Bill to liberate EPA ombudsman languishes
A last-ditch effort to create an independent ombudsman's office at the Environmental Protection Agency was thwarted when Congress adjourned last week without approving legislation authorizing the move.
On Nov. 20, the Senate passed the Ombudsman Reauthorization Act of 2001 (S. 606) and sent it to the House for action, but the bill made it no further than the House Energy and Commerce Committee before the 107th Congress adjourned on Friday.
The bill was an effort to countermand changes made by the agency last April when EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman began restructuring the ombudsman's role at the agency. EPA's National Ombudsman Robert Martin, who challenged Whitman's changes, was folded into the agency's inspector general's office where he had no control of his budget, staff or cases.
The bill's author, Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., was concerned the changes would remove the ombudsman's independence and sought to establish an independent Office of the Ombudsman with a separate budget and staff within EPA. Under Allard's bill the ombudsman would be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.
Ombudsmen generally investigate citizens' complaints, and at EPA, the ombudsman focused on hazardous waste cleanups.
In a recent report (03-92), the General Accounting Office said EPA's changes to the ombudsman's office were inconsistent with professional standards for ombudsmen since the agency removed the ombudsman's ability to choose which cases to investigate.
"The role of an ombudsman typically includes program operating responsibilities, such as helping to informally resolve program-related issues and mediating disagreements between the agency and the public," the report said. "However, EPA has chosen to omit such responsibilities from the [agency's] national ombudsman's role with [the Office of Inspector General]."
The changes in the ombudsman's role at EPA were also inconsistent with the role of other federal ombudsmen, such as those at the Food and Drug Administration and Internal Revenue Service, who set their own priorities and decide how to allocate their own resources, GAO said.
"If both the ombudsman's budget and workload are outside his or her control, then the ombudsman will be unable to ensure that the resources for implementing the function are adequate," the report said.
To remedy the situation, GAO recommended that EPA rethink moving the ombudsman to the inspector general's office.
But in a written response to GAO's findings, EPA Assistant Administrator Marianne Horinko defended the agency's decision to move the ombudsman into the inspector general's office.
"When Administrator Whitman authorized the transfer…she believed then-and continues to believe now-that [the Office of Inspector General] is the logical home for the function, with its newly expanded role to investigate complaints about all agency environmental programs," Horinko wrote.
Horinko also suggested that the federal ombudsmen at FDA and IRS referred to in the report do not have the level of independence that GAO asserted. Unlike the EPA ombudsman, those ombudsmen are subject to their agency's decision-making process, according to Horinko. Also, the FDA and IRS ombudsmen are not masters of their own budgets, as GAO suggests in its report, but rather are subject to management review and approval, Horinko said.
GAO disagreed with Horinko's claims.
"In contrast to EPA's national ombudsman…the other federal ombudsmen have a specifically allocated budget, can set their own priorities and can decide how their funds will be spent," the watchdog agency responded.