United States General Accounting Office

GAO Resources, Community, and Economic

Development Division

June 1996 Environmental Protection

Issue Area Plan

Fiscal Years 1995-97

G O A

years

1921 - 1996

GAO/IAP-96-24

Foreword

As the investigative arm of the Congress and the nation’s auditor, the

General Accounting Office is charged with following the federal dollar

wherever it goes. Reflecting stringent standards of objectivity and

independence, GAO’s audits, evaluations, and investigations promote a

more efficient and cost-effective government; expose waste, fraud, abuse,

and mismanagement in federal programs; help the Congress target budget

reductions; assess financial information management; and alert the

Congress to developing trends that may have significant fiscal or

budgetary consequences. In fulfilling its responsibilities, GAO performs

original research and uses hundreds of databases or creates its own to

compile and analyze information.

To ensure that GAO’s resources are directed toward the most important

issues facing the Congress, each of GAO’s 32 issue areas develops a

strategic plan that describes its key issues and their significance, the

objectives and focus of its work, and the planned major job starts. Each

issue area relies heavily on input from congressional committees, agency

officials, and subject-matter experts in developing its strategic plan.

With the nation’s annual environmental compliance costs approaching

$120 billion, GAO’s work in the Environmental Protection Issue Area

generally focuses on increasing the cost-effectiveness of environmental

programs. This emphasis recognizes the continuing high growth in these

costs while unmet environmental needs remain. Consequently, limited

public and private environmental resources need to be used in ways that

best protect human health and the environment. This issue area covers the

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Council of Environmental

Quality (CEQ), and other agencies responsible for carrying out

environmental laws, policies, and programs. The principal issues facing

the Congress and the administration in the environmental area are

•evaluating EPA’s management and budget to help ensure that available

resources are used efficiently and effectively;

•assessing the government’s management of hazardous waste site

cleanups, which are estimated to cost hundreds of billions of dollars;

•reviewing the implementation and the cost-effectiveness of air quality

measures required by the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990; and

•identifying cost-effective alternatives to protect the nation’s water

resources and to ensure safe drinking water supplies.

Page 1 GAO/IAP-96-24
Foreword

In the pages that follow, we describe our key planned work on these

important issues during our 3-year planning period (fiscal years 1995

through 1997). This year’s update to the plan contains some slight changes

in emphasis to reflect current congressional interest and available

resources. Also, because unanticipated events may significantly affect

even the best of plans, our planning process allows for updating this plan

during the year as needed to respond quickly to emerging issues. If you

have any questions or suggestions about this plan, please call me or

Stanley J. Czerwinski, Associate Director, at (202) 512-6511.

Peter F. Guerrero

Director

Environmental Protection Issues

Page 2 GAO/IAP-96-24
Contents

Foreword 1

Table I: Key Issues 4

Table II: Planned

Major Work

6

Page 3 GAO/IAP-96-24
Table I: Key Issues

Issue Significance

Management and budget: Do EPA’s approaches to environmental

protection ensure that resources are optimally targeted and spent?

Continued progress in environmental protection will be costly.

Increasingly, questions are being raised about whether

environmental spending is targeted on the highest priority needs.

This attention to the cost-effectiveness of environmental programs

is especially important with the increased budgetary pressures at

all levels of government. Greater attention needs to be given to

performance-based measures of progress coupled with more

flexible, incentive-based regulatory approaches; more effective

partnerships between EPA and the states; and better management.

Hazardous and solid waste: Is the government effectively

managing waste programs and ensuring that hazardous waste

sites are cleaned up cost-effectively?

Under the Superfund law, hazardous waste cleanups are

expected to cost billions of dollars and take decades. The federal

government faces the largest liability, potentially hundreds of

billions of dollars. Concerns about this program center on the slow

pace and high cost of cleanups as well as inefficiencies in

administering the program. With the law up for reauthorization,

these issues are the subject of much debate.

Air quality: Is the federal government implementing the Clean Air

Act Amendments cost-effectively and are emerging issues, such

as climate change, being appropriately addressed?

