An Era of Opportunity
As the next century approaches, consensus is emerging that a new environmental management system is needed to move us beyond the environmental and public health achievements of the past 25 years. While advocates and critics alike agree that remarkable improvements have been made, it is becoming increasingly obvious that we are nearing a plateau or point of diminishing returns where continued gains are uncertain. This realization of the need for new approaches is occurring at a time when the President and the Vice President are strongly committed to creating a Federal Government that works better and costs less. Together, these two forces represent an unprecedented opportunity for evaluating what works and what doesn't and applying this information to the development of a new system that can meet the challenges of today and the next century.
Building a Better System
EPA's efforts to produce such a new system are focused on improvements in four priority areas: Eliminating unnecessary regulations and reporting requirements, improving environmental compliance, regulating for greater results, and increasing community participation and partnerships. These improvements are being pursued through every possible venue--internally and externally_and results are already being seen. Internally, EPA management has been streamlined, programs have been restructured, and EPA employees have been given broader responsibilities: Enforcers are emphasizing compliance assistance, permitters are paying more attention to pollution prevention and market mechanisms, and rule writers are adopting innovative alternatives proposed by regulated industries. Externally, stakeholders in businesses, State and local governments, labor, or public interest groups are joining us at the table and participating in designing novel, more effective, and less costly approaches for improving conditions in their communities. These actions, and others like them, are increasing flexibility, promoting local stewardship, and helping establish and strengthen partnerships between the public and private sectors--without sacrificing environmental or public health protection.
Eliminating Unnecessary Regulations
The Agency continues to examine existing environmental regulations and reporting requirements in order to simplify and streamline compliance for the regulated community. As a result of the President's announcement in February 1995 for all Federal agencies to conduct a line-by-line review of their regulations and eliminate those that were obsolete or redundant, EPA is making changes to more than 70 percent of its regulations and working to eliminate 1,400 pages of obsolete rules--some 10 percent of EPA's total regulations. In keeping with the goal of reducing paperwork requirements by as much as 25 percent, over 1.5 million hours of requirements have been cut with an additional 8 million hours scheduled for elimination by the end of 1996. These hours are being turned back to communities and businesses for investment in more beneficial activities.
Other mechanisms are being created for similar purposes. New electronic systems are being established that allow facilities to transfer environmental permitting and compliance data on-line. This capability can save businesses and other regulated facilities time and money, help bring quicker decisions on permitting and compliance actions, improve data accuracy, and create better access to information for the public. A new policy allows facilities to significantly cut routine water quality monitoring and reporting requirements and focus on other activities, as long as they achieve and maintain strong compliance records. Another mechanism allows companies to certify that low-risk pesticides comply with regulatory requirements, a major enchancement to the registration process.
Improving Environmental Compliance
Along with its responsibility for establishing regulatory requirements that protect public health and our environment, EPA also has a responsibility to ensure that businesses and others understand and comply with these requirements, particularly small businesses and communities that may have added difficulty because of limited staff and resources. To help improve understanding, EPA is establishing compliance assistance centers to serve as a direct, readily available source of information on the latest regulatory requirements. EPA also is offering to reduce or eliminate penalties for violations if facilities establish programs to detect, publicly disclose, and fix problems found--as long as the violation does not involve criminal activity or a serious risk to public health or the environment. In addition to making life easier for businesses and other regulated facilities, these steps can help prevent pollution and the burden and expense of cleanup.
Increasing Community Participation and Partnerships
EPA recognizes that a new and improved system of environmental protection will depend to a large extent on the establishment of stronger partnerships between public and private sectors and a stronger role for the individual in local, community-based decisionmaking. EPA is working hard to address both needs. EPA is developing joint Performance Partnership Agreements with the States which provide them with greater opportunity to address their most pressing environmental and public health problems. Brownfields grants and Sustainable Development Challenge grants are being provided to help communities cleanup and restore environmental quality and economic prosperity for the people that live there. EPA continues to strengthen the public's ability to access environmental data and information specific to their community--over 3.5 million EPA documents are retrieved electronically every month.
