Closing EPA's Performance Track Was a Mistake

July 12, 2010

The US Environmental Protection Agency ought to keep experimenting with voluntary programs, says the think-tank Rand Corp. in a post-mortem of the National Environmental Performance Track.  In her first significant act as administrator, Lisa Jackson shuttered EPA’s central alternative program created to encourage activities beyond legal compliance.

In what is without question an unintentional reproach of Jackson’s unilateral decision to close Performance Track, the Rand report concludes, “Experimentation should be viewed as long term, since individual efforts take years to initiate and to produce data that can be analyzed.”

Nothing in the Rand report suggests program design failures on a scale fatal enough to warranted termination.  But some stakeholders, especially a few outspoken environmental organizations, did not think the flaws could or should be repaired. 

“Everybody’s initial expections were not met,” says Scott Hassell, an author of the report.  Hassell’s remark was not a criticism but an amplification of the finding that Performance Track tried to do too much for too many groups. 

Rand researchers heard a consistent opinion from Performance Track participants whether from large companies and small businesses, or from government-owned facilities or privately held enterprises.  “During focus groups, they said Performance Track changed how people went about their jobs in a formal and informal sense,” Hassell says.  The initiative improved morale and helped management retain employees.

Before Jackson abruptly ended the voluntary program, it had entrolled 578 member facilities representing about 240 private and public organizations.  Over its course from 2000 to May 2009, the initiative attracted more than 1,000 applications.  EPA commissioned the Rand study before the presidential election to look at the conceptual basis of the Performance Track program and how to improve its operation (see Performance Track Review Now a Postmortem, 21 March 2009).

Those who believed EPA should not waste time and precious resources on voluntary initiatives preyed on a weakness in the program design.  The opponents held their ground inside the agency as well as without.  The Rand report comes to a telling conclusion:

“Performance Track’s design allowed members to select goals from 37 environmental indicators, negotiate targets, and demonstrate progress toward (rather than meet) those targets.  This flexibility increased the number and type of facilities that could apply, provided the applicant with the flexibility to think broadly about its facility’s environmental impact, and encouraged applicants to set challenging goals.  However, this flexibility also meant that the types and magnitude of proposed environmental improvements could vary significantly from facility to facility.  This made it difficult to convince some regulators and environmental NGO representatives that all members were making significant improvements and that those improvements were commensurate with the program’s benefits.”

“People understood that the program was in a bit of a bind.  In retrospect, some [Performance Track] members said if they knew just how serious a bind, they might have negotiated more,” Hassell says.  As it was, the participating facilities did not want to give up what few benefits they already received.

Flaws identified in Performance Track by the Rand researchers were well understood during the lifetime of the program.  A main drawback was EPA’s decision not to open a second track for companies with progressive management, called the stewardship track, as was originally proposed.  The Rand review says this decision meant different levels of benefits could not be given based on performance. 

As soon as Administrator Jackson and other Obama appointees got settled in at EPA, rather than continue to perfect Performance Track, they pounced on it (see Lisa Jackson Shutters Voluntary Program, 16 March 2009).  

For more information contact Scott Hassell, Rand Corp. 1200 South Hayes Street, Arlington, VA 22202, USA.  Tel: +1 703 413 1100, Ext. 5128;  E-mail: Scott_Hassell@rand.org; and Noreen Clancy, E-mail: Noreen_Clancy@rand.org.

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