EPA spent $52.5 million in taxpayer funds without proper approval, IG report finds

An investigator general report found that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) "improperly" doled out and managed millions of dollars worth of taxpayer dollars in information technology contracts between 2017 and 2019.

The EPA's Office of Inspector General reported Wednesday that the agency had spent $52.5 million in taxpayer money on the deals, which the watchdog had investigated following a complaint about "contract and bidding irregularities with three major information technology contracts."

The report said the EPA violated "Federal Acquisition Regulation requirements and contract clauses" when they "purchased 23 pieces of hardware and software equipment" through an "expiring" IT contract with Canadian IT company CGI Federal.

"This purchase was outside the scope of the contract and was ultimately never used for that contract," wrote the IG’s office. "The EPA then improperly solicited bids for one of two subsequent contracts and transferred the equipment to use on the new contract."

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"By approving the purchase, the EPA improperly spent $641,680 in federal funds," the report continued.

The report went on to reveal that the EPA "issued task orders" under the three contracts "without approval" from the agency’s CIO – which the watchdog says is "required under the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA)."

These tasks orders "resulted in the EPA spending $52.5 million in taxpayer funds without proper approvals," the report read.

"The agency also mismanaged these contracts with respect to monitoring property and licenses," the report continued. "For example, the EPA underreported and incorrectly identified purchased equipment in the agency’s property reporting system and did not record $1.18 million in software licenses in the agency’s asset management system."

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The IG said in the conclusion of the report that the EPA "CIO was unaware of significant acquisitions made by the agency and was unable to appropriately review price competitions, cost reductions and duplicate equipment."

"As a result, the EPA spent $52.5 million in taxpayer dollars without the CIO’s oversight," the IG concluded.

The watchdog recommended that the agency’s assistant administrator for mission support "[r]eview all active contracts for acquisitions of information technology hardware, software and services in fiscal year 2016 and later" to see if the "required" FITARA approvals had been "obtained."

The IG also called on the assistant administrator to "identify cost findings in the process from hardware and software purchases that were either duplicates or unnecessary" and to "[r]equire contracting officers to maintain records" of CIO approvals, "including those under" FITARA.

When pressed for comment, a spokesperson for the EPA pointed Fox News to their response in the IG report, where the agency said it "agreed" with the IG’s recommendations in the report.

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The confirmation of President Joe Biden’s pick to lead the EPA, Michael Regan, is up for a vote in the Senate this week.