EPA Fails to Pursue Fraud, Contract Abuse, Panel Says

WASHINGTON —  Environmental Protection Agency auditors failed to pursue potential waste and fraud in some $8.6 billion worth of government contracts, including critical work on the Superfund hazardous waste cleanup program, a House panel said in a blistering report released Saturday.

The report and an accompanying letter to EPA Administrator William K. Reilly heaped scorn on the agency’s Office of Inspector General--the division assigned to root out fraud, waste and abuse.

The independent watchdog office within the EPA is “plagued by serious leadership failures,” said the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations.

Efforts to audit serious fraud allegations against Computer Sciences Corp. of El Segundo, Calif., one of EPA’s largest contractors, were described as “superficial.” Investigators’ performance in prosecuting potential fraud by Superfund cleanup contractors was termed “dismal.”

Jim Rauch, the EPA’s deputy assistant inspector general for audit, said he had not seen the report but had read the letter to Reilly signed by subcommittee Chairman John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) and its ranking Republican, Thomas J. Bliley Jr. of Virginia.

The letter outlined the findings and called the 273 unmet requests for audits “simply staggering.”

EPA Inspector General John C. Martin, who has held the job since 1983, was not at work Friday and attempts to contact him Friday and Saturday were not successful. The report covered fiscal years 1984 through 1990.

The subcommittee report said Martin’s headquarters office missed serious problems discovered by Pentagon auditors and EPA procurement officials. The office ignored those findings as well as investigations by the inspector general’s regional offices, the subcommittee said.

The report said that of 48 Superfund cases selected for investigation from 1984-90, only 4% resulted in any prosecution and only 8% led to administrative action such as employee dismissals.

The inspector general’s own standards rate an investigative manager’s performance as unsatisfactory if fewer than 25% of the closed cases lead to a criminal or administrative action.