The State Auditor’s office (SAO) published a report on the Texas Emission Reduction Plan program at the TCEQ. The conclusion from the report:
The TCEQ should strengthen its selection, monitoring, and enforcement of grants for the Texas Emissions Reduction Plan (TERP) program to ensure that it:
– Awards grants to eligible applicants that can achieve the most cost-effective emissions reductions.
– Holds grantees accountable for their compliance with program requirements and achieving projected emissions reductions.
– Recovers grant funds from non-compliant grantees.
Selecting the best applicants and strengthening grant monitoring could increase the number of grantees that comply with grant requirements. Improving compliance is important because the Commission has not been able to recover significant funds from grantees that do not comply with grant requirements. From December 2006 through July 2010, the Commission asserted that it identified a total of more than $62 million in grant funds from 593 grantees that failed to comply with the disposition and/or usage requirements in the grant agreements. Of that amount, the Commission reported that it had recovered approximately $1 million (1.6 percent) as of July 2010.
For a complete copy of the report, please visit: http://www.sao.state.tx.us/Reports/main/11-012.pdf?src=front