EPA is consulting regularly with regulated industries earlier in its rule development processes, relying sometimes on formal consensus-based rulemaking, such as regulatory negotiations, and more frequently on informal outreach to potentially affected parties. EPA has long been prominent among Federal agencies in reaching out to small businesses, and the Agency continues to place a strong emphasis on helping these entities understand and comply with environmental regulatory requirements. The Agency's Small Business Ombudsman, the Office of State and Local Relations, and trade representatives and public interest groups routinely assist with our outreach efforts.
The goal of creating a new system of environmental protection that delivers truly superior performance will not be accomplished through these actions alone. But, collectively, these actions do represent a strong step in the right direction and demonstrate EPA's commitment to finding more cost-effective, common-sense procedures that make sense to those that participate in them. This commitment can be seen in EPA actions underway, as well as in its plans for the immediate future, including this annual plan for regulatory development. The entries in this year's plan feature multiple opportunities for building upon the progress that has been made and creating a new system of environmental and public health protections for the benefit of present and future generations.
Highligts of EPA's Regulatory Plan for 1996
The entries contained in EPA's regulatory plan reflect the Agency's intention to streamline and simplify its regulatory programs to achieve better public health and environmental results at less cost. Many of these entries are designed to implement the new directions discussed above. While many of EPA's new directions are non-regulatory in nature, since this document is the annual regulatory plan, it necessarily focuses on regulatory actions. A number of the entries below are deregulatory in nature. Others propose new regulatory requirements, generally required by statute, but benefit from the ``cleaner, cheaper, smarter philosophy'' at work in the Agency. Here are some of the highlights:
Office of Air and Radiation
EPA is committed to using flexibility granted by the Clean Air Act to enable companies, communities, and individuals to protect public health by meeting clean air goals using innovative approaches at lower costs. The Office of Air and Radiation is committed to nearly 200 changes in existing rules, and is changing many forthcoming rules to reflect the common-sense principles of the reinvention effort.
EPA recently issued a proposal requiring additional reduction of nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons, and particulate matter from mobile heavy-duty engines. This action initiates work on a rulemaking to establish standards for model year 2004 and later heavy-duty engines. A similar proposal is expected next year covering heavy-duty engines that are not used in highway vehicles. These rulemakings seek to bring together potentially affected industries, States, regional air management organizations, public health, and environmental interest groups to further their mutual goal of reducing emission of harmful air pollutants. To address the nitrogen oxides problem on another front, EPA will issue a second-phase regulation on NOx emissions from electric power plants.
Building on successful State programs, EPA has been working with stakeholders to develop a more streamlined process for permit revisions to help facilities obtain required operating permits from State or local agencies. Under the proposed changes, States would have greater flexibility to decide the amount of EPA and public review for most permit revisions by matching the level of review to the environmental significance of the change.
EPA's policy on open-market emissions trading is intended to establish a trading program that minimizes transaction costs and harnesses the power of the marketplace to enhance air quality and thus protect public health. In this regard, EPA will issue a final policy for open-market trading of ozone smog precursors (volatile organic compounds and oxides of nitrogen) that will provide more flexibility for companies to trade emission credits without prior State or Federal approval. EPA believes this action will help areas to meet or maintain the established ozone standard at far less cost and provide greater incentive for companies to develop innovative emission reduction technologies.
EPA also plans to modify requirements in two other significant air regulatory programs. We have proposed changes to simplify and streamline the New Source Review program which requires newly built facilities or those undergoing major modification to obtain a permit to ensure that emissions will not cause or contribute to air pollution problems.
In addition, EPA plans to amend the original transportation conformity rule to streamline the conformity process and provide additional flexibility for State and local transportation and air quality agencies. The conformity process is a set of procedures ensuring that transportation planning ``conforms'' to the Clean Air Act; i.e., that the planning process adequately considers the air quality effects of transportation improvements, such as road-building. This rulemaking, initiated in response to stakeholder concerns, will further enhance State and local governments' ability to meet requirements under the Clean Air Act in common-sense, cost-effective ways and assure that transportation plans do not exacerbate existing air quality problems.
Other significant activities related to EPA's air programs include legally required reviews of the national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for ozone and particulate matter. These reviews seek to incorporate new scientific and technical information that has become available since the last reviews. EPA is also developing an implementation strategy for any revised standards that may result from these NAAQS reviews.
