GAO-08-1111R 

United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548 

September 18, 2008 

The Honorable John Dingell 

Chairman 

Committee on Energy and Commerce 

The Honorable Bart Stupak 

Chairman 

Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations 

Committee on Energy and Commerce 

House of Representatives 

Subject: Environmental Enforcement: EPA Needs to Improve the Accuracy and 

Transparency of Measures Used to Report on Program Effectiveness 

As part of its mission to protect human health and the environment, the 

Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) enforcement office maintains civil and 

criminal enforcement programs to help enforce the requirements of major federal 

environmental laws such as the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. EPA’s civil 

and criminal enforcement programs work with the Department of Justice (DOJ), and 

in some cases states, to take legal actions to bring polluters into compliance with 

federal laws. While civil enforcement actions require polluters to pay penalties and 

take other corrective actions, criminal enforcement actions also may include 

imprisonment. EPA’s enforcement office sets national priorities to focus resources 

on significant environmental risks and non-compliance patterns; prepares nationally 

significant civil and criminal cases for legal action by DOJ; uses 10 regional offices to 

implement civil enforcement actions on a day-to-day basis; and pursues criminal 

violations of environmental laws through its criminal enforcement office. The agency 

exercises its authority to independently pursue some violators through administrative 

proceedings—civil administrative actions—and to refer significant matters to DOJ 

when it believes cases need to be filed in federal court as civil judicial actions.1

 DOJ 

is responsible for prosecuting and settling civil judicial and criminal enforcement 

cases. 

 

1

EPA generally depends on DOJ to file a complaint in court when EPA seeks penalties greater or 

compliance periods longer than the administrative limits imposed by statutes. For example, under the 

Clean Air Act, the maximum amount that may be sought in a single administrative enforcement action 

is $270,000, adjusted for inflation, although higher amounts may be pursued with joint approval of the 

EPA Administrator and the Attorney General. Also, under the Act, EPA may only issue an 

administrative compliance order requiring the violator to comply as expeditiously as practicable, but 

in no event longer than 1 year after the date of the order. In addition, states may also participate as 

plaintiffs in some federal lawsuits. 
EPA relies on a variety of measures to assess and report on the effectiveness of its 

civil and criminal enforcement programs. For example, EPA relies on assessed 

penalties that result from enforcement efforts among its long-standing measurable 

accomplishments. The agency uses its discretion to estimate the appropriate penalty 

amount based on individual case circumstances. EPA has developed penalty policies 

as guidance for determining appropriate penalties in civil administrative cases and 

referring civil judicial cases. The policies are based on environmental statutes and 

have an important goal of deterring potential polluters from violating environmental 

laws and regulations. The purpose of EPA’s penalties is to eliminate the economic 

benefit a violator gained from noncompliance and to reflect the gravity of the alleged 

harm to the environment or public health.2

Like other federal agencies, EPA has established results-oriented goals and 

performance measures. Two of the major performance measures for civil 

enforcement, according to EPA, are (1) the value of injunctive relief—the monetary 

value of future investments necessary for an alleged violator to come into 

compliance, and (2) pollution reduction––the pounds of pollution to be reduced, 

treated, or eliminated as a result of an enforcement action.3

 EPA told us these two 

measures, as well as penalties, should be considered when assessing the overall 

impact of its enforcement actions. EPA relies on these measures, among others, in 

pursuing its national enforcement priorities and overall strategy of fewer, but higher 

impact, cases. Unless these measures are meaningful, Congress and the public will 

not be able to determine the effectiveness of the programs. Therefore, it is important 

to understand how they are determined and the extent to which they accurately 

reflect EPA’s accomplishments. 

In this context, we agreed to report on (1) amounts of civil and criminal penalties 

assessed in recent years and how EPA calculates and reports on these outcomes, (2) 

the value of injunctive relief and amounts of pollution reduction and how EPA 

calculates and reports on these outcomes, and (3) factors that influence EPA’s 

process in achieving enforcement outcomes. This report recommends steps that EPA 

should take to improve the transparency and accuracy of its reports to Congress and 

the public when reporting on the effectiveness of its enforcement programs. 

