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Superfund: Missed Statutory Deadlines Slow Progress in Environmental Programs

RCED-89-27 Published: Nov 29, 1988. Publicly Released: Jan 30, 1989.
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Highlights

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed compliance with deadlines in the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986 (SARA), specifically to: (1) catalog the SARA deadlines from the date of enactment through December 31, 1991; and (2) determine compliance with deadlines through March 31, 1989.

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Environmental Protection Agency To promote timely implementation of future requirements in SARA, the Administrator, EPA, should direct: (1) managers to include information on the reasons why SARA deadlines were missed or are expected to be missed as part of updates to the deadlines database recently established by OLA; and (2) OLA to report regularly to the Administrator on the status of compliance with the SARA deadlines and that this information be included in the EPA annual reports to Congress.
Closed – Implemented
EPA recently resolved some problems with the software D-base. The database is now more accurate than it was at the time of review. EPA now includes reasons for missed deadlines, but has had difficulty in obtaining reliable reasons for other missed deadlines. EPA uses a more accurate database of priorities, the Action Tracking Sys tem, to fulfill much of the GAO recommendation.

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Topics

Environmental lawEnvironmental policiesstate relationsHazardous substancesInteragency relationsManagement information systemsNoncomplianceReporting requirementsRisk managementWaste management