The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has lost $16.4 million on its Lead Renovation, Repair and Repainting (RRP) Rule in fiscal years 2010 through 2014, according to a report from the EPA's Office of the Inspector General (OIG). These lost funds, the report notes, could have been used to offset the current federal deficit.
The OIG found that these unrecovered costs are partially due to low firm participation as a result of the housing crisis; however, the EPA had not been conducting biennial cost reviews to decide if fees needed to be adjusted since the rules were set in March 2009, and the current fee structure does not take indirect administrative costs into account.
In order to fix the program in the future, the OIG is requiring the Assistant Administrator for Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention to update the fee rules to cover all costs incurred by the program, and the Chief Financial Officer must conduct the biennial cost reviews to be sure the EPA is recovering the costs.
The full report is available here.