EPA will issue a final rule implementing a 49-State, low-emission vehicle program. It is a voluntary emissions standards program applicable to manufacturers of light-duty vehicles and trucks beginning in model year 1997. This program is designed to be an alternative national program that provides emissions reductions equivalent to the Northeast Ozone Transport Commission's low emissions vehicle program. EPA anticipates that this program would relieve the 13 States in the Northeast of the December 1994 regulatory obligation to adopt their own motor vehicle programs. The rulemaking also harmonizes Federal and California low-emission vehicle standards and test procedures to enable automakers to design and test vehicles to one set of standards nationwide.
In further efforts to provide flexibility and adhere to common-sense principles, EPA will issue a final rule for medical waste incinerators and an advance notice of proposed rulemaking to support a participatory process to develop a requirement for several classes of industrial incinerators. EPA has already completed a final rule for municipal waste combustion which incorporates comments from industry and many small entities. The emissions limits established under these rules are part of EPA's integrated combustion strategy, whereby EPA will regulate various forms of combustion, including municipal, medical, and industrial, under a coordinated plan.
EPA will propose an integrated rule for the pulp and paper industry that deals with both effluent guidelines and air emission standards to control the release of pollutants to both water and air. The regulations are being developed jointly to provide greater protection to human health and the environment, to promote the concept of pollution prevention, and to enable industry to more effectively plan compliance via a multimedia approach.
Realizing that the ozone-smog problem in the cities cannot be solved by emissions reductions from cars and factories alone, in the Clean Air Act, Congress directed EPA to reduce emissions from smaller sources of smog-causing volatile organic compounds (VOCs). EPA is now developing final rules to require such reductions from consumer products and architectural coatings. These rules are being developed with extensive input from the regulated industries (especially small businesses) and are being designed to maximize their cost-effectiveness and sensitivity to small business concerns.
EPA is developing a final rule that will introduce additional flexibility into its air emissions monitoring program (Compliance Assurance Monitoring). This action focuses on preventing pollution rather than imposing additional command-and-control regulations. This is a significant change in Agency direction for implementation of the monitoring and compliance certification requirements in Titles V and VII of the Clean Air Act. The goal of the action is to provide reasonable assurance of compliance rather than a direct connection between monitoring and certification and will reduce the emphasis on assuring compliance through the threat of enforcement. Instead, this approach will assure compliance by placing the burden on regulated sources to monitor their performance and act independently to minimize emission exceedances.
From discussions with affected industries, EPA has learned that many companies find it difficult to know what is expected of them under the complex regulatory system that has been put in place over the last 25 years. In many cases, there may be duplicative, overlapping, or inconsistent requirements, especially in the areas of monitoring, recordkeeping, and reporting. In response to these problems, early next year, EPA will propose a rule intended to consolidate and synchronize all Federal air regulations applicable to a single industry--in this case, the Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturing industry. If this pilot program proves successful, it will later be expanded to cover air rules for other industries and possibly to water and waste requirements as well.
EPA will also carry out its statutory responsibility to certify by rule whether the Department of Energy's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) complies with applicable regulations governing the disposal of radioactive waste. EPA will also establish health and safety standards for the high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada and will set safety standards to be met in cleanup of radioactively contaminated sites.
Office of Water
On August 6, President Clinton signed the Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments of 1996. The Office of Water is responsible for implementing this Act. Passage of these Amendments will bring substantial changes to the national drinking water program for EPA, States, and water utilities, as well as greater protection and information to the 240 million Americans served by public water systems. Significant areas of change in the law include new and stronger approaches to prevent contamination of drinking water, including establishment of a new source water protection program, and better information for consumers, which will include consumer confidence reports from water suppliers to their customers. The law eliminates the requirement to regulate 25 chemicals every 3 years and replaces that with increased requirements for research, cost-benefit analysis, and data. The Amendments also create a new billion-dollar drinking water State revolving fund. EPA is currently developing an implementation plan for the new law, which it intends to complete this fall. As regulatory and program changes are identified, EPA will make the necessary additions to the regulatory agenda.
EPA is streamlining four of its water-related programs to reduce burdens associated with them and to provide additional flexibility: National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits, national primary drinking water regulations, the pretreatment program, and water quality planning and management. EPA estimates that 80 percent of regulations published under the jurisdiction of the Office of Water are undergoing change or modification. The following are highlights of efforts underway.
