United States Office Of The EPA 100-R-93-004
Environmental Protection Administrator April 1993
Agency (A-101 F6)
EPA Transforming Environmental
Permitting And Compliance
Policies To Promote Pollution
Prevention:
Removing Barriers And Providing
Incentives To Foster Technology
Innovation, Economic Productivity,
And Environmental Protection
Report And Recommendations
Of The Technology Innovation
And Economics Committee
The National Advisory Council
for Environmental Policy and Technology
NACEPT
Recycled/Recyclable
f C Printed on overthat contains
' Q at least 50% recycled fiber
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CENTER FOR TECHNOLOGY POLICY AND INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT
CAMBRIDGE. MASSACHUSETTS 02139
1 April 1993
To the Reader:
This report investigates the present and future role of the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) in using permitting and compliance policies to foster
pollution prevention in the context of industrial production and
manufacturing. Both removing barriers and providing incentives to
simultaneously encourage technological innovation, economic productivity, and
environmental protection are major focuses of the report. This report should
be seen as a complement to two prior reports of the TIE Committee entitled
"Permitting and Compliance Policy: Barriers to U.S. Environmental Technology
Innovation" and "Improving Technology Diffusion for Environmental Protection."
In issuing this report, the National Advisory Committee for Environmental
Policy and Technology (NACEPT), through the efforts of its Technology
Innovation and Economics (TIE) Committee, has adopted a series of
recommendations whose implementation is necessary to bring about significant
changes in federal regulatory policy. Encouraging pollution prevention must
include both diffusion-focused policies and innovation-focused strategies.
The report strongly recommends that EPA take actions to encourage
technological changes that prevent, rather than control or treat pollution
and waste, through improved innovation-driven pollution prevention
initiatives.
We would like to thank EPA's Administrator William K. Reilly and Deputy
Administrator F. Henry Habicht II for giving the TIE Committee the direction
and encouragement to undertake this study, and all those in industry;
federal, state and local government; academia; and the environmental community
who provided information and perspectives in presentations at Focus Group
meetings and through other mechanisms. The Focus Group that prepared this
document deserves the highest commendations for its contribution of time and
effort, its thoughtful deliberations, and its creative and challenging
recommendations. m particular its chair, R. Darryl Banks, and EPA's
committee management staff David R. Berg should be recognized for their
outstanding leadership and support.
Si ncerely,
3.
Nicholas A. Ashford
Chair, TIE Committee and
Professor of Technology and Policy
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NOTICE
The following report and its recommendations have been written in
conjunction with the activities of the National Advisory Council for
Environmental Policy and Technology (NACEPT), a public advisory committee
providing extramural policy information and advice to the Administrator and
other officials of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The Council is
structured to provide balance, expert assessment of policy matters related to
the effectiveness of the environmental programs of the United States. This
report has not been reviewed for approval by the EPA. Hence, the contents of
this report and recommendations do not necessarily represent the view's and
policies of the EPA, nor of other agencies in the Executive Branch of the
federal government.
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ABSTRACT
Continuous improvement of the environment in the United States requires changes in
manufacturing processes, feedstocks and operating procedures to reduce volumes and
toxicity of pollutants prior to treatment and control. The Technology Innovation and
Economics (TIE) Committee, a standing committee of EPA's National Advisory Council
for Environmental Policy and Technology (NACEPT), concluded that major changes are
needed in federal and state permitting and compliance programs to encourage adoption of
pollution prevention initiatives. Following extensive review and analysis of current
programs and new initiatives, the Committee recommended seven major areas for
improvement, including:
1.-
Redesigning permit procedures to encourage regulated facilities to expand multi-
media and pollution prevention environmental improvement efforts.
2.- Accelerating development of innovative pollution prevention technologies through
special permitting and review procedures for their RD&D and commercialization
phases.
3.- Developing and expanding pollution prevention enforcement initiatives.
4. Supporting state initiatives in pollution prevention facility planning.
5. Expanding training, educational and technology diffusion efforts for all sectors for
pollution prevention.
6. Altering personnel reward systems to encourage EPA staff to champion pollution
prevention.
7.- Expanding and publicizing the system of national awards honoring outstanding
pollution prevention research, training and technology implementation.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Note to the Reader
L Executive Summary i
IL Members of the Technology Innovation and Economics Committee 1
ILL Preface 3
IV. Introduction 11
V. Findings 19
Overview 19
General Findings 22
Issue Area Findings 26
1. Multi-Media Permitting 26
2. Permitting of Research and Development 32
3. Pollution Prevention-Based Compliance and
Enforcement Initiatives 37
4. Facility Planning 45
5. Pollution Prevention Support and Training 49
6. Agency Resources/Administrative Efficiency 54
7. Pollution Prevention Implementation at EPA 58
VI. Recommendations 63
Recommendation 1 64
Recommendation 2 70
Recommendation 3 73
Recommendation 4 76
Recommendation 5 78
Recommendation 6 82
Recommendation 7 84
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
BACKGROUND Permitting and compliance requirements comprise the
operational, or implementing, core of the U.S.
environmental management system. These requirements and the regulations and statutes
that underlie them either determine or substantially influence environmental decision
making by regulated parties in the private and public sectors.
Over the past two decades, an end-of-pipe, pollution control culture has evolved as
the predominant U.S. environmental management strategy. An increasing number of
government officials and industry leaders believe, however, that emphasis instead on the
pollution prevention alternative can improve both environmental and economic
performance. This is critical to sustainability. EPA's former Deputy Administrator F.
Henry Habicht II stated, "EPA is seeking to integrate pollution prevention as an ethic" into
its environmental management strategies. Similarly, industrial leaders have begun to use
pollution prevention approaches to achieve environmental goals well beyond regulatory
compliance in many cases achieving simultaneous productivity gains.
"Pollution prevention," as used in this report, follows the "EPA Statement of
Definition" in Deputy Administrator Habicht's memo to all EPA personnel, dated May 28,
1992 (see box on page 5 of the Preface). The TIE Committee recognizes, however, that
industry and some state and local government agencies use the term more broadly to
include, for example, environmentally beneficial recycling and reuse. The TIE Committee
does not intend, in following the EPA definition, to imply that such activities are not an
appropriate focus for state programs, or for EPA, but that such programs should be in
accord with the EPA hierarchy.
FOCUS GROUP In November of 1990, Administrator William K. Reilly of
ON EPA requested that NACEPT focus on two principal issues:
ENVIRONMENTAL the interelationships of international trade and the
PERMITTING environment, and the promotion of increased use of
pollution prevention alternatives to reduce adverse
environmental impacts from industrial and commercial activities. This report is one part of
NACEPT's response to the Administrator's request.
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Administrator Lee Thomas formed NACEPT in 1988 to provide EPA with the
policy advice of a full range of outside experts. NACEPT's goal is to advise EPA on how
to improve the effectiveness of the nation's environmental management system. The
relationship between the environmental regulatory system and the development and use of
environmentally beneficial technologies has been a primary focus of NACEPT's work.
The Council assigned the Technology Innovation and Economics (TIE) Committee the
responsibility of examining this relationship, and of developing recommendations for how
EPA could foster innovative technologies to improve the environment.
The TIE Committee explored the overall relationship between environmental
technology and the environmental management system during 1989, recommending that
EPA develop policies and a strategy to foster environmentally beneficial innovation. In
January 1991, the Committee issued the first evaluation and recommendations about the
relationship between permitting and compliance policy and environmentally beneficial
innovation, Permitting and Compliance Policy: Barriers to U.S. Environmental
Technology Innovation. This report, which concerned issues relevant to all types of
environmentally beneficial technology (e.g., end-of-pipe control, remediation, pollution
prevention, monitoring and measurement, information management), concluded that
environmental agencies can use permitting and compliance policies to both reduce the risk
and encourage the risk taking inherent in developing and implementing new technologies.
The Committee recently completed a new report and recommendations, Improving
Technology Diffusion for Environmental Protection, which assesses the role of
government technology diffusion programs in the environmental management system. The
Committee recommends that EPA effectively integrate technology diffusion programs into
the environmental management system. This report describes the essential role of diffusion
and incentive approaches in government pollution prevention programs.
