Why We Did This Report
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Inspector General initiated this project to describe the lessons we have identified from select EPA OIG and U.S. Government Accountability Office, or GAO, oversight reports to help inform the EPA’s future efforts to prepare for and respond to natural disasters.
Summary of Findings
We reviewed 26 EPA OIG and GAO reports that include findings related to the EPA’s prior disaster response actions. From those, we identified seven programmatic themes: (1) interagency and external stakeholder cooperation, (2) risk communication to the public, (3) data collection and characterization of risks, (4) policy development, (5) resource limitation, (6) contract management, and (7) resilience of contaminated sites and infrastructure. These themes had lessons that may allow the EPA to be better prepared for and respond to a natural disaster in the future. These reports made 79 recommendations to the EPA. Although we did not evaluate the timeliness or quality of the EPA’s corrective actions to these recommendations, it is imperative that the EPA implement recommendations that could provide a more efficient and effective response to future natural disasters.