Water Pollution: Proposed Pretreatment Standards for Industrial Laundries

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the dispute between the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the industrial laundry industry regarding EPA's cost benefit analyses of its proposed pretreatment standards, focusing on: (1) EPA's implementation of the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 (UMRA); (2) the significant differences between EPA's and the industry's cost estimates of this proposed regulation; (3) ascertaining how EPA estimated the benefits of the proposed rule and disclosed the uncertainties associated with the accuracy of its estimates; and (4) how EPA's analysis supports its belief that the agency has chosen the least costly, most cost-effective, or least burdensome regulatory alternative.