The TIE Committee's Focus Group on Environmental Permitting was chaired by
Dr. R. Darryl Banks, Deputy Commissioner of the New York State Department of
Environmental Conservation, who is now director of the World Resources Institute's
technology and the environment program. The fifteen members and six contributors have a
wide range of interests and expertise related to the strategy, design, and management of
permitting and compliance programs and to the development and commercial use of
technologies. The members and contributors have significant experience on national
committees evaluating environmental and technology programs in the public and private
sectors. The Group also benefited from the experience and knowledge of twenty EPA
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managers and staff representing nearly all parts of the Agency, including all but one of the
major regulatory, permitting, and compliance programs in the Agency.
COMMITTEE The TIE Committee's Focus Group on Environmental
APPROACH Permitting held two public meetings of two days each in
November 1991 and March 1992. The Group examined
whether and how EPA's permitting and compliance strategies and policies can expand
environmental progress by encouraging the development and use of pollution prevention
technologies and techniques. The TIE Committee developed discussion papers on key
issue areas identified by TIE Committee members, EPA and outside participants, and
public commenters. The Group organized its analysis around seven crucial policy topics:
The potential of multi-media permitting systems to encourage
pollution prevention.
The need to revise permitting and compliance policies and programs
related to R&D on pollution prevention technologies and
techniques.
The potential and current extent of pollution prevention-based
compliance and enforcement initiatives.
The role of facility planning by industrial and commercial facilities
in encouraging pollution prevention.
The need for specialized training and support for staff in both
regulatory and regulated organizations undertaking pollution
prevention initiatives.
The need for more effective state and federal resource utilization
and management practices to facilitate the adoption of pollution
prevention opportunities.
Opportunities for EPA to encourage pollution prevention through
agency programs and operations.
For each of these issue areas, the TIE Committee reviewed the current status and/or
standard operating procedures and the degree to which these encourage or discourage the
adoption of pollution prevention alternatives. The TIE Committee then considered
pollution prevention initiatives at the federal, state, and local levels. It used its findings
with respect to these issue areas to develop recommendations for promoting greater
development and implementation of pollution prevention technologies and practices through
changes in, or additions to, environmental permitting and compliance policies and
practices.
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MAJOR FINDINGS The Technology Innovation and Economics (TIE)
AND Committee concluded that the emphasis in the
RECOMMENDATIONS environmental management system on single-medium,
pollution control strategies is rapidly reaching both technical and
cost limits. The lack of a pollution prevention focus in permitting and compliance policies, for
example, hinders the development, evaluation, and use of innovative pollution prevention
solutions. The long term effects of continuing business as usual are likely to be:
Reduced economic growth.
Reduced competitiveness of American products internationally and
domestically.
. Inefficient application of resources spent on environmental
improvement, with a focus on compliance rather than on the
simultaneous search for productivity and environmental gains.
An overspecification of technologies for environmental improvement
in regulatory policies, including in regulations, in permitting, and in
compliance actions.
Limited additional environmental improvement.
The key to maximizing environmental improvement is to modify the current environmental
management system to encourage the reduction of pollution generated by industrial
processes while encouraging the advance of technology. Increasing appropriately the role
of pollution prevention in governmental environmental strategies can improve net (or multi-
media) environmental results while increasing productivity.
While this report focuses on permitting and compliance policies, the TIE Committee
believes that changes to these policies, while an obvious starting point, will comprise only
part of a larger set of necessary changes in the environmental management system. This is
the case because regulatory and statutory requirements often limit the potential to introduce
flexibility into implementing policies. Thus, statutes and regulations may also require
modification to achieve the long term environmental benefits of fuller use of pollution
prevention approaches. EPA's new Source Reduction Review Project (SRRP) is piloting a
regulatory process change the Committee believes would lead, over the long term, to more
effective promotion of pollution prevention ~ complementing and reinforcing realization of
the goals of this report. In the SRRP, the development of all new regulations will be
coordinated across the media for 17 industrial categories. Source reduction opportunities
IV
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will be intensely evaluated during rule development; in this way, the relative priority of
problems can be addressed and cross-media shifts can be considered and avoided, where
possible.
The Committee concluded that many of the recommendations in this report to
reduce the implementation barriers to pollution prevention can be accomplished within the
agency's current statutory authorities. In some cases, effective implementation of the
Committee's recommendations could require significant experimentation with, and testing
of, alternative approaches. One effective way to break out of the mold of current operating
procedures, without full commitment to untested alternatives, would be to support
expanded use of state (and local) pilot projects. Though strongly endorsing such an
approach, the Committee emphasizes the importance of rigorous effectiveness evaluations
of such experiments.
The Committee notes that the integration of pollution prevention into the
environmental management system is a complex undertaking that will require a sustained
commitment lasting several years. The Committee believes that there are a few top-priority,
high-impact short term actions in the permitting and compliance policy area that, in
particular, should be initiated to reinforce the momentum that EPA has established towards
pollution prevention. This momentum will be reinforced if EPA focuses its long term
attention on a few top-priority, high-impact, long-term actions in this area. Following are
examples of a few action items which could be taken as a group to start the process. These
are listed in context later in the Executive Summary and discussed more fully in the
following sections of the report and recommendations:
Short Term: 1. Fully implement and expand the EPA/state demonstration
program for multi-media pollution prevention permitting,
and establish criteria and schedules for program evaluation
(see subrecommendation 1.4).
2. Identify opportunities to redeploy scarce regulatory agency
and regulated organization resources from procedural or
redundant permitting activities, and reallocate resources
for the permitting of multi-media, pollution prevention,
and innovative approaches (see subrecommendations 1.3
and 1.5).
3. In evaluating state performance under delegated programs,
adopt a policy giving additional credit for multi-media
inspections (see subrecommendation 3.4).
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1. Maximize the implementation of multi-media pollution
prevention alternatives during permit development by
emphasizing advances in environmental performance rather
than (mandating) the specific means of attainment (see
subrecommendation 1.1).
2. Build a public/private partnership for the dissemination of
pollution prevention information and the widespread
adoption of pollution prevention technologies and
techniques (see Recommendation 5 and
subrecommendations 3.2, 3.5, 4.2, 4.3).
3. Modify environmental permitting and compliance systems
to accelerate the development and commercial introduction
of innovative pollution prevention technologies and
techniques (see Recommendation 2).
4. Strengthen EPA support for environmental education and
training for those involved with environmental
performance in the regulated and regulatory communities to
facilitate the implementation of pollution prevention (see
subrecommendations 3.3, 5.1, 5.2, and 5.3 and
Recommendations 6 and 7).
The TIE Committee's overall recommendation is thus that EPA and state and local
authorities more aggressively integrate pollution prevention into permitting and compliance
policies. The Committee recommends strategic and tactical changes to help create the
needed environmental-results orientation in federal, state, and local programs. The
Committee's central findings and recommendations are outlined on the following pages:
VI
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1
FINDING: The current system of single-medium permitting has
achieved significant environmental gains primarily by stimulating a
pollution control response, rather than by encouraging pollution
prevention.
RECOMMENDATION: Redesign permit procedures to foster
and reward efforts by regulated facilities to expand their use of hi&
multi-media management and pollution prevention approaches for
environmental improvement.
EPA should examine its permitting policies and procedures to determine where
greater flexibility would encourage the use of multi-media approaches and pollution
prevention technologies and techniques, while still meeting statutory requirements. Current
permitting and compliance policies and procedures respond to the exigencies of single-
medium pollution control programs. Facility managers should be encouraged to look at the
whole facility ~ at the entire pattern of production and environmental releases. Only then
will facilities be likely to reach the most economically and environmentally efficient results.
The TIE Committee recommends that EPA take several critical actions:
1. Maximize the implementation of multi-media pollution prevention
alternatives during permit development by emphasizing environmental
results rather than the specific means of attainment.
2. Administer single-medium permit requirements flexibly to encourage
environmentally beneficial multi-media pollution prevention initiatives by
regulated parties.
3. Initiate, and encourage state and local agencies to initiate, fast-track permits
for pollution prevention initiatives at facilities with well-documented, good
compliance records.
