EPA PAPERWORK

Burden Estimate

Increasing Despite

Reduction Claims

United States General Accounting Office

GAO Report to the Chairman

Committee on Small Business

U.S. Senate

March 2000

GAO/GGD-00-59

United States General Accounting Office General Government Division

Washington, D.C. 20548

Page 1 GAO/GGD-00-59 EPA Paperwork Burden

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March 16, 2000

The Honorable Christopher S. Bond

Chairman, Committee on Small Business

United States Senate

Dear Mr. Chairman:

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), like other federal agencies,

collects information from the public to carry out its mission. EPA uses the

information that it collects to ensure compliance with the agency’s

regulations, to evaluate the effectiveness of its programs, to determine

eligibility for program benefits, and for other purposes. However, EPA’s

information collection requirements impose a substantial paperwork

burden on the public, and small businesses contend that they are

particularly affected by government paperwork. The Paperwork Reduction

Act (PRA) of 1995 was enacted, in part, to minimize the burden associated

with federal information collections (which is commonly measured in

terms of “burden hours”) and envisioned a 25-percent reduction in

governmentwide paperwork burden by the end of fiscal year 1998.

Because of concerns about EPA’s paperwork burden on small businesses

and the rest of the public, you asked us to review the agency’s information

collection requirements. Specifically, you asked us to (1) describe the

general dimensions of EPA’s paperwork requirements and the agency’s

progress toward reducing the burden that those requirements impose; (2)

describe the process that EPA used to develop paperwork burden-hour

estimates for its largest information collections as of September 30, 1998,

and gauge the credibility of those estimates; and (3) describe EPA’s largest

paperwork burden-hour reductions between September 30, 1995, and

September 30, 1998, and gauge the credibility of those reductions. As part

of the last objective, you also asked us to provide information on EPA’s

Reinventing Environmental Information (REI) initiative and the agency’s

new Office of Environmental Information.

EPA’s estimate of the paperwork burden that it imposed on the public

increased from about 109 million burden hours as of September 30, 1995,

to about 119 million burden hours as of September 30, 1998. This 10 million

burden-hour increase in paperwork would have been even greater if EPA

had not eliminated about 24 million burden hours from its estimate during

this period. Also, EPA expected that its paperwork burden would continue

Results in Brief
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to increase during fiscal years 1999 and 2000. As of September 30, 1998,

more than two-thirds of the agency’s estimated 119 million burden hours

were imposed on businesses, nearly three-quarters were related to

information collections intended to determine compliance with regulatory

requirements, and about 80 percent were associated with collections in

which responses were mandatory. EPA had more than 300 information

collections at the end of fiscal year 1998, but just 14 of those collections

accounted for more than 60 percent of the agency’s total burden-hour

estimate.

EPA used a systematic process to develop annual burden-hour estimates

for each of its 14 largest information collections. That process involved

breaking each collection into specific tasks and subtasks and, for each

such unit, developing estimates of the amount of time required for the

activity, the number of respondents, and the frequency with which the

activity must be performed each year. The assumptions that EPA used to

develop those estimates were based on a combination of existing

information, past programmatic experience, information and comments

provided by the public, and, to a certain extent, “best guesses.” We could

not gauge the credibility of all of EPA’s burden-hour estimates because

most of the organizations representing respondents that we contacted did

not comment on those estimates. However, the organizations that

provided comments said that five of the seven EPA burden-hour estimates

they reviewed were generally accurate but that two of the estimates were

too low.

EPA eliminated 24 million burden hours from its estimated paperwork

burden during fiscal years 1995 and 1998.1

 We examined 13 information

collections that accounted for more than 70 percent of these burden hours.

Most of the reductions were because of (1) revisions of previous agency

estimates that had no impact on the burden borne by the public, (2)

changes in the economy or respondents’ technology for which EPA should

not claim credit, or (3) the planned maturation of the program

requirements over time. In contrast, in EPA’s annual report for 1998, the

agency said that it had reduced its paperwork burden on the public by

streamlining processes, eliminating outdated provisions, and consolidating

duplicative requirements, and that the reductions had saved businesses

and communities hundreds of millions of dollars. We could not gauge the

credibility of all of EPA’s burden-hour reductions because most of the

organizations representing respondents that we contacted did not provide

 

1

In this report, we use the term “between fiscal years 1995 and 1998” to refer to the period from

September 30, 1995, until September 30, 1998.
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comments. However, the organizations that provided comments said that

the underlying assumptions for four information collections were credible

but that the assumptions for two other collections were not credible. We

are recommending that EPA replace some of the burden hours that it

removed from its estimate during this period because the reduction was

contrary to guidance on how burden hours should be calculated.

EPA’s new Office of Environmental Information—which has incorporated

the REI initiative—began operations less than 6 months ago, and EPA is

still in the process of developing an action plan for the office.

The PRA of 1995 amended and recodified the PRA of 1980, as amended.

The 1995 Act reaffirmed the principles of the original act and gave new

responsibilities to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and

executive branch agencies. Like the original statute, the 1995 Act requires

agencies to justify any collection of information from the public by

establishing the need and intended use of the information, estimating the

burden that the collection will impose on the respondents, and showing

that the collection is the least burdensome way to gather the information.

The 1995 Act also reauthorized the Office of Information and Regulatory

Affairs (OIRA) within OMB to determine whether agencies’ proposals for

collecting information comply with the act.2 Agencies must receive OIRA

approval for each information collection request before it is implemented.

As part of this process, OIRA requires agencies to submit a form

summarizing the request, along with other materials to justify a proposed

new information collection or to renew an existing collection. OIRA

approval for an agency to use an information collection can last a

maximum of 3 years and can be renewed through subsequent OIRA

reauthorizations. When OIRA completes its review of an information

collection request, the information from the form is entered into a

database maintained by the Regulatory Information Service Center

(RISC).3

OIRA is also required to report to Congress on agencies’ progress in

reducing paperwork. To do so, OIRA develops an annual Information

Collection Budget (ICB) by gathering data from executive branch agencies

 

2

The PRA requires the OMB Director to delegate the authority to administer all functions under the act

to the OIRA Administrator, but does not relieve the OMB Director of responsibility for the

administration of those functions.

3

RISC is part of the General Services Administration but works closely with OMB to provide the

president, Congress, and the public with information on federal regulatory policies.

Background
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on the number of burden hours that OIRA approved for agency collections

of information at the end of each fiscal year and agency estimates of the

burden in future fiscal years. The ICB for fiscal year 1999, published in

April 1999, shows the burden-hour estimates as of September 30, 1998, and

projected burden-hour totals for the ends of fiscal years 1999 and 2000.

The 1995 Act also made several changes in federal paperwork reduction

requirements. For example, it required OIRA to set goals of at least a 10-

percent governmentwide reduction for each of fiscal years 1996 and 1997,

and at least a 5-percent reduction in each of the next 4 fiscal years.4

Therefore, by the end of fiscal year 1998, the act envisioned a 25-percent

reduction in the number of burden hours that were in place at the end of

fiscal year 1995. The PRA also requires OIRA to set annual agency goals

that reduce burden to “the maximum practicable” extent. In January 1997,

OMB instructed executive branch departments and agencies to prepare

and implement ICBs and information streamlining plans that would

include

“...goals and timetables to achieve, by the end of [fiscal year] 1998, a cumulative burden

reduction of 25 percent from their [fiscal year] 1995 year-end level, consistent with the

governmentwide burden-reduction goals in the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995.”

OIRA classifies modifications in agency burden-hour estimates as either

“program changes” or “adjustments.” Program changes are (1) the result of

deliberate federal government action and (2) additions or reductions to

existing paperwork requirements that are imposed either through new

statutory requirements or an agency’s own initiative (e.g., the addition or

deletion of questions on a form). Adjustments are not the result of

deliberate federal government action, but rather are caused by factors

such as changes in the population responding to a requirement or agency

reestimates of the burden associated with a collection of information. For

example, an increase in the Department of Agriculture’s estimate of the

number of burden hours required for the federal Food Stamp Program

because of a downturn in the economy (thereby increasing the number of

applicants) would be considered an adjustment. A revision to the

Department’s original paperwork estimate because of a better

understanding of the number of respondents or the time required to

complete each application would also be considered an adjustment.

However, an increase or decrease in the number of burden hours because

of a departmental initiative changing the number of questions on the food

 

4

The original act contained burden-reduction goals, but the goals had expired.
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stamp application (and therefore the time required to complete the form)

would be considered a program change.

OIRA uses both program changes and adjustments to calculate the burden

associated with agencies’ information collections. The ICB for fiscal year

1999 reflected the program changes and adjustments that occurred

between September 30, 1997, and September 30, 1998, for each agency.

Previous ICBs did not break year-to-year changes in agencies’ burden

hours into program changes and adjustments. However, OIRA considers

only program changes relevant to any assessment of agencies’ progress

toward the burden-reduction goals envisioned in the PRA.

We have reported on the implementation of the PRA, and on EPA’s

implementation of the act in particular, several times in recent years. For

example, in March 1996, we noted that EPA’s estimated paperwork burden

was expected to increase significantly by September 30, 1996.5

 We also

reported that some of EPA’s burden-reduction claims appeared to have

been overstated. For example, although EPA claimed to have reduced the

paperwork burden associated with its Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) by 1.2

million hours, the actual reduction in burden was about 400,000 hours.6

In June 1996 and June 1997, we testified that the governmentwide burdenreduction goals envisioned in the PRA were unlikely to be met.7

 In

particular, EPA said that its burden-reduction efforts between fiscal years

1995 and 1998 would be more than offset by additional paperwork burden

being added during this period. Among the factors that EPA cited as

preventing the achievement of the burden-reduction goals were new

regulations under the Clean Air Act Amendments and nearly 14 million

hours added in support of expanded community right-to-know efforts.8

 5

Environmental Protection: Assessing EPA’s Progress in Paperwork Reduction (GAO/T-RCED-96-107,

Mar. 21, 1996).

6

The TRI is a source of information about toxic chemicals that are being used, manufactured, treated,

transported, or released into the environment. According to section 313 of the Emergency Planning and

Community Right-To-Know Act and section 6607 of the Pollution Prevention Act, EPA must maintain a

publicly accessible database. TRI contains information on the release and other waste management

activities of toxic chemicals by facilities that manufacture, process, or otherwise use them.

7

Paperwork Reduction: Burden Reduction Goal Unlikely To Be Met (GAO/T-GGD/RCED-96-186, June 5,

1996) and Paperwork Reduction: Governmentwide Goals Unlikely To Be Met (GAO/T-GGD-97-114,

June 4, 1997).

8

Right-to-know requirements involve the disclosure of health and environmental information to the

public and are contained in such statutes as the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Emergency Planning and

Community Right-to-Know Act, and the Residential Lead-based Paint Hazard Reduction Act.

Previous Reports and

Testimonies
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In July 1998, we reported that OIRA had not fully satisfied PRA’s

requirements in any of the three areas that we examined: (1) reviewing and

controlling paperwork, (2) developing and overseeing federal information

resource management policies, and (3) keeping Congress and

congressional committees fully and currently informed about major

activities under the act.9 In the area of paperwork review and control, we

noted that OIRA established agency-specific, burden-reduction goals late

in each fiscal year and at a level that the agencies expected to achieve—

practices that were unlikely to motivate the agencies to reduce their

information collection requirements.

