice terms, such as 

“minority” and “low-income communities,” as called for by the EPA IG in 

2004. In its 2004 report, the EPA IG found that, because the agency 

lacked definitions for these key terms from Executive Order 12898, its 

regional offices had used different approaches to identify potential areas 

of environmental justice concern. The EPA IG concluded that EPA had 

inconsistently implemented Executive Order 12898 and recommended 

that EPA provide its regions and program offices a standard and 

consistent definition for these terms, with instructions, through guidance 

or policy, on how the agency will implement and operationalize 

environmental justice into its daily activities. More recently, the EPA IG 

found that a lack of clear definitions continues to present a challenge to 

 24EPA Office of Inspector General, Evaluation Report: EPA Needs to Consistently 

Implement The Intent of The Executive Order on Environmental Justice, Report No. 2004-

P-00007, March 1, 2004. 

25According to EPA officials, the role of the Office of Environmental Justice is to facilitate 

the agency’s efforts to protect the environment and public health in minority, low-income, 

tribal, and other historically underrepresented communities by integrating environmental 

justice in all programs, policies, and activities. 

26Specifically, according to the strategic plan, advancing environmental justice must be a 

driving force in EPA’s decisions across all agency programs and activities. The strategic 

plan also identified EPA’s approaches for accomplishing this, including incorporating 

environmental justice considerations in the agency’s regulation development process and 

in implementation of environmental regulations, research, outreach, community-based 

programs, and partnerships with stakeholders. 

Page 23 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
 

the agency.27 Specifically, in April 2011, the EPA IG reported that EPA 

could not execute efforts to track how it has distributed funds from the 

American Reinvestment and Recovery Act to low-income and minority 

communities because the agency did not have definitions for these 

particular communities. 

EPA officials we interviewed told us that they have not developed 

agencywide definitions for key environmental justice terms, such as lowincome and minority, because doing so could affect the agency’s ability to 

accurately identify communities with potential environmental justice 

concerns. For example, the EPA officials stated that strict definitions for 

such terms would reduce their flexibility in considering other factors, 

which may be necessary to more accurately identify a community with 

environmental justice concerns. In addition, the EPA officials informed us 

that there are some communities across the country that may not meet a 

single definition for low-income or minority, but may nevertheless have 

environmental justice concerns. According to the EPA officials, these 

communities do not want EPA to establish any strict definitions for 

environmental justice terms for fear that as a result they might be 

excluded from EPA’s decision-making process. 

EPA officials informed us that they are beginning to define some 

environmental justice terms with respect to the agency’s EJ SCREEN tool. 

However, these definitions will have limited use. More specifically, EPA 

officials told us that the EJ SCREEN tool will include definitions for “lowincome” and “minority,” but these definitions are not intended to establish a 

standard for all of EPA’s programs, policies, and activities. Rather, the 

officials told us that the agency intends EJ SCREEN to have a limited role 

across the agency and will be used only for baseline environmental justice 

 27See, EPA Office of Inspector General, Evaluation Report: EPA Faced Multiple 

Constraints to Targeting Recovery Act Funds, Report No. 11-R-0208, April 11, 2011. The 

Inspector General made two recommendations to EPA’s Deputy Administrator: (1) 

establish a clear and consistent regime that can address socioeconomic factors within the 

bounds of statutory and organizational constraints. Such a regime should allow the 

agency to target program funds to achieve agencywide objectives and priorities for the 

inclusion of environmental justice principles in all of EPA’s decisions; (2) identify the 

sources of information needed by EPA program offices and managers to assess the 

socioeconomic conditions in communities. Within the bounds of statutory and 

organizational constraints, this information should be used to identify and target 

opportunities for which investment and grants, program funding, or technical assistance 

would return the most benefits in terms of jobs needed, infrastructure improvements, or 

economic benefit to the community. 

Page 24 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
 

screening. Without a clear strategy for how the agency will define key 

environmental justice terms, EPA may not be able to overcome the 

challenges it has faced in establishing a consistent and transparent 

approach for identifying potential communities with environmental justice 

concerns. Moreover, without establishing consistent definitions, the agency 

may not be able to demonstrate that its environmental justice efforts are 

addressing minority and low-income populations that are experiencing 

disproportionate environmental health impacts. 

