Prepared by: Shelley H. Metzenbaum 978-371-3099 smetzenbaum@aics.net The Opportunity The Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA) offers an unprecedented opportunity to improve environmental quality, both by shaping EPA's overall priorities and by providing more useful information to the agency and the public. Yet despite the potentially enormous payoff, those outside EPA -- Congress, environmental organizations, and the public -- have largely ignored the new law. If this disinterest continues, GPRA could easily regress into a trivial, bureaucratic paper exercise. But it should be much more. The law, which applies to all federal agencies, contains three main components. First, EPA must consult with "potentially affected" or "interested" parties in developing a three-year strategic plan. Second, EPA must establish an annual performance plan that quantitatively measures the agency's results. And third -- and perhaps most important because of the opportunity it represents to improve environmental data available to the public -- EPA must report on its results relative to the performance plan at the end of each year (the first such report is due by March 31, 2000). EPA completed its very first strategic plan in September 1997 and released its second performance plan in February 1999. These plans are more informative than what was previously available on a routine basis (primarily budget documents), but they are still of limited value both to those inside and outside the agency. For instance, EPA does not seek to measure or report performance by geographic area, pollution source, watershed, or demographic group affected. Instead, goals and measures are expressed in the most general terms, and too often in terms of outputs (measuring the activities that are performed to achieve a goal) rather than outcomes (measuring actual improvement in the environment). Ideally, in setting its goals and measures, EPA should look at GPRA as a management tool that has three main functions:

• First, it should focus the agency's work. The GPRA process should be used to determine and describe the focus of the agency's activities, delineating for both agency staff and the public the (1) areas on which EPA will focus its attention and available funds, and (2) the areas that will receive less or no attention. The fact is that such decisions occur every day in the individual offices of EPA in an ad hoc, unarticulated form. A more structured and transparent prioritization would allow citizens and their representatives to comment on the various trade-offs the EPA makes.
• Second, as mandated by GPRA, it should articulate "how the goals and objectives are to be achieved." If done well, this would allow the public to review, assess, and debate the likely effectiveness of EPA's approach to a problem.
• Third, it should allow for comparison across EPA's organizational units. This would promote cross-agency learning and make it easier to identify weak programs within EPA. Moreover, it would stimulate a healthy competition among organizational units to deliver better environmental quality. For example, reporting on the performance of EPA's regional offices for a few priority environmental indicators would introduce the constructive tension of comparison with public scrutiny.

