EPA Earns President's Award for Management Excellence

At a ceremony last night at the Museum of Women in the Arts, EPA Deputy Administrator Marcus Peacock accepted the award, saying, "The management changes we have made at EPA are designed to take the concept of results-oriented government to a whole new level."

"They are enabling us to measure progress from our actions as never before, to learn what we might do better, and to constantly improve in meeting our mission of protecting public health and the environment," he said.

Of 54 federal agencies that applied for the award, the EPA was one of only two applicants for the highest tier of the award for Overall Management and the only winner.

EPA employees participate in a management meeting. (Photo courtesy EPA)

The EPA was honored for its success in integrating management systems identified under the president's five government-wide management initiatives.

These initiatives focus on strategic management of human capital, budget and performance integration, expanded electronic government, competitive sourcing, and improved financial performance.

They are designed to enhance service to the American people by creating a government that is "citizen-centered, results-oriented and market-based," Peacock said.

The agency has added a publicly available Quarterly Management Reporting, QMR, system that enables managers to gauge progress in 60 priority areas,.

There is a new desk-top computer "dashboard" that enables users at all levels of the agency to monitor the EPA's progress in real time, and an internal process for identifying best practices in one program or region that can be transferred to improve environmental results more broadly.

For instance, after the QMR reports showed that agency's Mid-Atlantic Region 3 office was completing twice the water pollution control assessments for impaired waters as other parts of the country, the agency identified the best practices that led to their success, and those practices are now being shared with the other nine EPA regions.

Similarly, EPA is now sharing best practices related to retrofitting old diesel engines to reduce air quality emissions, cleanup of lead in homes, and compliance assistance for combined animal feeding lot operations.

The Presidents Quality Award was established in 1988 to recognize excellence in quality and productivity, applying to the public sector similar criteria used for the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Improvement Awards. These awards are named for Malcolm Baldrige, who served as Secretary of Commerce from 1981 until his death in a rodeo accident in 1987. His managerial excellence contributed to long-term improvement in efficiency and effectiveness of government.

In 2002, the Presidents Quality Award was redesigned to recognize federal agencies that best achieve the objectives of the President's Management Agenda. President George W. Bush established these objectives in the summer of 2001, shortly after he took office.

"The EPA is conforming to what the White House wants it to do, but sometimes that is not in the public's best interest," says attorney Jeff Ruch, who heads Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, PEER, a national association of workers in resource management agencies, including the EPA.

"What they get that award for is their success in meeting the president's agenda," said Ruch. "To the extent that this includes outsourcing, or competitive sourcing, from our point of the view that is not really something that they should be proud of."

Ruch said PEER is working with investigators to determine why the EPA closed its Ombudsman's Office as soon as that office began examining the agency's response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

A whistleblower complaint about this issue is now before a Department of Labor administrative law judge and a hearing is expected either later this month or in January.

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