In conducting our work, we reviewed agency documents such as guidance and policy 

statements as well as reports to Congress and the public. In addition, we reviewed 

EPA information associated with the case that the agency identified as resulting in 

the largest value of injunctive relief in its history. We also met with EPA 

headquarters and regional officials, DOJ officials, and non-profit groups concerned 

with environmental enforcement. We reviewed EPA reports of monetary 

accomplishments presented in nominal dollars and adjusted these amounts for 

 2

Violators frequently obtain an economic benefit by avoiding or delaying necessary compliance costs, 

by obtaining an illegal profit, by obtaining a competitive advantage, or by a combination of these

factors. EPA has developed an economic model for assisting the agency in determining the portion of 

a penalty that should be attributable to a polluter’s economic benefit from a violation. 

3

The Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA) requires that each agency report 

annually to Congress on the results of its activities in each fiscal year. Program managers use these

measures as short-term indicators of program performance and in longer-term trend analyses. 

Page 2 GAO-08-1111R
inflation when determining the extent of trends in the data through statistical 

analysis. We primarily focused our penalty analysis on fiscal years 1998 though 2007 

since EPA officials said they were confident in the data within most of the period and 

in our judgment the most recent 10-year period appeared to be a reasonable time 

frame. Further, we were able to perform some analysis of the data reliability for most 

of those years by comparing amounts in EPA's database available only to government 

officials and amounts reported to the public. We conducted this performance audit in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards from January 

2008 through September 2008. 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. 

Results in Brief 

Total penalties assessed by EPA, when adjusted for inflation, declined from $240.6 

million to $137.7 million between fiscal years 1998 and 2007. We identified three 

shortcomings in how EPA calculates and reports penalty information to Congress and 

the public. Specifically, EPA is: 

• Overstating the impact of the enforcement programs by reporting penalties 

assessed against violators rather than actual penalties received by the U.S. 

Treasury. 

• Reducing the precision of trend analyses by reporting nominal rather than 

inflation-adjusted penalties, thereby understating past accomplishments. 

• Understating the influence of its enforcement programs by excluding the 

portion of penalties awarded to states in federal cases.

In contrast to penalties, we found that both the value of estimated injunctive relief 

and the amount of pollution reduction reported by EPA generally increased. The 

estimated value of injunctive relief increased from $4.4 billion in fiscal year 1999 to 

$10.9 billion in fiscal year 2007, in 2008 dollars. In addition, estimated pollution

reduction commitments amounted to 714 million pounds in fiscal year 2000 and 

increased to 890 million pounds in fiscal year 2007. However, we identified several 

shortcomings in how EPA calculates and reports this information. We found that 

generally EPA’s reports do not clearly disclose the following: 

• Annual amounts of injunctive relief and pollution reduction have not yet been 

achieved. They are based on estimates of relief and reductions to be realized 

when violators come into compliance. 

• Estimates of the value of injunctive relief are based on case-by-case analyses 

by EPA’s technical experts, and in some cases the estimates include 

information provided by the alleged violator. 

Page 3 GAO-08-1111R 
• Pollution reduction estimates are understated because the agency calculates 

pollution reduction for only 1 year at the anticipated time of full compliance, 

though reductions may occur for many years into the future. 

Finally, we identified factors that affect EPA’s process in achieving penalties, 

injunctive relief, and pollution reduction. For example, DOJ, not EPA, is primarily 

responsible for prosecuting and settling civil judicial and criminal enforcement cases. 

Therefore, EPA does not have ultimate control of enforcement outcomes. 

We are recommending that the EPA Administrator take a number of actions to 

disclose more information when reporting penalties and estimates of the value of 

injunctive relief and pollution reduction. 

While Assessed Penalties Declined between Fiscal Years 1998 and 2007, 

There Are Three Shortcomings in How EPA Calculates and Reports Penalties 

From fiscal years 1998 to 2007 total inflation-adjusted penalties declined when 

excluding major default judgments,4

 and we identified three shortcomings in how 

EPA calculates and reports on these outcomes. Total penalties reported by EPA are 

the sum of assessed penalties resulting from EPA’s civil administrative, civil judicial, 

and criminal enforcement actions. When adjusted for inflation, total assessed

penalties were approximately $240.6 million in fiscal year 1998 and $137.7 million in 

2007. Civil judicial penalties are the largest source of assessed penalties, accounting 

for about 45 percent of the total (see table 1). 

