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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Eric Landau
(202) 204-3624
NEW STUDY ON IMPROVING EPA’S MANAGEMENT
OF ENVIRONMENTAL DATA
Washington, DC — A broad-based coalition of businesses, environmental activists, states, and IT experts has called on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to increase the accuracy and usefulness of its data on regulated facilities. The National Academy of Public Administration has facilitated this coalition.
The coalition, known as the Environmental Information Consortium (EIC), urges EPA to establish a single Master File system for data identifying federally regulated facilities. The EIC’s study, “An Integrated Facility Identification System: Key to Effective Management of Environmental Information at the Environmental Protection Agency,” was funded by the Office of Environmental Information at EPA.
EPA has struggled for years to consolidate and streamline its data systems. The agency has improved the quality of facility data; however, it has not been able to provide the public with consistent, accurate data identifying all the facilities regulated by the agency. As a result, the public receives an incomplete picture of facilities’ environmental performance, and the agency’s data sometimes portrays companies’ status inaccurately. The current system also imposes unnecessarily on companies by requiring them to report the same information to the agency multiple times.
A single, facility identification (ID) system would allow the public and journalists to obtain and analyze information about a particular facility from various EPA programs. If properly implemented, this new EPA system would reduce companies’ reporting burdens.
EPA has consistently supported the EIC’s effort to identify alternatives for improving the current facility ID system. The Office of Management and Budget also has urged the agency to develop an integrated system for streamlining facility reporting and public access to facility data. The EIC’s report gives EPA a roadmap for meeting these objectives.
The study recommends specific steps to establish a single agency-wide, shared Master File system that will integrate EPA’s data on all federally regulated facilities. Other recommendations include:
• EPA’s media programs and state environmental agencies should collaborate on developing uniform procedures and definitions for operating the shared Master File, and for tracking the identities of regulated facilities through their frequent changes in name, operations, or ownership, etc.
• EPA should require all its media programs and regional offices to adopt and use the facility ID data in the agency’s shared Master File and should work with state environmental agencies to develop and implement uniform data elements for identifying all regulated facilities, based on jointly adopted state-EPA definitions and data standards.
• EPA should modify its rules and policies as needed to clarify that regulated facilities can meet all of their reporting obligations related to facility ID data by submitting updated information to the single, shared Master File.
• EPA should give the public access to its Master File system through an on-line, web-based interface that is user-friendly and that makes public the agency’s information about facilities’ environmental requirements and their actual performance.
A number of states have already adopted integrated data systems. EPA’s single Master File system would be more cost-effective to maintain and would provide accurate, comprehensive, multi-media information about all facilities regulated by EPA. This system would be a major improvement over current EPA practices, which rely on time-consuming reconciliation of facility ID data from multiple databases operated separately by the agency’s media programs.
The National Academy of Public Administration is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit corporation chartered by Congress to provide trusted advice to government agencies on issues of governance and public management. To review a copy of the EIC report, go to www.napawash.org.
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