Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Department of Defense's (DOD) environmental cleanup, compliance, and technology activities. GAO found that: (1) recent DOD initiatives affecting environmental cleanup include efforts to focus funding on actual cleanup, instead of study and oversight, better target funds through the use of risk determination, and devolve the budget process to the military services; (2) DOD lacks the data it needs to manage its environmental compliance program; (3) although DOD has required the services to use an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classification system, DOD was unable to provide data on spending by EPA classification; and (4) DOD plans to implement an online strategic environmental technology plan that will show specific service requirements and match ongoing and planned initiatives.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent agency that works for Congress. The GAO watches over Congress, and investigates how the federal government spends taxpayers dollars. The Comptroller General of the United States is the leader of the GAO, and is appointed to a 15-year term by the U.S. President. The GAO wants to support Congress, while at the same time doing right by the citizens of the United States. They audit, investigate, perform analyses, issue legal decisions and report anything that the government is doing. This is one of their reports.

The rapid conversion of land to urban and suburban areas has profoundly altered how water flows during and following storm events, putting higher volumes of water and more pollutants into the nation's rivers, lakes, and estuaries. These changes have degraded water quality and habitat in virtually every urban stream system. The Clean Water Act regulatory framework for addressing sewage and industrial wastes is not well suited to the more difficult problem of stormwater discharges. This book calls for an entirely new permitting structure that would put authority and accountability for stormwater discharges at the municipal level. A number of additional actions, such as conserving natural areas, reducing hard surface cover (e.g., roads and parking lots), and retrofitting urban areas with features that hold and treat stormwater, are recommended.