Table 1: Assessed Penalties Reported by EPA, Adjusted for Inflation 

Constant 2008 dollars in millions 

Fiscal Year Civil Judicial Administrative Criminal Total

1998 $82.9 $36.6 $121.1 $240.6

1999 180.8 32.7 78.8 292.3

2000 68.1 36.3 151.3 255.7

2001 122.2 28.6 113.9 264.7

2002 75.6 30.6 73.7 180.0

2003 83.6 28.2 82.2 194.0

2004 137.1 31.3 53.1 221.5

2005 139.3 29.3 109.5 278.1

2006 86.4 44.4 45.4 176.2

2007 41.0 31.7 65.0 137.7

Total $1,017.0 $329.6 $894.1 $2,240.7

Percent of total 45.4% 14.7% 39.9% 100.0% 

Source: GAO analysis based on EPA data. 

Note: Numbers may not add due to rounding. 

 4

A default judgment is a binding judgment in favor of the plaintiff when the defendant has not 

responded to a civil complaint. 

Page 4 GAO-08-1111R
While these total inflation-adjusted penalties tended to decline during this period, the 

trend exhibits only marginal statistical significance.5

 The data, according to EPA, 

include penalties for three major cases totaling $227.2 million in 2008 dollars that 

EPA does not expect the federal government to collect due to default judgments, 

which represent uncontested cases where courts awarded the statutory maximum 

penalty requested by EPA and DOJ. Figure 1 highlights the three penalties in fiscal 

years 2004 through 2006, ranging from $33.8 million to $104.4 million in 2008 dollars, 

and illustrates the trend for this period. 

Figure 1: Total Inflation-Adjusted Assessed Penalties, Fiscal Years 1998 

through 2007, Default Cases Identified

When excluding these default judgments, total inflation-adjusted penalties exhibit a 

statistically significant downward trend between fiscal years 1998 and 2007 (see fig. 

2). 

 5

The tests of statistical significance cited in this paragraph are based on simple linear regression 

analyses of penalty amounts as a function of year. When analyzing total inflation-adjusted penalties 

for fiscal years 1998 through 2007, the trend is marginally significant. When default cases are removed 

for 1998 through 2007, and when total inflation-adjusted penalties are analyzed from 1974 through

2007, the trends are statistically significant at the less than 0.05 level.

Page 5 GAO-08-1111R 
Figure 2: Total Inflation-Adjusted Assessed Penalties, Fiscal Years 1998 

through 2007, Less Default Cases

Excluding certain years or choosing different timeframes for analysis could remove 

the appearance of a downward trend. While our analysis focused on fiscal years 1998 

to 2007, when reviewing EPA’s reported data since 1974, we recognized that total 

penalties increased until the late 1990s and stopped rising thereafter (see enclosure 

I). 

We identified three problems in how EPA calculates and reports penalties that may 

inhibit the accuracy and transparency of EPA’s reporting: 

• EPA does not report the actual amounts of penalties received by the U.S. 

Treasury. This may overstate the impact of the enforcement programs by 

reflecting penalties that have not, or will not, be collected. For example, EPA 

identified three major civil judicial cases in recent years that generated 

significant amounts of assessed penalties through default judgments. These 

penalties are unlikely to ever be collected, and the removal of these penalties 

results in a significant reduction in the overall level of penalties reported by 

EPA. 

• When reporting penalties over time, EPA presents nominal amounts that are 

not adjusted for inflation and, therefore, understate past accomplishments. 

According to OMB, economic analyses are often most readily accomplished 

using real or constant-dollar values to measure benefits and costs in units of 

stable purchasing power. Therefore, to evaluate real trends in penalties, it is 

necessary to remove the effect of price changes in the reported nominal 

penalties by adjusting for inflation. 

• The penalty amounts EPA reports do not include portions of penalties 

awarded to states in federal cases in which states also participated. EPA 

Page 6 GAO-08-1111R
indicated that states also participate in many federally-led enforcement cases 

that result in penalties paid to both EPA and the states. However, EPA reports 

only the amount of penalties assessed for payment to the federal government, 

thereby understating the effects of its enforcement efforts on defendants. For 

example, in 1999 EPA and the State of California jointly settled an 

enforcement case with a major commercial diesel engine manufacturer for 

alleged violations of the Clean Air Act. The company agreed to pay a total of 

$25 million in penalties, of which $18,750,000 was paid to the federal 

government and $6,250,000 was paid to the State of California. However, only 

EPA’s share of $18,750,000 was included in its reporting of penalties. 

