Enhanced Scientific Leadership and Capacity in the US Environmental Protection Agency - Science For Environmental Protection: The Road Ahead - page 154

 ORD maintain close communication and working relationships with
program offices to ensure that research in the agency continues to support pro-
grammatic needs. Regional and program offices should be engaged in evaluating
ORD's progress and performance.
COORDINATION OF SCIENCE EFFORTS IN THE
US ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
The importance of delivering science to EPA decision-makers and sup-
porting the scientific capacities and endeavors of program and regional offices is
well-recognized in the agency. The agency should use scientific information in
all its decisions. Science needs for decisions are identified within program and
regional offices through various processes and can take two main forms—
summaries and syntheses of existing science and the creation of new science to
fill key gaps.
Existing science to inform and support decisions is usually acquired by
EPA scientific staff (through a combination of professional networks and elec-
tronic tools). ORD's Office of Science Policy (OSP) is charged with integrating
and communicating scientific information that comes from or that supports
ORD's laboratories and centers (EPA 2012a). OSP's Regional Science Program
links ORD science to regional offices. The Regional Science Program's Re-
gional Science Liaison and Superfund and Technology Liaison locate scientists
in regional offices to facilitate regional staff and management access to ORD
science. The regional liaisons have regular communication with OSP to ensure
communication between ORD and the regional offices (M. Dannel, EPA, per-
sonal communication, December 30, 2011). The EPA SAB Committee on Sci-
ence Integration for Decision Making found that regional offices consider the
liaisons to be important in science acquisition (EPA SAB 2012b).
OSP plays a key role in connecting program and regional offices to ORD
research and in expanding the capacity of regional offices to conduct needed
research. For a few programs, most notably several programs in the Office of
Pesticide Programs, needed research can be required of regulated entities. How-
ever, that option is not available to most programs, and those programs and re-
gions rely to various degrees on inhouse research. At the regional level, there are
several mechanisms through which new science is supported. For example, the
Regional Applied Research Effort Program, which allocates about $200,000 per
year to each EPA region for collaborative research, funds near-term research (1-
2 years) on high-priority, regional applied-science needs. It is also intended to
foster collaboration between EPA regions and ORD laboratories and centers, to
build a network between regions and ORD for future scientific interaction, and
to provide opportunities for ORD scientists to apply their expertise to regional
issues and explore new research challenges. The Regional Methods Program, for
which about $600,000 per year is allocated, works to develop new monitoring
and enforcement methods (EPA 2012b). It is analogous to the Regional Applied