Why We Did This Report
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Inspector General initiated an audit of the EPA’s oversight of the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, or CWSRF, Program. While conducting work on that audit, which is complete, we found that some states omitted required fee information from the intended use plan or the annual report for their CWSRFs and decided to issue this report.
Summary of Findings
Most of the 47 states that charged fees to CWSRF loan recipients did not provide some required fee information in either their intended use plan or annual report for 2022. This may have occurred because the Office of Water’s guidance was not clear with respect to the definitions of the required information and how regional reviewers should obtain missing information. As a result, the EPA may not have had complete fee information available for its oversight activities. Additionally, the public may not have had access to all the required fee information, including the amount of accumulated fee revenue available for use.