Shortcomings in How EPA Reports Measures of Injunctive Relief and 

Pollution Reduction May Inhibit Accuracy and Transparency of Reporting 

The value of estimated injunctive relief, when adjusted for inflation, has increased 

from $4.4 billion in fiscal year 1999—the earliest period for which EPA has reported 

the measure—to $10.9 billion in fiscal year 2007 (see fig. 3). 

Figure 3: Total Inflation-Adjusted Value of Estimated Injunctive Relief, 

Fiscal Years 1999 through 2007

Estimated pollutant reduction commitments amounted to 714 million pounds in fiscal 

year 2000, peaked at 1.1 billion pounds in fiscal year 2005 and decreased to 890 

million pounds in fiscal years 2006 and 2007 (see fig. 4). 

Page 7 GAO-08-1111R 
Figure 4: Total Estimated Pounds of Pollution To Be Reduced or Treated, 

Fiscal Years 2000 through 2007

Note: The data from fiscal years 2000 to 2002 are based on EPA's Performance and Accountability 

Report for Fiscal Year 2007, however EPA's enforcement office reports the data from fiscal years 

2003 to 2007, citing improved data quality assurance starting in fiscal year 2003. We cannot be certain 

of the extent that the revised methodology affected the reported levels of pollution reduction after 

2003 compared to prior years. 

In reviewing the value of injunctive relief and pollution reduction amounts reported 

by EPA, we identified several shortcomings in how EPA calculates and reports these 

outcomes that may inhibit the accuracy and transparency of EPA’s reporting. The 

following shortcomings are manifested in EPA reports to Congress and the public, 

such as (1) annual accomplishments reports on enforcement performance and 

accountability, and (2) reports comparing EPA’s goals and accomplishments under 

the Government Performance and Results Act:6

 

• EPA calculates estimated rather than actual amounts of pollution reduction 

based on a 1-year period in the future at the anticipated time of full 

compliance, and the value of injunctive relief based on the monetary value of 

an alleged violator’s estimated future investments to come into compliance. 

However, the agency’s reports do not always make it clear that these amounts 

have not been achieved. For example, EPA’s fiscal year 2007 accomplishment 

report on enforcement referred to the largest civil enforcement actions for just 

three priority areas alone that “...achieved more than 400 million pounds of 

pollutant reductions and more than $7 billion in injunctive relief and

 6

EPA, FY 2007 Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assistance Accomplishments Report and 

Performance and Accountability Report for Fiscal Year 2007. 

Page 8 GAO-08-1111R
supplemental environmental projects.”7

 However, for the most part, those 

amounts were estimates of future anticipated results, such as an estimated 

defendant’s future costs over several years, and do not represent actual 

accomplishments. Similarly, EPA’s annual performance and accountability 

report, referring to total pollution reduction, states “EPA has reduced, treated 

or eliminated 890 million pounds of pollution through enforcement actions in 

fiscal year 2007.” However, not all of those pollution reductions actually 

occurred in 2007. 

• EPA does not disclose in its estimates of the value of injunctive relief how the 

estimates are derived. In estimating the value of injunctive relief, EPA 

technical staff rely on their professional judgment without any agency 

guidance or systematic processes, and in cases where they are available they 

rely on estimates of alleged violators. For example, in one major settlement 

EPA estimated that the value of injunctive relief would total $4.6 billion, the 

largest injunctive relief amount in the agency’s history. The purpose of the 

injunctive relief in this case is to reduce future air pollutants from several coalfired generating plants of a power company.8

 EPA officials told us they based 

the estimated value on advice from their technical experts and examination 

primarily of a 3-page document9

 the company provided through discovery.10 

Furthermore, EPA officials said defendants are not always compelled to 

provide information that the agency could use to estimate future costs of 

compliance. 

• EPA’s estimates of pollution reduction may be understated because EPA 

reports only 1- year of estimated pollution reduction at the anticipated time of 

full compliance for a given case, although reductions may occur for many 

years into the future. In addition, EPA’s estimates do not account for 

incremental reductions in the years leading up to full compliance. 

• The estimated pounds of pollution reduced, treated, or eliminated does not 

reflect the varying toxicity of the types of pollution represented by the 

 7

As part of a settlement, an alleged violator may agree to undertake an environmentally beneficial

project related to the violation in exchange for mitigation of the penalty to be paid. A Supplemental 

Environmental Project (SEP) furthers EPA's goal of protecting and enhancing public health and the 

environment. It does not include the activities a violator must take to return to compliance with the 

law. 