Better strategic and performance planning, as described above, would also set the stage for a quality performance report, which is what makes GPRA especially interesting. EPA's performance report could and should be the annual repository of (or, at least, establish the electronic link to) all environmental performance information relative to EPA's goals and objectives. This information would help individuals make more informed personal decisions and increase the agency's accountability to the public -- particularly if provided in a format that is easy to access, easy to understand, easy to analyze, and easy to link to accountable parties. The power of such well-presented environmental information has been demonstrated many times. There is strong evidence, for example, that the Toxics Release Inventory, with all its flaws, compelled a number of major manufacturers to reduce their release of toxics, and led some regulatory agencies to ratchet down allowances for permitted releases.(1) At this juncture in the implementation of the GPRA law, it is especially important that those outside EPA press the agency to interpret and implement GPRA in a more useful way. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened so far. In developing its strategic plan, for instance, EPA met with just five environmental organizations(3) -- even though the statute explicitly opens the door for outside involvement. Part of this was due to the fact that EPA's outreach to nongovernmental stakeholders was highly focused on just a few organizations, and did not include state or local groups. But part of the problem originates outside EPA. EPA watchers have paid little attention to the information in EPA's GPRA documents. Most, if not all, national environmental organizations are aware of GPRA, and GPRA simply has not been a priority. The same is true for Congress; EPA's performance measures, which are submitted with the agency's budget request, played virtually no role in last year's appropriations process. Such ambivalence sends the wrong message to EPA, and, not surprisingly, EPA's first GPRA efforts have fallen far short of the ideal. This can change, as the process is still in its infancy. But it will take pressure from the outside, encouraging EPA not only to report more understandable and useful performance information in its performance reports, but also to develop the routine processes to incorporate public feedback into its strategic and performance plans. GPRA is not an easy fight to take on, but its potential -- improved public health and environmental quality through smarter management, better environmental data, and greater public involvement in EPA decision-making -- is too great to be ignored. The Challenge The greatest challenge in "getting GPRA right" is getting EPA to treat GPRA as more than a bureaucratic requirement in which each office and sub-office simply fills in forms distributed by the Chief Financial Officer. Instead, EPA needs to implement GPRA in a way that delivers useful information to managers, the workforce, the public, and elected representatives. The Value of GPRA as a Management Tool to Improve Environmental Outcomes Performance goals and measures can be a powerful management tool when embraced by senior management and used to drive change that leads to performance improvement. This has been demonstrated in numerous public and private organizations, including the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and the Alcoa Corporation. EPA would benefit greatly if it followed these models. In too many areas, EPA tends to function as a collection of "ma and pa" operations all trying to produce and market their own products. While this variety is healthy, because it both encourages innovation and allows adaptation to local conditions, it is wasteful if the agency fails to learn from the innovation and does not seek economies of scale wherever possible. EPA should use GPRA to build a system that holds organizational units accountable for developing and implementing sound strategies likely to lead to improved environmental outcomes. Managing key organizational units with performance measures establishes incentives for improvement without stifling innovation or unnecessarily restricting the need to take the circumstances of individual situations into account. New York City's system for managing crime reduction demonstrates how an effective performance measurement and management system can work. In 1994, the NYPD established a much more sophisticated system than it had previously used for managing its boroughs and precincts. In the first year of using the system, the crime level in New York City (as measured by the FBI's uniform crime statistics) declined 12 percent, over three times the national average. The system, dubbed COMPSTAT, made extensive use of computerized comparative crime statistics, which mapped every major category of crime by neighborhood. The power of the system derived both from the accumulation and presentation of the crime statistics and from the way the NYPD used those statistics. Senior NYPD managers held twice weekly meetings to review crime rates in each precinct. Precinct and borough commanders were expected to attend these meetings and, at the meetings, to suggest how they proposed to reduce crime levels in their precincts. The meetings were used as a forum for discussing, debating, and deciding strategy, and precinct commanders were held accountable for implementing the strategy. If the proposed strategy didn't work, the whole department learned from the experience, and revised and updated its thinking about effective strategies accordingly.(4) Because of its demonstrated success in helping New York City reduce crime, numerous other jurisdictions have tried to replicate the program. Some of them, however, have failed to recognize that to be effective, the system cannot be just a measurement system but must also be a management system. This requires those at the top to use performance information in conversations with their managers, and to encourage managers and the workforce to use the measures to test and assess smarter ways to achieve the organization's goals. When Paul O'Neill took over as CEO of the Alcoa Corporation in 1987, he demonstrated not only the value of using performance measures to drive change, but also showed how careful selection and use of measures can send strong signals to large organizations about the direction of change. O'Neill sought to shift the strategic direction of Alcoa away from the diversification goal set by his predecessor and back toward bolstering the company's core aluminum operations. He felt strongly that, in the long run, the company would be financially healthier by strengthening its production processes rather than emphasizing short-term financial return for its own sake. To send this message to the managers and workforce throughout the company, O'Neill launched a campaign on his first day of work to improve worker safety. He established a corporate goal of zero work days lost due to accidents and injury, and immediately backed up that goal by traveling to Alcoa plants around the world telling both management and labor that safety was a non-negotiable issue. Instead, he made clear that he expected everyone in the company to "take every step we know how to make sure people don't get hurt." The injury rate dropped by more than 50 percent in O'Neill's first five years and now stands at .13 workdays lost to injury compared to its 1987 rate of 1.86. As he expected, O'Neill's strategy to focus on the production process, including and especially the well-being of the workforce, translated directly to the bottom line. In 1996, Alcoa reached break-through six-year contracts with three of its labor unions and now holds an extremely strong comparative financial position in its industry.(5) Florida's recent effort to create a Secretary's Quarterly Performance Report provides a model for how EPA might improve its GPRA report. This report, which is available online at http://www.dep.state.fl.us/ospp/report/intro.htm, presents four different indicators to describe the work of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection: (1) environmental and public health outcome indicators; (2) behavioral and cultural measures (e.g., industry and municipal compliance rates); (3) departmental outputs and activities; and (4) resource efficiency measures. Information from these indicators is presented for the state as a whole and for each of the state's regional offices. Perhaps most important, the report uses the measures to guide management priorities. The Secretary's staff analyzes the performance. This analysis is then used to determine program areas in each region where performance is good, areas that need to be watched, and those that warrant focused attention. Those areas designated for "watch" and "focus" status are publicly identified in the Executive Summary of the Quarterly Performance Report (and occasionally reported on in the press). These designations are reviewed and revised each quarter, as appropriate. The report is by no means perfect, but it represents a significant step forward. Not only does it make information about the state's environmental activities available to the public in one place in a relatively easy-to-use format, it also makes clear to those inside the agency which organizational units have responsibility for fixing "focus" problems. Similarly, a well-designed GPRA system that clearly identifies performance goals for individual organizational units, regions, and teams within the agency -- not just for the agency as a whole -- would help address EPA's most fundamental management problems:

