EPA Calls for Transparency as "First Step" to Improving Water Quality
<http://www.ombwatch.org/node/10205/>
Posted on July 14, 2009
In a July 2 memo to top staff, the administrator of the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA), Lisa Jackson, called for greater transparency of
water quality enforcement and compliance information. Jackson acknowledged
that U.S. waters do not meet public health and environmental goals, and she
listed enhancing transparency as the first of several steps toward improving
compliance and water quality.
Stating that "Americans have a right to know how their government is doing
in enforcing laws to protect the nation's water," Jackson directed staff to
improve, expand, and enhance the amount of information on water quality
available to the public. She added, "[G]overnment has an obligation to
clearly inform the public about water quality and our actions to protect
it."
Jackson's memo lays out several actions to expand public access to
government data, improve the analysis and presentation of compliance data,
and use new technologies to link such regulatory data to real-time
environmental conditions.
The administrator called for enhanced information on compliance and
enforcement of water quality laws to be posted on the agency's website,
including Clean Water Act compliance data for each state. Jackson stated,
"An informed public is our best ally in pressing for better compliance."
Where possible, the website will show connections between local water
quality and the state's enforcement record.
Jackson set broad standards for the data to be available online. The
information must be easy to access, simple to understand, and provide the
user with ways to analyze the performance of individual businesses, as well
as states and the nation's performance overall. Online tools to analyze
state performance reports should also be made available.
Jackson ordered state performance reports that have been released under the
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to be posted online. Government
transparency advocates have recommended posting all materials disclosed
under FOIA on agencies' websites. Providing public access to
already-disclosed information would reduce the burden of future FOIA
requests for the same information. It is unclear whether Jackson intends to
expand this approach into a policy that would place all FOIA-released
materials online.
Complementing the administrator's call for greater transparency is her plan
to "move EPA's information technology into the 21st century." Recognizing
how much more powerful information is when presented clearly to the public,
Jackson is demanding that EPA be an "analytical resource" that provides -
over the Web - easily understandable, useable, real-time data, including
facility-level compliance data, water quality data, and other environmental
data.
Jackson's memo also calls for raising the bar on performance of Clean Water
Act enforcement. She pushed for putting resources into the highest-priority
problems that will yield the largest impact on water quality, such as "wet
weather pollution," which would include storm water runoff.
The memo continues an emerging trend at EPA of greater transparency - at
least rhetorically. Shortly after her confirmation as head of EPA, Jackson
released a memo to all employees calling for greater transparency, followed
by a memo emphasizing a restoration of scientific integrity.
In a September 2008 report, the Government Accountability Office (GAO)
listed several problems inhibiting the accuracy and transparency of EPA's
reporting of enforcement for all environmental regulations. GAO recommended
several actions for EPA to improve transparency. Among them, GAO recommended
disclosure of additional enforcement data and the methods for calculating
them. It is not clear from the administrator's memo how these
recommendations would be incorporated into Clean Water Act enforcement
reporting.
A July 2005 GAO report identified gaps and discrepancies in data that
impeded EPA's ability to efficiently allocate resources to protect
environmental health. Jackson's memo does not address data gaps or data
quality.
The new memo from Jackson only addresses enforcement of and compliance with
one statute, the Clean Water Act. No such memo or other instructions have
been released regarding transparency in the enforcement of the numerous
other environmental statutes under EPA's jurisdiction.
Jackson's memo was addressed to Cynthia Giles, the new head of the EPA's
Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA). Working with the
agency's Office of Water, OECA will develop an "action plan" to increase
transparency, improve compliance, and transform the information systems
dealing with water quality programs. The offices are to gather ideas from
states, the EPA regional offices, and outside stakeholders; develop
recommendations; and report to the administrator within 90 days.
Image in teaser by flickr user Wouter Kiel, used under a Creative Commons
license
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Mark Perkins MLIS, MCLIP
www.markperkins.info
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