In April 1999, we testified that the ICB for fiscal year 1999 identified 800

violations of the PRA in fiscal year 1998 governmentwide, including

collections with expired OIRA authorizations and collections that were

never authorized.10 Even more troubling, we noted that the summary table

in the ICB reflected the hours associated with unauthorized information

collections ongoing at the end of the fiscal year as burden reductions. As a

result, agencies could take credit for burden-reduction accomplishments

that had not been achieved.11 During the testimony, we made several

suggestions regarding how OIRA could improve this condition, including

placing a notice in the Federal Register notifying the affected public that

they need not provide the agency with the information requested in an

unauthorized collection.

Our first objective was to describe the general dimensions of EPA’s

paperwork requirements and the agency’s progress toward reducing the

burden that those requirements impose. To accomplish this objective, we

obtained data from the ICBs for fiscal years 1998 and 1999 showing (1)

EPA’s and other agencies’ burden-hour estimates as of September 30, 1998,

and (2) changes in EPA’s estimates over time. We also obtained data from

RISC describing all of EPA’s information collections (e.g., the purpose,

frequency, and targets of the collections) and the characteristics of the

agency’s largest information collections as of September 30, 1998.

 9

Regulatory Management: Implementation of Selected OMB Responsibilities Under the Paperwork

Reduction Act (GAO/GGD-98-120, July 9, 1998).

10Paperwork Reduction Act: Burden Increases and Unauthorized Information Collections (GAO/T-GGD99-78, Apr. 15, 1999). Only one of these unauthorized collections was from EPA.

11The ICB for fiscal year 1999, for the first time, included information on “corrected” program changes

that allowed readers to calculate the extent to which year-to-year changes in all agencies’ burden-hour

estimates were caused by violations. However, the end-of-year totals for each agency in the summary

table were not adjusted for these violations.

Objectives, Scope, and

Methodology
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Our second objective was to (1) describe the process that EPA used to

develop paperwork burden-hour estimates for its largest information

collections as of September 30, 1998, and (2) gauge the credibility of those

estimates. To accomplish the first part of this objective, we used data from

RISC to identify EPA’s 14 largest information collections, each of which

was expected to impose more than 1 million burden hours on the public.

These 14 EPA information collections accounted for about 74 million (62

percent) of the agency’s 119 million burden hours in place as of September

30, 1998. (Brief descriptions of each of these collections are in app. I.) We

then reviewed the information collection requests that EPA submitted to

OIRA for each of the large collections to identify how the agency

developed its burden-hour estimates, focusing on the elements in each

collection that accounted for most of the burden hours. We also

interviewed EPA and OIRA staff about the methods, assumptions, and data

used in the estimation process. To gauge the credibility of the burden-hour

estimates, we reviewed the information collection requests and

interviewed EPA and OIRA officials and staff. We also judgmentally

selected and contacted 20 organizations that either EPA documents or

agency officials identified as having been consulted during the

development of the collection. While not respondents themselves, these

“consultative partners” represent businesses and others who submit

information to EPA. We asked representatives of these organizations for

their views on the reasonableness of the burden-hour estimates and the

methods and assumptions that EPA used to prepare the estimates. Seven

of these 20 organizations provided comments on the credibility of EPA’s

estimates. The other organizations were either unfamiliar with the specific

burden measurement methodology at issue, were unfamiliar with the

collection under review, or did not respond to our request for information.

Our third objective was to (1) describe EPA’s largest paperwork burdenhour reductions between September 30, 1995, and September 30, 1998, and

(2) gauge the credibility of those reductions. To accomplish the first part

of this objective, we obtained a list from EPA on all of the agency’s burdenhour reductions that occurred during this period. We focused our review

on 13 of those reductions, each of which EPA said would reduce the

agency’s paperwork burden by at least 400,000 burden hours. These 13

burden-hour reductions accounted for about 17 million (71 percent) of the

24 million burden hours that EPA eliminated during this period. (Brief

descriptions of the programs associated with those reductions are in app.

I.) To gauge the credibility of EPA’s burden-hour reductions, we reviewed

the information collection requests and interviewed EPA and OIRA

officials and staff. We also judgmentally selected and contacted 13

respondent organizations that either EPA documents or agency officials
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identified as consultative partners in the development of the collection.12

Six of these organizations provided comments on the credibility of the

reductions. The other organizations were either unfamiliar with the

specific burden-hour reductions at issue, were unfamiliar with the

collection under review, or did not respond to our request for information.

We also reviewed relevant EPA documents and spoke with agency officials

to obtain information on the status of EPA’s REI initiative and the agency’s

new Office of Environmental Information.

We did not verify the ICB or the RISC data that we used to provide general

statistics on EPA’s and other agencies’ paperwork requirements and to

identify the largest collections and burden-hour reductions. In one

information collection, EPA was unable to identify knowledgeable

individuals within the relevant program office who could describe how the

estimate was developed. Therefore, the information on the assumptions

and methodology EPA used is limited to the information within the

collection itself, or in EPA or OIRA files.

We examined the process that EPA used to develop 14 of the agency’s

more than 300 active information collections as of September 30, 1998.

Although these 14 collections accounted for the bulk of the agency’s

burden hours, we cannot comment on how the estimates for the other

collections were developed. Similarly, although EPA took dozens of

actions to eliminate burden hours between fiscal years 1995 and 1998, we

can only comment on the 13 actions that we reviewed (representing most

of the burden hours eliminated).

The views provided by the organizations representing respondents that we

contacted are not intended to be representative or exhaustive of all entities

required to comply with the requirements of these information collections.

We did not attempt to verify these organizations’ comments or to resolve

any differences between their views and the assumptions that EPA used in

its analyses.

Finally, it is important to recognize that agency burden-hour estimates

have inherent limitations. Estimating the amount of time it will take an

individual or an organization to collect and provide information or how

many individuals an information collection will affect is not a simple

matter. Therefore, the degree to which agency burden-hour estimates

reflect real burden is unclear. Nevertheless, these are the best indicators of

 

12Some of these 13 organizations were the same organizations that provided comments on the

credibility of EPA’s burden-hour estimates.
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paperwork burden available, and we believe they can be useful as long as

their limitations are kept in mind.

We provided a draft of this report to the OMB Director and the EPA

Administrator for their review and comments. The comments we received

are presented in the “Agency Comments and Our Evaluation” section at the

end of this letter. We also provided officials at the respondent

organizations with the relevant draft report sections attributed to them to

ensure that we characterized their comments correctly. All of them agreed

with our characterizations.

Although the PRA of 1995 envisioned a 25-percent reduction in federal

paperwork between fiscal years 1995 and 1998, EPA’s estimated

paperwork burden increased by about 10 million burden hours during this

period—from 109 million burden hours to 119 million burden hours. EPA

expected that its paperwork burden would continue to increase during

fiscal years 1999 and 2000. At the end of fiscal year 1998, more than twothirds of the agency’s 119 million burden hours were imposed on

businesses, nearly three-quarters were related to information collections

intended to determine compliance with regulatory requirements, and about

80 percent were associated with mandatory information collections. EPA

had more than 300 active information collections at the end of fiscal year

1998, but just 14 of those collections accounted for more than 60 percent

of the agency’s total burden-hour estimate.

As of September 30, 1998, federal agencies estimated that they imposed

about 7 billion burden hours of paperwork on the American public. As

shown in figure 1, about 81 percent of the 7 billion burden hours (or 5.7

billion burden hours) was associated with paperwork requirements from

the Department of the Treasury, virtually all of which was from the

Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Most of the non-Treasury paperwork

burden was associated with information collections from six agencies, one

of which was EPA.

EPA’s Burden-Hour

Estimates Are

Increasing

EPA’s Estimated Paperwork

Burden Exceeded 100

Million Burden Hours
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Legend:

DOD Department of Defense

DOL Department of Labor

DOT Department of Transportation

EPA Environmental Protection Agency

FTC Federal Trade Commission

HHS Department of Health and Human Services

Note: Total burden-hour estimate governmentwide = 7 billion burden hours.

Source: OIRA’s ICB for fiscal year 1999.

As shown in figure 2, six non-Treasury agencies estimated their paperwork

burden at more than 100 million burden hours as of September 30, 1998.

EPA’s paperwork requirements alone accounted for about 119 million

burden hours, or about 9 percent of the non-Treasury total.

Figure 1: The Department of the Treasury Accounted for Most Federal Paperwork Burden as of September 30, 1998
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Legend:

DOD Department of Defense

DOL Department of Labor

DOT Department of Transportation

EPA Environmental Protection Agency

FTC Federal Trade Commission

HHS Department of Health and Human Services

Source: OIRA’s ICB for fiscal year 1999.

As previously noted, the PRA envisioned a 25-percent reduction in

governmentwide paperwork burden between September 30, 1995, and

September 30, 1998. OIRA set each agency’s 3-year burden-reduction goal

at 25 percent. By the end of the period, some agencies had exceeded the

goal. For example, the Department of Agriculture reduced its paperwork

burden estimate from 131 million burden hours as of September 30, 1995,

to 72 million burden hours as of September 30, 1998—a 45-percent

reduction. The Department of Veterans Affairs’ paperwork burden

estimate decreased from 11.1 million burden hours to 2.6 million burden

hours—a 77-percent reduction.13 Overall, agencies outside of the IRS had

 

13However, the ICB for fiscal year 1999 indicated that most of the burden hours that the Departments of

Agriculture and Veterans Affairs reduced from their estimates between fiscal years 1997 and 1998

represented information collections that the agencies continued to use in violation of the PRA after

their OIRA authorizations had expired.

Figure 2: EPA Was One of Six NonTreasury Agencies Whose September

30, 1998, Paperwork Estimate Exceeded

100 Million Burden Hours

Increases in EPA BurdenHour Estimates Are

Expected to Continue
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reduced their burden-hour estimates by more than 23 percent between

fiscal years 1995 and 1998. However, because IRS constituted about 80

percent of the governmentwide burden-hour estimate during this period, a

6.9-percent increase in IRS’ estimate nearly offset the other agencies’

burden-hour reductions.14

Some non-IRS agencies did not reduce their paperwork burden estimates

between September 30, 1995, and September 30, 1998. As shown in figure

3, EPA’s paperwork estimate increased during this period from nearly 109

million burden hours to 119 million hours—an increase of about 10 million

burden hours.15 As a result of this increase, EPA’s estimate of its

paperwork burden was almost 36 million hours greater than the level

envisioned by the 25-percent burden-reduction goal that OIRA established

for the agency (about 84 million hours). However, EPA officials noted that

the agency’s September 30, 1998, burden-hour estimate would have been

even greater (about 143 million burden hours) if it had not simultaneously

eliminated about 24 million burden hours of paperwork during this period.

Figure 3 also shows that EPA anticipated its burden-hour estimate would

increase during fiscal years 1999 and 2000.

