Author: U S Government Accountability Office (G

Publisher: BiblioGov

Published: 2013-06

Total Pages: 22

ISBN-13: 9781289049492

GAO discussed the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Technical Assistance Grant (TAG) Program, which provides communities with grants of up to $50,000 to foster their involvement in decisions about Superfund hazardous waste cleanups. GAO noted that: (1) EPA has awarded 103 grants to communities, but they represent only 9 percent of the approximately 1,150 communities that may be eligible for the program; (2) the $5.1-million total dollar value of the grants EPA has awarded so far represents only 29 percent of the grant funds available; (3) limited EPA emphasis on TAG program outreach may contribute to low program participation; (4) there were significant regional variations in grant awards; (5) grant recipients were generally pleased with the benefits they derived from those grants, and primarily used them to hire technical advisors and to keep residents informed about clean-up status and progress; (6) some recipients expressed concerns about the lengthy and labor-intensive application process, procurement procedures that made it difficult to hire technical advisors, and reimbursement procedures that delay grant payments; (7) the extent to which TAG recipients may use grants to independently verify or clarify existing site clean-up analyses or information is unclear; and (8) the impact of the proposed EPA model for accelerating the Superfund clean-up process on the TAG program and community involvement is also unclear.