Resource Needs. EPA has also yet to identify the budgetary and human 

resources that may be needed to implement its agencywide 

environmental justice plans. Specifically, none of the nine Plan EJ 2014 

implementation plans described the resources that are needed to carry 

out the strategies and activities detailed in the plans. According to EPA’s 

plans, the agency intends to undertake changes in operations that will 

impact the workload as well as roles and responsibilities of staff across 

the agency. These changes will include, among other things, additional 

processes for engaging communities during rulemaking development and 

additional analyses for conducting economic and risk assessments. This 

may involve allocating staff and funds differently to address skill gaps and 

workload changes. As we have reported in the past, effective strategies 

should describe the resources needed to accomplish established goals.28

EPA officials told us that their most recent review of environmental 

justice-related resources was completed in fiscal year 2009 in preparation 

for the proposed fiscal year 2010 President’s budget. The review, which 

focused on the staffing resources allocated to the Office of Environmental 

Justice and to the regional offices, determined that each regional office 

needed additional full-time equivalents (FTE) for staff positions to 

promote the integration of environmental justice within regional work. EPA 

officials told us that as a result of the review, the agency increased the 

total agency staffing allocation of the Office of Environmental Justice from 

21 to 33 FTEs.29 Nonetheless, EPA completed the review before it had 

developed its draft Plan EJ 2014 and did not consider the staffing needs 

 28GAO-10-490. 

29An FTE consists of one or more employed individuals who collectively complete 2,080 

work hours in a given year. Therefore, both one full-time employee and two half-time 

employees equal one FTE. 

Page 25 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
 

for incorporating environmental justice in decision making across all EPA 

program and regional offices. 

Senior EPA officials told us that they did not believe that identifying the 

resources associated with the activities detailed in the Plan EJ 2014 

implementation plans was practical or necessary because they expect all 

EPA staff to work on environmental justice. Moreover, they said that they 

believe the new environmental justice efforts described in the 

implementation plans would only result in a negligible increase in 

resource needs because enhancing current program activities with 

environmental justice consideration or criteria should result in the same 

people doing many of the same things. For example, officials stated that 

they anticipate that including environmental justice considerations in 

economic and risk analyses conducted in support of regulatory decisions 

would involve adding several variables to otherwise resource intensive 

studies and thus would not substantially alter the resources required to 

complete these analyses. Officials also stated that they believe a 

resource assessment would itself be resource-intensive and thus would 

only take resources away from more important program needs without a 

clear benefit to managers. 

Without a clear understanding of the resources needed to integrate 

environmental justice considerations throughout the agency under its 

current plans, EPA cannot ensure that its current staffing and funding 

resources are sufficient to meet its environmental justice goals. 

Furthermore, EPA cannot ensure that it has the information needed to 

successfully adapt to changes in workload as a result of new 

environmental justice initiatives or areas of focus as well as potential 

changes in funding levels for the agency. EPA’s IG has recently identified 

EPA’s policies and procedures for determining workforce levels as an 

area of significant internal control weakness.30 Specifically, in December 

2010, the EPA IG reported that EPA cannot demonstrate that it has the 

sufficient resources to accomplish its mission and cannot provide any 

Environmental Justice

 30EPA Office of Inspector General, Audit Report: EPA Needs to Strengthen Internal 

Controls for Determining Workforce Levels, Report No. 11-P-0031, December 20, 2010. 

The IG found that EPA’s policies and procedures do not include a process for determining 

employment levels based on workload because EPA has not developed a workload 

assessment methodology. In addition, the IG found that although EPA’s work is guided by 

human capital goals and objectives, EPA does not require that workforce planning results 

link to its agencywide strategic and performance goals because the agency has not clearly 

defined the reporting requirements needed. 

Page 26 GAO-12-77 
 

assurance that its workforce levels are adequate to meet the workload of 

the agency. 