8

An enforcement action against American Electric Power resulted in a settlement between the federal 

government and the Ohio-based utility in October 2007. EPA officials said this particular estimate was 

conservative because it excluded, for example, the increased operations and maintenance costs of the 

plants and consideration of additional plants covered in the consent decree that would require

retrofitting with pollution controls, conversion to different power sources, or retirement, which could

cost more than $1 billion. 

9

In commenting on our draft report, EPA said that their decision was further informed by pollution 

control planning documents obtained through discovery, representations made in the litigation, and

transcribed statements made to the federal court judge supervising confidential settlement 

negotiations.

10Discovery is the process where civil litigants seek and obtain information both from other parties to

the litigation and others through, for example, interrogatories and document requests. 

Page 9 GAO-08-1111R 
measure. For example, EPA officials said that the amount of mercury to be 

reduced in the atmosphere as a result of enforcement efforts may be a small 

number of pounds when compared to other pollutants, but mercury is a more 

toxic substance than many other pollutants that are included in the measure. 

EPA officials said they recognize this issue and they are working to address it. 

Other Factors Influence EPA’s Process for Achieving Enforcement Outcomes 

EPA’s process for achieving annual results in terms of penalties, estimated value of 

injunctive relief, and amounts of pollution reduction is influenced by many other 

factors. While the following list is not comprehensive, it describes some of the 

significant aspects of the legal and policy environment that could affect the 

outcomes: 

• The Department of Justice (DOJ), not EPA, is primarily responsible for 

prosecuting and settling civil judicial and criminal enforcement cases. The 

Attorney General is charged by statute with conducting and supervising 

litigation to which the United States, or its departments or agencies, is a party, 

including cases referred by EPA.11 Once cases are referred, EPA officials 

stated that they continue to participate in all civil and many criminal cases. 

For each case, DOJ must weigh the litigation risks that affect the likely 

outcome at trial in making its decisions on whether or how to settle. 

Consequently, DOJ officials said EPA’s proposed penalty estimates do not 

govern DOJ’s decisions. DOJ, like EPA, considers applying penalties as 

described in the relevant environmental statutes. EPA and DOJ officials say 

they cooperate and reach mutually agreeable decisions on civil judicial cases. 

For example, DOJ officials said both agencies sign the settlement agreements. 

However, EPA does not have ultimate control over the enforcement outcomes. 

• Executive Order 12988 directs DOJ, whenever feasible, to seek settlements 

before pursuing civil judicial actions against alleged violators. According to 

DOJ officials, the Executive Order encourages negotiations prior to the onset 

of litigation and, thereby, improves the ability of the United States to achieve 

favorable enforcement outcomes. 

• Unclear legal standards, as illustrated in the following examples, have 

hindered EPA’s enforcement efforts. Agency officials told us a 2006 Supreme 

Court decision, Rapanos v. United States, generally made it more difficult for

EPA to take enforcement actions because the legal standards for determining 

what is a “water of the United States” were not clear. This uncertainty 

required EPA to gather significantly more evidence to establish Clean Water 

Act jurisdiction in those cases where alleged violators discharged to waters of 

the United States. In a March 2008 memorandum, EPA’s Assistant 

Administrator for Enforcement and Compliance Assurance said the Court 

decision and EPA’s resulting guidance “negatively affected approximately 500 

enforcement cases.” For example, the official said EPA’s regions decided not 

to pursue formal enforcement in about 300 instances where there were 

potential violations because of jurisdictional uncertainty. 

 1128 U.S.C. §§ 515-519. 

Page 10 GAO-08-1111R
• A rule change can affect the process for achieving enforcement outcomes. For 

example, according to an EPA Office of the Inspector General (OIG) report in 

2004, a New Source Review rule change finalized in October 2003 “seriously 

hampered (EPA) settlement activities, existing enforcement cases, and the 

development of future cases” due largely to EPA’s revised definition of routine 

maintenance.12 Under the revised rule the definition of routine maintenance 

allowed utilities to undertake projects representing a greater percentage of the 

cost of replacing a power unit––up to 20 percent––without being subject to the 

New Source Review requirements. According to the OIG, while EPA officials 

said the rule change was not retroactive, the change was so dramatic, that 

even though a court in December 2003 issued a stay delaying implementation 

of the rule, EPA’s underlying legal arguments may have been weakened. 13 For 

example, three utilities said enforcement under a court-imposed remedy 

should be heavily reduced because their actions would not be a violation 

under the new rule. Furthermore, at the time the IG report was issued in 

September 2004, no new enforcement actions had been taken against coalfired utilities alleged to have violated the old rule because of the new rule’s 

impact on EPA’s leverage in settlements or court remedies, according to the 

OIG. The decline in cases between 2002 through 2003 is also, according to 

EPA, due to the agency not initiating coal-fired power plant cases during the 

proposal and promulgation of the new rule. EPA officials said they initiated or 

concluded eight cases under the old rule since 2003. 