While the overall quality of our nation’s air has improved, air

pollution problems continue. In the next few years, the Clean Air

Act Amendments of 1990 require EPA to establish more

regulations to reduce acid rain, ozone-forming emissions, and

airborne toxic chemicals. These new regulations are expected to

add significantly to the annual costs of compliance, which now

exceed $25 billion. Concerns about these costs and other

challenges to achieving these reductions have focused attention

on the use of innovative and cost-effective approaches. In

addition, the buildup of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping

gases in the earth’s atmosphere has raised concerns about the

greenhouse effect and global warming. The United States is the

world’s largest contributor to carbon dioxide emissions, and costly

actions may be needed to mitigate climate changes.

Water quality: Is the government cost-effectively protecting

surface water, groundwater, and drinking water?

Annual costs to control water pollution are expected to increase

significantly in the coming years—reaching around $65 billion by

the year 2000. Local governments and private industries will bear

most of these costs. The increases are primarily attributable to the

costs for treating wastewater and meeting new federal mandates

for protecting drinking water.

Page 4 GAO/IAP-96-24
Table I: Key Issues

Objectives Focus of work

.

•Identify ways for EPA and the states to achieve environmental

results cost-effectively.

•Assess ways to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of

EPA’s management of environmental programs.

•Examine the effectiveness of EPA and state partnerships in

reaching environmental objectives.

•Performance- and incentive-based alternatives to current

regulatory approaches

•Potential efficiencies and cost savings in EPA’s budget

•Opportunities to improve relations between EPA and the states

•Provide the Congress with information to aid in its reauthorization

of hazardous (Superfund) and solid waste legislation.

•Examine ways to improve the efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and

pace of cleanups as well as waste management.

•Federal budget implications of completing cleanups

•Federal and state responsibilities for cleanups

•Innovative methods and technologies to encourage waste

management and cleanup, including incentives for private

voluntary cleanups and accelerated cleanup processes

•Assist the Congress in its oversight of EPA’s implementation of

the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990.

•Review how EPA ensures that it considers the most cost-effective

control measures when implementing regulations to address air

quality problems.

•Assess agency initiatives to address emerging issues, such as

climate change.

•EPA’s efforts to revise its air quality standards and to improve

the accuracy of its air quality modeling

•The adequacy and usefulness of cost-benefit and other

analyses that EPA uses to make its regulatory decisions

•The costs and timing of the federal government’s role in

reducing greenhouse gases

•Identify ways to ensure that compliance costs bring

commensurate benefits.

•Provide the Congress with information to assist in its

reauthorization of the Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water Acts.

•Opportunities to improve the cost-effectiveness of decisions to

address water quality problems

•The progress of federal, state, and local governments in

responding to the most significant water quality concerns

•Legislative options for achieving water quality goals

cost-effectively

Page 5 GAO/IAP-96-24
Table II: Planned Major Work

Issue Planned Major Job Starts

Management and budget •Assess how well EPA’s regulatory reform initiatives decrease reporting requirements for businesses

and provide states and businesses with increased flexibility to implement environmental programs.

•Review EPA’s justification for its fiscal year 1997 budget request.

•Review the effectiveness of EPA’s planning and budgeting processes.

•Review EPA’s peer review process that assesses the quality of scientific data used in its regulatory

decisions.

Hazardous and solid waste •Determine if EPA has corrected previously reported deficiencies in recovering its costs, contracting,

and setting priorities for cleanups in its management of the Superfund program.

•Identify ways to perform more cost-effective cleanups of hazardous waste sites at federal facilities.

•Assess priority setting for cleaning up hazardous waste sites at federal facilities.

•Identify which states have already assumed some Superfund cleanup program responsibilities and

what their responsibilities are.

•Review how efficiently and effectively states manage cleanups of Superfund hazardous waste sites.

•Review “best practices” in state programs that offer private businesses incentives to voluntarily clean

up hazardous waste sites.

Air quality •Assess how accurately EPA’s computer model predicts reductions in emissions from motor vehicles.

•Review the quality and usefulness of cost benefit analyses to help ensure the cost-effectiveness of air

quality regulations.

•Review developed countries’ progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and identify factors

affecting their progress.

Water quality •Examine the states’ needs for and spending of federal funds to finance the construction of

wastewater treatment facilities.

•Assess the progress of federal, state, and local governments in responding to the most significant

water quality concerns.

Page 6 GAO/IAP-96-24
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