As mentioned earlier, EPA has taken a number of steps to involve some 

key stakeholders in helping the agency define its environmental justice 

mission, goals, and strategies. However, the role that states will have in 

ongoing environmental justice planning and implementation efforts is 

unclear. EPA relies heavily on many states for activities that generally 

include issuing permits and monitoring and enforcing compliance with 

federal environmental laws; therefore, states will play a significant role in 

implementing potential new approaches for addressing environmental 

justice. We have reported in the past that organizations that are 

successful in strategic planning understand that stakeholders will play a 

key role in determining whether their programs succeed or fail. Thus, 

involving stakeholders in strategic planning helps ensure that their 

mission, goals, and strategies are targeted at the highest priorities.31

Involve Stakeholders

EPA has involved some key stakeholders to help define its environmental 

justice mission, goals, and strategies. For example, in July 2010, EPA 

requested that NEJAC provide the agency with recommendations and 

advice to help the agency identify and prioritize the cross-agency focus 

areas in its Plan EJ 2014 and to help develop its strategy for the focus 

area on considering environmental justice in permitting. EPA also 

obtained recommendations from academic researchers and 

environmental justice organizations during a symposium held in March 

2010, which formed the basis for the goals and strategies identified in its 

Plan EJ 2014 Science Tools Development implementation plan. 

EPA officials assert that the agency has similarly involved states early on in 

the initial stages of Plan EJ 2014 and its associated implementation plans 

and that these planning documents reflect states’ input and concerns, 

particularly with respect to the cross-agency focus area on permitting. 

However, based on our review of these documents and interviews with 

EPA and state association officials, it is unclear how states will specifically 

be involved in the agency’s ongoing environmental justice planning efforts 

as well as its implementation of these plans. Five Plan EJ 2014 

implementation plans identify states as key stakeholders, but provide 

limited detail on how states will be involved in ongoing planning regarding 

 31GAO/GGD-96-118. 

Page 27 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
 

these efforts and in the actual implementation of the plans. For example, 

while the implementation plan for the cross-agency focus area on 

permitting generally indicates that state input will be obtained, the plan 

does not specify how states will be integrally involved in the planning for 

this focus area or the level of involvement expected from states in helping 

to implement the plan. Without articulating clearly in its plans how states 

will be involved in ongoing environmental justice planning efforts and what 

part states will play in helping EPA implement these plans, EPA cannot 

ensure that states are meaningfully involved in the ongoing planning and 

implementation of EPA’s environmental justice integration efforts. 

EPA officials told us that they recognized that the implementation plans did 

not provide much detail on how states will be involved. However, they said 

that the agency planned to work more closely with states to obtain their 

views in finalizing the implementation plans. Towards this end, EPA took 

some additional steps to obtain states views after the release of its draft 

implementation plans. For example, EPA held a teleconference listening 

session with officials from state and local governments in June 2011 to 

solicit states’ feedback on the topic of considering environmental justice in 

permitting. 

Notwithstanding these efforts, without more directly involving states in 

ongoing environmental justice planning and clearly articulating their role 

and responsibilities in implementing environmental justice plans, EPA’s 

efforts to integrate environmental justice may be hampered, given the 

significant role that states have in administering some federal 

environmental programs. GAO and EPA’s IG have reported in the past on 

the challenges EPA has faced in achieving effective oversight of states 

across a range of its delegated programs.32 Most recently, the IG 

identified EPA’s oversight of its delegation to states as a key 

management challenge in fiscal year 2010.33 The IG noted that although 

Environmental Justice

 32See GAO, Environmental Protection: More Consistency Needed among EPA Regions in 

Approach to Enforcement, GAO/RCED-00-108 (June 2, 2000); and Environmental 

Protection: EPA-State Enforcement Partnership Has Improved, but EPA’s Oversight 

Needs Further Enhancement, GAO-07-883 (July 31, 2007). Also, see: EPA Inspector 

General, Memorandum to EPA Administrator, EPA’s Key Management Challenges for 

Fiscal Year 2009, April 28, 2009, EPA Inspector General, Memorandum to EPA 

Administrator, EPA’s Key Management Challenges for Fiscal Year 2008, July 2, 2008. 

33EPA Inspector General, Memorandum to EPA Administrator, EPA’s Fiscal Year 2010 

Management Challenges, May 11, 2010. 

Page 28 GAO-12-77 
 

EPA has taken a number of steps in recent years to improve its oversight 

of states, there remain a number of factors and practices that reduce the 

effectiveness of the agency’s oversight, including differences between 

state and federal policies, interpretations, and priorities. 

