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Environmental Enforcement: Penalties May Not Recover Economic Benefits Gained by Violators

RCED-91-166 Published: Jun 17, 1991. Publicly Released: Jun 24, 1991.
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Highlights

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) penalty policies and practices.

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Environmental Protection Agency To institute the internal controls necessary to ensure that the agency's uniform civil penalty policy is followed, the Administrator, EPA, should require that EPA regional offices provide information on administrative penalties for the Office of Enforcement's penalty reporting system and that they include, for civil judicial and administrative cases, initial calculations of economic benefit and gravity, subsequent revisions to these calculations, reasons for penalty reductions, and final penalty amounts.
Closed – Implemented
EPA has taken action to recover economic benefits through activities such as regional reviews of files to determine whether such benefits were considered, and through training. Also, EPA has substantially enhanced data gathering and is now capturing information on assessments in administrative and judicial cases. However, because of reporting burdens, EPA is not requiring reporting of information on proposed penalties or on the gravity and benefit components of civil cases.
Environmental Protection Agency To institute the internal controls necessary to ensure that the agency's uniform civil penalty policy is followed, the Administrator, EPA, should identify, once the reporting system has been modified, the individuals or offices within the agency that will be responsible for monitoring penalty practices and for taking any corrective actions indicated.
Closed – Implemented
In June 1994, EPA consolidated and realigned all of the headquarters enforcement functions into one new office, the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA). Now that the reorganization of headquarters enforcement functions is complete, the Assistant Administrator of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance is responsible for reviewing the penalty practices of EPA's regional offices and for taking any corrective actions needed. In FY 1995, OECA initiated a regional auditing program, under which compliance with the agency's penalty policy is reviewed.
Environmental Protection Agency To institute the internal controls necessary to ensure that the agency's uniform civil penalty policy is followed, the Administrator, EPA, should require states, in their federally delegated air, hazardous waste, and water programs, to adopt economic benefit policies that are based on EPA uniform civil penalty policy and, in the interim, require economic benefit policies as conditions of annual programs.
Closed – Not Implemented
EPA believes that while the recommendation merits further consideration, it would prefer that states voluntarily adopt an economic benefit policy, a position EPA has taken since 1986, with little result.
Environmental Protection Agency To institute the internal controls necessary to ensure that the agency's uniform civil penalty policy is followed, the Administrator, EPA, should require states, once they have adopted economic benefit policies, to report final calculations of economic benefit and gravity, subsequent revisions to these calculations, reasons for penalty reductions and final penalty amounts, as part of the enforcement information they now provide.
Closed – Not Implemented
EPA believes that this would require a massive amount of data collection and development of a database compatible in all states, but EPA already has such a database in place and collects data from states.

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Topics

Environmental administrative lawEnvironmental lawEnvironmental monitoringEnvironmental policiesstate relationsFines (penalties)Law enforcementPollution controlProgram managementState-administered programs