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4 Management
Pages 39-55

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From page 39...
... They generally do different types of work; ORD focuses more on basic and applied research whereas program office laboratories and regional office laboratories focus more on technical support and analytic services. The various components typically work on different timeframes; ORD may undertake research with a 5-year view whereas a regional office laboratory might need an answer for a cleanup facility extremely quickly and a program office laboratory may be engaged in technical projects that span a couple of years.
From page 40...
... Scientists, technicians, and engineers play important roles in the Office of the Administrator, in the program offices, and in the regional offices apart from the varied laboratories. That is all supplemented or complemented by the broad university research community around the country; by scientific research sponsored by many other parts of the federal government, its laboratories, and its research centers; by state agency laboratories; and by the private sector.
From page 41...
... (Recommendation 4-2) MANAGEMENT PROCESSES If EPA were to think of the laboratory enterprise as a system consisting of several different components organized to advance the mission of the agency, then there are a variety of management processes that could be strengthened to tie the components together without sacrificing the decided advantages that come from the in-depth experience, strong relationships, and proximity that has been the hallmark of the research, program office, and regional office laboratories.
From page 42...
... The committee strongly supports ORD's efforts to engage the program and regional offices as part of its annual planning process. We assume that the program office laboratories provide input to the program offices and the regional office laboratories provide input to the regional offices for the planning process.
From page 43...
... The funds for the ORD laboratories can be identified in the budget, funding for the program office laboratories can be extracted from the program offices' budgets, and funding for the regional office laboratories can be extracted from the regional offices' budgets. But it appears that EPA does not routinely add all the numbers together to produce a laboratory enterprise budget.7 That may be a function of the fact, noted above, that EPA has traditionally viewed the laboratory enterprise as many components, not as a single cohesive enterprise.
From page 44...
... . Although it is an ORD center, its expertise can be deployed to assist all the EPA laboratories -- ORD, regional office, and program office laboratories -- when confronted with issues that would benefit from these specialized skills and thereby eliminate the need to replicate this type of service in different laboratories in the laboratory enterprise.10 A second undertaking is that of the Emergency Response Laboratory Network (ERLN)
From page 45...
... During our information-gathering sessions, EPA representatives continually stressed that the laboratories are not allocated funds from a single source. Instead, the program offices, the regional offices, and ORD receive budgets, and these entities, depending on their own priorities, provide funding to their associated laboratories to support projects to which the programs, regions, or ORD have assigned high priority.13 We are not aware of any important shortfalls or lapses in laboratory-related activities with this approach, but it is troublesome that there is no process whereby the entire portfolio of laboratory projects can be arrayed to enable an evaluation of whether available funds are being allocated to activities so as to align best with the agency's mission.
From page 46...
... 15 Surely, several regional office laboratories undertake substantially similar measurement or testing projects for their regional offices; although the work may be the same, the costs may not be (for a variety of reasons)
From page 47...
... The programs therefore reach out to the rest of the EPA laboratory enterprise. It is important for the communication to be two-way so that program offices can stay up to date on what the various laboratories are doing and its relevance to program needs and similarly for the regional offices and their laboratories.
From page 48...
... between program office and regional office laboratories and other centers of expertise, both in and outside EPA, and this suggests that such outreach is not unusual. To name a few, the National Enforcement Investigations Center has worked with ORD, program offices, and regional offices to develop techniques for its criminal investigations; the National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory has coordinated with ORD on health-effects research with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Southwest Research Institute on truck and powertrain test methods and with Argonne National Laboratory on vehicle test methods; and the Microbiology Laboratory, under the Office of Pesticide Programs, works regularly with the Food and Drug Administration, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the US Department of Agriculture, and state, local, and tribal governments.
From page 49...
... Figures 4-2 and 4-3 offer s comparab specifications for the re ble egional office and program office labora m atories, respec ctively. FIGURE 4-1 Aligning agency strategic goals to the ORD portion o f the laboratory enterprise.
From page 50...
... Rethinking th Componen Coordination, and Man he nts, nagement of US EPA Labo oratories FIGURE 4-2 Aligning agency strategic goals with the regional offic laboratories 4 a c ce s. FIGURE 4-3 Aligning agency strategic goals with the program offi laboratories 4 a c ice s.
From page 51...
... This experience includes ongoing technology transfers from ORD to the regional office laboratories (up to 20% of ORD's work) , the marshaling of agencywide resources to form the virtual ERLN, and the creation of laboratories with cross-EPA functions, such as the NCCT and the National Analytical Radiation Environmental Laboratory.
From page 52...
... An alternative option would be to task the EPA deputy administrator, the science advisor, or the ORD assistant administrator with responsibility for overseeing an assemblage of relevant people from the various components of the laboratory enterprise and to give the pro 52
From page 53...
... We recognize that the STPC has already been assigned some functions and that it has several subgroups, one of which is designated as a working group for the EPA laboratory enterprise.19 But, as discussed above, EPA has not thought of its various laboratories as an organized composition of diverse components, and most of the efforts of the working group have been related to one or more of the components. With the reorientation suggested above and given the importance of enhanced communication and coordination, the tasks of the managing entity for the enterprise could well include a needs assessment, an inventory of equipment and facilities, an inventory of skills, and development of training programs.
From page 54...
... It is important for EPA to communicate internally throughout the organization about such private-sector interactions and their potential benefits, such as benchmarking EPA laboratories against laboratories doing similar work in the private sector. EPA clearly needs to have a substantial amount of high-quality inhouse scientific expertise and laboratory capabilities because it typically needs to answer specific questions related to regulation and enforcement and questions related to environmental effects of specific chemicals, activities, and processes.
From page 55...
... Assuming that effective use of the agency's scientific and technical capabilities requires optimal use of non-EPA scientific resources, there should be a process by which identified research priorities are accompanied by assessment of whether further research is needed and then assessment of the best way to obtain that research. Presumably, it might be preferable in many cases to partner or contract with other agencies to obtain the needed research, and it might be best in an equal number of cases to have the research done by EPA scientists in EPA laboratories.


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