Report: EPA’s Fiscal Year 2023 Top Management Challenges

October 28, 2022

The Reports Consolidation Act of 2000 requires each inspector general to prepare an annual statement summarizing what the inspector general considers to be “the most serious management and performance challenges facing the agency” and to briefly assess the agency’s progress in addressing those challenges.

We identified eight top management challenges for the EPA for fiscal year 2023:

1. Mitigating the Causes and Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change. The EPA must take a leadership role in addressing climate change and mitigating its effect on human health and the environment.
2. Integrating and Leading Environmental Justice Across the Agency and Government. The EPA must identify and address disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects on environmental justice communities.
3. Providing for the Safe Use of Chemicals. The public must be able to depend on the EPA’s ability to conduct credible and timely assessments of the risks posed by pesticides, toxic chemicals, and other environmental chemicals.
4. Safeguarding Scientific Integrity Principles. The EPA must ground science-based decisions in principles of scientific integrity to ensure that human health and the environment are protected by using the best-available science.
5. Ensuring Agency Systems and Other Critical Infrastructure Are Protected Against Cyberthreats. Information technology is a fundamental and essential resource for the EPA to carry out its mission, and the Agency must ensure its systems and our nation’s critical infrastructure are protected against cyberthreats.
6. Managing Business Operations and Resources. The EPA must have effective business operations to achieve its mission and safeguard taxpayer dollars.
7. Enforcing Compliance with Environmental Laws and Regulations. Through enforcement, the EPA ensures that regulated entities are following environmental laws and will continue to do so, as enforcement actions effectively deter future noncompliance.
8. Managing Increased Investment in Infrastructure. The EPA must ensure that its infrastructure projects, which constitute the Agency’s largest investment, use Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act appropriations effectively.

Report Materials

• Report at a Glance (pdf) (348.13 KB)
• Full Report (pdf) (3.53 MB)
• News Release (pdf) (203.28 KB)
• EPA Courtesy Response to the Office of Inspector General FY 2023 Top Management Challenges (pdf) (261.17 KB)