Environmental Protection

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) distributed its fiscal year (FY) 1999 Science and Technology funds among specific objectives in its FY 2000 budget request.

GAO noted that: (1) in the FY 1999 budget justification, under the strategic goal Sound Science, Improved Understanding of Environmental Risks and Greater Innovation to Address Environmental Problems, EPA requested $86.6 million for the objective, Enable Research on Innovative Approaches to Current and Future Environmental Programs; (2) in the FY 2000 budget justification, EPA marked this objective as not in use; (3) the FY 2000 justification stated that the objective for FY 1999 included the amounts for operating expenses and working capital for the Office of Research and Development; (4) in the FY 2000 budget justification, EPA allocated the requested amounts for this objective among other goals and objectives to more properly reflect costs of EPA's objectives but did not indicate which specific objectives received the allocation; (5) guidance from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) does not require agencies to develop or provide these types of crosswalks in their justifications from one year to the next; and (6) EPA does not provide crosswalks unless asked to by OMB or congressional committees.