Coastal Zone Management: Measuring Program's Effectiveness Continues to Be a Challenge

Highlights

In 1972, Congress enacted the Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA) to protect the nation's coastlines from growing demands associated with residential, recreational, commercial, and industrial uses. The act encourages coastal states and territories to develop programs to manage and balance economic development and coastal protection. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) administers the program and provides financial and technical assistance to participating states. GAO was asked to provide information on (1) NOAA's methodology for awarding CZMA grants to the states, (2) the extent to which NOAA has processes for ensuring that grants are used in a manner that is consistent with the CZMA, and (3) the extent to which NOAA's state program evaluations and performance measurement system enable the agency to assess the effectiveness of the National Coastal Zone Management Program. GAO reviewed relevant laws, regulations, and documents and interviewed NOAA and the 34 state coastal program officials.

Recommendations

Matter for Congressional Consideration

Matter	Status	Comments
In reauthorizing the CZMA, Congress may wish to clarify whether it would like eligible states to receive equal amounts of funding under the coastal zone management grants or whether these grants should be proportional and reflect each state's respective shoreline miles and coastal population. If Congress decides that states should receive coastal zone management grants that are proportional to each state's varying shoreline miles and coastal population, then Congress may wish to consider raising or eliminating the cap.	Closed – Not Implemented	As of December 2016, Congress has not taken action related to this matter for consideration.

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected	Recommendation	Status
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration	The Administrator of NOAA should review and revise as needed its regulations and grant award practices for the coastal zone management and enhancement programs to ensure that they are in alignment.	Closed – Implemented NOAA adjusted the formula that it uses to distribute coastal zone management grant funding to the states. The adjustments bring the agency's practices into alignment with its regulations that specify that each state will receive a coastal zone management grant that is based on (1)a minimum share plus (2) a proportional share of the remaining funds. The revised formula was used to calculate and distribute coastal zone management grants for FY 2011. In addition, NOAA reviewed its regulations for its Coastal Zone Enhancement Grant Program to determine opportunities to include a competitive component. Based on this review, NOAA developed a "Projects of Special Merit" competition program that will be part of the Coastal Zone Enhancement Program cycle for fiscal years 2011 - 2015. NOAA solicited proposals for funding under the competitive program in a January 6, 2011 announcement
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration	To strengthen NOAA's periodic evaluations of state coastal management programs, NOAA should establish performance goals so that evaluators have criteria for evaluating state coastal programs.	Closed – Implemented NOAA's FY 2012 funding guidance to state coastal zone programs included a requirement that each state coastal zone program establish specific targets and measures. According to NOAA's guidance, establishing performance measures and targets is an effort to include an additional quantitative data point in evaluations, an additional reference to inform program review and discussion, and to provide greater accountability. The guidance requires each coastal zone management program to establish three performance measures and an associated target that are linked to goals and objectives that the program has identified as reflecting important priorities of its program. These targets and measures, and progress toward them, will be one element reviewed during NOAA's evaluation of the state's coastal zone management program and will provide an additional source of data to help inform the overall evaluation of a state program as well as providing a quantitative reference for each program about how well it is meeting the goals and objectives that it has identified as important.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration	To strengthen NOAA's periodic evaluations of state coastal management programs, NOAA should ensure that evaluations are independent by revising the role of state coastal management officials in the review process.	Closed – Implemented In June 2009, NOAA issued program guidance that revised the role of state coastal management officials in the review process. These revisions provide the agency with clear and defined roles for state coastal management officials in the review process and help to ensure evaluations of state programs are independent. Specifically, NOAA now requires meetings and interviews with stakeholders, in which the state coastal program is discussed, to be conducted without participation from the state coastal program staff.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration	To enhance NOAA's ability to evaluate the overall progress of the National Coastal Zone Management Program, NOAA should create targets for performance measures already developed that can be used to assess the effectiveness of the national program.	Closed – Not Implemented As of August 2016, NOAA has plans to develop a new strategic plan for its Coastal Zone Management Plan to be completed in fiscal year 2017. As part of development of the plan, NOAA expects to establish national targets for a subset of the performance measures.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration	To enhance NOAA's ability to evaluate the overall progress of the National Coastal Zone Management Program, NOAA should develop appropriate internal controls for verifying that the data received for the performance measurement system are reliable and consistent across participating states.	Closed – Implemented In April 2010, NOAA issued program guidance for state and territory coastal management programs that includes data documentation requirements that outline the data that state coastal zone management programs must submit on the programs and projects that they have undertaken to implement the national goals of the Coastal Zone Management Act. These data documentation requirements provide the agency with information about the source of data reported by each state coastal zone management program and enable the agency to verify reliability and consistency of the data being submitted. In addition, NOAA now requires the Coastal Zone Management Specialist assigned to each state's coastal zone management program to review and accept the performance measurement data submitted by the state. The agency also issued internal guidance for the specialists' review process in July 2010. According to NOAA, the guidance was developed to ensure consistency during the specialists' review and improve NOAA's ability to ensure the reliability of the data being submitted as well as ensuring that state coastal zone management programs are meeting reporting requirements.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration	To enhance NOAA's ability to evaluate the overall progress of the National Coastal Zone Management Program, NOAA should develop measures to assess state programs' effectiveness in improving processes.	Closed – Not Implemented According to NOAA, the agency evaluated a range of measures to assess state programs' effectiveness in improving processes, such as government coordination and decision-making, and was unable to identify any. NOAA does not intend to take further action to address this recommendation.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration	To strengthen NOAA's ability to determine the effectiveness of the National Coastal Zone Management Program, NOAA should develop an approach to integrate the qualitative data from its periodic state evaluations with the quantitative data in its performance measurement system.	Closed – Implemented In December 2015, NOAA developed a written strategy for using performance information it collects including quantitative data from its performance measurement system and on funding allocations, as well as qualitative data from its periodic evaluations of state programs. The strategy is focused on the use of information for decision-making by NOAA and improving its communication and messaging. It was developed in response to GAO's recommendation in 2014 (GAO-14-592) to develop a strategy for using performance information to aid its management of the Coastal Zone Management Program.

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Topics

Natural Resources and Environment

Appropriated fundsCoastal zone managementData integrityEvaluation criteriaFederal aid to statesFederal regulationsFunds managementGrant administrationGrant monitoringGrants to statesInternal controlsNonpoint source pollutionPerformance measuresPolicy evaluationPollution controlProgram evaluationProgram managementReporting requirementsState programsFederal and state relations