 

14See GAO/T-GGD-99-78.

15Other agencies whose burden-hour estimates increased during this period include the Department of

Commerce (from 8.2 million to 13.5 million burden hours) and the Federal Communications

Commission (up from 22.6 million to 30.3 million burden hours).
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Source: GAO analysis and OIRA’s ICBs for fiscal years 1998 and 1999.

In the ICB for fiscal year 1999, EPA said that new statutory requirements

were one reason that its burden-hour totals continued upward during this

period despite the agency’s burden-reduction efforts. For example, EPA

noted the following:

• Provisions in the Toxic Substances Control Act (as amended by the

Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction Act of 1992) added nearly

2.5 million burden hours for lead hazard education in fiscal year 1998.

• Amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act would add 0.5 million burden

hours for the control of new contaminants by the drinking water program

in fiscal year 1999.

• The Clean Water Act requires the addition of 96,000 small construction

sites and 4,000 small municipalities to the National Pollutant Discharge

Figure 3: EPA’s Burden-Hour Estimates

Have Exceeded Its Burden-Reduction

Goals
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Elimination System program, adding about 1.8 million burden hours for the

discharge monitoring reports in fiscal year 2000.16

However, EPA also noted in the ICB that “...the largest projected increase

reflects the Agency’s priority in expanding both the Toxic Release

Inventory (TRI) program and the Chemical Testing Program.”

[Underscoring supplied.] For example, EPA noted that the adoption of its

proposed TRI rule for persistent bioaccumulative toxics would increase

the program’s burden by about 1.3 million burden hours. EPA also said

that the High Production Volume and Children’s Health Effects chemical

testing programs would increase burden by about 2 million burden hours.

The amount of burden imposed by EPA’s information collections as of

September 30, 1998, varied substantially. EPA estimated that some of the

collections would require less than 100 burden hours each year, but EPA

said others would annually require more than 10 million hours to

complete. Although EPA had more than 300 active information collections

at the end of fiscal year 1998, just 14 of these collections, each with at least

an estimated 1 million annual burden hours or more, accounted for nearly

74 million of EPA’s 119 million burden-hour estimate.

EPA’s information collections also varied in terms of their subject matter,

with requirements involving the agency’s air, water, pesticides, and solid

waste programs. As evidence of that diversity, figure 4 shows that EPA’s

burden-hour estimates as of September 30, 1998, were fairly evenly

distributed among its four main program offices—ranging from about 26

million burden hours for the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency

Response’s collections to about 35 million burden hours for collections

initiated by the Office of Water.

 

16We did not determine how much discretion these statutory requirements provided EPA in the

development of the related information collections. However, we have previously noted that the

amount of regulatory discretion that statutes provide agencies can vary significantly. See Regulatory

Burden: Some Agencies’ Claims Regarding Lack of Rulemaking Discretion Have Merit (GAO/GGD-99-

20, Jan. 8, 1999).

Most EPA Burden Hours

Were in Mandatory,

Regulatory, and BusinessDirected Collections
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Note: The “other” category includes such units as the Office of the Administrator, the Office of

Administration and Resources Management, and the Office of Enforcement and Compliance

Assurance.

Source: RISC.

Although EPA’s information collections were quite diverse, they can be

described in terms of several general dimensions in the RISC database,

including the purpose of the collections, the affected entities, and the

respondent’s obligation to respond. As figure 5 shows, nearly threequarters of EPA’s estimated 119 million burden hours in place as of

September 30, 1998, were associated with collections that were intended

to track compliance with regulations or laws. Most of EPA’s remaining

estimated burden was associated with information collections that

involved applications for benefits (e.g., grants or financial assistance).

Figure 4: EPA’s Burden-Hour Estimate

Was Distributed Among the Main

Program Offices
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Note: The “other” category includes program planning, general statistics, audit, and research.

Source: RISC.

As shown in figure 6, EPA’s information collections primarily affected

businesses—about 68 percent of the estimated 119 million burden hours of

paperwork in place as of September 30, 1998.17 Most of the agency’s

remaining burden (about 28 percent of the total) was imposed on state,

local, or tribal governments. There were some differences among the

program offices regarding those affected by their paperwork burden. For

example, about half of the 35 million burden hours associated with the

Office of Water’s information collections primarily affected state, local, or

tribal governments—nearly twice the rate of any of EPA’s other offices.

Also, virtually all (97 percent) of the 3.3 million burden hours that EPA

 

17RISC data do not differentiate between large and small businesses.

Figure 5: Most EPA Burden Hours Were

Used to Track Compliance With

Regulatory Requirements
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imposed on farms were because of information collection requirements

from the agency’s Office of Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances.

Note: The “other” category includes the paperwork requirements imposed on individuals, farms, notfor-profits, and the federal government.

Source: RISC.

As figure 7 shows, about 80 percent of the 119 million burden hours that

EPA estimated it had in place as of September 30, 1998, were associated

with information collections for which responses were mandatory. In

these mandatory collections, the affected members of the public must

respond to EPA’s request for information or potentially face civil or

criminal sanctions. About another 19 percent of the agency’s burden-hour

total was associated with information collections that respondents were

required to complete to obtain or retain a benefit, such as a grant or

financial assistance. The remaining burden hours were voluntary

information collections in which the recipients were under no federal

obligation to respond.

Figure 6: Most EPA Burden Hours Were

Directed Toward Businesses
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Source: RISC.

EPA used a systematic process to develop annual burden-hour estimates

for each of its 14 largest information collections. That process involved

breaking each collection into specific tasks and subtasks and, for each

such unit, developing estimates of the amount of time required for the

activity, the number of respondents, and the frequency with which the

activity must be performed each year. The assumptions that EPA used to

develop those estimates were based on a combination of existing

information, past programmatic experience, information and comments

provided by the public, and, to a certain extent, “best guesses.” We could

not gauge the credibility of all of EPA’s burden-hour estimates because

most of the organizations representing respondents that we contacted did

not comment on those estimates. However, the organizations that

provided comments said that five of the seven EPA burden-hour estimates

they reviewed were generally accurate but that two of the estimates were

too low.

Figure 7: Most EPA Burden Hours Were

for Mandatory Collections

Large EPA BurdenHour Estimates Were

Systematically

Developed
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As previously noted, 14 EPA information collections, each with at least 1

million burden hours, accounted for about 74 million (about 62 percent) of

the 119 million burden hours associated with the agency’s paperwork

requirements that were in place as of September 30, 1998. As shown in

table 1, EPA’s largest program offices each had at least 3 of these 14

information collections.

Burden hours in millions

EPA program office/Information collection title

 Estimated

burden hours

Office of Water

Discharge Monitoring 13.3

Safe Drinking Water 12.5

National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System:

 State Programs

1.0

Subtotal 26.8

Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response

Underground Storage Tanks 6.3

Land Disposal Restrictions 3.4

Community Right-to-Know 3.0

Subtotal 12.7

Office of Air and Radiation

Air Operating Permits 5.3

Preconstruction New Source Review 4.7

Acid Rain 2.8

Subtotal 12.8

Office of Prevention Pesticides and Toxic Substances

Toxic Release Inventory Reporting, Recordkeeping,

 Supplier Notification, and Petitions

8.0

Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard Disclosure 7.1

Asbestos in Schools and Model Accreditation Plan

 Programs

2.4

LBP Hazard Education Before Renovation 2.3

Polychlorinated Biphenyls Disposal Amendments 1.8

Subtotal 21.6

Total 73.9

Source: RISC.

EPA prepared burden-hour estimates for its 14 largest information

collections in a systematic manner. In each case, EPA developed a detailed

list of tasks, and in most cases subtasks, delineating the specific types of

information to be collected and the methods of collection. For each task

and subtask, EPA estimated the number of hours per response, the number

of respondents, and the frequency of reporting each year. EPA developed

the burden-hour estimate for each collection as a whole by multiplying

these factors together and adding the totals.

Burden Estimates Were

Based on Data, Experience,

Public Comments, and

“Best Guesses”

Table 1: EPA’s 14 Largest Information

Collections as of September 30, 1998
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For example, as shown in table 2, EPA determined that the information

collection requirements associated with the disposal of polychlorinated

biphenyls (PCB) amendments had three major categories of tasks: (1)

general requirements related to the collection (e.g., reading the rule and

providing training); (2) reporting activities; and (3) recordkeeping

responsibilities. EPA divided the first task into the different respondent

groups that it anticipated would be affected by the information collection.

For each group, EPA estimated the average number of hours that each

respondent group would be required to devote to these general

responsibilities (e.g., 672 hours for each investor-owned utility) and the

number of respondents (e.g., 265 utilities). EPA then calculated the total

number of burden hours that would be required of all respondents for that

task (178,080 burden hours). EPA divided the second and third tasks,

reporting and recordkeeping, into 24 subtasks for which respondent

burden hours could be estimated.18 For each subtask, EPA estimated the

number of burden hours per activity, the number of respondents, and the

subtask’s resultant burden-hour total.19 EPA’s nearly 1.8 million burdenhour estimate for the information collection was the sum of all the subtask

estimates.

 

18EPA actually divided the reporting task into 43 subtasks. However, EPA determined that some of

these subtasks did not apply to the known respondents. Because EPA did not estimate any burden

hours for these subtasks, we did not include them in table 2.

19EPA also estimated that each activity would occur once a year.
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Collection activity/task

Estimated

burden hours

per subunit

Estimated

number of

respondents

Total

estimated

burden hours

Task 1: General

Read rule/Determine applicability/Provide training/

 Update procedures

 Investor-owned utilities 672 265 178,080

 Rural electrical cooperatives 200 922 184,400

 Municipal and other governmental entities 200 2,000 400,000

 Industrial/Commercial entities 44 11,000 484,000

 Subtotal for general task 1,246,480

Task 2: Reporting

Register PCB transformers

 Industries 2 62,500 125,000

 Utilities 10 3,005 30,050

Notify the National Response Center of voltage regulator fire 0.15 20 3

Submit annual voltage regulator reports

 Existing regulators 2 1,700 3,400

 Newly discovered regulators 0.25 17 4

Report PCB contaminated natural gas pipeline 20 5 100

Prepare notification to exceed storage for reuse limitation 550 1 550

Notify public service notification program about abandoned

 natural gas pipes

0.25 50 13

Submit notification to obtain identification number for disposal

 research and development projects involving PCBs

1.5 25 38

Obtain approval for limited research and development involving PCBs 6 20 120

Obtain approval for self-implemented remediation 100 100 10,000

Submit notification of changes in remediation projects 2 10 20

Provide certification of remediation projects 0.25 100 25

Notify waste management facility of PCB waste shipments 2 100 200

Submit copy of deed restriction 4 100 400

Obtain approval to exceed storage for disposal limitation 3 38 114

Certify modifications to commercial storage facility 1.5 10 15

Obtain a Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) PCB

 coordinated approval

36 36 1,296

Submit changes in the non-TSCA waste management

 document

8 5 40

Notify EPA of request for class exemption to manufacture

 PCBs

9 25 225

Request renewal of class exemption 9 2 18

Notify EPA of research and development manufacture of PCBs 1.5 3 5

Submit annual report for waste disposed of by waste

 generators

84 7 588

Submit modifications form for PCB waste-handling

 facilities

1.5 200 300

 Subtotal for reporting task 172,524

Task 3: Recordkeeping

Voltage regulator records 2 1,700 3,400

Table 2: Collection Activities and Burden-Hour Estimate Associated With EPA’s Information Collection on Disposal of

Polychlorinated Biphenyls
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Collection activity/task

Estimated

burden hours

per subunit

Estimated

number of

respondents

Total

estimated

burden hours

Natural gas pipeline records 4 100 400

Contaminated articles stored for reuse records 1.5 189,225 283,838

Large capacitor records 0.1 200,000 20,000

Research and development for PCB disposal records 12 25 300

Retain waivers 0.15 100 15

Remediation records 1 10 10

Deed notices 3 100 300

Remediation site activities records 20 100 2,000

Sampling/Analysis records 4 26 104

Disposal attempts records 4 38 152

Prepare Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure

 plans—first year

60 500 30,000

Adapt existing plan 2 2,700 5,400

High efficiency boiler records 12 1 12

Industrial furnace readings 3 100 300

Decontamination validation records 2 4 8

Decontamination sampling records 2 100 200

Manufacturing, processing, and distributing PCBs in

 waste materials

12 25 300

Equipment transfer records 12 150 1,800

 Subtotal for recordkeeping task 348,539

Total estimated burden hours for collection 1,767,543

Source: EPA.

