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Air Quality Standards: EPA's Standard Setting Process Should Be More Timely and Better Planned

RCED-87-23 Published: Dec 03, 1986. Publicly Released: Jan 16, 1987.
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Highlights

In response to a congressional request, GAO reported on: (1) the current status and cost of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) efforts to review and update its national air quality standards; and (2) EPA plans for addressing additional research needs.

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Environmental Protection Agency In order to meet the timetable Congress established, the Administrator, EPA, should adhere to the milestones in the EPA 5-year schedule for reviewing and updating the standards. To meet the milestones, the Administrator will need to limit technical analyses and reviews in the standard-setting process to those provided for in the EPA 5-year planning schedule. EPA should do additional analyses and reviews during the next 5-year review cycle.
Closed – Not Implemented
EPA disagreed that it is not complying with the 5-year screening schedule, and intends to seek possible relief from or solutions to this requirement when the Clean Air Act is reauthorized.
Environmental Protection Agency The Administrator, EPA, should implement procedures to record costs to review and update each air quality standard.
Closed – Implemented
The EPA Office of Air and Radiation and the Office of Research and Development have initiated procedures for identifying and controlling contractor and in-house personnel costs associated with reviewing and updating National Amient Air Quality Standards.
Environmental Protection Agency To assist EPA managers in setting national air quality standards, the Administrator, EPA, should implement a formal process for identifying and documenting research questions and matching these questions with planned and ongoing research for each of the six pollutants. Specifically, formal research plans should be prepared highlighting questions about health effects for each pollutant and the extent to which planned and ongoing research will address them. The identification of research questions should be done by those EPA officials most knowledgeable of the science supporting each standard and should be done after identification and assessment of available scientific evidence is documented in the criteria documents and staff papers.
Closed – Not Implemented
EPA has established work groups to prepare research planning documents for all the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQ) and, according to the Chief, Ambient Standards Branch of EPA, research plans have been prepared fully documenting NAAQ research needs.

Full Report

Office of Public Affairs

Topics

Agency missionsAir pollution controlAir qualityCost controlEnvironmental lawEnvironmental monitoringEnvironmental researchToxic substancesPollutantsOzone