	Background

In October 1998, the EPA Administrator announced plans to create an office with responsibility for information management, policy, and technology. Such concerns involve the accuracy and completeness of EPA’s environmental data, the fragmentation of the data across many incompatible databases, and the need for improved measures of program outcomes and environmental quality. Nonetheless, EPA has not yet developed an information plan that identifies the office’s goals, objectives, and outcomes. While EPA has made progress in determining the organizational structure of the office, final decisions have not been made and EPA has not yet identified the employees and the resources that will be needed. Information Plan Is Needed

Although EPA has articulated both a vision as well as key goals for its new information office, it has not yet developed an information plan to show how the agency intends to achieve its vision and goals. Needed Resources Are Still Unknown

Even though EPA has not yet determined which staff will be moved to the central information office, the transition team’s director told us that it is expected that the office will have about 350 employees. She added that staffing decisions will be completed by July 1999 and the office will begin functioning sometime in August 1999. On the basis of our prior and ongoing work, we believe that the agency must address these challenges for the reorganization to significantly improve EPA’s information management activities. Among the most important of these challenges are (1) obtaining sufficient resources and expertise to address the complex information management issues facing the agency; (2) overcoming problems associated with EPA’s decentralized organizational structure, such as the lack of agencywide information dissemination policies; (3) balancing the demand for more data with calls from the states and regulated industries to reduce reporting burdens; and (4) working effectively with EPA’s counterparts in state government. They likewise recognize that the reorganization will raise a variety of complex information policy and technology issues. Senior EPA officials responsible for creating the new office anticipate that the information office will need “purse strings control” over the agency’s resources for information management expenditures in order to implement its policies, data standards, procedures, and other decisions agencywide. Overcoming Problems Associated With EPA’s Decentralized Organizational Structure

EPA will need to provide the new office with sufficient authority to overcome organizational obstacles to adopt agencywide information policies and procedures. Given that EPA depends on state regulatory agencies to collect much of the data it needs and to help ensure the quality of that data, EPA recognizes the need to work in a close partnership with the states on a wide variety of information management activities, including the creation of its new information office.
Why GAO Did This Study

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) information management initiatives, focusing on the: (1) status of EPA's efforts to create a central office responsible for information management, policy, and technology issues; and (2) major challenges that the new office needs to address in order to achieve success in collecting, using, and disseminating environmental information.

What GAO Found

GAO noted that: (1) EPA estimates that its central information office will be operational by the end of August 1999 and will have a staff of about 350 employees; (2) the office will address a broad range of information policy and technology issues, such as improving the accuracy of EPA's data, protecting the security of information that EPA disseminates over the Internet, developing better measures to assess environmental conditions, and reducing information collection and reporting burdens; (3) EPA recognizes the importance of developing an information plan showing the goals of the new office and the means by which they will be achieved but has not yet established milestones or target dates for completing such a plan; (4) although EPA has made progress in determining the organizational structure for the new office, it has not yet finalized decisions on the office's authorities, responsibilities, and budgetary needs; (5) the agency has not performed an analysis to determine the types and the skills of employees that will be needed to carry out the office's functions; (6) EPA officials told GAO that decisions on the office's authorities, responsibilities, budget, and staff will be made before the office is established in August 1999; (7) on the basis of GAO's prior and ongoing reviews of EPA's information management problems, GAO believes that the success of the new office depends on the agency's addressing several key challenges as it develops an information plan, budget, and organizational structure for that office; and (8) most importantly, EPA needs to: (a) provide the office with the resources and the expertise necessary to solve the complex information management, policy, and technology problems facing the agency; (b) empower the office to overcome organizational challenges to adopting agencywide information policies and procedures; (c) balance the agency's need for data on health, the environment, and program outcomes with the call from the states and regulated industries to reduce their reporting burdens; and (d) work closely with its state partners to design and implement improved information management systems.