EPA officials told us that the agency’s estimates of the number of burden

hours per activity and the number of respondents for this collection and

other collections were based on a combination of existing data; past

programmatic experience; information and comments provided by the

public; and, where data and experience were lacking, the agency’s “best

guesses.” For 13 of the 14 information collections, EPA officials were able

to direct us to a database that they used to determine the number of

respondents or the number of events associated with each collection.20 For

example, for the information collection on residential lead-based paint,

EPA used databases developed and maintained by the U.S. Bureau of the

Census and the Department of Housing and Urban Development to

estimate the number of buildings affected by the collection and, therefore,

the number of respondents. EPA officials were also able to identify the

sources for the agency’s estimates of the time it would take to complete

each particular task and subtask in these collections. In many cases, the

 20EPA officials were unable to identify any database that the agency used to calculate the burden-hour

estimate for the safe drinking water collection because all of the staff involved in developing the

original estimate had left the agency.
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estimates were based on trend data for either previous versions of the

information collection or related data provided by other sources.

EPA officials also said that they frequently consult with the regulated

community during the development of an information collection request to

estimate the burden hours associated with the collection more accurately.

They noted that the PRA generally requires agencies to provide a 60-day

comment period for their proposed information collections, and a separate

30-day comment period while the collection is being reviewed by OIRA.

However, the officials also noted that the extent and nature of the agency’s

public consultations is limited by the PRA’s requirements. The PRA (44

U.S.C. 3502) defines a “collection of information” in the following manner.

“...obtaining, causing to be obtained, soliciting, or requiring the disclosure to third parties

or the public, of facts or opinions by or for an agency, regardless of form or format, calling

for...answers to identical questions posed to, or identical reporting or recordkeeping

requirements imposed on, ten or more persons....”

Therefore, a survey or a series of meetings with 10 or more potential

respondents to a proposed information collection would itself constitute a

collection of information, thereby triggering the OIRA approval process

and adding the burden associated with the collection to the agency’s

total.21 EPA officials said that at some point in the burden-estimation

process they often run out of data and previous experience, and given the

consultation limitations imposed by the statute, program officials must

make a best guess regarding the burden associated with a collection.

We contacted 20 organizations representing respondents to EPA’s 14

largest information collections to gauge the credibility of the key

assumptions in the burden-hour estimates for those collections. Seven of

the organizations provided us with comments on the accuracy of EPA’s

burden-hour estimates for seven of the collections.22 We did not attempt to

verify these organizations’ comments or to resolve any differences

between their views and the assumptions that EPA used in its analyses.

The respondent organizations indicated that the burden-hour estimates for

five of the seven collections (TRI, residential lead-based paint, air

 

21In fact, OMB’s instructions for submitting information collection requests state that “agencies should

not conduct special surveys to obtain information on which to base hour burden estimates.

Consultation with a sample (10 or more) of potential respondents is desirable.”

22Twelve organizations either did not respond to our request for information or said they could not

provide information. Comments we received regarding one other collection were principally about the

cost of collecting the information requested, not the accuracy of EPA’s burden-hour estimates. Some

organizations provided comments about more than one information collection.

Respondent Organizations

Often Considered EPA

Burden Estimates Accurate
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operating permits, acid rain, and underground storage tanks collections)

were generally accurate. For example, one of the organizations agreed that

it typically takes respondents about 180 hours to complete a form used in

the TRI program, and called EPA’s burden-hour estimate “fair.” A

representative from another organization said that EPA’s paperwork

estimate for the underground storage tanks collection was “on target,” and

said that he had not seen any agency estimates that were “off base.”

Another organization said that four of the five elements in the air operating

permit program were generally in line with industry estimates. Although

the organization said that EPA’s estimate for one element of the collection

was “too low,” the organization did not indicate what it considered a more

accurate estimate.

However, the respondent organizations indicated that EPA’s burden-hour

estimates for the other two collections—safe drinking water and hazard

education before renovation—were too low. Regarding the safe drinking

water program, two organizations said that EPA’s burden-hour estimates

did not reflect what they considered to be the real paperwork burden

imposed by the information collection because the estimates frequently

did not reflect the real-life conditions under which respondents operate.

Representatives from one of the organizations said that the agency’s

estimates of the time required to collect, analyze, and report the results of

drinking water samples appeared to be accurate at the most basic level

(e.g., the time that it takes a lab technician to perform the analysis).

However, they said that EPA did not appear to take into account other

factors that often increase the amount of time required to complete these

tasks. They said that there are often several reviews of the analysis

performed by other lab and water facility officials, and that more testing

may have to be done to corroborate the results of the first analysis before

being submitted to EPA. The respondent organization representatives said

that none of these possibilities seem to be accounted for in EPA’s burdenhour estimate for the collection, and that any one of them could greatly

affect the time it would take a respondent to complete the activities

necessary to comply with the agency’s paperwork requirements.23

Representatives of two other respondent organizations were even more

critical of EPA’s estimate of the burden associated with the hazard

education before renovation information collection. They noted that EPA

had broadly defined covered “renovations” to include all projects that

 23In commenting on this report, EPA said that its burden-hour estimate for the safe drinking water

collection does not include respondent activities that go beyond what the agency requires for lab

analysis.
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disturbed a space of two square feet or greater. As a result, they said that

the program’s information collection requirements included a much wider

range of renovation projects (e.g., small home repairs) than they believed

EPA envisioned when it made its burden-hour estimate. The

representatives also said that EPA had underestimated the amount of time

required to notify residents of a renovation project and obtain a

certification attesting to the receipt of the notice and related information.

They said EPA’s estimate that these actions would only take about 2

minutes per resident is possible only if one assumes that all of the

residents are at home at the first notification attempt, and that they are all

willing to sign the certification immediately. In reality, they said, it

commonly takes the renovator or property owner much longer to

accomplish these tasks than EPA estimated.

Although EPA’s estimate of its paperwork burden rose between fiscal

years 1995 and 1998, the agency eliminated about 24 million burden hours

from its estimate during this period. In its 1998 annual report, EPA said

that it had reduced its paperwork burden on the public by streamlining

processes, eliminating outdated provisions, and consolidating duplicative

requirements, and that the reductions had saved businesses and

communities hundreds of millions of dollars. We examined 13 actions that

accounted for 71 percent of the 24 million burden hours that EPA

eliminated during this 3-year period. Most of the reductions were because

of (1) revisions of previous agency estimates that had no impact on the

burden borne by the public, (2) changes in the economy or technology for

which EPA should not claim credit, or (3) the planned maturation of the

program requirements over time. Respondent organizations disputed

EPA’s assumptions underlying two of the burden-hour reductions but said

that the underlying assumptions for four other information collections

were credible. Lastly, EPA’s new Office of Environmental Information—

which has incorporated the REI initiative—began operations less than 6

months ago, and EPA is still in the process of developing an action plan for

the office.

EPA’s burden-reduction efforts predate the goals envisioned in the PRA of

1995. In March 1995, the EPA Administrator committed to reducing the

agency’s January 1, 1995, estimated paperwork burden by 25 percent by

June 30, 1996. EPA subsequently estimated that its January 1995 burdenhour total was about 101 million hours, so the agency’s goal was to reduce

its paperwork burden by about 25 million baseline hours. However, EPA

officials told us during this review that the agency recognized these

reductions would be offset by new statutory requirements added during

this period.

Many EPA BurdenHour Reductions Were

Not Agency Initiatives

or Had Little Real

Effect

EPA Eliminated 24 Million

Burden Hours From Its

Estimate Between Fiscal

Years 1995 and 1998
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After the PRA was enacted in May 1995, EPA officials decided to meld the

agency’s burden-reduction efforts with the governmentwide goals

envisioned in the PRA and the agency-specific goals that OIRA later

established pursuant to the act. Because EPA had estimated that its

paperwork burden was about 109 million burden hours as of September

30, 1995, EPA’s goal was to reduce the agency’s burden estimate by 25

percent (about 27 million hours) to 82 million burden hours by September

30, 1998. In the ICB for fiscal year 1999, EPA said that “...by the end of

fiscal year 1998, program changes and adjusted burden estimates reduced

overall burden by more than 24 million baseline hours.” However, EPA

said that despite its burden-reduction efforts, the agency’s total paperwork

burden estimate had increased by millions of burden hours since fiscal

year 1995 “due to new statutory requirements and new right-to-know

collections.”

In its 1998 annual report, EPA presented a somewhat different picture of

the agency’s burden-reduction efforts during this period.24 In that report,

EPA said that it had exceeded its original paperwork reduction goal by

nearly 2 million hours “by streamlining processes, eliminating outdated

provisions, or consolidating duplicative requirements.” EPA said that these

reductions “should also save businesses and communities an estimated

$807 million a year.”25 Finally, EPA said that the reductions had offset

additional requirements that had taken effect in recent years, so “the

overall burden associated with environmental regulations is about the

same as it was 4 years ago.”26 However, EPA noted that the burden “would

be considerably higher without the Agency’s concerted effort to rid the

system of unnecessary requirements that do not yield environmental or

public health protection benefits.”

We based this section of our report on EPA’s claim in the ICB for fiscal

year 1999 that it had reduced the agency’s paperwork by 24 million burden

hours by September 30, 1998. According to OIRA, the ICB is the

mechanism by which OMB and agency chief information officers establish

agency burden-reduction targets and measure the burden associated with

federal information collections.

 

24Reinventing Environmental Protection: 1998 Annual Report, EPA (Mar. 1999).

25EPA reiterated these statements in a July 1999 report entitled Aiming for Excellence: Actions to

Encourage Stewardship and Accelerate Environmental Progress.