Conclusions 

Pursuing administrative, civil, or criminal action against a suspected polluter is a 

complex undertaking that often lasts years. While EPA’s reported outcomes of 

enforcement efforts help inform Congress, the public, and EPA management about 

EPA’s progress in prosecuting those who violate federal environmental laws, certain 

aspects of how EPA reports the data may undermine the transparency and accuracy 

of its reported outcomes and cause EPA to both over and under-report its 

enforcement achievements. Taken as a whole, these various shortcomings hamper 

the transparency and accuracy of EPA’s reporting and create the potential for 

Congress and the public to misunderstand the agency’s enforcement outcomes. 

 12EPA, Office of the Inspector General, New Source Review Rule Change Harms EPA’s Ability to 

Enforce Against Coal-fired Electric Utilities, 2004-P-0034 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 30, 2004). 

13After EPA issued the final New Source Review Equipment Replacement rule, 14 states, plus other

governmental entities, and several public health/environmental organizations filed suits in the Court of 

Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit challenging the rule. Some of these groups asked the

Court to prevent the rule from taking effect or "stay the rule" until the challenges they raised in their 

lawsuits were resolved by the Court. On December 24, 2003, the Court stayed the effective date of the

October 2003 Equipment Replacement New Source Review rule until the case could be fully 

adjudicated. As a result, the rule would not become effective on December 26, 2003. In March 2006, 

the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia vacated the revised rule.

Page 11 GAO-08-1111R
Recommendations for Executive Action 

To improve the transparency and accuracy of its reports to Congress and the public 

when reporting on the effectiveness of the enforcement programs, we recommend 

that the EPA Administrator take the following six actions: 

• When reporting the amount and nature of penalties stemming from 

enforcement actions, disclose (1) penalties in a manner that clearly indicates 

that they are assessed rather than collected penalties, (2) penalties collected 

as well as assessed by the federal government, (3) time series data that are 

adjusted for inflation, and (4) states’ share of penalties in federal cases. 

• When reporting other major outcome measures of civil enforcement efforts, 

clearly disclose (1) that the monetary value of injunctive relief is based on 

estimates of future amounts that defendants expect to spend to achieve 

outcomes, as agreed in consent decrees, and (2) that the pounds of pollution 

reduced represent the anticipated reduction for a 1-year period at the 

anticipated time of compliance. 

Agency Comments

We provided a draft of this report to the EPA Administrator and the Attorney General 

of the United States for review and comment. EPA and DOJ generally agreed with 

the findings, conclusions, and recommendations in the report and provided technical 

comments that were incorporated, as appropriate. Specifically, EPA agreed with five 

of the six recommendations and stated it would consider the recommendation to 

report collected penalties. EPA’s comments are reproduced in enclosure II. 

- - - - - 

As agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce the contents of this report 

earlier, we plan no further distribution for 30 days from the report date. At that time, 

we will send copies of this report to interested congressional committees, the EPA 

Administrator, the Attorney General of the United States, and other interested 

parties. We will also make copies available to others upon request. In addition, the 

report will be available at no charge on GAO's Web site at http://www.gao.gov. 

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact David C. 

Maurer at 202-512-3841 or maurerd@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of 

Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this 

Page 12 GAO-08-1111R
report. In addition to the individuals named above, Assistant Director Diane Raynes, 

Kevin Bray, Mark Braza, Alison O’Neill, Mick Ray, and Daniel Semick made key 

contributions to this report. Other contributors include Mehrzad Nadji and Dae Park. 

David C. Maurer 

Acting Director, Natural 

 Resources and Environment 

Enclosures - 2 

Page 13 GAO-08-1111R
Enclosure I: 

Figure 5: Total Inflation-Adjusted Assessed Penalties, Fiscal Years 1974 

through 2007, by Type

Page 14 GAO-08-1111R
Enclosure II 

Comments from the Environmental Protection Agency 

Page 15 GAO-08-1111R
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(360920) 

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