Does EPA Lack Common Sense?

General Accounting Office review of the Environmental Protection Agency's Common Sense Initiative has found that the way the agency gauges the progress of the effort is anything but logical.

The study, prompted by congressional queries, analyzes the initiative that is often termed the centerpiece of the agency's reinvention efforts. The Common Sense Initiative created an advisory board consisting of industry and public stakeholders to find "cleaner, cheaper and smarter" ways of reducing pollution and recommending changes in the existing approach to environmental management.

Using Government Performance and Results Act standards, which compare the results of a program to its intended purpose, GAO found that 11 of the 15 Common Sense Initiative projects it studied did not measure results.

"The initiative's projects typically do not establish or provide for performance measures to gauge the extent to which they are decreasing pollution and/or reducing costs," GAO reported.

The report also concluded that progress toward the initiative's goal has been hindered by several factors: the length of time needed to collect and analyze data; the difficulties stakeholders have had in reaching consensus on the approaches needed to address large complex issues; and variations in stakeholders' commitments of time and understanding of technical environmental issues.

GAO recommended that EPA "provide an improved operating framework that more clearly defines the initiative's goals and specifies how the stakeholders will accomplish their work."

EPA officials said the GAO's review does not "adequately recognize the breadth of the initiative's accomplishments" and is an "unfair measure of the initiative's progress at this point in its development."