EPA has developed performance measures for one of its nine Plan EJ 

2014 implementation plans to track progress on its environmental justice 

goals: its Resources Tools Development implementation plan. However, 

for the eight remaining implementation plans, EPA has proposed using 

deliverables and milestones to track its progress. For example, in its 

implementation plan for incorporating environmental justice into 

rulemaking, EPA committed to completing final technical guidance on 

considering environmental justice during the rulemaking process by fiscal 

year 2013. EPA has not, however, developed clearly defined, quantifiable 

performance measures for assessing the extent that each of its programs 

are incorporating the guidance in their rulemaking activities, the cost of its 

implementation, and its impact on EPA decisions. Deliverables and 

milestones can be important indicators of progress but are not adequate 

substitutes for performance measures. We have reported in the past that 

performance measures are a key element of effective strategic 

planning.34 They provide organizations with the ability to track the 

progress they are making toward their mission and goals, and provid

managers with information on which to base their organizational and

management decisions, including how effectively program and regiona

offices are integrating environmental justice in their decisions. 

Performance measures also create powerful incentives to influence 

organizational and individual behavior. Individual performance measures

may address the type or level of program activities conducted (pro

the direct products and services delivered by a program (outputs), or the 

results of those products and services (ou

Develop Performance 

Measures 

e 

l 

cess), 

tcomes). 

 

We have also reported on the attributes most often associated with 

successful performance measures. More specifically, we reported that 

successful performance measures typically consist of nine attributes, 

which are summarized in table 3.35 Further, we have reported that 

developing performance measures requires coordinated planning. 

Environmental Justice

 

34 GAO/GGD-96-118. 

35GAO, Tax Administration: IRS Needs to Further Refine Its Tax Filing Season 

Performance Measures, GAO-03-143 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 22, 2002). 

Page 29 GAO-12-77 
 

Agencies that are successful in measuring performance take a systematic 

approach to identifying and refining potential measures, such as (1) 

developing models that describe how a program’s activities produce 

outputs, such as the number of grants awarded, and how these outputs 

are connected to intermediate and end outcomes, or results, and (2) 

using rigorous criteria to select the most important performance 

measures.36

Table 3: Key Attributes of Successful Performance Measures 

Attributes Definitions 

Potentially adverse consequences of not 

meeting attribute 

Linkage Measure is aligned with division and agencywide 

goals and mission and clearly communicated 

throughout the organization. 

Behaviors and incentives created by measures 

may not support achieving division or 

agencywide goals or mission. 

Clarity Measure is clearly stated and the name and 

definition are consistent with the methodology used 

to calculate it. 

Data may confuse or mislead users. 

Measurable target Measure has a numerical goal. Managers may not be able to determine 

whether performance is meeting expectations. 

Objectivity Measure is reasonably free from significant bias or 

manipulation. 

Performance assessments may be 

systematically over- or understated. 

Reliability Measure produces the same result under similar 

conditions. 

Reported performance data may be 

inconsistent and add uncertainty. 

Core program activities Measures cover the activities that an entity is 

expected to perform to support the intent of the 

program. 

Information available to managers and 

stakeholders in core program areas may be 

insufficient. 

Limited overlap Measure provides new information beyond that 

provided by other measures. 

Manager may have to sort through redundant, 

costly information that does not add value. 

Balance Taken together, measures ensure that an 

organization’s various priorities are covered. 

Measures may over emphasize some goals 

and skew incentives. 

Governmentwide priorities Each measure should cover a priority such as 

quality, timeliness, and cost of service. 

A program’s overall success is at risk if all 

priorities are not addressed. 

Source: GAO. 

The EPA officials we interviewed told us that the agency plans to develop 

performance measures linked to its Plan EJ 2014 goals, but it has not 

done so primarily because developing these measures is challenging and 

resource-intensive. We acknowledge that developing performance 

Environmental Justice

 36GAO, Managing for Results: Strengthening Regulatory Agencies Performance 

Management Practices, GAO/GGD-00-10 (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 28, 1999). 

Page 30 GAO-12-77 
 

measures requires considerable thought and, in some cases, can be 

resource intensive. However, without performance measures that align 

with EPA’s Plan EJ 2014 goals, the agency will lack the information it 

needs to assess how effectively the agency is performing relative to its 

environmental justice goals and the effect of its overall environmental 

justice efforts on intended communities. 

