EPA OIG Publishes Report On Lessons Learned From Prior Oversight Related To EPA's Rulemaking

On October 2, 2025, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a report entitled Lessons Learned from Prior Oversight Related to the EPA's Rulemaking. According to the report, OIG initiated the project to describe the lessons identified from select EPA OIG and U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports to help inform EPA's future rulemaking efforts. OIG states that it reviewed 17 reports and identified five lessons from these prior reports and categorized them into three programmatic themes: procedures, recordkeeping, and transparency:

• Procedures: According to the report, clear rulemaking procedures standardize the steps in the rulemaking process, and clear procedures help participants understand their roles and responsibilities. The report notes that unclear or outdated procedures negatively affect the rulemaking process and a lack of adherence to established procedures undermines EPA's rulemaking process.