4- Support additional state and local multi-media permit pilot projects (with
well-defined objectives and timelines) and initiatives to synchronize the
timing and coordinate the issuance of single-medium permits.
5. Redeploy scarce regulatory agency and regulated organization resources
from procedural or redundant permitting activities, and reallocate resources
for the permitting of multi-media, pollution prevention, and innovative
approaches.
6. Support expanded use of permits-by-rule for permit renewals and selected
new permits to encourage pollution prevention.
Vll
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FINDING: Existing permitting and compliance authorities at all
levels of government lack flexibility necessary to encourage technology
innovation for environmental purposes.
RECOMMENDATION: Accelerate the development of
innovative pollution prevention technologies and techniques and
encourage their use by implementing the recommendations in the TIE
Committee report on fostering technology innovation through
permitting and compliance policy.
In its report on the relationship between technology innovation and permitting and
compliance policy, the TIE Committee concluded that barriers to the development and use of
innovative technologies are not unique to pollution control and pollution treatment/reme-
diation, but are similarly germane to pollution prevention technologies and techniques. The
Committee's current work confirms the findings and recommendations of its original study.
The TIE Committee recommends that EPA take several critical actions:
1. Foster the development, testing, and demonstration of innovative pollution
prevention technologies:
a. Institute a working permitting system (covering all media) for research,
development, and demonstration (RD&D), testing, and evaluation.
This could be accomplished through a special, multi-media "RD&D"
permit or through the creation and effective coordination of single-
medium RD&D permits.
b. Develop a system of dedicated centers for tests and demonstrations, for
example with the Departments of Energy and Defense (DOE and DOD).
c. Develop a simple, practical system for cross-media and cross-
jurisdictional coordination of reviews of such permit applications.
2. Implement permitting processes that aid the commercial introduction of
innovative pollution prevention technologies and techniques. This will
require increased flexibility of permitting processes involved in the
commercial introduction of these technologies and techniques.
3. Recognize in compliance or enforcement policies and practices the need for
flexibility during the development, testing, and early uses of innovative
pollution prevention technologies and techniques.
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FINDING: Greater flexibility is required under federal, state,
and local enforcement policies to allow and encourage facilities to use
pollution prevention approaches as part of compliance and other
environmental improvement activities.
RECOMMENDATION: Work with the states to encourage
and develop pollution prevention enforcement initiatives.
Strong, predictable, effective, and consistent enforcement is critical in fostering the
use of pollution prevention technologies and techniques. It is not, however, sufficient.
Enforcement flexibility is needed to allow and encourage facilities to use pollution
prevention approaches to come into, or go beyond, compliance. EPA's recent pollution
prevention enforcement policy statements are positive, but their implementation has been
limited. Strong incentives and extensive technical support are necessary to spur EPA and
state regulators toward this kind of enforcement approach. Unorthodox and innovative
settlements often require more time, and create more risk, for both regulators and managers
at regulated facilities. The rewards must be commensurate. The TIE Committee
recommends that EPA take several critical actions:
1. Increase use of pollution prevention enforcement policy alternatives, such as
those in EPA's Interim Polity 0/7 Pollution Prevention and Recycling
Conditions in Settlements and Policy on Supplemental Environmental Projects.
2. Establish easily accessible mechanisms (e.g., a clearinghouse and the
pollution prevention information exchange system network [PIES]) for
sharing successful experiences about the use of pollution prevention in
enforcement settlements.
3. Develop a multi-media compliance inspection package, including training
opportunities, for use by EPA, state, and local (especially publicly owned
treatment works [POTW]) inspectors. EPA should aggressively encourage
adoption and use of this inspection scheme to promote pollution prevention.
4- In evaluating state performance under delegated programs, adopt a policy
giving additional credit for multi-media inspections.
5.
Provide technical support for multi-media inspections. Modify base grant
objectives for the states to promote multi-media inspections.
IX
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FINDING: Facility-wide pollution prevention planning can be a
valuable tool for encouraging regulated parties to comprehensively
evaluate the cost and environmental implications of a range of product
design and technical production alternatives, rather than simply
focusing on mechanisms for environmental compliance.
RECOMMENDATION: Proactively support state initiatives
in multi-media pollution prevention facility planning.
Numerous states have adopted pollution prevention facility planning requirements.
These requirements mandate that facilities examine alternatives to their current materials use
and process design operations to identify economically feasible and environmentally
preferable alternatives. The objectives of facility planning are (a) to encourage facility
managers to consider their facilities as a whole for environmental planning purposes, rather
than responding only to specific, single-media compliance requirements and (b) to promote
industrial productivity by encouraging the simultaneous search for productivity and
environmental gains. The current diversity of state approaches to facility planning reflects
leadership and commitment. These efforts provide a real-world laboratory in which it will
be possible to observe and evaluate the effectiveness of alternative approaches. The TIE
Committee recommends that EPA take several critical actions:
1. Work with state officials to evaluate the effectiveness of alternative
approaches to facility planning. Draw the national lessons from state
experiments and facilitate the transfer of information and results of
evaluations between states.
2. Establish industry-specific advisory groups to facilitate the transfer of
pollution prevention technical information and provide support for
pollution prevention facility planning for selected industries, with due
regard to protecting confidential business information.
3. Augment industry-specific and process-specific information sharing
through the national pollution prevention information exchange system
network (PIES).
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FINDING: The positive relationship between industrial
productivity and environmental protection is not yet well understood
or accepted by many leaders in industry and government. Pollution
prevention can help achieve both industrial productivity and
environmental improvement.
RECOMMENDATION: Create a culture change by
working with federal, state, and local agencies, non-profit
organizations, universities, trade associations, and environmental
groups to facilitate the implementation of pollution prevention
technologies and techniques by expanding training, educational, and
technology diffusion efforts.
While some leaders in both industry and government understand and are committed
to utilizing pollution prevention approaches, most of those engaged in environmental
management still do business as usual. To change this environmental management culture
will require intensified efforts in training and education and in technology diffusion both for
present and future officials in regulated organizations and regulators at all levels of
government.
The TIE Committee's report, Improving Technology Diffusion for Environmental
Protection, describes in detail a recommended governmental role to enhance and coordinate
the diffusion of pollution prevention technologies, techniques, and cultu" The Committee
recommended that EPA adopt an enhanced strategic role for technology diffusion in the
environmental management system by strengthening itself organizationally (e.g., create the
position of an agency-wide technology advocate), redeploying diffusion and research
resources, and integrating the diffusion role in policies and programs. Further, the
Committee proposed that EPA establish a stronger partnership with the developers of
technology information and with technology diffusion providers and users in the public and
private sectors, and increase its emphasis on incentives for technology diffusion.
XI
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5 (continued)
The TIE Committee recommends that EPA take several critical actions:
1. Provide or support intensive, regular multi-media inspection training to
federal, state, and local inspectors and encourage rotating these personnel
across different medium-specific assignments.
2. Provide or support training to increase the technical proficiency of
inspectors and technical assistance personnel, both with respect to rules and
regulations and with respect to production and compliance technologies
and techniques.
3. Support development at one or more major business schools of training
programs for senior and middle corporate managers on the economic
benefits of implementing pollution prevention technologies and techniques.
4. Adopt the specific measures recommended in Improving Technology
Diffusion for Environmental Protection for promoting a partnership for the
dissemination of pollution prevention information and the adoption of
pollution prevention technologies and techniques.
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6
FINDING: Reward systems for EPA personnel place high value
on the development, implementation, and enforcement of single-media,
pollution-control regulations without creating strong incentives for
activities that encourage and support pollution prevention.
RECOMMENDATION: Alter personnel reward systems to
encourage EPA staff to champion pollution prevention.
