The following audit report has been posted to the NASA Office of
Inspector General web site: Cost Sharing for Environmental Cleanup
Efforts (IG-01-007, December 8, 2000)
To access the entire report, please go to:
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/oig/hq/issuedaudits.html
Synopsis: The NASA Office of Inspector General has completed an audit
of Cost Sharing for Environmental Cleanup Efforts. We found that NASA
has at least 44 contaminated sites for which it must complete
environmental analyses before the Agency can determine the extent to
which it should be seeking cost sharing or cost recovery arrangements
with potentially responsible parties. Of the $140.7 million that will
be required to clean up these 44 sites, NASA may be able to avoid up to
$37.9 million in cleanup costs through cost sharing agreements once the
required analyses have been completed. (NASA disagreed with our
estimated potential cost avoidance through cost sharing agreements and
indicated that $7.5 million is a more accurate amount.) We also found
that NASA Centers and component facilities need to improve coordination
of the analyses and cost sharing activities with the program offices
responsible for reviewing and approving them.
Management’s Response: NASA agreed to send a letter to certain Centers
and component facilities requesting that they accelerate efforts to
complete the required analyses and cost sharing arrangements if
sufficient data is available to complete those efforts. NASA will
review the requirements for conducting the environmental analyses and
the efforts to be coordinated with the responsible program offices.
Management also agreed to send the letter to the program offices as
additional clarifying guidance for implementing existing Agency policy
and guidelines governing environmental analyses and cost sharing
agreements.
To comment on this report, please send an e-mail to
igrelease@hq.nasa.gov