• First, there is a lack of clarity within EPA about "where the buck stops" (other than at the door of the Administrator or Deputy Administrator who already have too much on their to-do lists). This lack of clarity has long confounded efforts to address problems and pursue strategies that need attention across or beyond EPA's media programs. GPRA should be used to clarify how individual organizational units will contribute to overall agency goals.
• Second, it is difficult to identify and address weak programs within EPA. Even when staff in a division of a headquarters program office knows which regional programs or program designs are weak, they seldom "run it up the management chain" (to their Assistant Administrator) to share the information with the Regional or Deputy Regional Administrators who can fix the problem. The EPA culture does not encourage this sort of communication. More likely, if a headquarters office is aware of a problem, it would share the performance information only with the regional program director, who may, in fact, be a contributor to the problem. EPA should use GPRA to build a more transparent performance information and communication system that identifies management problems and motivates the agency to fix them.
• Third, cross-agency learning is not sufficiently supported within EPA. Today, when one region or office tests a better way to deliver some aspect of environmental protection, it is very hard for others to find out about the test and whether it merits replication. It is even more difficult to find out about a regional experiment that did not work, although sharing that lesson would also help the whole agency deliver better environmental protection. GPRA should form the structural foundation for a more effective management system that enables EPA to learn and share information about program effectiveness.