EPA’s renewed commitment to environmental justice has led to a number 

of actions, including revitalizing stakeholders’ involvement and developing 

agencywide implementation plans. In carrying out these efforts, the 

agency has generally followed most of the leading practices we reviewed 

in federal strategic planning. However, without additional progress on 

these practices, EPA cannot assure itself, its stakeholders, and the public 

that it has established a framework to effectively guide and assess its 

efforts to integrate environmental justice into the fabric of the agency. In 

particular, EPA has not yet established a strategy for how it will address 

the management challenges of defining key environmental justice terms 

or identifying the resources needed to accomplish its environmental 

justice integration goals. Without a clear strategy for how the agency will 

define key environmental justice terms, EPA may not be able to 

overcome the long-standing challenge of establishing a consistent and 

transparent approach for identifying potential communities with 

environmental justice concerns. In addition, without a clear understanding 

of the resources needed to integrate environmental justice considerations 

throughout the agency, EPA cannot ensure that its current staffing and 

funding resources are sufficient to meet its environmental justice goals. 

Moreover, without this information, EPA may find itself unable to 

successfully adapt to future changes in workload, which are expected as 

a result of a greater emphasis on environmental justice, or potential 

changes in future funding levels. EPA has also not articulated in its 

implementation plans how states will be meaningfully involved in the 

ongoing planning and subsequent implementation of its environmental 

justice integration efforts. Without articulating clearly in its plans the roles 

and responsibilities of states, EPA cannot ensure that states are 

meaningfully involved in the planning and implementation of its 

environmental justice integration efforts, including efforts involving permits 

and enforcement and compliance. Finally, EPA does not have 

performance measures for eight of its Plan EJ 2014 implementation 

plans. Without performance measures that align with EPA’s Plan EJ 2014 

goals, the agency will lack the information it needs for EPA managers to 

effectively assess how the agency is performing relative to its 

Conclusions 

Page 31 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
 

environmental justice goals and the effect of its overall environmental 

justice efforts on intended communities. 

To ensure that EPA continues to make progress toward the effective 

integration of environmental justice considerations into the agency’s 

programs, policies, and activities, we recommend that the Administrator 

of EPA direct the appropriate offices to take the following four actions: 

 Develop a clear strategy to define key environmental justice terms in 

order to help the agency establish a consistent and transparent 

approach for identifying potential communities with environmental 

justice concerns. 

 Conduct an assessment of the resources needed under its current 

plans to integrate environmental justice considerations throughout the 

agency to help ensure that EPA’s staffing and funding resources are 

sufficient to meet current environmental justice goals and future 

changes in workload, such as provision of training to support use of 

key tools and guidance and potential changes in funding levels. 

 Articulate clearly in its plans the roles and responsibilities of states 

and continue recently initiated outreach efforts to help ensure that 

states are meaningfully involved in ongoing environmental justice 

planning and the subsequent implementation of Plan EJ 2014. 

 Develop performance measures for Plan EJ 2014 to provide EPA 

managers with the information necessary to assess how effectively 

the agency is performing relative to its environmental justice goals 

and the effect of its overall environmental justice efforts on intended 

communities. 

We provided a draft copy of this report to EPA for review and comment. 

We received a written response from the Assistant Administrator for the 

Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance on behalf of several 

EPA programs that work with EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice. EPA 

disagreed with two recommendations, partially agreed with one 

recommendation, and did not directly address one other recommendation 

in the report. Overall, EPA agreed that additional work is needed to 

ensure successful and effective implementation of Plan EJ 2014, the 

agency’s environmental justice strategy. EPA noted that our report 

provides a good overview of EPA’s progress and challenges in recent 

Recommendations for 

Executive Action 

Agency Comments 

and Our Evaluation 

Page 32 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
 

years in the agency’s environmental justice efforts and that our 

recommendations are particularly insightful and helpful as the agency 

begins to implement Plan EJ 2014. 

In its comments, EPA disagreed with our recommendation to develop a 

strategy for defining key environmental justice terms in order to provide 

greater consistency in how environmental justice communities are 

identified. Instead, EPA believes that it can better identify communities 

overburdened by pollution, including those that are minority and lowincome, by developing a nationally consistent environmental justice 

screening tool. EPA noted that the tool will allow the agency to meet its 

responsibility for protecting public health and the environment in a 

manner consistent with Executive Order 12898 and the agency’s goals 

under Plan EJ 2014. 

