Air Pollution

Better Internal Controls Needed To Ensure Complete Air Regulation Dockets Gao ID: RCED-88-128 April 26, 1988

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined the policy and legal issues concerning the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) practice of reviewing proposed regulations concurrently with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), focusing on the Office of Air and Radiation's (OAR) proposed regulations under the Clean Air Act.

GAO found that OAR: (1) has routinely and legally used concurrent review since early 1985 to help expedite the rulemaking process; (2) frequently sent proposed regulations to OMB before it internally resolved all issues associated with the regulations; (3) use of concurrent review did not affect public knowledge regarding the source of regulatory changes, but the extent and thoroughness of its documentation in the docket could; (4) discontinued use of concurrent review in January 1988 except for regulations under legislative or judicial deadlines; (5) did not comply with requirements regarding the inclusion of draft regulations in dockets; (6) did not issue written procedures to define these responsibilities or routinely inspect dockets to ensure compliance with the requirement; and (7) improved internal control procedures regarding docket contents by issuing written guidance and documentation requirements, providing project officer training, and conducting annual docket inspections.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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