The Value of GPRA to the Workforce and its Ability to Improve Environmental Outcomes GPRA, and the performance targets and measures it mandates, can also be a powerful tool to help government workers be more effective in their jobs. This can be especially valuable in large organizations such as EPA where so many employees feel a strong personal commitment to the agency's goals but often cannot see the link between their own activities and changes in environmental conditions. This "disconnect" creates a demoralizing and frustrating work situation that results in misdirected staff energy. EPA New England's "Clean Charles 2005" initiative demonstrates how EPA can use performance measurement to address this problem and in so doing, drive gains in environmental outcomes. In October 1995, the New England Regional Administrator, John DeVillars, publicly announced the goal of making the Charles River fishable and swimmable by 2005. This announcement kicked off a focused and coordinated effort by EPA staff to work with the local wastewater treatment authority, several localities, non-profits, the state, and businesses to identify and undertake the work needed to improve the quality of the river. Eight communities along the river began inspecting storm pipes to identify illegal sewer hook-ups; at the same time, a local non-profit organization began identifying residential and commercial wastes discharging directly into the river. The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority committed tens of millions of dollars to improve chlorination at its sewer overflow treatment plant and to build a new treatment station. EPA simultaneously offered technical assistance while threatening enforcement against illegal discharges to the river. Six months later, on Earth Day 1996, EPA's Regional Administrator issued its first Charles River report card, giving the river a D. Since then, EPA has continued to press for cooperation and voluntary clean-ups from polluters while threatening enforcement with high public visibility for those who do not cooperate and correct the problems. It has also led an effort of for-profit and not-for-profit organizations to conduct the research needed to understand what it takes to make the river fishable and swimmable, to monitor water quality, and to press for the public and private changes needed to upgrade the river's water quality. In 1997, EPA gave the river a C-, and raised its grade in 1998 to a C. This simple results-focused management method can afford agency staff a much greater sense of accomplishment than the traditional functional or process-focused system. In a process-focused or functional system, agency staff know, for example, only how many permits they reviewed and the number of permits still pending. Under a results-oriented system, however, staff can better grasp the actual improvements in the environment that their work is generating. This lifts morale, even if daily work still involves permit review. Why should those outside the agency push EPA to manage to environmental results, or worry about the morale and effectiveness of the workforce? The answer is simple. If environmentalists don't focus on the agency's ability to deliver environmental outcomes, few others will, and then all the hard won battles for better legislation and regulations will be lost by inadequate implementation. The Value of GPRA for Engaging the Public in Improving Environmental Outcomes More aggressive use of performance measures by managers can also be a valuable tool for engaging the support of the local community to take actions to protect public health and improve environmental quality. The "Clean Charles River 2005" initiative demonstrates how the articulation of a clear goal that resonates with the public is helping EPA enlist the expertise and commitment of those outside the agency, reaping synergies that would not otherwise be possible. As noted above, the clean-up of the Charles River is involving local environmentalists in monitoring, the local wastewater treatment operator in needed chlorination and construction, municipalities in inspections, and regulated facilities in a variety of actions to lessen their negative impact on the environment. All of these actions might have happened anyway, but, in fact, they had not. Establishing a performance goal and timeline appealed to the press and was popular with the public, focusing and energizing numerous parties (some voluntarily and some under duress) to undertake a variety of long overdue actions to fix a shared environmental problem. Sometimes, public dissemination of environmental performance information by itself spurs a constructive response before goals and timetables can even be set. For example, in conducting one of its quarterly reviews, Florida discovered that air quality was poor in one region despite a very high compliance rate with air permits. The state presented the problem to the regulated community, which agreed to take voluntary actions beyond their permit conditions to improve local air quality further (presumably motivated by the concern that if they did not address the problem, the state would establish regulations to accomplish the same performance objective.) A similar effect was evident when Massachusetts published water quality information about a specific watershed, without even establishing a goal. Before organizers could prepare an action plan, awareness of the problems prompted local authorities and manufacturers in the watershed to initiate actions to mitigate them.(6) Well-presented information can often motivate people and organizations to fix problems they had not previously known existed. It can also occasionally trigger ideas or elicit information and expertise from people and organizations in a community in a way that helps resolve problems. Imagine if EPA's GPRA strategic and performance plans embraced the model of the Clean Charles 2005 initiative and targeted a dozen or so geographic areas throughout the country, set goals for them (working with the community to define the strategy to meet the goals), described the strategy for each target area, and regularly monitored and reported on progress. This would be far more useful than the sort of information provided in EPA's current performance plan (e.g., the number of community-based initiatives the agency is running or the number of watersheds that have environmental improvement projects underway as a result of implementing activities under the Clean Water Action Plan). The Value of GPRA to the Public and Congress A well-designed GPRA system could help the public -- informed by more accurate information -- make smarter personal decisions and influence policy choices. Consider how EPA could report on its drinking water performance goals to provide more useful information. Two approaches have been proposed, one in EPA's strategic plan and the other in an alternate plan sketched out by House committee staff. One proposes to report on the percentage of the population served by community water systems that meet drinking water standards, while the other proposes to report on the number of waterborne-disease outbreaks each year and the number of deaths associated with water provided by public drinking water systems. Both sets of proposed objectives have merit and will provide an indication of whether or not a problem exists. Neither, however, proposes to provide information the public can readily use. Imagine, instead, if the GPRA performance report not only provided information to satisfy the two proposals above, but also listed systems that are non-compliant, the years each system has been non-compliant, and the contaminants with which each system is having problems. That information would help residents and tourists make decisions about whether or not to drink local tap water. It would also help state and local governments and Congress make decisions about whether or not additional funds are needed to improve drinking water quality. Imagine, also, if EPA's performance report identified the 25 worst-quality watersheds in the nation, or listed the worst watershed in each state or Congressional district, instead of just reporting the number of states that are conducting or have completed unified watershed assessments (reported in EPA's current performance plan). It is possible that everyone would ignore this watershed specific information. More likely, the list would receive press coverage in affected areas and hopefully motivate constructive responsive action by the community. Finally, imagine if EPA's performance report provided the public with a better understanding of the accuracy, reliability, and completeness of information available on local water quality in each state. That would allow the public to determine whether to press first for improved environmental quality outcomes in a given locale or concentrate initial efforts, instead, on getting more accurate and thorough monitoring of environmental conditions. In sum, the three documents mandated by GPRA -- the strategic plan produced every three years, the annual performance plan, and the annual performance report -- could help EPA managers and the workforce become much more effective in advancing the agency's mission to protect human health and safeguard the natural environment. In turn, it should also provide the public and its elected representatives with valuable information for joining with EPA to solve environmental problems, for holding EPA accountable for delivering on its mission, and for making more informed personal and political/policy decisions. Questions for GPRA Conference; December 10, 1999 If GPRA is to be an effective tool for driving programmatic gains and improved accountability, the content and organization of EPA's plans and report must be designed to deliver information in a form that will be useful both to those inside and those outside the agency. The remainder of this paper presents several issues and questions about the plan's content and organization for consideration by external organizations concerned about EPA's delivery of environmental protection. These questions are designed to help all of us, collectively and individually, develop a better sense of: (1) the information you would like EPA's GPRA plans and reports to include and (2) the way you would like to see it organized.