We acknowledge EPA’s efforts to develop a nationally consistent 

environmental justice screening tool (EJ SCREEN). However, in the 

course of our review, the EPA officials responsible for developing EJ 

SCREEN repeatedly cautioned us that this tool would have very limited 

capabilities and would need to be supplemented with additional 

information in order to adequately identify such communities. While 

agency officials informed us that EJ SCREEN will ultimately contain some 

definitions for environmental justice terms, these definitions will be limited 

to the screening tool’s use and would not have agencywide application. 

Absent definitions of key environmental justice terms that have agencywide application, integration efforts are likely to be inconsistent across 

EPA’s program and regional offices. As noted earlier, the EPA Inspector 

General identified such inconsistencies in 2004 and noted that such 

differences among EPA regional offices in identifying environmental 

justice communities were largely due to the lack of standard definitions for 

basic environmental justice terms, such as minority and low-income. We 

believe that defining key environmental justice terms establishes a 

foundation on which EPA could more consistently identify minority or lowincome communities disproportionately impacted by environmental or 

health hazards. Without this foundation, EPA environmental justice efforts 

will heavily rely on the interpretations of individual managers rather than a 

consistent agencywide approach. 

EPA also disagreed with our recommendation to conduct a resource 

assessment for the activities associated with Plan EJ 2014. EPA noted 

that environmental justice is the responsibility of every program office and 

region. EPA stated that it will proactively monitor the agency’s progress in 

Page 33 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
 

meeting the milestones and delivering the products identified in each of 

the Plan EJ 2014 implementation plans and will modify the 

implementation plans, as necessary, to reflect the need for training and 

other implementation support activities. 

While monitoring the agency’s progress in meeting Plan EJ 2014 goals is 

important, accounting for the resources committed to Plan EJ 2014 is 

essential for effective program management. Leading practices suggest 

that properly accounting for program resources, including funding and 

staffing, enables managers to better manage existing resources and plan 

for future programmatic needs. Such an assessment is particularly 

important in times when resources are constrained or are in danger of 

being either reduced or eliminated. Additionally, as we mentioned in our 

report, the EPA IG in December 2010 found that EPA did not have the 

internal controls necessary to properly determine that the agency has the 

right number of resources to accomplish its mission. Consequently, 

without a clear understanding of the resources needed, the agency’s 

ability to achieve its environmental justice integration goals might be 

compromised. 

EPA partially agreed with our recommendation to continue its outreach 

efforts to states, but did not address a portion of the recommendation that 

called for EPA to more clearly articulate the roles and responsibilities of 

states in their Plan EJ 2014 implementation plans. EPA stated that the 

agency believes outreach to states and their meaningful involvement is 

important and expects these kinds of efforts to increase as the 

implementation of Plan EJ 2014 progresses. EPA specifically noted that 

outreach to states is established in its draft Plan EJ 2014 Outreach and 

Communications plan and is articulated in each implementation plan, as 

appropriate. EPA further noted that the involvement of states will vary by 

the nature of the work outlined in each implementation plan. 

We acknowledge that EPA has made progress in engaging states in Plan 

EJ 2014 and its associated implementation plans. Furthermore, we 

encourage EPA to continue its outreach efforts to help ensure that states 

are meaningfully involved in the agency’s environmental justice 

integration efforts. While EPA’s draft Plan EJ 2014 Outreach and 

Communications plan does provide for state involvement, the associated 

implementation plans do not contain sufficient detail on how states will be 

involved in EPA’s environmental justice planning efforts or their 

subsequent implementation. Because states play an integral part in the 

implementation of environmental justice, particularly as it relates to 

permitting, it is also important that states have a clear understanding of 

Page 34 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
 

their respective roles and responsibilities. As an acknowledged roadmap 

for the agency’s environmental justice efforts, Plan EJ 2014 and its 

related documents should clearly articulate the roles and responsibilities 

of all key stakeholders. 

Finally, EPA did not directly address our recommendation that the agency 

develop performance measures; rather, EPA said that it agreed that as 

the agency moves forward with implementing Plan EJ 2014, it should use 

and strengthen performance measures and develop other ways to ensure 

timely and effective implementation of the plan. EPA noted that it is 

currently relying on milestones and deliverables to monitor progress in the 

implementation of Plan EJ 2014. 

