Environmental Protection: Funds Obligated for Completed Superfund Projects
RCED-98-232
Published: Jul 21, 1998. Publicly Released: Jul 31, 1998.
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Highlights
Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) efforts to deobligate and recover funds for completed Superfund projects, focusing on: (1) the progress that EPA has made to recover the unspent funds on the inactive Superfund contracts and assistance agreements that GAO identified; and (2) whether any additional funds that expired during 1997 for Superfund contracts and assistance agreements are available for deobligation.
Recommendations
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Environmental Protection Agency | To expedite the recovery of unspent funds on inactive Superfund contract work orders, the Administrator, EPA, should modify the agency's analysis of completed contracts to include a separate analysis of contracts that have expired at the end of December in addition to June of each calendar year. |
EPA disagreed with the recommendation because: (1) its process allows contractors 6 months to submit invoices for expired contracts and it does not want to risk deobligating too much money; (2) its effort is timed for sufficient evaluation and processing of each deobligation and reuse recovered funds during the fiscal year; (3) it places significant emphasis on its annual process, and requiring additional efforts would reduce the stature of its annual effort; and (4) it agency has been successful in expending recovered Superfund dollars within a reasonable timeframe.
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Topics
Budget obligationsContract administrationCooperative agreementsDeobligationsHazardous substancesPollution controlUnexpended budget balancesWaste disposalHazardous waste sitesSuperfund