In the NPDES permits program (part 122), EPA is removing outdated requirements, streamlining permit application and modification procedures, and reducing monitoring and reporting requirements. For example, EPA will consolidate and revise industrial and municipal permit application requirements and forms and streamline the application process. EPA has published guidance to revise the permit application requirements for municipal separate storm water sewer systems to reduce the cost and burden of reapplication for succeeding permit terms. EPA will not require resubmission of information available from the earlier application or information which is not pertinent to the approval process.
EPA will streamline and revise regulations in the NPDES pretreatment program for publicly owned treatment works (POTWs) (part 403) to delete obsolete requirements, simplify program operation, and eliminate unnecessary reporting requirements. For example, under streamlined procedures a POTW's NPDES permit would include only the most significant elements of an approved pretreatment program, eliminating the need for a permit revision every time small changes are made to the pretreatment program.
EPA is undertaking revisions in its requirements for water quality planning and assessment and for the listing of water bodies by State water quality management programs.
In addition, the Agency will be pursuing innovative, non-regulatory approaches, such as effluent trading within watersheds, to realize cost savings and reduce water pollution.
Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances
The Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances (OPPTS) is responsible for implementing the Food Quality Protection Act, which was signed into law by the President on August 3, 1996. This new law significantly modifies the two statutes that govern pesticide safety and use and therefore affects a number of EPA's existing policies and procedures under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA). This pesticide regulation establishes new policies in the areas of setting pesticide tolerances (including special protections for children), minor uses of pesticides, emergency exemptions, antimicrobial and public health pesticides, reduced-risk pesticides, and fees. The Agency is currently studying the implications of the new law, but it is clear that, over the next 2 years, EPA will be engaged in an intensive implementation effort, which will include new regulations, guidance, and programs. EPA intends to issue a comprehensive implementation plan for the new legislation this fall. As regulatory and program changes are identified, EPA will make the necessary additions to the regulatory agenda.
In addition, OPPTS intends to continue its efforts to improve the public's right to know about toxic chemicals in their community by expanding the information made available to the public in the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) program of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA). The TRI is a data base that provides communities with information on releases to air, water, and land for approximately 600 toxic chemicals. TRI is the most complete and accessible source of information for the public on toxic chemical releases in communities across the United States. The intention of Congress was for TRI, and indeed all of EPCRA, to provide information to local communities. Armed with this information, communities can better understand the nature of the releases at the local level, assess their risk, and make informed decisions about local priorities.
This fall, EPA issued an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking announcing the Agency's intent to expand the public's right to know by requiring facility reporting of chemical use information and seeking public comment on various aspects of this initiative. EPA believes that increased information on chemical use--amounts of a toxic chemical coming into a facility, amounts transferred into products and wastes, and the resulting amounts leaving the facility site--will provide the local public with a more comprehensive picture of environmental performance and toxic chemicals in the community. EPA is also evaluating whether to lower the reporting threshold amount for those toxic chemicals that are highly toxic at very low dose levels or which have physical, chemical, or biological properties that make the chemicals persist for extended periods in the environment, which bioaccumulate through the food chain. In addition, EPA intends to issue a final rule that will expand the universe of industry sectors required to provide information to the TRI data base.
In early 1997, EPA plans to issue a final rule that will make over 50 modifications, additions, and deletions to the existing PCB management program under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). This rulemaking is the first comprehensive review of the PCB regulations in 17 years. The modification will allow currently prohibited activities which do not pose an unreasonable risk of injury to health and the environment and is expected to result in significant cost savings for the regulated community.
Pursuant to its data consolidation initiative, EPA recently issued a notice seeking comment on its initiative for developing a uniform facility identification system. A uniform facility identification system would collect common facility information separately from any other reporting requirement. The facility would receive a single identification number that would be used by the facility whenever it provided information to EPA or the States. This number would also be used to link data reported by the facility under various Federal environmental laws. This initiative is intended to improve access to information reported to EPA under the various Federal mandates (for EPA, States, and the public) and is intended to help reduce regulatory burden for facilities.