While project milestones and deliverables can provide valuable 

information on the progress of Plan EJ 2014 implementation, these 

measures do not adequately replace performance measures. As we 

reported, only 1 of the 9 Plan EJ 2014 implementation plans contained 

performance measures. Consequently, while EPA managers may be able 

to determine if Plan EJ 2014 is on track for meeting the plan’s milestones 

and deliverables, they cannot determine whether the plan is ultimately 

achieving meaningful results, which performance measures would help 

the agency to discern. For this reason, EPA needs to develop 

performance measures for each of the implementation plans and 

incorporate these measures, as appropriate. 

In its comment letter, EPA notified us that Plan EJ 2014 and its 

implementation plans would be finalized in September 2011. As noted, 

our analysis for this report was based on draft versions of EPA’s planning 

documents because they had not yet been finalized at the time we sent 

our draft to EPA for review and comment. EPA released the plans publicly 

on September 14, as we were preparing to issue our report. 

Nevertheless, we did review the final plans and confirmed that they were 

not substantively different from the draft versions on which we based our 

conclusions and recommendations. 

EPA’s comments are presented in appendix II of this report. EPA also 

provided technical comments on the draft report, which we incorporated 

as appropriate. 

Page 35 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
 

As agreed with your office, unless you publicly announce the contents of 

this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days from the 

report date. At that time, we will send copies to the appropriate 

congressional committees, Administrator of EPA, and other interested 

parties. The report also will be available at no charge on the GAO website 

at http://www.gao.gov. 

If you or your staff members have any questions about this report, please 

contact me at (202) 512-3841 or yocomc@gao.gov. Contact points for our 

Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on 

the last page of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions to 

this report are listed in appendix III. 

Sincerely yours, 

Director 

Carolyn L. Yocom

Page 36 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 

Page 37 GAO-12-77 

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 

To examine how EPA is implementing its environmental justice efforts, we 

analyzed key EPA documents to identify offices with environmental 

justice responsibilities. Based on these documents, we interviewed senior 

officials from EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and Office of 

Enforcement and Compliance Assurance to understand the roles and 

responsibilities of key offices, staff positions, and councils for 

implementing environmental justice efforts and to understand changes 

that EPA has undertaken in the organizational structure of environmental 

justice functions under the current Administration. 

To evaluate the extent to which EPA is following leading strategic 

planning practices in establishing a framework for integrating 

environmental justice in its programs, policies, and activities, we identified 

seven leading practices in federal strategic planning by reviewing (1) 

practices required at the federal department/agency level under the 

Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) of 1993,1 which we 

have previously reported also can serve as leading practices for planning 

at lower levels within federal agencies such as individual programs or 

initiatives;2 (2) practices identified in Office of Management and Budget 

(OMB) guidance to federal agencies for implementing GPRA’s 

requirements;3 and (3) related leading practices that GAO’s past work 

has identified.4 We selected the six leading practices because EP

environmental justice efforts are in the initial planning stage and we 

judged these practices to be the most relevant to evaluating EPA’s 

environmental justice strategic planning actions.

A’s 

 

5 We determined that 

 

1

Pub. L., No. 103-62 (August 3, 1993). 

2

For example, see GAO, Foreign Aid Reform: Comprehensive Strategy, Interagency 

Coordination, and Operational Improvements Would Bolster Current Efforts, GAO-09-192 

(Washington, D.C.: Apr. 17, 2009), p. 31. 

3

OMB, Circular A-11, Section 210: Preparing and Submitting an Agency Strategic Plan, 

July 2010. 

4

For example, see GAO, Executive Guide: Effectively Implementing the Government 

Performance and Results Act, GAO/GGD-96-118 (Washington, D.C.: June 1, 1996); Tax 

Administration: IRS Needs to Further Refine Its Tax Filing Season Performance 

Measures, GAO-03-143 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 22, 2002); Managing for Results: 

Strengthening Regulatory Agencies’ Performance Management Practices, 

GAO-GGD-00-10 (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 28, 1999). 

5

For example, we focused on EPA’s efforts to coordinate with other federal agencies 

because Executive Order 12898 places emphasis on coordination across federal agencies 

on environmental justice. 

