Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz announced today the release of a report examining the Environment and Natural Resources Division’s (ENRD) Superfund activities for fiscal years (FYs) 2015 and 2016. The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (known as CERCLA or Superfund), which was expanded by the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986 (SARA), established the Superfund program to clean up the nation’s worst hazardous waste sites. Within the DOJ, the ENRD enforces CERCLA’s civil and criminal pollution-control laws. The ENRD uses a management information system to document and allocate its Superfund litigation costs. Every two years, the DOJ Office of the Inspector General (OIG) conducts an audit of ENRD’s cost allocation process and releases a report regarding the audit results.
The OIG concluded that the ENRD provided an equitable distribution of costs to Superfund cases from FYs 2015 and 2016. To reach this conclusion, we assessed the cost allocation process used by the ENRD and its contractor, the ENRD’s Superfund case designation, the costs distributed to these cases, and the adequacy of the internal controls over the recording of charges to Superfund cases. However, our audit also identified one instance of $1,414 in unsupported travel costs.
Today’s report makes one recommendation to the ENRD to remedy the $1,414 in unsupported travel costs. The ENRD agreed with the recommendation.