26In fact, EPA’s burden-hour estimate for the end of calendar year 1994 was about 80 million hours—

about 40 million burden hours less than at the end of fiscal year 1998.
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EPA provided us with a listing of all of the actions that contributed to the

24 million burden hours that the agency eliminated between fiscal years

1995 and 1998. Thirteen of these actions, each involving reductions of at

least 400,000 burden hours, accounted for about 17 million (72 percent) of

the 24 million burden hours that EPA eliminated from its estimate. As

shown in table 3, these 13 actions involved information collections from

each of EPA’s main program offices.

Burden hours in millions

EPA program office/Information collection title

Estimated

burden hours

reduced

Office of Water

Discharge Monitoring 4.7

National Pretreatment 0.6

Subtotal 5.3

Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response

Land Disposal Restrictions 1.7

Underground Storage Tanks (1) 1.5

Underground Storage Tanks (2) 1.3

Oil Pollution Act Facility Response Plan 0.6

Industrial Furnaces 0.5

Subtotal 5.6

Office of Air and Radiation

Air Operating Permits 3.0

Conformity of General Federal Actions to State

 Implementation Plans 0.5

Subtotal 3.5

Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances

Agricultural Worker Protection Standards 1.1

Maximum Residue Level Petitions on Food 0.7

TRI Reporting, Recordkeeping, Supplier Notification,

 and Petitions 0.5

Data Generation for Registration Activities 0.5

Subtotal 2.8

Total 17.2

Source: EPA.

One of the 13 burden-reduction actions that we reviewed involved changes

to EPA’s TRI program, which reduced the agency’s burden-hour estimate

by about 500,000 burden hours. However, our review of the documents

that EPA submitted as part of this action indicated that final approval for

this change occurred between February 1995 and June 1995—3 to 8

months before the September 30, 1995, implementation of the PRA.

Therefore, the burden hours that EPA eliminated were not in the

September 30, 1995, baseline from which PRA-relevant burden reductions

could be subtracted. We did not examine the credibility of this burdenThirteen Actions Accounted

for Most of EPA’s Estimated

Burden-Hour Reductions

Table 3: EPA’s Largest Estimated

Burden-Hour Reductions Between

Fiscal Years 1995 and 1998, by EPA

Program Office
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hour reduction because the action did not occur within the time period

that we reviewed.

As previously noted, OIRA classifies changes in burden-hour estimates as

caused by either “program changes” or “adjustments.” Program changes

are the result of deliberate federal government action (e.g., the addition or

elimination of questions on a form), whereas adjustments are changes in

burden estimates that are caused by factors other than changes in the

actual paperwork requirements (e.g., revisions of previous burden

estimates). As table 4 indicates, of the 12 large EPA burden-reduction

actions between fiscal years 1995 and 1998 that we reviewed, 6 were

program changes and 6 were adjustments. Two of the six program changes

were EPA initiatives designed to lessen the burden associated with the

agency’s discharge monitoring reports program and its land disposal

restrictions program. The other four program changes reflected the

planned evolution or “maturation” of the underlying programs.

Burden hours in millions

Type of reduction Program name

Estimated

burden hours

reduced

Program changes

 Agency initiatives Discharge Monitoring 4.7

Land Disposal Restrictions 1.7

 Subtotal 6.4

 Program maturations Air Operating Permits 3.0

Agricultural Worker Protection

 Standards

1.1

OPA Facility Response Plan 0.6

Data Generations for Registration

 Activities

0.5

 Subtotal 5.2

Total 11.6

Adjustments

 Reestimations National Pretreatment 0.6

Industrial Furnaces 0.5

Conformity of Federal Actions to SIPS 0.5

MRL Petitions on Food 0.7

 Subtotal 2.3

 Other adjustments Underground Storage Tanks 1.3

Underground Storage Tanks 1.5

 Subtotal 2.8

Total 5.1

Grand total 16.7

Source: GAO analysis on the basis of data from EPA.

Program Changes Often

Reflected Planned

Evolution of Programs

Table 4: EPA’s Largest Estimated

Burden-Hour Reductions Between

Fiscal Years 1995 and 1998, by Type of

Reduction
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EPA’s largest paperwork burden-hour reduction between fiscal years 1995

and 1998 came about as a result of a change to requirements in the Office

of Water’s discharge monitoring program. Before 1996, EPA regulations for

the program required permitted municipal and nonmunicipal point-source

dischargers to collect, analyze, and submit data on the amount of their

wastewater discharges at least once per year and the frequency was

determined on a permit-by-permit basis. For example, major dischargers

submitted these data on a monthly basis. In 1996, EPA issued new

guidance that allowed some facilities to report less frequently.

Specifically, major dischargers that had maintained effluent discharge

levels below the maximum levels and had no history of poor compliance or

enforcement issues were allowed to decrease their reporting frequency

from monthly to bimonthly, quarterly, semiannually, or even annually. EPA

said that these facilities could continue to report less frequently as long as

they maintained the prescribed effluent levels. In 1996, EPA estimated that

this program change would reduce the burden imposed on respondents by

4.7 million burden hours per year—that is a 26-percent reduction from the

agency’s previous estimate of about 18 million burden hours for these

reports.

However, officials in EPA’s Office of Water told us during this review that

this program change had actually produced “significantly less” than 4.7

million burden hours of reduced paperwork each year, although they could

not say precisely how much less. The officials said the original 4.7 million

burden-hour reduction estimate was a goal that could have been achieved

if all eligible facilities reported as infrequently as they were allowed under

the new policy. However, they said that many discharge facilities are not

taking advantage of the program’s reduced reporting option, so the full 4.7

million burden-hour reduction had not taken place. For example, they said

that some facilities may be continuing to prepare reports as frequently as

they were prior to the 1996 change pursuant to state or local requirements.

Other facilities may have internal reporting systems established to prepare

the reports at a certain frequency, and the facilities may have decided that

it would be too expensive to change those systems. They said still other

facilities may have determined that monthly monitoring and reporting was

needed to ensure that they maintained the proper level of discharges.

The other EPA burden-reduction initiative involved the agency’s land

disposal restrictions program. Before 1997, EPA required generators of

certain types of hazardous waste to provide notification and certification

for each shipment of hazardous waste. EPA officials said that they

received numerous complaints from the affected public about how

burdensome it was to submit this notification for every waste shipment,

Discharge Monitoring Reduction

Was Less Than Initially

Estimated

EPA Was Confident in Land

Disposal Restriction Reductions
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particularly when the information that had to be reported rarely changed.

In 1997, EPA revised the regulation to require such notifications only for

the first shipment of each kind of waste to any given facility. No additional

notifications were required as long as there were no changes to the waste,

the process generating the waste, or the receiving facility for treatment or

disposal of that waste. EPA estimated that this program change would

reduce paperwork burden on hazardous waste generators by about 1.7

million burden hours or about 33 percent from the agency’s previous

burden-hour estimate.

EPA officials told us during this review that they were confident that their

burden-reduction estimate for land disposal restrictions was accurate. In

fact, they said that their estimate might understate the actual reduction in

annual burden that has occurred. Unlike in the discharge monitoring

program, the officials said the 1.7 million hour reduction in the agency’s

burden estimate for land disposal restrictions accounted for the possibility

that about 20 percent of covered facilities may want or need to continue

submitting notifications on a more frequent basis than the program allows.

According to EPA, some of its information collections impose more

paperwork burden on respondents in the first years of implementation

than in subsequent years. For example, businesses seeking environmental

permits may spend a significant amount of time preparing their initial

permit applications, but much less time getting those permits renewed at a

later date. An EPA regulatory program may require wide-scale training of

employees or the posting of notices in the first year, but only limited

training or notices in subsequent years. Because of these kinds of program

maturation, the average annual burden during the first 3 years that the

associated information collections are authorized is greater than the

average annual burden in subsequent 3-year periods.

Four of the large EPA burden-hour reductions that we reviewed were

caused by the maturation of the underlying programs over time, thereby

reducing EPA’s estimate of the programs’ paperwork burden when the

information collection requests were submitted to OIRA for

reauthorization.

• When EPA applied for OIRA reauthorization of the information collection

associated with its air operating permits program, the agency reduced its

estimate of the average annual burden associated with the program by

about 3 million burden hours. EPA said this reduction was possible

because most facilities requiring air operating permits had completed the

initial labor-intensive work necessary to obtain the required permits.

Maturation Changes Reflect

Planned Evolution of Programs
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Therefore, EPA expected the average annual burden to be less in the

program’s second 3-year period than it had been during the program’s first

3-year period.

• EPA reduced its estimate of the burden associated with Oil Pollution Act

facility response plans by about 600,000 hours when it sought

reauthorization of the program’s information collection in 1997. The

agency said that upkeep of the response plans during the second 3-year

period would be significantly less labor intensive than the development of

the plans during the program’s first 3-year period.

• Also in 1997, EPA reduced its estimate of the burden associated with its

data generation for registration activities collection from more than

500,000 hours to less than 40,000 hours. EPA said it did so because four of

the five phases of the reregistration process had been completed during

the period covered by the previous information collection authorization.

• In 1998, EPA reduced its estimate of the burden associated with worker

protection standards by 1.1 million burden hours because the startup

burden associated with initial program implementation was no longer

applicable in the program’s second 3-year period.

Six of the 12 large EPA burden-hour reductions that occurred between

September 30, 1995, and September 30, 1998, were adjustments, and 4 of

these adjustments were reestimates of the agency’s initial burden-hour

estimates. The two other adjustments reflected changes that had occurred

in the regulated industry.

EPA’s reestimates of the number of burden hours associated with its

information collections were important to ensure that the agency’s

paperwork requirements are measured as accurately as possible. However,

none of these reestimates had any substantive impact on the collections’

respondents; the underlying requirements did not change. Three of the

four EPA burden-hour reestimates were fairly straightforward.

• In 1996, EPA reduced its previous paperwork estimate for the industrial

furnaces information collection by nearly 500,000 burden hours primarily

because the agency changed its assumption regarding the number of

expected respondents.27

 27However, as part of the collection’s reauthorization in 1999, EPA discovered a math error in the 1996

burden-hour estimate. EPA has subsequently increased its burden-hour estimate to account for this

error.

Several of the Burden-Hour

Reductions Were

Adjustments to Original

Estimates

Reestimates Corrected Errors in

Original Calculations
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• In its original estimate of the paperwork burden associated with the

development of state implementation plans, EPA included the burden

imposed by the collection on federal agencies. However, the PRA does not

include burden imposed on federal employees within the scope of their

employment. When the error was discovered as part of the collection’s

reauthorization process in 1998, EPA reduced its burden-hour estimate for

this collection by about 500,000 hours.