 Environmental Justice 
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 

other practices we have reported on in the past overlapped, to some 

degree, with the six selected practices.6 We also did not consider all of 

the elements that GPRA and OMB guidance requires an agency include 

in its agencywide strategic plan because our focus was on EPA’s 

planning process and not on the structure of its planning documents.7 We 

also reviewed recommendations made by EPA’s Office of Inspector 

General (IG) in 2004 regarding EPA’s management of its environmental 

justice efforts. We compared the planning activities associated with EPA’s 

environmental justice framework, i.e., EPA’s Fiscal Year 2011-2015 

Strategic Plan, Plan EJ 2014, and the nine Plan EJ 2014 implementation 

plans, to the six leading practices, as shown in table 4. We reviewed 

EPA’s draft Plan EJ 2014 Outreach and Communications Plan, but did 

not assess it as part of the leading practices analysis because this plan 

was still in the early stages of development. 

Table 4: Selected Leading Practices in Federal Strategic Planning 

Define the mission and goals 

Define strategies that address management challenges and identify resources needed to 

achieve goals 

Ensure leadership involvement and accountability 

Involve stakeholders 

Coordinate with other federal agencies 

Develop and use performance measures 

Source: GAO analysis of Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, guidance from the Office of Management and Budget, and 

past GAO products on strategic planning. 

Our analysis for this report was based primarily on draft versions of EPA’s 

Plan EJ 2014 and its implementation plans because these documents 

were not finalized until mid-September 2011, as we were preparing to 

issue our report. Nevertheless, we did review the final plans and 

confirmed that they were not substantively different from the draft 

versions on which we based our conclusions and recommendations. 

 6

For example, we have previously identified assessing the external environment as a 

leading practice. We determined that this practice overlapped with involving stakeholders 

because engagement with stakeholders includes gaining insight into the factors that 

stakeholders view could impact an agency’s ability to achieve its goals. 

7

For example, GPRA and OMB guidance require agencywide strategic plans include a 

description of the program evaluations used in establishing or revising general goals and 

objectives, with a schedule for future program evaluations. 

Page 38 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 

We also interviewed senior EPA officials from key offices involved with 

integrating environmental justice in the agency, including EPA’s Office of 

Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, Office of Environmental 

Justice, Office of Air and Radiation, Office of Water, Office of Solid Waste 

and Emergency Response, Office of Policy, and Office of Chief Financial 

Officer to clarify the nature and intent of the agency’s activities. We also 

spoke with EPA officials about the extent they have incorporated past 

EPA IG recommendations in their current environmental justice efforts. 

Finally, we interviewed external stakeholders about their involvement in 

EPA’s environmental justice planning efforts. Specifically, we interviewed 

select members of the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council 

(NEJAC) and representatives from the Environmental Council of States, 

National Association of Clean Air Agencies, and the Association of State 

and Territorial Solid Waste Management Officials. We also discussed 

EPA’s actions to address the EPA IG’s 2004 recommendations with 

officials from the Office of Inspector General to obtain their views on 

EPA’s current actions. In addition to agency interviews, we participated in 

several EPA outreach teleconferences, as well as attended NEJAC public 

meetings held in July and November 2010. 

We conducted this performance audit from May 2010 through September 

2011, in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 

standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to 

obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for 

our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe 

that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings 

and conclusions based on our audit objectives. 

Page 39 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
Appendix II: Comments from the U.S. Appendix II: Comments from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 

Environmental Protection Agency 

Page 40 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice 
Appendix II: Comments from the U.S. 

Environmental Protection Agency 

Page 41 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
Appendix II: Comments from the U.S. 

Environmental Protection Agency 

Page 42 GAO-12-77 Environmental Justice
A

A

ppendix III: GAO Contact and Staff 

cknowledgments

Page 43 GAO-12-77 

Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments 

Carolyn L. Yocom (202) 512-3841 or yocomc@gao.gov

In addition to the contact named above, Vincent P. Price, Assistant 

Director; Elizabeth Beardsley; Elizabeth Curda; Pamela Davidson; Brian 

M. Friedman; John Johnson; Benjamin T. Licht; Alison O’Neill; Kiki 

Theodoropoulos; Jarrod West; and Eugene Wisnoski made key 

contributions to this report. 

 Environmental Justice 

GAO Contact 

Staff 

Acknowledgments 

(361208)
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