Center for the Economy and the Environment

Setting Priorities, Getting Results: A New Direction for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency"

The House and Senate Appropriations Committees asked NAPA to assess the EPA's efforts in setting environmental priorities and allocating resources. A NAPA-convened panel found that the changing nature of environmental problems and the continued progress in environmental protection require significant changes in EPA's statutes and management structure.

This report offers recommendations in the following areas:

1. EPA needs a well-defined, coherent statutory mission and the flexibility to carry it out.
2. EPA and Congress need to hand more responsibility and decision making authority over to the states and localities.
3. EPA should support legislation to provide flexibility and accountability to the private sector and to local governments in exchange for better-than-required performance.
4. EPA should put its own house in order.
5. EPA should refine and expand its use of risk analysis and cost-benefit analysis in making decisions.
6. The environmental control effort should be integrated. In consultation with Congress, and as part of the process of integrating the environmental statutes, the agency should begin work on a reorganization plan that would break down the internal walls between the agency's major "media" program offices for air, water, waste, and toxic substances.