• When EPA developed its original estimate of the burden associated with

Maximum Residue Level (MRL) petitions on food, the agency made certain

assumptions regarding the number of respondents that were later

determined to be an overestimate. In 1996, EPA implemented a new

database that changed these assumptions that contributed to a reduction

of the agency’s burden estimate for the collection by more than 700,000

hours.28

However, EPA’s fourth reestimate during this period was somewhat more

complicated. EPA initially estimated that the information collection

associated with the national pretreatment program imposed about 2.3

million burden hours on the public. When EPA sought reauthorization of

the information collection in 1996, the agency reduced its estimate of the

paperwork burden by nearly 600,000 hours. The documents that EPA

submitted to OIRA indicated the reduction was primarily accomplished by

converting the burden hours associated with work done by contractors

into dollars and reporting those costs in another part of the form that the

agency submitted to OIRA. However, this “monetization” of burden hours

is inconsistent with draft guidance that OIRA subsequently issued in 1997

on how agencies should calculate burden hours. That guidance says the

following:

“Burden hours are measured taking into account the full array of personnel required to

plan, develop, prepare and fulfill an information collection...this includes the time devoted

by the respondent, all employees, partners and associates of the respondent, and the time

of outside consultants, contractors, legal and financial advisors hired for the purpose of

responding to the collection of information.” [Underscoring supplied.]

OIRA officials and staff told us during our review that EPA submitted this

proposed burden-hour reduction for approval in 1996, shortly after the

enactment of the PRA when guidelines on calculating burden hours had

not been developed. They said that it was not a conscious decision on

OIRA’s part to approve a burden-hour reduction that monetized burden

 

28Some of this burden-hour reduction was also caused by the maturation of the MRL program and other

factors.
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hours. They noted that they subsequently disapproved other EPA attempts

to reduce their burden-hour estimates by monetizing burden, and that if a

similar burden-hour reduction was submitted to them today it would

probably be disallowed. 29

The last of the 12 largest burden-hour reductions between fiscal years 1995

and 1998, were 2 adjustments in EPA’s underground storage tank program

totaling 2.8 million burden hours. Our review of agency documents and

conversations with EPA officials who were responsible for the program

indicated that these adjustments were primarily caused by two factors: (1)

reductions in the number of underground storage tanks in the economy

and (2) the industry’s development of new, less burdensome technologies

for developing the information needed for the collection.

Like the agency’s reestimates, these adjustments were needed to more

accurately measure the burden associated with EPA’s information

collections. However, the two adjustments differed from the agency’s

reestimates in at least one respect; they reflected real reductions in the

amount of paperwork burden borne by the affected public.

To gauge the credibility of the reductions taken, we contacted 13

organizations representing respondents to 10 of the 12 information

collections involved in these large burden-hour reductions.30

Representatives from 6 organizations provided information on 7 of the 10

burden-hour reductions.31 We did not attempt to verify these organizations’

comments or to resolve any differences between their views and the

assumptions that EPA used in its analyses.

The respondent organizations indicated that four of the seven burden-hour

reductions (worker protection standards, air operating permits, and the

two underground storage tank actions) were generally credible. For

example, a representative from one organization agreed that the

information collections related to the underground storage tank program

were less burdensome than in the past because of, among other things, a

 

29OMB subsequently disallowed two other EPA attempts to reduce their burden-hour estimate by

monetizing burden hours. One was in the discharge monitoring program in which EPA was attempting

to reduce its burden-hour estimate by about 7 million burden hours. The other was in the underground

storage tank program in which EPA was trying to reduce its burden-hour estimate by 5.7 million

burden hours.

30We did not contact respondents regarding the math error in the industrial furnaces collection or the

erroneous inclusion of federal paperwork burden in the state implementation plans collection.

31Respondent organizations for the remaining three burden-hour reductions either did not respond to

our request for information or said they had no information to provide.

Other Adjustments Reflected

Changes in Economy or

Technology

Respondent Organizations

Said Some Burden-Hour

Reductions Were Credible
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decline in the number of such storage tanks and the use of new leakdetection technology in the industry. Another representative told us that

the paperwork burden associated with EPA’s worker protection program

had declined because most of the program’s paperwork-intensive

requirements had been completed.

However, the respondent organizations disagreed with EPA’s burden-hour

reductions regarding two other collections—discharge monitoring reports

and data generation for registration activities, and could not either agree

or disagree with the collection on the MRL program. Regarding discharge

monitoring, representatives of one organization said that EPA’s

assumption that the number of burden hours should be reduced by 26

percent was erroneous. Just as EPA program officials told us during our

review, the respondent organizations said many fewer respondents had

been able to take advantage of the less frequent reporting options than

EPA had anticipated because of continued state or local reporting

requirements, the expense associated with changing the businesses’

established processes, or for other reasons.

As previously noted, EPA reduced its annual burden-hour estimate for the

data generation collection in 1997 from more than 500,000 hours per year

to less than 40,000 hours per year because four of the five phases of the

process had been completed. Two respondent organizations that we

contacted said that EPA’s current estimate of the annual paperwork

burden still associated with this program was too low (and, therefore, the

burden reductions should not have been taken) for a variety of reasons.

First, they said program respondents are having to resubmit data for the

first phases of the data generation program because data they had

previously submitted (1) had become dated because of a backlog at EPA,

(2) had been lost by EPA staff, or (3) was improperly prepared because of

unclear and changing EPA requirements. They also said that the fifth phase

of the data generation process would be much more burdensome than EPA

estimated. Therefore, they said that EPA should not have eliminated the

more than 500,000 burden-hours in paperwork associated with this

collection that was removed in 1997, and that the original estimate was too

low.

In the ICB for fiscal year 1999, EPA said that several agencywide initiatives

had the potential for large burden reductions within the next 3 to 5 years.

The agency said that the most encompassing of these initiatives was a

recently initiated reorganization plan that would bring together all of the

agency’s information programs into a new office to better manage the

agency’s information resources. Another initiative described in the ICB

Most EPA Office of

Environmental Information

Efforts Are Still in the

Planning Stage
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was the agency’s REI initiative, which EPA described as focused on data

quality and building the infrastructure needed to identify and eliminate

obsolete, duplicative, and unnecessary paperwork requirements.

EPA officials told us during this review that the REI initiative had been

merged with the creation of the new Office of Environmental Information,

which was officially launched in late October 1999. Projects that had been

started under the REI initiative, such as data standardization, electronic

reporting, and facility registration, are now being administered by the

Office of Environmental Information. EPA officials said the new office has

four main organizational units responsible for (1) information policy and

collection; (2) information technology and services; (3) information

analysis and access; and (4) information planning, resources, and

outreach. Overall, they said the office would ultimately be responsible for

improving the quality of data used within EPA and provided to the public

and for developing and implementing the goals, standards, and

accountability systems needed to bring about these improvements. To this

end, they said the Office of Environmental Information would

• ensure that the quality of data collected and used by EPA is known and

appropriate for its intended uses,

• reduce the burden on the states and regulated industries of collecting and

reporting data,

• fill significant data gaps, and

• provide the public with integrated information and statistics on

environmental and public health issues.

We recently reported on the status of EPA’s Office of Environmental

Information. In April 1999, we said that the creation of the new office to

make fundamental improvements in the agency’s data management

activities was a step in the right direction. 32 However, we said that the

success of the office depended on EPA’s (1) providing the office with the

necessary resources and expertise, (2) empowering the office to overcome

organizational challenges, (3) balancing the agency’s need for data with

calls to reduce reporting burden, and (4) working closely with the states to

design and implement improved information management systems. We

noted that EPA had not developed an information plan to show how the

agency intended to achieve the goals established for the new office.

 

32Environmental Protection: Status of EPA’s Efforts to Create a Central Information Office (GAO/TRCED-99-147, Apr. 13, 1999).
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In September 1999, we again supported the creation of the new Office of

Environmental Information but said that one of the office’s most pressing

challenges would be to develop a plan that identifies clear priorities for the

office and the resources it will need to make significant improvements in

information management.33 We recommended that the EPA Administrator

direct the program manager of the new office to develop an action plan

detailing the key steps that the agency needs to take to ensure that EPA’s

environmental and regulatory data are sufficiently complete, compatible,

and accurate to meet its needs. EPA concurred with our recommendation

and said that its forthcoming information strategic plan should provide the

overall strategy needed to ensure the completeness, compatibility, and

accuracy of the agency’s environmental data. EPA officials told us during

this review that the Office of Environmental Information expects to

finalize its fiscal year 2000 action plan by April 2000. They said the plan

would include priorities and milestones for the new office for the

remainder of fiscal year 2000 and will be a basis for the broader

information strategic plan.

Although EPA indicated in the ICB that the new Office of Environmental

Information had the potential to reduce the agency’s information

collection requirements in the next 3 to 5 years, officials in that office told

us that most of their efforts were still in the planning stage. For example,

they said that the agency is developing a central receiving facility that will

allow respondents to report environmental information electronically

through a single, standard point of entry. We continue to believe that the

development of an action plan for the Office of Environmental Information

detailing the strategies, resources, benchmarks, and milestones for

completing specific actions would help ensure that EPA meets its

information management goals.

Although EPA’s paperwork burden-hour estimate as of September 30,

1998, represented less than 2 percent of the governmentwide estimate,

EPA was one of only six non-Treasury agencies with an estimated 100

million-plus burden hours. Furthermore, EPA’s paperwork burden is

expected to grow even larger in the future. The size of the agency’s

burden-hour estimate, the frequent mandatory nature of the reporting

requirements, and the fact that the paperwork is primarily used to

determine compliance with environmental statutes and regulations

underscore the importance of understanding how accurately EPA’s

 

33Environmental Information: EPA Is Taking Steps to Improve Information Management, but

Challenges Remain (GAO/RCED-99-261, Sept. 17, 1999).

Conclusions
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paperwork burden is measured and whether EPA is doing all it can to keep

the burden as low as possible.

Our review of the process that EPA used to develop paperwork burdenhour estimates for its largest information collections indicated that the

agency is preparing the basic elements of those estimates in a logical and

systematic manner. EPA usually identifies dozens of tasks and subtasks

that must be performed as part of the collections and uses available data

and experience to develop estimates of the time required for each element

and the number of respondents. The respondent organizations that we

contacted said that most of the burden-hour estimates on which they could

comment were generally accurate.

However, some of the respondent organizations said that two of EPA’s

burden-hour estimates were not realistic. We could not independently

determine whether these organizations’ concerns about these collections

were valid or representative of most respondents’ views. According to EPA

officials, the agency frequently consults with the regulated community

during the development of its information collection requests, but these

officials said that EPA is constrained in this endeavor by the PRA’s

definition of a collection of information. We recognize that the PRA limits

EPA’s efforts to obtain large amounts of information regarding the burden

associated with its information collections. Nevertheless, the contacts that

EPA says it already has with its “consultative partners” should provide the

perspectives needed to improve the perceived quality of EPA’s burdenhour estimates without requiring a new collection approval.

A substantial portion of the burden hours that EPA reduced from its

estimates between fiscal years 1995 and 1998 were because of revisions of

previous estimates, changes in the targeted industries, or the expected

maturation of programs. EPA’s revisions of agency paperwork estimates

had no real impact on the burden being borne by the public. The

underlying reporting and recordkeeping requirements did not change, only

EPA’s method of measuring their effect. Also, adjustments reflecting

changes in the underground storage tank industry, while important to

ensure the accuracy of the agency’s burden estimates, are reductions in

burden hours for which EPA should not claim credit. In fact, OIRA does

not consider reestimates and adjustments relevant to determining whether

agencies are making progress toward the burden-reduction goals

envisioned in the PRA. Finally, reductions in burden-hour estimates

because respondents no longer have to develop initial permits or repost

one-time notices, although technically “program changes,” are quite

different than reductions resulting from conscious efforts on the part of
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the agency to reduce the frequency of reporting requirements or the length

of those requirements.