EPA intends to propose amendments to the TSCA Inventory Update Rule to require chemical manufacturers to report data on exposures and the industrial and consumer end uses of the chemicals they produce. Currently, EPA requires chemical manufacturers to report the names of the chemicals they produce, the quantity produced, and the locations of manufacturing facilities. About 2,400 facilities reported data on about 8,300 unique chemicals during the last reporting cycle. EPA and others would use this additional data to: Better understand the potential for chemical exposures and then screen the chemicals now in commerce and identify those of highest concern; establish priorities and goals for their chemical assessment, risk management, and prevention programs and monitor their progress; encourage pollution prevention by identifying potentially safer substitute chemicals for uses of potential concern; and enhance the effectiveness of chemical risk communication efforts.
EPA also intends to issue the remaining regulations mandated by the Residential Lead-Based Hazard Reduction Act of 1992, which requires EPA to promulgate regulations that establish standards for determining hazards associated with lead-based paint, lead-contaminated soil, and lead-contaminated dust. EPA has recently finalized the regulations (section 402) governing lead-based paint activities to ensure that individuals engaged in such activities are properly trained, that training programs are accredited, and that contractors engaged in such activities are certified. (In addition, EPA must promulgate a Model State program (section 404) which may be adopted by any State which seeks to administer and enforce a State Program.) This fall, EPA will finalize the regulations (section 406) requiring renovators to provide a lead hazard information brochure (developed separately by EPA) to clients before beginning work and will propose the regulations identifying the paint conditions and lead levels in dust and soil that would result in adverse human health effects. (On July 14, 1994, EPA issued guidance on section 403 to provide preliminary information while a proposal is being developed.)
Finally, EPA will continue its efforts to evaluate existing pesticide and toxic regulations to identify those regulatory requirements that can be eliminated or otherwise modified to reduce regulatory burden. EPA welcomes comments from the public and affected entities to help in the development of specific recommendations to reduce burden or duplication, or streamline requirements. As these actions are developed, they will be included in the regulatory agenda as appropriate.
Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response
The Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response (OSWER) is planning to propose a number of actions to streamline and simplify compliance under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). As part of its effort to refocus hazardous waste regulations on high-risk wastes, EPA is undertaking a number of actions in 1996 to tailor standards to the nature or degree of risk posed by particular wastes. One example is the regulation being developed for the management of cement kiln dust. The proposed standards for this large volume waste from the cement kiln manufacturing process will be tailored to protect public health and the environment while imposing minimal burden on the regulated community.
EPA is developing a rule entitled ``Hazardous Waste Identification: Contaminated Media'' to resolve problems with the current RCRA cleanup program by deregulating large volumes of low-risk contaminated media (e.g., soil). The Agency is also creating a more common-sense regulatory structure for those cleanup wastes that remain regulated.
EPA is also streamlining the regulation of materials that themselves contain substances listed as hazardous waste. Certain current regulations are overly-broad--applying regardless of the concentrations of the listed wastes or the mobility of the toxicant in the waste. As a result, they regulate certain low-risk wastes and, in particular, treatment residuals, as if they posed high risk. EPA's common-sense approach exempts these low-risk wastes from the full management requirements intended for the ``listed'' hazardous wastes themselves.
On May 1, 1996, EPA published an advance notice of proposed rulemaking seeking comment on several alternative approaches to the cleanup of contamination at hazardous waste management facilities. EPA believes final regulations are needed in this area to promote national consistency, clarify cleanup requirements, and reduce the number of site-specific negotiations and costly litigation.
EPA also plans to establish new emissions standards for hazardous waste combustors under joint Clean Air Act and RCRA authority. These revised standards will avoid duplicative Agency effort and piecemeal regulation of the hazardous waste management industry while providing important public health and environmental protections from risks posed by chlorinated dioxins and furans.
Finally, EPA will propose new streamlined rules governing the definition of solid waste, making it easier for companies to determine what wastes/processes are and are not subject to RCRA jurisdiction. In addition, EPA is streamlining the requirements for managing recycled hazardous waste to provide more clarity and to remove disincentives to safe recycling.
Summary
In developing all of these actions, EPA is committed to flexible, common-sense, cost-effective regulatory programs that protect public health and the environment.