Federal Facilities' Compliance With the Clean Water Act

GAO discussed the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) and state oversight and enforcement of federal facilities' compliance with the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination Program. GAO found that: (1) 30 of the 150 major federal facilities were not in compliance with the program requirements; (2) major federal facilities' noncompliance rate was twice that of nonfederal facilities; (3) over 40 percent of all violating federal facilities were noncompliant for a year or longer; (4) most of the noncompliance was due to the low priority that facilities gave to correcting violations; (5) EPA and state regulators did not take timely enforcement actions against federal facilities; (6) EPA did not have adequate oversight of its regions' or states' enforcement at the facilities; and (7) EPA did not have criteria for consistent follow-up on facilities that were not issued enforcement orders or for verifying information received from regions on facilities that were not issued enforcement orders. GAO believes that EPA should: (1) improve its oversight of regional and delegated state enforcement activities; (2) establish follow-up criteria for timely enforcement action; and (3) obtain compliance agreements for federal facilities that were not issued timely enforcement actions.