This is essential for ensuring that the Agency will be able to move beyond stovepipe systems to provide integrated information for the Agency's new approaches. EPA must commit, organizationally, to establishing the appropriate leadership with the authority and responsibility for positioning IRM as a strategic mission tool. This effort should reflect a major shift of Agency focus to using information as a strategic tool. If the Agency is going to use information to serve a range of stakeholders and better coordinate programmatic and policy direction, it must establish a focus for Agency leadership. EPA must establish an organization lead by someone with the confidence of the Administrator, who would carry out a core, Agency-wide, overall mission.
Information integration is difficult or impossible.
Yet, information integration is critical to place-based approaches . EPA recognizes that it cannot now integrate its information across media or by facility, locality, or chemical on an ongoing operational basis without considerable expense and low quality. EnviroFacts is an example of an initial step to integrate existing information and make it readily accessible to interested parties. The Committee recommends that EPA develop an Environmental Protection Information Architecture that would address information needs across media, and other boundaries, in a comprehensive fashion. This will require partnership with the states and other stakeholders to establish a national facility registry.