July 7, 2000

Best Practices for Environmental Management Baseline Development

In February 1999, you directed the Office of Environmental Management (EM) to implement controls to correct weaknesses in the environmental liability estimate identified during the Fiscal Year 1998 financial statement audit. You also requested the Office of Inspector General (OIG) to conduct an interim status review to ensure that these controls were sufficient to correct the weaknesses. In August 1999, the OIG reported that completed and planned corrective actions by EM and the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) should improve the liability estimate. These actions also had a positive impact on EM's project management through improvements in its baseline development processes.