Therefore, EPA’s claim in its annual report that it had reduced its

paperwork burden “by streamlining processes, eliminating outdated

provisions, or consolidating duplicative requirements” was misleading.

More than 60 percent of the burden hours that EPA reduced during fiscal

years 1995 and 1998 were not in these categories. Also misleading was

EPA’s statement that these reductions had saved businesses and

communities hundreds of millions of dollars. Reductions in agency burdenhour estimates because of math errors, erroneous assumptions, and

conversion of burden hours to dollars on a form that the agency submits to

OMB have no effect on businesses’ or communities’ paperwork

requirements or their expenditures. Also, changes to burden-hour

estimates because initial, paperwork-intensive program phases have been

completed should not be characterized as saving respondents time or

money.

The ICB is the official record of agencies’ information collection

requirements. Under OIRA’s burden-measurement procedures, both

program changes and adjustments are used to estimate the burden

associated with an agency’s information collections, and both are reflected

in the year-end estimates printed in the ICB. Therefore, federal agencies

could have reduced their total burden-hour estimates by 25 percent (or

more) between fiscal years 1995 and 1998 solely by revising those

estimates. Although not the case at EPA, agencies may achieve these

reductions by continuing to collect information in violation of the PRA

after their OIRA information collection authorizations expire.

Obtaining an accurate measure of agencies’ paperwork requirements is

important. However, it is not clear that burden-hour reductions that are

based on reestimates, changes in the economy, or violations are what

Congress had in mind when the PRA was enacted. Therefore, if Congress

and the public want a fuller picture of how the PRA’s burden-reduction

goals are being implemented, they will have to carefully review the

information in OIRA’s ICB reports to determine which agencies are

accomplishing burden-hour reductions via substantive program changes,

adjustments, or as a result of violations of the act. In the ICB for fiscal year

1999, OMB provided information that, for the first time, allowed readers to

calculate the extent to which changes in agencies’ burden-hour estimates

between fiscal years 1997 and 1998 were caused by program changes,

adjustments, and violations.
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Although most of EPA’s burden-reduction actions were consistent with

OIRA’s burden-measure procedures, we concluded that one such action

was not. We believe that the nearly 600,000 burden hours that EPA

subtracted from its estimate for the national pretreatment program in 1997

by converting contractor burden hours to dollars should be added back to

the agency’s burden-hour estimate. This “monetization” practice is

contrary to current OIRA guidance on how burden hours should be

measured, and OIRA staff said the reduction would not currently be

allowed.

We recommend that the Administrator of EPA correct the agency’s

burden-hour estimate for the national pretreatment program in the RISC

database and future editions of the ICB by including in its estimate the

nearly 600,000 burden hours that were converted to dollars.

On February 10, 2000, we sent a draft of this report to the Administrator of

EPA and the Director of OMB for their review and comment. OIRA

officials only suggested several technical and wording changes that we

incorporated as appropriate, but the OIRA Deputy Director said neither

OIRA nor OMB would comment on the draft report’s findings or

recommendation.

On February 24, 2000, the Director of EPA’s Office of Information

Collection provided written comments on the draft report, which are

reproduced in appendix II. The Director said that EPA would examine the

report’s recommendations and make the necessary corrections to its

information collection requests. He also said that the report appeared to

be accurate in its characterization of EPA’s information collection requests

and burden hours. However, he also said that EPA had two overarching

comments on the report. First, he said the comments from the 10

respondent organizations were not a representative sampling of the

regulated entities and should be clearly portrayed as anecdotal views.

Second, he said that consistent with OMB guidelines, EPA calculates

burden and burden reductions on the basis of agency requirements, and

does not consider state and/or local government requirements or

respondents’ voluntary actions when making those determinations. In

addition, he said that although our “assertion that [EPA’s] burdenreduction estimates are misleading is technically correct,” the agency

believes that the finding is too narrowly focused and fails to fully

acknowledge the agency’s other burden-reduction efforts, such as

compliance assistance centers and changes in EPA’s audit policy.

Recommendation

Agency Comments and

Our Evaluation
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We stated in the Objectives, Scope, and Methodology section of the draft

report EPA reviewed that the views of the respondent organizations we

contacted were not intended to be representative or exhaustive of all

entities required to respond to the agency’s information collections. We

also said that we did not attempt to resolve any differences between their

views and the assumptions that EPA used in its analyses. In this final

report, we noted that we did not verify these organizations’ comments, and

we added similar language in two other sections of this report.

We also eliminated a recommendation that was in the draft report on

which the Director’s second comment was based. Although EPA collects

more paperwork through its discharge monitoring program than the

agency’s current burden-hour estimate, some of that paperwork is based

on state or local government requirements or is voluntarily submitted and,

therefore, is not technically a federal information collection. Finally, the

other types of EPA regulatory burden reduction efforts that the Director

mentioned, while important, were outside the scope of our review of the

agency’s information collection requirements.

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

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

date of this report. At that time, we will send copies of this report to

Senator John F. Kerry, Ranking Minority Member, Senate Committee on

Small Business; Representatives David McIntosh and Dennis J. Kucinich,

Chairman and Ranking Minority Member, Subcommittee on National

Economic Growth, Natural Resources, and Regulatory Affairs, House

Committee on Government Reform; the Honorable Carol M. Browner,

Administrator of EPA; and the Honorable Jacob J. Lew, Director of OMB.

We will make copies available to others on request.
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If you have any questions regarding this report, please contact me or Curtis

Copeland on (202) 512-8676. Key contributors to this assignment were

Joseph Santiago and Ellen Grady.

Sincerely yours,

L.Nye Stevens

Director, Federal Management and

 Workforce Issues
Page 42 GAO/GGD-00-59 EPA Paperwork Burden

Contents

1 Letter

44

Office of Water 45

Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response 46

Office of Air and Radiation 47

Office of Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances 48

Appendix I

Program Descriptors

Appendix II 51

Comments From the

Environmental

Protection Agency

Table 1: EPA’s 14 Largest Information Collections as of

September 30, 1998

19

Table 2: Collection Activities and Burden-Hour Estimate

Associated With EPA’s Information Collection on

Disposal of Polychlorinated Biphenyls

21

Table 3: EPA’s Largest Estimated Burden-Hour

Reductions Between Fiscal Years 1995 and 1998, by

EPA Program Office

27

Table 4: EPA’s Largest Estimated Burden-Hour

Reductions Between Fiscal Years 1995 and 1998, by

Type of Reduction

28

Table I.1: EPA Programs Affected by Reviewed

Information Collections

44

Tables

Figure 1: The Department of the Treasury Accounted for

Most Federal Paperwork Burden as of September 30,

1998

10

Figure 2: EPA Was One of Six Non-Treasury Agencies

Whose September 30, 1998, Paperwork Estimate

Exceeded 100 Million Burden Hours

11

Figure 3: EPA’s Burden-Hour Estimates Have Exceeded

Its Burden-Reduction Goals

13

Figure 4: EPA’s Burden-Hour Estimate Was Distributed

Among the Main Program Offices

15

Figures

Figure 5: Most EPA Burden Hours Were Used to Track

Compliance With Regulatory Requirements

16
Contents

Page 43 GAO/GGD-00-59 EPA Paperwork Burden

Figure 6: Most EPA Burden Hours Were Directed Toward

Businesses

17

Figure 7: Most EPA Burden Hours Were for Mandatory

Collections

18

Abbreviations

EPA Environmental Protection Agency

EPCRA Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986

FIFRA Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act

FQPA Food Quality Protection Act

ICB Information Collection Budget

IRS Internal Revenue Service

MRL maximum residue level

NPDES National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System

OIRA Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs

OMB Office of Management and Budget

PCB polychlorinated biphenyls

PRA Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995

RCRA Resource Conservation and Recovery Act

REI Reinventing Environmental Information

RISC Regulatory Information Service Center

TRI Toxics Release Inventory

TSCA Toxic Substances Control Act
Appendix I

Program Descriptors

Page 44 GAO/GGD-00-59 EPA Paperwork Burden

One part of our review of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA)

paperwork requirements focused on the agency’s 14 information

collections with the largest burden-hour estimates as of September 30,

1998. Another part of the review focused on the agency’s 13 largest burdenhour reductions between September 30, 1995, and September 30, 1998. As

table I.1 shows, the 21 EPA programs underlying these collections involved

the agency’s 4 main program offices, and some programs were represented

in both the largest collections and the largest burden-hour reductions

sections of the report. Each of these 21 information collections is briefly

described following table I.1.1

EPA program office/Information collection

Burden-hour

estimates

Burden-hour

reduction claim

Office of Water

Discharge Monitoring X X

National Pretreatment X

National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System: State

 Programs

X

Safe Drinking Water X

Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response

Community Right-to-Know X

Land Disposal Restrictions X X

Underground Storage Tanks X X

Industrial Furnaces X

Oil Pollution Act’s Facility Response Plans X

Office of Air and Radiation

Air Operating Permits Program X X

Pre-Construction New Source Review X

Acid Rain Program X

Conformity of General Federal Actions to State

 Implementation Plans

X

Office of Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances

Toxic Release Inventory Reporting, Recordkeeping,

 Supplier Notification, and Petitions

X X

Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard Disclosure X

LBP Hazard Education Before Renovation X

Asbestos in Schools and Model Accreditation Plan

 Programs

X

Polychlorinated Biphenyls Disposal Amendments X

Agricultural Worker Protection Standards X

Data Generation for Registration Activities X

Maximum Residue Limit Petitions on Food X

 

1

These program descriptors were developed using information obtained from EPA program officials

and the EPA Internet sites for the various program offices.

Table I.1: EPA Programs Affected by

Reviewed Information Collections
Appendix I

Program Descriptors

Page 45 GAO/GGD-00-59 EPA Paperwork Burden

Note: There were two underground storage tank burden-reduction claims between September 30,

1995, and September 30, 1998. In addition, our initial review included a burden-reduction claim

pertaining to the toxic release inventory. This claim is not included in our final burden-hour reduction

analysis because it occurred before the time period of our review.

Source: EPA.

EPA’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) program,

established by the Clean Water Act, prohibits the discharge of pollutants

through a “point source” (e.g., a pipe or a ditch) directly into United States

waters unless dischargers have an NPDES permit. Permits are issued by

EPA-approved states or by EPA regional offices. One way that EPA

monitors compliance with the program is by collecting information from

permitees on the amount of their discharges.

The national pretreatment program is a cooperative effort of federal, state,

and local environmental agencies to protect water quality and is

administered by EPA as part of the NPDES program. The purpose of the

national pretreatment program is to reduce the level of pollutants

discharged by industry and other wastewater sources into municipal sewer

systems. To ensure that their discharges do not exceed the established

limits, some sources must pretreat their wastewater discharges to reduce

the level of pollutants before releasing the discharges to the publicly

owned treatment works. The information collected as part of the

pretreatment program includes data from industrial users on the content

of the discharges, their schedule for installing pretreatment equipment,

and anticipated discharges of wastes that violate pretreatment standards.

