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PROTECTING AMERICA

Protecting Water Systems

EPA is the lead Federal agency for coordinating security of America's water systems. Since the enactment of the Bioterrorism Act of 2002, EPA has provided assistance to water utilities, including over 9,000 drinking water systems, to help them complete vulnerability assessments and update their emergency response plans. For 2006, the Administration proposes the Water Sentinel Initiative to further protect the Nation's water supply. Water Sentinel will develop an operational water monitoring and surveillance system for dangerous contaminants. The program will demonstrate a standardized, cost-effective approach that States can implement to enhance water security. These efforts will help protect hundreds of thousands of miles of drinking water systems and provide an early chemical and biological terrorism warning mechanism for millions of drinking water consumers. The Administration requests $44 million to fund Water Sentinel as a pilot program in five major cities. Lessons learned from this program will be used in future State and local water system protection efforts.

An EPA scientist prepares to test real-time, online sensors for water distribution systems. The sensors detect changes in water quality that would result from the intentional release of chemical and biological contaminants.

Detection of Terror Attacks

The agency also has responsibility for managing the decontamination of buildings, equipment, and the environment in the event of a chemical, biological, or radiological attack. For 2006, the Administration requests $19 million to develop the necessary capabilities for detection and decontamination of threat agents. This investment in decontamination will advance the Federal Government's role from solely response to being more prepared for emergencies. With this funding, EPA will be able to better respond following a contamination event. Additionally, $12 million is dedicated to the Environmental Laboratory Preparedness and Response program to develop a network to standardize analytical testing methods, provide surge capacity, and establish connectivity between laboratories. This laboratory capability will ensure that we can monitor water systems and the environment quickly and accurately. The Budget maintains resources of $107 million to continue support for investigation and training activities, technical assistance to States, cooperative research, and EPA's national response teams. In total, the President's Budget requests $185 million for EPA's homeland security activities, a 73-percent increase over 2005.

EPA's Environmental Response Team provides technical and scientific expertise in air, soil, and water monitoring and sampling to deal with the human health and environmental impacts of terror attacks.

MAKING GOVERNMENT MORE EFFECTIVE

Accountability in Environmental Programs

To assist States and Tribes in protecting the environment, the Budget includes $23 million for a new State and Tribal Performance Fund. This program will award competitive grants to States and Tribes for projects that can demonstrate environmental or public health benefits. The Performance Fund will allow States and Tribes to receive additional funding for their highest priority, most beneficial projects, while ensuring accountability and results. Eligible projects will include activities such as air quality assessments, wetlands restoration, and hazardous waste management.

To help evaluate programs' results and accountability, the President implemented the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART). A PART analysis of the Alaska Native Villages Program rated the program Ineffective. In particular, the PART found poor program management had resulted in significant contracting, accounting, and performance problems. To address these problems, the 2006 Budget reduces funding to $15 million, a $30 million reduction from 2005, and recommends the program develop regulations that will provide a framework for improved management and innovation. The funding reduction may be reconsidered once the program can demonstrate improved effectiveness and management.

Through the State and Tribal Performance Fund, additional funds will be awarded on a competitive basis for projects that can demonstrate public health and environmental benefit. Wetlands and habitat restoration projects, such as the one pictured above, are among eligible activities.

EPA's Ecosystem Research Program was evaluated during the development of the 2005 Budget. The PART scored the program Results Not Demonstrated and noted that it did not coordinate effectively within EPA and with other Federal agencies. It also lacked appropriate performance measures to track the program's progress. EPA is working to address these findings but has not yet implemented any changes. As a result, the 2005 Budget proposed, and the Congress supported, funding the program at $94 million, $22 million less than the 2004 level. The 2006 President's Budget proposes to fund it at $84 million in order to fund higher priority programs such as homeland security and the Great Lakes Legacy Act.

The Administration is also taking other steps to improve program performance and accountability. The President's Budget includes $24 million for a water quality monitoring initiative that will provide grants to States to implement statistically valid, probabilistic monitoring programs. Probabilistic monitoring would allow States to develop a statistically valid sampling methodology that would provide consistent water quality information across States. EPA will award these additional funds to States ready to adopt probabilistic monitoring programs to help them and EPA better target Federal, State, and local resources and make scientifically-defensible decisions regarding water quality.

Update on the President's Management Agenda

The table below provides an update on EPA's implementation of the President's Management Agenda as of December 31, 2004.