EPA's environmental mission has been implemented primarily through permitting
and compliance requirements. In an effort to develop measurable performance criteria for
federal and state agency staff, EPA has instituted a system which often evaluates
performance on such bases as the number of permits or enforcement actions carried out by
regional and state staffs. The TIE Committee recognizes the vital role all of these activities
have played, and will continue to play, in improving the nation's environment. But while
standard enforcement and permitting actions are easy to count, innovative pollution
prevention approaches, because they are non-standardized and potentially more complex,
may reduce the number of actions. In addition, other pollution prevention successes (e.g.,
dissemination of information on pollution prevention technologies, re-education of both
environmental and industrial management personnel) are likely to require a new standard of
evaluation. Modifying the reward system for advancement and awards towards pollution
prevention should be one of EPA's first priorities. The TIE Committee recommends that
EPA take the following critical actions:
1. Incorporate both pollution prevention and multi-media factors into agency
personnel performance evaluation criteria and into the agency award
system.
2. Make promotion of a multi-media pollution prevention culture at EPA a
primary criterion for agency awards for senior staff.
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FINDING: EPA leadership in rewarding pollution prevention
efforts outside the agency provides significant encouragement for state
and local regulatory personnel and for staff of regulated parties to
explore the use of pollution prevention innovations.
RECOMMENDATION: Expand and publicize the system
of national recognition and awards honoring outstanding pollution
prevention research, training., and technology implementation.
It is crucial to reward EPA staff for accomplishments promoting pollution
prevention. It is equally essential to recognize those ~ whether in industry or elsewhere in
government ~ whose compliance actions help to shift the focus from environmental control
to pollution prevention and industrial productivity, or who make significant strides in
implementing pollution prevention technologies and techniques. These are the people who
are breaking down old barriers, implementing new approaches, or leading research
breakthroughs that simultaneously promote economic productivity and environmental
protection. The TIE Committee concludes that, at least over the short term, an expanded
EPA program to recognize pollution prevention achievements would provide broad
incentives and encouragement for pollution prevention innovators. The TIE Committee
recommends that EPA take several critical actions:
1. Expand and publicize a system of national recognition for individuals in
other federal agencies making outstanding contributions to promoting
pollution prevention.
2. Expand and publicize a system of national recognition for outstanding
pollution prevention efforts by state and local agencies and officials.
3. Expand and publicize the system of national recognition for regulated
parties making major strides in institutionalizing pollution prevention
approaches to environmental protection.
4.
Expand and publicize the system of national recognition for non-profit
institutions (e.g., public interest groups, universities) making major
pollution prevention contributions.
xiv
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MEMBERS OF THE TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION
AND ECONOMICS COMMITTEE
Members of the Focus Group on Environmental Permitting:
Dr. R. Darryl Banks, Chair
Mr. Steve Anderson
Ms. Karen Armstrong-Cummings
Ms. Cindy Evans
Mr. Michael Gollin
Mr. William Haney III
Ms. Jean Herb
Dr. David Morell
Mr. LeRoy Paddock
Ms. Adriana Renescu
Dr. Manik Roy
Mr. John Schofield
Mr. Lyman Wible
Mr. Thomas Zosel
Contributors to the Focus Group:
Dr. Nicholas Ashford
Ms. Diane Cameron
Dr. John Ehrenfeld
Mr. Robert Kerr
Dr. Robert Pojasek
Mr. James Slater
TIE Committee Staff:
Mr. David R. Berg, TIE Committee
Designated Federal Official
Mr. Morris Altschuler
Mr. Steve Fleischer
Ms. Maureen Gorsen
Ms. Eva Harris
Mr. Sean Iverson
Ms. Camille Richardson
EPA Contributors to the Focus Group:
Mr. John Atcheson
Ms. Rebecca Barclay
Mr. Jesse Baskir
Ms. Janet Bearden
Ms. Wendy BeU
World Resources Institute
NJ Department of Environmental Protection
and Energy
Kentucky Natural Resources Cabinet
American Paper Institute
Sive, Paget, & Riesel, P.C.
Molten Metals Technology, Inc.
NJ Department of Environmental Protection
and Energy
ERM-West, Inc.
State of Minnesota
Orange County Sanitation District
Environmental Defense Fund
Thermatrix, Inc.
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
3M Corporation
Mass. Institute of Technology (MIT)
Natural Resources Defense Council
MIT
Kerr and Associates
GEI Consultants, Inc.
Bechtel Environmental, Inc.
Office of Cooperative Environmental
Management
Office of Cooperative Environmental
Management
NNEMS Fellow
NNEMS Fellow
NNEMS Fellow
NNEMS Fellow
NNEMS FeUow
Pollution Prevention Division
Office of Enforcement
Region 9
Office of Compliance Monitoring
Office of the General Counsel
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EPA Contributors to the Focus Group (continued):
Mr. Ed Coe
Mr. John Cross
Mr. Jim Edward
Ms. Donna Fletcher
Ms. Linda Glass
Mr. Michael James
Mr. Allen Jennings
Mr. Bob Lee
Ms. Anne Lindsay
Mr. Jim Lund
Mr. Michael Poetzsch
Mr. Dave Reeves
Mr. Dale Ruhter
Ms. Sonya Sasseville
Mr. Eric Schaeffer
Mr. Marty Spitzer
Ms. Lynn Vendinello
Ms. Melissa Ward
Mr. Tim Williamson
TIE Committee Members:
Dr. Nicholas Ashford, Chair
Mr. Thomas Devine, Vice Chair
Mr. PaulArbesman
Dr. R. Darryl Banks
Dr. David Bodde
Dr. Pamela Bridgen
Dr. Paul Busch
Mr. John Easton
Mr. William Haney III
Dr. John W. Liskowitz
Gen. James McCarthy
Mr. LeRoy Paddock
Mr. John Palmisano
Dr. Bruce Piasecki
Mr. Frank Pope
Dr. Walter R. Quanstrom
Mr. Martin E. Rivers
Dr. Lawrence Ross
Dr. Manik "Nikki" Roy
Ms. Debora Sparks
Mr. Dag Syrrist
Mr. L. Mead Wyman
Office of Solid Waste
Pollution Prevention Division
Pollution Prevention Division
Office of Cooperative Environmental
Management
Region 5
Office of Information Resources
Management
Office of Pesticide Programs
Office of Toxic Substances
Office of Pesticide Programs
Office of Water
Region 2
Office of Solid Waste
Office of Solid Waste
Office of Solid Waste
Pollution Prevention Policy Staff
Pollution Prevention Division
Pollution Prevention Policy Staff
Office of Solid Waste
Office of Air and Radiation
MIT
RMT, Inc.
Allied Signal Corporation
NY State Department of Environmental
Conservation and Energy
Midwest Research Institute
ICF/Clement International
Malcolm-Pirnie, Inc.
Department of Energy
Molten Metals Technology, Inc.
NJ Institute of Technology
U.S. Air Force
State of Minnesota
AER*X, Inc.
Rennsalaer Polytechnic Institute
Technology Funding, Inc.
Amoco Corporation
Air and Waste Management Association
American Institute of Chemical Engineers
Environmental Defense Fund
Amoco Corporation
Technology Funding, Inc.
Hambrecht & Quist Venture Partners
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PREFACE
BACKGROUND The environmental regulatory system in the United States
has been developed by Congress; the state legislatures, the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and state and local agencies in response to
the substantial, and occasionally dramatic, environmental problems which emerged, and
garnered increasing attention, in the decades after World War H. Its goal is protection of
human health and the environment. In the years since the creation of EPA in 1970, the
system has made significant progress toward improving the quality of the environment
through implementation of media-specific pollution control programs. Notwithstanding
past progress, economic, technological, and institutional factors limit the improvement that
can be achieved by current programs. New measures and new approaches will be needed to
meet the increasingly complex environmental challenges of the future ~ particularly the
challenge to combine environmental progress with sustainable economic growth.
The National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and Technology
(NACEPT) was formed in 1988 to provide the Administrator of EPA with the policy advice
of a full range of outside experts on how to improve the effectiveness of the nation's
environmental management system. The scope of NACEPT's reviews and
recommendations includes legislative and regulatory authorities; implementation policies
and programs at the federal, state, and local levels; environmental research and development;
and technology transfer (diffusion). NACEPT's mission is "bridging the gap from problem
identification to environmental solutions through successful program implementation,
cooperation, and consensus building by business, government, educational institutions, and
private organizations."