• Goals - are they the right ones? EPA has adopted ten goals and eight guiding principles. Has it got the goals right? Some of the goals (clean air; clean and safe water; reducing risk in communities, homes, workplaces, and ecosystems; reducing global and cross-border risks; restoration of contaminated sites) are clear environmental outcome goals over which EPA has primary jurisdiction. Others (safe food) deal with issues over which EPA shares jurisdiction. EPA's other goals describe how the agency is going to do its work (preventing pollution, better waste management, emergency response, expansion of right-to-know, sound science, credible deterrence, greater compliance, and effective management.) Should more of EPA's goals be environmental outcome goals? What about the principles? Should these be integrated into the goals or kept separate? Some of the principles describe what the agency will do (reduce health and environmental risk). Some address how it will do its work (emphasize pollution prevention, strengthen partnerships, maximize public participation and community right-to-know, emphasize comprehensive regional and community-based solutions, choose common-sense, cost-effective solutions). Some identify programmatic priorities (emphasize children's health, place emphasis on Indian Country). Do you agree with the goals and principles as articulated in EPA's strategic plan? Has EPA got too many goals? How can the agency manage eighteen goals and principles, without knowing which ones take priority over the others or support the others? Should it have fewer goals so that it can manage strategically? Should EPA's objectives be primarily environmental outcomes or should they also include programmatic outcomes such as effective management? Should it try to integrate its goals across programs, so that, for example, reducing risk becomes a single goal rather than two goals - one addressing domestic concerns and one addressing international concerns? When EPA shares jurisdiction with another agency, do you want to know more about how the other agencies are going to address the goal?
• Measures - do you understand them? Are they useful? For each goal, EPA has identified objectives, including the indicators it will use to measure its performance relative to the objectives and targets levels of performance to be achieved by certain dates. Do you find the measures EPA has selected to be useful or would you prefer other measures, even if EPA has to invest additional resources to develop and collect those measures and therefore may need to make programmatic or reporting reductions elsewhere? For example, would you rather know the number of pesticides registered, the volume and toxicity of applied pesticides, or the level of pesticide-related illnesses and fatalities? Would you rather know how many states run lead-abatement training and accreditation programs or how many children have lead poisoning in each state? What other information do you need to allow you to interpret the performance measures EPA reports? Do you want to see national performance indicators compared to the performance of other developed countries? Which, if any of these performance measures, will you be able to use? How will the measures be most useful? Would the measures be more useful if they were broken down geographically, by Congressional district, by region, by state, by watershed, by airshed? If you had the information disaggregated at these different levels, would it affect the way you used it? Would it be more useful if the information were broken down by specific demographic categories, such as male and females; children and adults; and by ethnic group. If you had to choose among these "break-downs," which would be most useful to you? Do you feel that the milestones EPA has set should be more aggressive? Should they be more realistic?
• How EPA will accomplish its goals - do EPA's proposed approaches for improving environmental performance make sense? In its Strategic Plan, EPA provides some detail about how it hopes to accomplish its objectives. For example, in the pollution prevention area, EPA's identifies several interim milestones for its pollution prevention program to achieve by 2005. These include: (1) each Executive Branch department having an effective program for purchasing environmentally preferable products, and (2) sixty percent of manufacturing facilities having adopted voluntary environmental management systems, including environmental accounting and materials management practices. Do you want to know more about how EPA plans to accomplish these goals? Would you like the EPA Performance Plan to make it easier to link the discussion of resources and strategies to the milestones?
• Data quality - what do you want to know about data quality? Each objective in EPA's Performance Plan describes how EPA verifies and validates its performance measures. This narrative does not, however, describe the quality of EPA's data. Do you want EPA to assess the accuracy of its data quality for each of its objectives and report on that publicly in its GPRA plans and reports?
• Unit of accountability - should the Performance Plan identify who in EPA is accountable for achieving specific objectives? As noted above, one of EPA's management weaknesses is a lack of clarity about who is responsible for what. Do you think it would be valuable to you or to the agency if the plan identified which organizational units were responsible for what outcomes?
• Organization - would it make it more useful to you or other public organizations if the information in the Strategic and Performance Plans were organized and presented differently? The way the current strategic and performance plan is organized and presented primarily reflects the organizational structure of EPA's headquarters offices. Would you find it useful to have the information organized geographically or functionally instead of the way it is currently presented? Alternatively, would you prefer that EPA conduct special analyses that organize, analyze, and present information? This has been done for years with the Budget of the United States in a set of appendices called "Special Analyses of the Budget" (currently, "Analytical Perspectives"). These looked across organizational units to describe budgetary resources that addressed specific needs or functions, such as the federal government's financial credit activities. It was suggested above that geographic organization of the information would prove far more useful to the public, because they could more easily relate the information EPA reports to their local situation. It might also link more closely to EPA's management structure, so that the responsibilities of regional offices and the commitments made by the states would be more obvious not only to those outside the agency but to those inside it as well. Would you like to see the information organized and presented by:
  • EPA regional offices,
  • states,
  • Congressional district.
  • watershed or airshed?
  Would you find it useful (or do you think the agency would benefit) if the GPRA plans and reports set and measured progress toward key functional goals, such as the quality of EPA's science, the quality of its data, and the value of its information systems to the public? Do you want to see different population impacts?