State NPDES-permitting authorities may also administer a sludge

management program within their jurisdictions, including all of the

monitoring, reporting, and recordkeeping associated with the program. To

obtain authority to operate a sludge program, a state must submit a

description of its program to EPA, a draft memorandum of agreement with

the EPA regional office, and copies of the state’s relevant statutes and

regulations.

The Safe Drinking Water Act, as amended in 1996, contains several major

areas of emphasis, including (1) improving the way that EPA sets drinking

water safety standards and develops regulations on the basis of various

factors, including good science and data, sound risk assessment, and

effective risk management; (2) establishing new prevention approaches,

Office of Water

Discharge Monitoring

National Pretreatment

Program

National Pollutant

Discharge Elimination

System: State Program

 Safe Drinking Water
Appendix I

Program Descriptors

Page 46 GAO/GGD-00-59 EPA Paperwork Burden

including provisions for operator certification, capacity development, and

source water protection; (3) providing better information to consumers,

including consumer “right-to-know” reports; and; (4) expanding funding

for states and communities. When a state or public water system seeks a

variance or exemption from the act’s requirements, EPA requires them to

submit information to determine whether the variance or exemption is

appropriate.

The Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986

(EPCRA) establishes requirements for federal, state, and local

governments and industry regarding emergency planning and reporting on

hazardous and toxic chemicals. The community right-to-know provisions

are designed to help increase the public’s knowledge and access to

information on the presence of hazardous chemicals in their communities

and releases of these chemicals into the environment. Some of EPCRA’s

reporting requirements include (1) requiring local emergency-planning

committees to develop a contingency plan for responding to chemical

emergencies, (2) requiring facilities to immediately notify the state and

local governments of releases of certain hazardous chemicals, (3) ensuring

public access to material safety data sheets, and (4) requiring certain

facilities to annually report their releases of specified toxic chemicals by

completing a toxic chemical inventory form.

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), as amended in

1984, established the authority for EPA’s land disposal restriction program.

The program is designed to protect groundwater from contamination by

requiring hazardous wastes to be physically or chemically altered to

reduce their toxicity before disposal. The program requirements apply to

most hazardous wastes once a treatment standard has been established. At

the point at which the waste is created, the generator must determine the

waste characteristics for deciding on its proper treatment and disposal

methods. To track the waste that is generated, treated, transported, stored,

or disposed, EPA imposes notification, certification, and recordkeeping

requirements on generators and others.

RCRA required EPA to develop a comprehensive regulatory program for

underground storage tanks containing petroleum or other hazardous

Office of Solid Waste

and Emergency

Response

Community Right-to-Know

Land Disposal Restrictions

Underground Storage Tanks
Appendix I

Program Descriptors

Page 47 GAO/GGD-00-59 EPA Paperwork Burden

substances. EPA’s underground storage tank program requires owners and

operators of such tanks to record and report certain activities. For

example, owners and operators must keep records on inspections and test

results, repairs or upgrades, and site assessment results after closing a

tank. Also, owners must notify state or local authorities of the existence of

these tanks, their leak prevention and leak detection measures, and the

permanent closure of any of these tanks.

EPA regulations promulgated under RCRA require owners and operators

of boilers and industrial furnaces that burn hazardous waste to obtain

operating permits and to maintain certain records demonstrating that they

meet the agency’s requirements. For example, the regulations require them

to (1) maintain records of all hazardous wastes from boilers and industrial

furnaces showing how the waste was treated, stored, or disposed and (2)

develop and maintain contingency plans to minimize unanticipated

damage from any of these processes.

The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 requires owners or operators of oil storage

facilities that are classified as “substantial harm facilities” to prepare a

plan for responding to a worst-case discharge of oil or substantial threat of

such a discharge into navigable water bodies or onto adjoining shorelines.

The act also requires facility response plans to describe training and

periodic unannounced drills or exercises. EPA requires the owners and

operators of these facilities to develop and implement a corresponding

training and drill/exercise program. EPA regulates non-transportationrelated facilities, while the Coast Guard regulates marine transportationrelated facilities and vessels.

Pursuant to the Clean Air Act, all states are required to develop and

implement air operating permits programs under EPA’s guidance. In these

programs, major stationary sources of air pollution are required to obtain

operating permits to ensure compliance with the act. The permits are

comprehensive documents that consolidate all federal, state, and local

requirements applicable to air pollution sources, and that include a

schedule of compliance, monitoring, and reporting requirements.

Industrial Furnaces

Oil Pollution Act’s Facility

Response Plan

Office of Air and

Radiation

Air Operating Permits

Program
Appendix I

Program Descriptors

Page 48 GAO/GGD-00-59 EPA Paperwork Burden

Air pollution permits under the Clean Air Act are also required for

businesses that build new pollution sources or make significant changes to

existing pollution sources. Referred to as “preconstruction” or “new

source review” permits, they are intended to ensure that new emissions do

not cause significant health or environmental threats, and that new

pollution sources are well controlled. Like the air operating permits, the

new source review permits include a schedule of compliance, monitoring,

and reporting requirements.

The 1990 Clean Air Act amendments established the acid rain program to

reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides—the primary

pollutants that cause acid rain. The acid rain program sets a permanent

cap on the amounts of these pollutants that may be emitted by electric

utilities nationwide and allows flexibility for individual utility units to

select their own methods of compliance. The information collection

requirements for this program include monitoring emissions, transferring

allowances, and completing annual compliance certifications.

EPA established national air quality standards under the Clean Air Act, and

state and local governments are responsible for developing and

implementing plans to attain these national standards. However, there was

concern that certain federal actions, such as the leasing of federal land or

construction of federal office buildings, would interfere with state and

local plans. Therefore, Congress amended the act in 1990 to prohibit the

federal government from taking actions that do not conform with state

plans. As a result, EPA requires federal entities to collect certain

information and to follow specific procedures in making conformity

determinations. Although most of the information needed to make these

determinations is developed by federal entities, some information is

obtained from private organizations.

EPCRA and the Pollution Prevention Act direct EPA to require owners or

operators of certain facilities that manufacture, process, or otherwise use

any of over 600 listed toxic chemicals and chemical categories to report

annually to EPA and to the states on their chemical transfers and releases

into the environment and their waste management activities for such

chemicals. The information gathered in this report is stored in a database

Pre-Construction New

Source Review

Acid Rain Program

Conformity of General

Federal Actions to State

Implementation Plans

Office of Prevention,

Pesticides, and Toxic

Substances

Toxic Release Inventory

Reporting, Recordkeeping,

Supplier Notification, and

Petitions
Appendix I

Program Descriptors

Page 49 GAO/GGD-00-59 EPA Paperwork Burden

known as the Toxic Release Inventory, which is maintained at EPA, is

available through the Internet and is used by EPA and parts of the public

sector.

Under the Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction Act of 1992,

sellers or lessors of housing constructed before 1978 are required to

disclose known information on the presence of lead-based paint and leadbased paint hazards. In addition, the sellers or lessors must provide

purchasers and renters with an EPA publication on lead awareness before

selling or leasing the housing unit.

Pursuant to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and the Residential

Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction Act, individuals or firms that conduct

renovation activities on pre-1978 housing must obtain a signed

acknowledgment from the owner/occupant of that housing unit before

conducting most renovation activities. To comply with this requirement,

contractors performing renovations in common areas of multifamily

housing or individual units must also provide copies of EPA’s publication

on lead awareness to the appropriate owners and occupants.

Under the Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act of 1986, public and

private schools are required to (1) develop and maintain a management

plan that addresses how the school will protect the occupants from

exposure to asbestos and (2) ensure that persons who inspect for

asbestos, develop management plans, and design or conduct response

actions are properly trained and accredited. EPA requires that the

management plan be made available to all concerned persons, such as

faculty, staff, parents, or other interested parties. The model accreditation

plan assures that persons who inspect for asbestos, develop the

management plan, and design or conduct response actions are properly

accredited, and that states will adopt appropriate accreditation programs.

TSCA directs EPA to regulate the marking, disposal, manufacturing,

processing, distribution, and use of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB). PCBs

are chemicals found in items such as common household appliances,

electrical transformers, and fluorescent lights. EPA’s PCB regulations

contain information collection requirements to ensure that PCBs are

managed in an environmentally safe manner.

Under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA),

EPA works in partnership with the states to implement programs designed

to protect workers from risks posed by pesticides. One of these

programs—worker protection standards—is intended to reduce the risk of

Residential Lead-Based

Paint Hazard Disclosure

Requirements

Residential Lead-Based

Paint Hazard Education

Before Renovation

Asbestos in Schools and

Model Accreditation Plan

Programs

Polychlorinated Biphenyls

Disposal Amendments

Agricultural Worker

Protection Standards
Appendix I

Program Descriptors

Page 50 GAO/GGD-00-59 EPA Paperwork Burden

pesticide poisonings and injuries among agricultural workers and pesticide

handlers, reduce or eliminate exposure to pesticides, and establish

procedures to respond to exposure-related emergencies. The standards

require basic safety training and distribution and posting of information

about pesticide hazards as well as pesticide application information.

Under FIFRA, EPA must assess the health and safety data for pesticides

originally registered before November 1984. Before 1984, only acute testing

or short-term environmental testing was required for many pesticides

before registration. However, EPA later determined that data on chronic

health effects and long-term environmental effects were necessary in many

cases. Therefore, FIFRA established a process for EPA to obtain or

develop the information that it needed to reevaluate the previous

registrations. EPA is responsible for determining, with the use of updated

information on a chemical, whether a pesticide product could cause an

unreasonable adverse effect on human health or the environment.

Pesticide registrants seeking to reregister their products are required to

generate (and report to EPA) a level of data on the previously registered

pesticides that was equivalent to what was now required of new

registrations. In addition, pursuant to the Food Quality Protection Act

(FQPA), which amended FIFRA, when reevaluating these pesticide

reregistrations, EPA must consider the potential toxic effects of these

pesticides on infants and children.

Under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, as amended by FQPA,

before a pesticide can be registered for use on food or feed, EPA must

establish a tolerance for the maximum amount of pesticide residue

permitted. Paperwork requirements under this program include the

submission of a request for a tolerance or an exemption from a tolerance

and the submission of data so that EPA can make its tolerance

determination.

Data Generation for

Reregistration Activities

Maximum Residue Limit

Petitions on Food
Appendix II

Comments From the Environmental

Protection Agency

Page 51 GAO/GGD-00-59 EPA Paperwork Burden
Appendix II

Comments From the Environmental Protection Agency

Page 52 GAO/GGD-00-59 EPA Paperwork Burden
Appendix II

Comments From the Environmental Protection Agency

Page 53 GAO/GGD-00-59 EPA Paperwork Burden
Page 54 GAO/GGD-00-59 EPA Paperwork Burden
Page 55 GAO/GGD-00-59 EPA Paperwork Burden
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