To carry out its responsibilities for providing assessments and recommendations to
the Administrator, NACEPT created five standing committees. NACEPT charged each
committee with evaluating specific aspects of the environmental management system. The
Technology Innovation and Economics (TIE) Committee is responsible for providing advice
on ways to strengthen EPA's encouragement of the development, commercialization , and
use of environmentally beneficial technologies. The Committee's work is based on the
premise that the potential for improving the environment is ultimately dependent on our
ability to innovate, produce, and utilize increasingly efficient and cost-effective technologies
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and techniques (including all forms of information management). The Committee
considers means to promote all environmentally beneficial technologies, but has placed its
primary emphasis on pollution prevention technologies in accordance with both the
Agency's hierarchy and with a recent request from the Administrator.
In November of 1990, the Administrator of EPA requested that NACEPT focus its
future efforts on two principal issues: the interrelationships of international trade and the
environment, and the promotion of increased use of pollution prevention to reduce adverse
environmental impacts from industrial and commercial activities. This report is one part of
NACEPT's response to the Administrator's request.
The TIE Committee considers it vital to the success of strategies to promote
pollution prevention to encourage both innovation and diffusion of relevant technologies.
In its December 1992 report, Improving Technology Diffusion for Environmental
Protection, the Committee defined "diffusion" as "the process of getting technologies that
are ready for commercial use into widespread practice, within and between different
industries and institutions." 1 The report defines "innovation" as "the development of a
technology concept into a commercial product and the first uses of that product. "2 Much
of the initial effort in pollution prevention has been to encourage the use of available
technologies or materials in place of currently used, more highly polluting industrial
methods. The objective is to achieve the most cost-effective level of environmental
improvement possible within the constraints of regulatory requirements and current
technology. In some cases this may only require the adoption of a technology or practice
already in wide use in an industry to an application in a particular plant. In other cases,
however, the adaptation even of available technologies to a plant's existing production
processes or product specification needs is a complex process, involving a substantial
degree of innovation. It may also involve a significant level of perceived or real economic
or environmental compliance risk for a plant operator, even where it promises eventual
substantial economic benefit. Most state pollution prevention technical assistance programs
focus first on adoption of fairly straightforward technology alternatives, and secondarily on
those approaches involving some limited degree of technology adaptation.
Improving Technology Diffusion for Environmental Protection, p. 7.
Ibid., p. 7. The report identities the first phase of the technology life cycle as
"invention ~ the birth of a technology concept."
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Environmental improvements in
processes and materials, however, require
long-term, continuous investment in the
development of new, more economically and
environmentally efficient technologies
which make it possible to leapfrog to a
new level of environmental improvement
and economic efficiency. Progress in
pollution prevention, therefore, requires
attention to the bathers and incentives in
the environmental management system
which can hinder or promote the research,
development, piloting, and initial use of
innovative technologies.
"Pollution prevention," as used in
this report, follows the "EPA statement of
Definition" in Deputy Administrator
Habicht's memo to all EPA personnel
(May 28, 1992). The TIE Committee
recognizes, however, that industry and
some state and local government agencies
use the term more broadly -- to include, for
example, environmentally beneficial
recycling and reuse. The TIE Committee-
does not intend, in following the EPA
definition, to imply that such activities are
Pollution prevention means "source
reduction "; as defined under the
Pollution Prevention Act, and other
practices that reduce or eliminate the
creation ofpollutants through:
increased efficiency in the use of
raw materials, energy, water or other
resources, or
protection of natural resources by
conservation.
The Pollution Prevention Act defines
"source reduction " to mean any
practice which:
reduces the amount of any
hazardous substance, pollutant, or
contaminant entering any waste stream
or otherwise released into the
environment (including fugitive
emissions) prior to recycling,
treatment, or disposal; and
reduces the hazards to public
health and the environment associated
with the release of such substances,
pollutants, or contaminants.
The term includes: equipment, or
technology modifications, process or
procedure modifications, reformulation
or re-design of products, substitution
of raw materials, and improvements in
housekeeping, maintenance, training
and inventory control
not an appropriate focus for state programs, or for EPA, but that such programs should be
in accord with the EPA hierarchy.
In January 1990, the TIE Committee prepared its initial report for the Administrator
concluding that the development and use of innovative technologies is essential both for
economic growth and for continued environmental improvement. The Committee also
concluded that the environmental regulatory system has a significant impact on the
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development and commercialization of environmentally beneficial innovative technologies,
and that there is a critical need to examine the effectiveness of innovation-enhancing
policies and programs in the regulatory system, separately and together. NACEPT
recommended to the Administrator that EPA:
- Issue a policy statement expanding the agency's mission to encompass
fostering, the development and diffusion of innovative technologies and
techniques, particularly those involving pollution prevention, to further
environmental progress and enhance sustainable economic growth.
- Develop and implement a programmatic strategy for fostering such
technology innovation.
- Work with the Office of Science and Technology Policy and federal
agencies to develop and implement new policies that promote
technological advances for the environment and economic productivity.
- Evaluate the degree to which the agency's innovation-related programs
and regulatory programs effectively stimulate technology innovation.
To further define the activities EPA should undertake in determining necessary
steps to promote technology innovation, the TIE Committee created a special Focus Group
on Environmental Permitting. The Committee charged the Focus Group with examining
EPA's permitting and compliance processes, and reporting on the relationships between
these processes and the development and introduction of new, environmentally beneficial
technologies. The Focus Group's efforts culminated in a report and recommendations by
NACEPT to the Administrator in January 1991 entitled Permitting and Compliance Policy:
Barriers to U.S. Environmental Technology Innovation ~3
While the report addresses problems related to encouraging any environmentally
beneficial innovative technology (e.g., control, clean-up, pollution prevention, information
management), one of the central findings of the Committee was that "the current
environmental regulatory system tends to emphasize pollution abatement, rather than
pollution prevention, and offers limited encouragement to simultaneous environmental and
industrial productivity improvements."
To respond directly to the Administrator's subsequent request to focus on pollution
prevention, the TIE Committee then charged the Focus Group with determining what
3 For a summary of the recommendations, see the Executive Summary.
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changes should be made in the permitting and compliance system to specifically promote
the development and adoption of pollution prevention technologies and practices. This
report summarizes the results of that review.
GOALS OF THE The TIE Committee directed the Focus Group on
REVIEW Environmental Permitting to direct its efforts to achieving the
following goals:
Assist EPA in finding ways to facilitate more widespread implementation
of pollution prevention measures to achieve continuous environmental
improvement.
Assist EPA in devising changes within the current permitting and
compliance system designed to remove barriers to, and create incentives
for, continuous technical and management innovation, particularly for
pollution prevention approaches.
Where appropriate, identify barriers and disincentives to implementing
pollution prevention measures in the underlying rules and regulations
which the permitting and compliance system is designed to fulfill.
While this report focuses on permitting and compliance policies, the TIE Committee
believes that changes to these policies, while an obvious starting point, will comprise only
part of a larger set of necessary improvements in the environmental management system.
This is the case because regulatory and statutory requirements often limit the potential to
introduce flexibility into implementing policies. The Committee concluded that statutes,
regulations, and the regulatory development process may also require modification to
achieve the long term environmental benefits of fuller use of pollution prevention
approaches. This notwithstanding, the Committee concluded that many of the current
recommendations to reduce the implementation barriers to pollution prevention can be
accomplished within the agency's current statutory authorities. The TIE Committee has
directed its Regulatory Design Focus Group to conduct an extensive review of possible
strategic changes in regulations or statutes ~ whether administered by EPA or other federal
agencies ~ that could improve environmental protection and compliance with environmental
requirements, and as a means of increasing the rate of technological innovation.
EPA's new Source Reduction Review Project (SRRP) is piloting a regulatory
process change the Committee believes would lead, over the long term, to more effective
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promotion of pollution prevention ~ complementing and reinforcing realization of the goals
of this report. In the SRRP, the development of all new regulations will be coordinated
across the media for 17 industrial categories. Source reduction opportunities will be
intensely evaluated during rule development; in this way, the relative priority of problems
can be addressed and cross-media shifts can be considered and avoided, where possible.