The following section presents two versions of EPA's goals and objectives to help you think about the questions and issues articulated above. This section is followed by excerpts from EPA's performance plan, and then a brief list of questions for you to consider as you think about if and how you might try to influence the GPRA process to: (1) enhance EPA's ability to strengthen public health and safeguard the natural environment and (2) make it more valuable for you as an advocate for environmental quality. Look at the two right-hand columns below that present two versions of EPA goals and objectives for air and water from its strategic plan. Do you like the content of one more than the other? (You can pick one from column A and one from column B!) Do both work or neither do the job adequately? If neither do the job, what would you rather see listed as EPA's air and water goals? Consider:

• (a) Do you prefer objectives that have longer term (e.g. 2010) timetables, or those that are shorter term (e.g. 2003)?
• (b) How much specificity do you want in the goals and performance plan? For example, in its performance plan for FY2000, EPA says it will increase the percentage of the population served by community drinking water systems that meet all health-based standards in effect in 1994 from 89% in 1999 (up from 83% in 1994) to 91% in 2000. Do you want the plan to indicate which communities are expected to move beyond the threshold, or at least are candidates for improvement (that is, they are currently fail to meet 1994 standards)?
• (c) What information do you want EPA to provide you to help you do your work better?

Note that the goals listed below are not in the order presented in the original documents. They were moved around to match each other. Mission The mission of the EPA is to protect human health and to safeguard the environment - air, water, and land - upon which life depends. EPA's purpose is to ensure that:

• All Americans are protected from significant risks to human health and the environment where they live, learn, and work.
• National efforts to reduce environmental risk are based on the best available scientific information.
• Federal laws protecting human health and the environment are enforced fairly and effectively.
• Environmental protection is an integral consideration in U.S. policies concerning natural resources, human health, economic growth, energy, transportation, agriculture, industry, and international trade, and these factors are similarly considered in establishing environmental policy.
• All parts of society - communities, individuals, business, state and local governments, tribal governments - have access to accurate information sufficient to effectively participate in managing human health and environmental risks.
• Environmental protection contributes to making our communities and ecosystems diverse, sustainable, and economically productive.
• The United States plays a leadership role in working with other nations to protect the global environment.