EPA's focus on management reforms has resulted in strong performance in financial management and E-Government (E-Gov). EPA has linked financial and performance information to aid in day-to-day decision-making, and has also submitted a timely and clean financial audit. In E-Gov, EPA has acceptable business cases for its major systems and has demonstrated, using Earned Value Management or operational analysis, that overruns and shortfalls average less than 10 percent for all major information technology projects. EPA is also establishing a Government-wide electronic regulatory docket which, when fully implemented, will increase public participation and access to Government information. To support the Human Capital initiative, EPA is implementing a multi-level performance appraisal system, and identifying mission critical occupations; however, further work is needed to implement its workforce planning strategy at the local level and reduce skill gaps in mission critical areas. EPA announced its first standard competition and has an accelerated timeline for additional competitions so that it can achieve savings in commercial activities. For Budget and Performance Integration, EPA continues to focus on demonstrating results and improving programs based on recommendations from PART evaluations. Approximately 89 percent of programs that were reassessed for the 2006 Budget showed improvements and received a higher rating, and over 80 percent of assessed programs have been able to demonstrate results.

Eliminating Improper Payments

Initiative

Status

Progress

О

EPA identified two programs at risk for improper payments and completed a preliminary measurement plan and corrective action plan for reducing improper payments to primary recipients. They initiated an enhanced measurement strategy to better detect improper payments in all recipient transactions. (Because this is the first quarter that agency efforts in this Initiative were rated, progress scores were not given.)

AGENCY-SPECIFIC GOALS

The Great Lakes

The Great Lakes are the largest system of fresh surface water on Earth, and the basin is home to more than one-tenth the population of the United States, one-quarter the population of Canada, and heavy concentrations of industry. Over the years, industrial development has contaminated sediments throughout the lakes with toxic pollutants such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and heavy metals, putting large populations and the tremendous water resource at risk. Currently, the Great Lakes States have among the highest number of fish consumption advisories in the country due to the accumulation of toxics in fish tissue.

In recognition of the Great Lakes' national significance and the extent of its contaminated sediment problem, President Bush signed an Executive Order in May 2004, establishing a Great Lakes Interagency Task Force. Chaired by the EPA Administrator, one of the primary assignments of the Task Force is to convene a regional collaboration of States, local communities, Tribes, regional bodies, and other groups regarding policies, strategies, and priorities for the environmental health of the Great Lakes. EPA formally launched the collaboration on December 3, 2004, convening over 400 regional leaders and stakeholders that publicly pledged to support an intergovernmental partnership to protect the Great Lakes ecosystem.

The Great Lakes Legacy Act, signed by the President in 2002, is one of the primary means of protecting the ecosystem. This program authorizes EPA to clean up contaminated sediments, protecting water quality and keeping toxic pollutants from entering the food chain. For 2006, the President's Budget funds sediment clean-up activities under the Great Lakes Legacy Act at its fully authorized level of $50 million, an increase of $28 million over 2005 levels.

Clean Diesel

Uncontrolled exhaust from old diesel engines can exacerbate the symptoms of people suffering from serious respiratory illnesses, and can negatively impact the environment. During President Bush's first term, the Administration issued strict new rules to significantly reduce air pollutant emissions from diesel fuel and engines so that the black puff of smoke from diesel tailpipes will become a thing of the past. These rules will ensure that the next generation of trucks, buses, and offroad equipment will be cleaner, quieter, more powerful, and more fuel efficient. The new engine and fuel standards, which begin to take effect in 2007, are expected to reduce harmful emissions by as much as 95 percent when the rules are fully implemented.

To achieve more immediate air quality improvements, the Budget provides $15 million for a Clean Diesel Initiative to support diesel engine retrofits, rebuilds and replacements, anti-idling measures, clean fuel infrastructure projects, and other activities to reduce emissions. The Clean Diesel Initiative will maximize Federal resources and achieve significant environmental results by working collaboratively with State, local, non-profit, and private sector partners to leverage additional support. EPA estimates that the program will generate $360 million in health benefits by preventing 1,200 tons of particulate matter emissions.

Clean-up Programs

In 1980, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, also known as Superfund, was enacted to address abandoned hazardous waste sites. Since Superfund's inception, over 46,500 sites have been assessed and 33,500 that do not require Federal action have been removed from EPA's waste site inventory to help promote economic redevelopment of these properties. Over 8,200 clean-up actions have been taken to reduce immediate threats to health and safety at the remaining sites. By the end of 2004, clean-up projects were underway or completed at 82 percent of the sites on the National Priorities List (NPL). For 2006, the Administration is proposing $1.3 billion for the Superfund program, $32 million over the 2005 level.

Innovative emission control technology can reduce emissions from existing diesel engines, such as the one above, by as much as 90 percent. EPA's Clean Diesel Initiative will fund diesel retrofit and replacement projects that deliver immediate air quality improvements.

The remaining sites on the NPL are large, complex sites that present more challenges. Cleaning up these sites, which generally cost $50 million or more, requires an innovative approach. In 2003, funding needs for eight such sites (out of a total of 94 such sites receiving funding) accounted for approximately 50 percent of the money available for Superfund-led remedial actions. EPA estimates that clean-up at an average site costs $18 million, while a large site costs $132 million. The Administration will work with the Congress, communities, and citizens over the upcoming year to find ways to effectively and efficiently address this growing challenge.