The Committee believes that the agency should use the SRRP experiment and other pilot
efforts to explore the statutory limits of regulatory reform, as well as the directions statutory
reform to promote pollution prevention and technology innovation should take.
The TIE Committee believes that pollution prevention represents the most
appropriate and effective complement to traditional end-of-pipe controls. One of the unique
benefits of the pollution prevention approach over traditional abatement and control
measures is that it provides a realistic opportunity for optimizing both environmental and
economic achievement. Deputy Administrator F. Henry Habicht It's recent memorandum
on pollution prevention to EPA staff expressed the benefit clearly:
"As EPA looks at the 'big picture' in setting strategic directions for the
decade ahead, it is clear that prevention is key to solving the problems
that all our media programs face, including the increasing cost of
treatment and cleanup."
FOCUS GROUP The Focus Group on Environmental Permitting held two
PROCESS public fact finding meetings of two days each in November
1991 and March 1992. At the first meeting, the Focus
Group heard presentations on state pollution prevention programs, including summaries by
state members of the Focus Group, and summaries by EPA staff on agency enforcement
and program initiatives in pollution prevention.
The Focus Group found that significant barriers and opportunities to promoting
pollution prevention exist both with respect to the actual operation of permitting and
compliance systems at the state and federal levels, and with respect to the perceived
operations of that system by permittees; federal, state, and local officials; and the public. It
also found that the nature of those barriers and opportunities varies depending on the
perspectives and motivations of the regulated parties, and that this factor needs to be
considered during any review of the permitting and compliance system. For purposes of its
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analysis, the Focus Group examined the barriers and opportunities by breaking the issue
down into seven different problem areas:
The potential of multi-media permitting systems to encourage pollution
prevention.
The extent of the need to revise policies and programs related to the
permitting of R&D in order to foster both the development and the
diffusion of pollution prevention technologies and techniques.
The potential and current extent of pollution prevention-based
compliance and enforcement initiatives.
The role of facility planning by industrial and commercial facilities in
encouraging pollution prevention.
Alternatives for training and support for those in both regulatory and
regulated organizations undertaking pollution prevention initiatives.
The need for more effective state and federal resource utilization and
management to facilitate the assessment of opportunities for pollution
prevention innovations.
How EPA could give greater primacy to pollution prevention in agency
programs and operations.
Members of the Focus Group (usually working in groups of two or three) wrote
pollution prevention issue analyses for each of these problem areas. These concept papers
provided the basis for the Focus Group's discussions of the seven areas during its second
meeting in March 1992.
Through the Focus Group's discussions at its two meetings and the smaller group
discussions and writing efforts that resulted in the concept papers, the Group:
1. Identified general and specific barriers to innovation and pollution
prevention. These barriers arise in all aspects of the environmental
management system, including statutes, regulations, permitting and
compliance policies, and technology diffusion programs. The Focus
Group focused its detailed analysis on barriers to pollution prevention in
the implementation programs, specifically in permitting and compliance
policies and in the technology diffusion programs that support them.
2. Identified current state and local efforts that should be encouraged to the
greatest extent possible through technical support and through flexibility
in federal approaches to delegating responsibility for federal programs to
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state and local agencies. In many cases, the Focus Group concluded that
these involve changes in current federal/state relationships well within
EPA's current statutory authority.
3. Identified current EPA initiatives (e.g., pollution prevention enforcement
options) which need to be more widely advertised and practiced.
4. Identified possible measures to deal with some of the major barriers that
remain. The Focus Group felt that, at least in some cases, the
appropriate approach for exploring alternative measures is for EPA to
undertake one or more pilot programs in cooperation with individual
state or local governments. This could involve, for example, a significant
expansion of EPA's Model State Program (for cross-media permitting
demonstrations) and the use of other mechanisms for providing support
to state and local pilot projects in the permitting and compliance and
technology diffusion areas.
This report represents the results of the Focus Group's review and discussions, as
reviewed and adopted by the full TIE Committee and NACEPT. It is based on information
presented to the Focus Group by agency representatives and external contributors, the
concept papers prepared by members of the Focus Group, and Focus Group discussions
and deliberations.
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INTRODUCTION
ADMINISTRATOR At the April 1992 meeting of the National Advisory
WILLIAM K. REILLY'S Council for Environmental Policy and Technology
REMARKS TO NACEPT (NACEPT), EPA Administrator William K. Reilly
noted that the country is moving toward a new
environmentalism which advocates growth, encourages progress, and recognizes the
importance of leading the world in environmental management and policy. He stressed the
importance of pollution prevention and the need for sensitivity to cross-media issues, and
welcomed NACEPT's input on both of these factors in EPA's strategic plans.
Mr. Reilly spoke specifically about the indispensability of technology in solving our
environmental problems. He noted that permitting needs to foster innovation, provide
effective incentives, and avoid duplication. He further emphasized the need for a partnership
between public and private organizations in realizing environmental and economic goals.
Mr. Reilly specifically asked NACEPT to continue its review of the issue of permitting as it
relates to innovation and pollution prevention.
The current report is intended to fulfill the Administrator's request by focusing on
the impacts of the permitting and compliance process on efforts to implement pollution
prevention. It carries further the analysis in NACEPT's previous reports and
recommendations to the Administrator, which looked more generally at the (1) the need for
an EPA policy and strategy for fostering environmentally beneficial technology innovation,
(2) the potential to enhance the development and use of all types of innovative technologies
through permitting and compliance policies, and (3) the opportunities to improve technology
diffusion for environmental protection.
PREVIOUS REPORT BY The primary emphasis of one of the TIE
THE TIE COMMITTEE Committee's previous reports and recommendations,
Permitting and Compliance Policy: Barriers to
U.S. Environmental Technology Innovation, published in January 1991, was on the effects
of permitting and compliance policy on all forms of environmental technology innovation,
rather than specifically on pollution prevention. Elements of the previous report are directly
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relevant to the current efforts of the Committee. The TIE Committee's primary
recommendation in that report is that the Administrator of EPA, world% within EPA, with
state and local agencies, and with the Congress, make interrelated improvements in
environmental permitting and compliance systems necessary to foster technology innovation
for environmental purposes, within the overriding goal of protecting human health and the
environment. Further, permitting and compliance systems, as they function today,
discourage all stakeholder groups from taking the risks necessary to develop innovative
technologies ~ whether for pollution prevention or for pollution control and to bring them
into routine use to solve environmental problems. This primary recommendation is as
applicable to the promotion of pollution prevention as it is to the promotion, generally, of
technology innovation:
The other principal recommendations of the January 1991 report were that EPA:
Modify permitting systems to aid the development, testing, and demonstration of
innovative technologies for environmental purposes.
Implement permitting processes to aid the commercial introduction of innovative
technologies for environmental purposes.
Use compliance programs to encourage the use of innovative technologies to solve
environmental problems.
Support regulators and other involved entities to maximize the effectiveness of
improvements recommended in permitting and compliance systems.
Identify and remove regulatory obstacles which create unnecessary inflexibility and
uncertainty or otherwise inhibit technology innovation for environmental purposes.
While the specific application of these recommendations for pollution prevention
may be different than for general technology innovation, the Committee finds that these
general recommendations are still essential in meeting the objective of encouraging, and
overcoming the barriers to, pollution prevention. These general concerns and
recommendations are once again reflected in the Committee's current report.
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THE There are several groups of "stakeholders" concerned with
STAKEHOLDERS permitting and compliance activities, including: (1) regulated
communities (e.g., businesses, industry, POTWs);
(2) regulators (federal, state, and local); (3) commercial firms and research consortia
involved in the development of technologies, techniques, and management systems for
pollution prevention; (4) investors; and (5) public interest groups and the public at large.
Properly defined and realistically managed, pollution prevention offers all
stakeholders increased opportunities to achieve advances in both economic and
environmental goals. Because the successful adoption of pollution prevention practices by
regulated parties will depend on cooperation among an array of stakeholders, it is important
to understand how each of these groups will be affected by, and will respond to, changes in
the environmental permitting and compliance process within federal, state, and local
regulatory organizations.