The mission of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is to protect human health and to safeguard the natural environment. To accomplish this mission, EPA has six outcome-oriented goals and 16 related objectives. The goals and objectives are: Air - Goal The air in every community will be safe and healthy to breathe. In particular, children, the elderly, and people with respiratory ailments will be protected from health risks of breathing polluted air. Reducing air pollution will also protect the environment, resulting in many benefits, such as restoring life in damaged ecosystems and reducing health risks to those whose subsistence depends directly on those ecosystems. The air in every community will be safe to breathe. Air - Objectives

• (a) By 2010, improve air quality for Americans living in areas that do not meet NAAQS for ozone and particulate matter.
• (b) By 2010, reduce air toxics emissions by 75 percent from 1993 levels to significantly reduce the risk to Americans of cancer and other serious adverse health effects caused by airborne toxics.
• (c) By 2005, improve air quality for Americans living in areas that do not meet the NAAQS standards for carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, lead, and nitrogen dioxide.
• (d) By 2010, ambient sulfates and total sulfur deposition will be reduced by 20-40 percent from 1980 levels due to reduced sulfur dioxide emissions from utilities and industrial sources. By 2000, ambient nitrates and total nitrogen depositions will be reduced by 5-10 percent from 1980 levels due to reduced emissions of nitrogen oxides from utilities and mobile sources.

• (a) By 2003, reduce the age-adjusted death rate for selected respiratory diseases in the United States from the 1996 rate of 20.9 per 100,000 to 18.8 per 100,000.
• (b) By 2005, reduce the estimated annual damage to property (from soiling) and crops caused by air pollution by $6 billion (1990 dollars) from the estimated damage caused by air pollution in 1970.
• (c) By 2003, none of the Nation's National Parks and Wilderness areas will have deteriorating visibility (down from approximately 5.5 percent in 1997) and 80 percent of such areas will have improving visibility (a slight increase from 78 percent in 1997).

Water - Goal Clean and Safe Water All Americans will have drinking water that is clean and safe to drink. Effective protection of America's rivers, lakes, wetlands, aquifers, and coastal and ocean water will sustain fish plants, and wildlife, as well as recreational, subsistence, and economic activities. Watersheds and their aquatic ecosystems will be restored and protected to improve human health, enhance water quality, reduce flooding, and provide habitat for wildlife. Safe and Clean Water All Americans will have drinking water that is safe to drink. America's rivers, lakes, wetlands, aquifers, and coastal and ocean water will sustain fish, plants, and wildlife, as well as economic, recreational, and subsistence activities. Water - Objectives

• (a) By 2005, protect human health so that 95 percent of the population served by community water systems will receive water that meets drinking water standards, consumption of contaminated fish and shellfish will be reduced, and exposure to microbial and other forms of contamination in waters used for recreation will be reduced.
• (b) Conserve and enhance the ecological health of the nation's (state, interstate, and tribal) waters and aquatic ecosystems - rivers and streams, lakes, wetlands, estuaries, coastal areas, oceans, and groundwater - so that 75 percent of waters will support healthy aquatic communities by 2005.
• (c) By 2005, pollutant discharges from key point sources and nonpoint source runoff will be reduced by at least 20 percent from 1992 levels. Air deposition of key pollutants impacting water bodies will be reduced.

• (a) From 2003 through 2005, reduce the number of waterborne-disease outbreaks to 2 a year. The average number of outbreaks for the years 1991 through 1996 was approximately 14 a year.
• (b) From 2001 through 2005, there will be no deaths associated with water provided by public drinking water systems. Over a six-year period beginning in 1991, 58 people died from water-borne disease.
• (c) By 2005, no more than 8 percent of the nation's water bodies will be of poor quality. In 1992 and 1994 approximately 10 percent of surveyed waters were of poor quality.
• (d) By 2005, at least 70 percent of the nation's water bodies will be of good quality. In 1992 and 1994 approximately 63 percent of surveyed waters were of good quality.
• (e) By 2000 and 2005, there will be approximately 103.5 million acres of wetlands (estuarine and palustrine) and 106 million acres of wetlands respectively in the conterminous United States. As of 1995 there were approximately 101 million acres of wetlands in the United States.

