[Comments on EPA Authority to Enter Into Clean Air Act Settlement Agreements]

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) response to a GAO opinion concluding that EPA did not have the authority to enter into settlement agreements to reduce violators' civil penalties in exchange for their funding public information and other projects. GAO noted that: (1) EPA still believed it had the legal authority to enter into such settlement agreements; (2) although EPA policy permitted information projects that neither had a direct relationship to a violation nor remedied it, such projects were not authorized by law; (3) alternative settlements would violate the Miscellaneous Receipts Act, which required that monies received for the government by government officers be deposited into the Treasury; and (4) supplemental projects that carry out other agency goals while not remedying a violation would improperly augment the agency's appropriations.