Regulated Parties
Among regulated parties and in particular businesses subject to environmental
regulations, there is a growing recognition that the information generated for environmental
compliance purposes can be used as an indicator of the health and efficiency of operations.
This approach integrates economic motives and environmental goals. In Europe, and
increasingly in the U.S., this new "sustainable" economic approach to industrial design is
supported by three ecologically based principles: the need to conserve energy, to save
materials, and to reduce waste.
Hundreds of companies in Europe and the United States have benefitted from this
new approach to decision making and organization. Some companies are even making
changes in management and technology (i.e., manufacturing and product) design based on
pollution prevention and other environmental concerns. Information requirements and
liability-creating statutes have had an important role in promoting these new market-oriented
responses to environmental issues.
Until recently, however, most regulated parties based their environmental decisions
on an "end-of-pipe" management strategy. This approach was in response to traditional,
technology-based guidelines developed to protect the nation's air, water, soil, and
groundwater quality. Today, while the majority of companies are still organized primarily to
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respond to these traditional requirements, many companies are increasingly developing
economics-based strategies, both through voluntary efforts and through enforcement
actions, to reduce environmental risk through source reduction techniques, "best
management practices" (BMPs), and recycling.
One of the greatest challenges to industry is the large diversity of products and
processes that are affected by this new approach to risk management. In general,
businesses will be increasingly concerned with such issues as: confidentiality with regard
to proprietary techniques; a higher degree of regulatory flexibility to test and implement new
pollution prevention techniques in lieu of traditional, end-of-pipe approaches to compliance;
access to information concerning state-of-the-art pollution prevention techniques; a level
playing field with consistent, predictable enforcement for all competitors; the possibility that
public availability of pollution prevention audit information may open a company to liability;
and more cost-efficient permitting and compliance programs.
In many instances, these new techniques may provide a company with a greater
competitive advantage in the global marketplace. Smaller firms with less capital and
technological resources have special concerns, however the need for improved technical
assistance programs and the ability to finance the implementation of new pollution
prevention techniques.
Not all firms, of course, are in the forefront of this change in perspective on
environmental issues. Some firms still only respond to environmental concerns and
requirements when forced directly to do so by command-and-control regulations. Others
try to anticipate environmental requirements, but have not yet seen the advantage to
integrating environmental and productivity planning as part of their overall management
strategy. The impact of, and potential benefits from, additional flexibility and new
requirements will vary substantially with the position of regulated parties in this spectrum.
Regulators
In order for government to successfully support pollution prevention, regulators at
the federal, state, and local levels must begin to design permitting and compliance programs
that are both effective incorporate market-based incentives or other techniques or
encouragements for pollution prevention. By defining environmental protection in terms of
technological standards (even where performance-based), instead of in terms of institutional
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management, the regulations and regulatory structures have tended to stifle system
innovation. But for regulators, including permit writers and compliance personnel, to
effectively design and utilize increased flexibility in the permitting and compliance system,
they must have adequate access to information; an understanding of and ability to
communicate clearly regulatory requirements, objectives, and processes; and, the technical
expertise necessary to understand the perspectives, processes, and products of the industries
they regulate.
To be fully effective, regulators must become more adept at designing multi-media,
facility-wide permitting and compliance approaches that rely more on performance
standards and market-based incentives and less on a specific control technology. This will
allow industry to respond more quickly and economically to health-based or ecologically
based regulatory demands.
Firms Developing or Investing in Environmentally Beneficial Equipment
According to a report issued by the economics department of Germany's
Commerzbank, Germany's extremely tough environmental laws have cleated investment
opportunities in the areas of emission controls and waste disposal equipment that exceed
those of all other nations. Much of this success is due to Germany's support to R&D. A
recent study showed, for example, that Germany spends 5.0 percent of its public research
budget on environmental problems ~ which is greater than the United States, France, or
Great Britain.
If there is a long-term market opportunity for their investments, and adequate
licensing and trade secret confidentiality provisions, companies will likewise begin to invest
in the products and services needed by industry to improve their economic efficiency, such
as reducing their disposal costs through pollution prevention. Existing, and often shifting,
technology-based environmental standards, which are capital intensive, spur only limited
investment interest in new environmental technologies because they create a strong stimulus
for the diffusion of technologies whose performance equals that of the technology upon
which the standard is based, and on cost of performance. Because of this rigid regulatory
approval process, and the lack of public trust in general, most investment has been directed
towards improving the cost of performance of traditional technologies ~ such as
incinerators or scrubbers. Alternative technologies, often prejudiced by existing regulatory
systems, face rigid and narrowly constrained permitting requirements which make market
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entry extremely difficult. At present, the investment risk is high and unpredictable and tends
to be unsupported by appropriate environmental regulations and adequate market
information. If the flexibility necessary to increase the rate of utilization of pollution
prevention technologies is introduced into the permitting and compliance systems, such a
change will both create new market opportunities for vendors and investors, and lead to an
improvement in environmental performance of facilities. Some of the vendors will be
different than those in the traditional pollution control equipment market; firms involved in
developing and selling production and manufacturing technology will have a new market
opportunity for the technologies of production redesigned to minimize environmental
impacts.
Public and Environmental Organizations
Citizen coalitions and their national representatives, the public interest groups, as
well as labor, have become increasingly involved in the debate to find alternative solutions to
environmental issues. Pollution prevention offers a unique opportunity for citizens and
labor to work with industry towards solutions that are at once both more economically and
environmentally sustainable.
The public is often skeptical of any new management approaches undertaken by
industry, and of the regulatory efforts of government agencies. Problems have resulted
from inadequate access to both decision making processes and critical information. It is
thus very important for regulators to include the public in the permitting and compliance
process and to improve current information-sharing mechanisms.
CHARACTERISTICS The goal of the current study and report by the TIE
OF A SUCCESSFUL Committee is to better define the activities necessary for EPA
POLLUTION to undertake in determining some of the steps necessary to
PREVENTION enhance environmental improvement through balanced multi-
INITIATIVE media pollution prevention, utilizing a variety of approaches
(e.g., reduction in use of toxic materials, raw material and
product substitution, process change). The Committee seeks to facilitate wider
implementation of pollution prevention measures through modified permitting, compliance,
and enforcement activities that promote innovation, remove existing bathers to innovation,
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prevention. In pursuit of this goal, the Committee
following elements as essential to successful implementation:
Confidence-building: To achieve a transition to a pollution prevention orientation
from the current predominantly pollution control orientation requires mutual
confidence building between the public, the regulated community, and regulators.
Effective pollution prevention requires the integration of environmental
considerations into all aspects of planning and implementation for product
development and production, rather than merely complying with environmental
regulatory requirements. This, in turn, requires increased emphasis on cooperation,
mutual understanding, and communication.
Diversity: The permitting and compliance system must be capable of dealing -with
both organizational and technological diversity. Some regulated parties merit
permitting flexibility to take environmental protection measures which go
substantially beyond mandated standards. In other cases, specific
command-and- control directions ate appropriate
Since pollution prevention options are often specific to the production needs,
processes, and objectives of the individual facility, a permitting and compliance
system which is to promote pollution prevention must take into account the diversity
of situations and technologies to which specific permitting requirements apply.
Such a system must be adequately stringent to ensure realization of environmental
objectives, yet allow for flexibility where appropriate to encourage alternative
approaches to meeting or exceeding those objectives.
Confidentiality: Confidentiality of information and respect for intellectual property
rights (e.g., patent rights) is critical both for encouraging early discussions between
the regulated community and regulators about new technologies (particularly
production technologies) which promise environmental benefits, and for
encouraging the development of pollution prevention plans which propose
significant environmentally beneficial changes involving unique or proprietary
production processes or products.
Risk Sharing: In order to ensure that, to the extent they enhance protection of the
environment, available opportunities are utilized for incorporating pollution
prevention into all facets of technological development and production decisions, it
is necessary that there be some mechanism (e.g., flexible permitting procedures and
"fail soft" strategies) for economic risk sharing among the public, the regulated
community, and the regulators. (Private-public consortia supporting technology
innovation are one potential mechanism for achieving this.)
