Recovery.gov - Track the Money

Cleaner Water and Drinking Water Infrastructure ($6 billion). EPA will award $4 billion to construct wastewater infrastructure and restore and protect surface and groundwater quality. Additionally, $2 billion will be awarded to help states and local communities address drinking water needs such as water treatment and distribution systems. States will have the flexibility to target resources to their particular environmental needs by basing project priorities on public health and environmental factors, in addition to readiness to proceed to construction. Of the $6 billion, $1.2 billion of the funding will be targeted toward green infrastructure, water and energy efficiency, and environmentally innovative projects.

Revitalized Neighborhoods from Brownfields ($100 million). The goal of EPA's Brownfields Program is to revitalize and restore neighborhoods through environmental cleanup. The program has a proven history of attracting private investment, producing trained environmental technicians, creating jobs, and spurring local economic development. Through the Recovery Act, EPA will issue competitive grants to evaluate and clean up brownfields, which will in turn encourage redevelopment.

Cleaner Underground Storage Tank Sites ($200 million). EPA is responsible for cleaning up sites contaminated by leaking underground storage tank systems. The greatest potential hazard from a leaking underground storage tank is that the petroleum or other hazardous substance can seep into the soil and contaminate groundwater. Recovery Act funds will be used for overseeing the assessment and cleanup of leaks from underground storage tanks or directly paying for assessment and cleanup of leaks from federally regulated tanks where the responsible party is unknown, unwilling, unable, or the clean up is an emergency response. As a result of this investment, EPA will create jobs and improve neighborhoods by awarding grants to states and territories, and providing contractors to tribes.

Superfund Hazardous Waste Cleanup ($600 million). EPA's Superfund Program funds the cleanup of uncontrolled hazardous waste sites. The $600 million in Recovery Act funding will further cleanup at Superfund National Priority List sites, maximize job creation and retention, and provide environmental and economic benefits. To speed cleanup conducted through the Recovery Act, EPA will use the funds for sites on the Superfund National Priority List and use in-place, competitively awarded contracts, interagency agreements, and cooperative agreements for emergency response and cleanup activity.

Reduced Diesel Emissions ($300 million). Pollution from diesel-powered vehicles and non-road diesel engines contribute to serious public health problems in the United States. These problems include asthma, lung cancer, and various other cardiac and respiratory diseases. They result in thousands of premature deaths, millions of lost work days, and numerous other negative health and economic outcomes every year. More than 11 million diesel engines in operation today do not meet EPA's new clean diesel standards, yet these engines can continue to operate for 20 to 30 years. Public health benefits are immediate when emissions control strategies are applied to older diesel engines. EPA will award $300 million in grants for use of technologies that achieve significant reductions in diesel emissions, and that demonstrate the ability to maximize both job preservation and creation and public health benefits. Through development of these technologies, EPA will help maintain and create jobs in the manufacturing and service sectors across the country. The clean air impact of reducing diesel emissions will result in significant human health benefits as well as increased worker productivity with fewer work days lost.

EPA plans on exclusively using competitive contract procedures for ARRA work being performed under EPA contracts. The great majority of this work is related to ARRA Superfund cleanup work and about 93% will be done under existing competitively awarded contracts, so by definition are competitive actions under ARRA. A smaller amount (about 7%) of ARRA funds will be obligated under newly awarded competitive contracts. EPA is completely confident in achieving competitive results for these new contract actions based upon our extensive past success in achieving high levels of competition. Our expectation to use 100% competitive procedures under ARRA exceeds EPA's good competition rate of 92.34% achieved in all of our contract actions in 2008.

EPA has determined that most of our Superfund Cleanup sites are not suitable for fixed price contracting as the scope and extent of pollution cleanup is usually too variable to eliminate costly contingency pricing that would be required for large fixed priced contracts. However, EPA plans to negotiate new fixed priced contract actions for ARRA site specific Superfund Cleanup work. These actions are estimated to account for about 7% of the total amount of the contract funds to be obligated. This projection is founded on our collaboration with Agency Superfund program and procurement officials on how best to achieve an overall efficient and effective Superfund cleanup objective. Our use of fixed price contracting will increase over time as our existing EPA contracts (which are not fixed price) will be used to begin work quickly (in order to both stimulate economy and maximize the use of the current construction season) and our newly awarded contracts (which will be fixed price) will be awarded starting mostly in late summer of 2009.

EPA is committed fully to ensuring transparency and accountability throughout the Agency as we spend Recovery Act funds in accordance with OMB guidance. We welcome the additional opportunities for providing stakeholders and the public with detailed information during implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

To govern Recovery Act communication, implementation policies, procedures, performance measurement, and reporting, EPA formed a Stimulus Steering Committee comprised of EPA's senior leaders. The Steering Committee is chaired by EPA's Office of Administration and Resources Management (OARM).

EPA's Senior Accountable Official for the Recovery Act is Craig Hooks, Acting Assistant Administrator of OARM. He represents EPA at meetings convened by the White House, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and other government entities; attends Stimulus Steering Committee meetings; reviews EPA's Recovery Act activities, communication, and reporting information; and sets the implementation vision for the Agency.

EPA's Stimulus Steering Committee meets weekly to review implementation progress and resolve issues brought by its eight subcommittees. The subcommittees include: Communication and Outreach, Contracts, Interagency Issues, Finance and Resources, Congressional Coordination, Performance Measurement, Grants and Interagency Agreements, and Reporting and Tracking.

The subcommittees were created to quickly analyze Recovery Act implementation requirements in their specific areas of responsibility, note any potential issues and opportunities for collaboration, and initiate any necessary corrective actions through clear and transparent work plans with milestones. Individual subcommittee work plans dovetail with the overall Agency calendar of milestones provided in the Initial Implementing Guidance for the Recovery Act issued by OMB on February 18, 2009. Each subcommittee meets at least weekly and coordinates with others as needed.

EPA is committed to the accuracy and transparency in all Agency reporting as well as in all material posted on EPA's Recovery Act web site, http://www.epa.gov/recovery/, and through the government-wide web site, http://www.recovery.gov/. EPA realizes that appropriate internal controls for data and information quality must be in place to ensure that only complete and accurate information is posted and available to the public. For both financial and programmatic performance reporting, EPA will continue to implement its controls under A-123 and the Agency's policy on information quality.

For purposes of ARRA, the Agency has developed Quality Assurance Management Action Plans to ensure quality standards are reflected in fiduciary instruments such as grants and contracts and that performance results reported to information systems for ARRA reporting are complete, accurate, and comply with the Agency's Quality Program and Information Quality Guidelines. Performance results covered by the Management Action Plan include environmental and program outputs and outcomes, green outcomes, jobs created, and administrative outputs specific to stimulus spending. These plans also require documentation and certification of data submitted for purposes of the ARRA.