Other Goals Better Waste Management, Restoration of Contaminated Waste Sites, and Emergency Response America's wastes will be stored, treated, and disposed of in ways that prevent harm to people and the natural environmental. EPA will work to clean up previously polluted sites, restoring them to uses appropriate for surrounding communities, and respond to and prevent waste-related or industrial accidents. Restoration of Contaminated Waste Sites Previously polluted sites will be restored to productive use. Protection from the Risk of Future Releases Human health and the environment will be protected from the risk of future accidental releases of hazardous materials and waste. Safe Food The foods Americans eat will be free from unsafe pesticide residues. Children especially will be protected from health threats posed by pesticide residues, because they are among the most vulnerable group in our society. Safe Pest Control Americans will be free from unsafe pesticide handling and use. Effective Management EPA will establish a management infrastructure that will set and implement the highest quality standards for effective internal management and fiscal responsibility. Economic Impact The cost EPA's actions place on society will be minimized. Preventing Pollution and Reducing Risk in Communities, Homes, Workplaces, and Ecosystems Pollution prevention and risk management strategies aimed at cost-effectively eliminating, reducing, or minimizing emissions and contamination will result in cleaner and safer environments in which all Americans can reside, work, and enjoy life. EPA will safeguard ecosystems and promote the health of natural communities that are integral to the quality of life in this nation. Reduction of Global and Cross-Border Environmental Risks The United States will lead other nations in successful, multilateral efforts to reduce significant risk to human health and ecosystems from climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, and other hazards of international concern. Expansion of American's Right to Know about Their Environment Easy access to a wealth of information about the state of their local environment will expand citizen involvement and give people tools to protect their families and their communities as they see fit. Increased information exchange between scientists, public health officials, businesses, citizens, and all levels of government will foster greater knowledge about the environment and what can be done to protect it. Sound Science, Improved Understanding of Environmental Risk, and Greater Innovation to Address Environmental Problems EPA will develop and apply the best available science for addressing current hazards, as well as new approaches toward improving environmental protection. A Credible Deterrent to Pollution and Greater Compliance with the Law EPA will ensure full compliance with laws intended to protect human health and the environment. 1) Archon Fund and Dara O"Rourke, "Reinventing Environmental Regulation from the Grassroots Up: Explaining and Expanding the Success of the Toxics Release Inventory," Environmental Management, Vol.25, No. 2, pp. 115-127. 2) Archon Fund and Dara O"Rourke, "Reinventing Environmental Regulation from the Grassroots Up: Explaining and Expanding the Success of the Toxics Release Inventory," Environmental Management, Vol.25, No. 2, pp. 115-127. 3) OMB Watch, "Measuring the Measures: A Nonprofit Assessment of the Government Performance and Results Act," p. 39. 4)John Buntin, "Assertive Policing, Plummeting Crime: The NYPD Takes on Crime in New York City," draft case, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 1998. Also, Phyllis Parshall McDonald, et al, "The New York City Crime Control Model: A Guide to Implementation," unpublished monograph, 1998. After its first year of operation, one weakness of COMPSTAT became clear. Complaints about police rudeness and misconduct increased from the prior year, although they remained significantly lower than they had been in the 1970's. Concern about the abuse of power is extremely important. The problem is not, however, with the use of performance measures to guide management and strategic decisions, but rather that the NYPD managers did not hold precinct captains accountable for improving their performance relative to complaint levels as well as crime levels 5) Pamela Varley, "Vision and Strategy: Paul H. O'Neill at OMB and Alcoa," Case C16-94-1134.1, Kennedy School of Government, 1994. Also, Council on Excellence in Government, "Paul O'Neill and Alcoa: A Measure of Safety" (Washington, D.C. 1999). 6) Council of State Governments, "Massachusetts Watershed Management," ecos - The Environmental Communique of the States(Lexington, KY, September 1996), p.13. 7) Council of State Governments, "Massachusetts Watershed Management," ecos - The Environmental Communique of the States (Lexington, KY September 1996), p.13. Please obtain the permission of the author or OMB Watch before quoting or distributing in whole or part. Made possible by a grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts. The opinions expressed in this report are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Pew Charitable Trusts. Back to Top