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EPA oversight
Q: It seems that the press and Congress both have done a lot of oversight of EPA in the past. I think of Congress in terms of Superfund issues and the contracting issue was a major blow-up during your - that's probably the wrong word, but it appeared to be a major blow-up-during your Administration. Do you think those types of concerns - Superfund, contract management, pollution prevention, those types of issues - were adequately addressed by EPA's various Congressional and press constituencies?
MR. REILLY: Well, the contracting issue is one that I think is a consequence of a number of things, one of which is that the priorities within the Agency itself have always favored programmatic environmental protection decisions. The management questions in an aggressive agency, just like in an environmental organization, have a habit of attracting less prestige. EPA has the defects of its qualities. It is zealous, high-energy, highly committed, idealistic, engaged - it's not one of those agencies where, as you walk through the halls, you feel the adrenalin flowing out your shoes. There are several, I've discovered, but EPA is not, happily, one of those.
But it also is fair to say that there is the tendency, and has been historically, of some in the Agency to behave like environmental cowboys, ready to ride off to round up the latest errant steer identified by the press or the Congress, not, incidentally, enjoying the budgetary reward that may come with that momentarily. The responsibility to manage day-to-day mundane activities like contracts, even in an agency where a substantial amount of work is done by outsiders because Congress doesn't give enough money to the Agency to do it otherwise, gets neglected. I think that has been a problem with EPA.
We gave the correction of those problems a very high priority. To keep things in perspective, the kinds of contracts we're talking about are small beer alongside the Defense Department and the Energy Department equipment contracts for waste cleanup, for example. Nevertheless, they're important and public trust has to be maintained and the dollars securely husbanded and accounted for.
Having said that, I think it's important also to acknowledge that those who have a habit of pointing to EPA management problems, failure to meet milestones, failure to get regulations out on time or complete reports according to the statutory deadlines, or contracts management issues, often have a larger agenda than merely pointing to that kind of problem. To the extent that the Agency's own conduct is discredited, it becomes more difficult for the Agency to advocate new initiatives, stronger laws, or to advance its own agenda in reforming policy. It becomes easier for some regulated sectors to stonewall or to overcome the Agency by raising doubts in the mind of the public and elements of the Congress as to whether the Agency can handle added responsibilities, whether it can even do what it's been given the job to do.
That's all part of the game and I think the EPA leadership needs to remember that fun's fun and when there is an honest criticism, it ought to be taken seriously and responded to. But protracted attention to some of these issues in a $7-billion-per-year agency to the neglect of much larger problems in other agencies tells you something. It's part of a lightning that is falling on an agency that is doing its job and doing it vigorously. EPA is an Agency that is doing its job very vigorously. No other Federal agency in recent history, excepting NASA in the latter '60s, has succeeded so spectacularly in achieving the goals set for it.