Certainty: It is important to create certainty within the regulatory process where
obligations, baselines, timing, and goals are clearly stated and understood. Permit
conditions must assure compliance and be enforceable; while flexibility is required
to encourage innovation, it cannot be at the expense of enforceability, which creates
the certainty that environmental requirements will be met. Certainty must also apply
to enforcement of environmental requirements, where enforcement actions are swift,
firm, and consistent.
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Just as it is necessary that permit requirements be readily enforceable, it is necessary
that the process for obtaining a permit where an innovative pollution prevention
process is involved be predictable with respect both to timing and to criteria of
acceptability. If the process lacks that kind of certainty, managers and investors are
likely to have a high sense of risk in undertaking any non-standard changes.
Protection: The permitting and compliance system must assure protection of
human health and the environment. To assure this while encouraging innovation
and pollution prevention, compliance efforts must be systematic and predictable.
Health-based environmental standards which serve as the basis for a system of
limits on releases are one major means for assuring protection.
Clarity: Clarity in permitting processes and in permit conditions is important in
encouraging any innovative approach. Ambiguity is more likely to push both
industry personnel and permit writers toward caution and self-protection.
Flexibility: There should be operational flexibility in the permitting system,
allowing sufficient leeway to develop and use innovative approaches to meeting
environmental objectives. Flexibility does not mean ambiguity in permit conditions
or weaker enforcement; it is simply a necessary element in the cultural shift toward
pollution prevention. As noted above, however, there may be, even with this
understanding, some circumstances where the goals of certainty and flexibility come
into conflict.
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FINDINGS
OVERVIEW An agreement about several basic concepts emerged from the
Technology Innovation and Economics (TIE) Committee's
review of current state and federal efforts. Many state and federal permitting and
compliance programs include elements which could introduce to the environmental
management system both greater flexibility to allow pollution prevention and greater
incentives to encourage voluntary action, while providing for improvements in environmental
protection. The TIE Committee concluded that the realization of the benefits of pollution
prevention must be based on a recognition that:
Long Term Commitment: Pollution prevention requires a long-term
commitment by managers in both the public and private sectors ':o a
process of continuous environmental improvement that goes beyond
traditional end-of-pipe management strategies. This commitment
includes providing support for innovative staff initiatives within both
regulatory organizations and industry.
Comprehensive Environmental Accounting: Effective pollution
prevention is only possible where generators fully understand that
efficient production goes hand in hand with good environmental
performance and compliance. Advantages include reduced waste
management costs, diminished long-term liability, and related production
efficiency benefits.
Environmental Capability of Regulated Parties Varies Widely:
Companies vary widely in their level of environmental awareness and
commitment, their knowledge of alternative waste management and
pollution prevention approaches, resources available for addressing
environmental compliance and initiating pollution prevention approaches,
and the degree to which they have internalized pollution prevention as
part of their management system. A system of environmental
management requirements which does not take account of these
differences may not yield the desired environmental improvement
either short-term or long-term.
Government Constraints Limit Pollution Prevention: Current
resource commitments and requirements by federal, state, and local
agencies; statutory and regulatory constraints; and standard permitting
and compliance procedures often limit the degree to which agencies can
promote or encourage pollution prevention and other innovations, or
differentiate between companies which display varying levels of
commitment to environmental objectives. These constraints also limit the
ability of regulatory agencies to make changes that encourage pollution
prevention and other innovative approaches to meeting environmental
goals.
Regulatory Stimuli are Needed To Promote Both Innovation and
Diffusion of Pollution Prevention Approaches: Not all of the
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environmental management system barriers which stand in the way of
pollution prevention can be addressed through revisions to permitting
and compliance procedures. Barriers which become apparent in the
operations of the permitting and compliance system are inherent in the
regulations. Eliminating such barriers will require changes to the
underlying regulations and statutes. Improvements in the permitting and
compliance system the central operational/administrative mechanism
for implementing environmental regulations can be accomplished by
making policies and procedures as flexible, predictable, and
comprehensible as possible.
The TIE Committee learned about a variety of initiatives at the state and federal
levels showing promise for promoting pollution prevention. The bases for state initiatives,
in particular, vary widely and may rise from somewhat conflicting perspectives as to the best
means to approach the promotion of pollution prevention. For example, there are
philosophical divergences as to whether pollution prevention is most likely to be promoted
through regulatory or non-regulatory approaches. In instances where states require
pollution prevention facility plans, questions arise as to whether those plans should be
public or proprietary documents, or whether the planned implementation elements of a
company's pollution prevention plan should become enforceable requirements.
Since most of these initiatives are quite recent, the TIE Committee believes there is
insufficient information to adequately analyze the effectiveness of any single approach.
concludes that EPA should encourage a variety of state initiatives, evaluate them, and
promote regulatory and administrative flexibility within federal programs in encouraging
innovative pollution prevention. EPA should also attempt to define the basic criteria for
additional flexibility.
ISSUE AREA The TIE Committee organized its analysis around seven
SUMMARIES significant issue areas. Its examination of these areas
provides the basis for its recommendations; the TIE
Committee does not intend, however, that the recommendations should deal specifically with
each of those topics. The seven issue areas are:
1. Multi-media Permitting: The TIE Committee explored the impacts of
the single-medium permitting system on decisions by firms about
whether to implement pollution prevention technologies and techniques.
It considered pilot multi-media permitting programs initiated by some
states in order to evaluate the applicability of these programs to facility-
wide pollution reduction approaches.
2. Permitting of Research, Development, and Demonstration (RD&D):
The TIE Committee examined whether the same problems exist for the
permitting of tests and demonstrations of pollution prevention or other
innovative production processes and techniques as exist for the testing
and demonstration of innovative control and remediation technologies. It
considered whether the issue of permitting during RD&D is important
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for all media and whether multi-media permit coordination is important
for RD&D.
3. Pollution Prevention-Based Compliance and Enforcement Initiatives:
Since the TIE Committee's first report on permitting and compliance
policy, EPA has made significant progress developing policies that
encourage the use of pollution prevention in enforcement actions. The
TIE Committee explored the potential for more extensive implementation
of such approaches, and the relationship between permitting and
enforcement requirements.
4. Facility Planning: The TIE Committee reviewed a number of the
different state approaches to pollution prevention facility planning and
considered the role planning could play in facilitating the development of
innovative environmental technology and pollution prevention
technologies and techniques.
5. Pollution Prevention Support and Training: The TIE Committee
considered a range of alternatives for supporting those who take the
risks necessary during permitting and enforcement to develop, finance,
encourage, or promote pollution prevention and innovative technology
initiatives. It considered -whether training and support for pollution
prevention is necessary for both regulatory agencies and the regulated
community.
6. Agency Resources: The TIE Committee examined how EPA and state
and local agencies can more effectively manage resources to create
opportunities for technology innovation and pollution prevention.
7. Pollution Prevention Implementation at EPA: The TIE Committee
considered how EPA can modify its system for measuring accountability
and determining allocation of base grants, and enhance its reward
systems and other mechanisms, so that pollution prevention is integrated
in the day-to-day business and in the primary expenditures of state and
local agencies, the regions, and EPA headquarters.
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GENERAL The TIE Committee's investigations of the seven issue areas
FINDINGS led to several general findings. These findings are based on
all of the issue areas. Each finding is not necessarily related
exclusively to only one issue area, nor does a single finding fully express the conclusions
drawn from exploration and review of a particular issue. The findings reflect the most
important conclusions resulting from the TIE Committee's present work.
FINDING 1:
The current system of single-medium permitting has achieved significant
environmental gains primarily by stimulating a pollution control response,
rather than by encouraging pollution prevention.
Two decades of permit requirements based on the control of releases to a single
medium have produced expectations and analyses, both among the regulated community
and the regulators, which isolate fragments of environmental problems. These patterns are
now embedded in individual permits, in the expectations surrounding negotiations over new
permits or permit renewals, in the organizational structure of environmental agencies and
industry environmental staffs, in the training programs and career rewards available to those
at all levels of federal, state, and local government agencies, and in the management and
technology strategies of industries supporting environmental compliance. In the absence of
specific methods to force plants and regulators to focus on the interrelationships of the
processes generating pollution to all media across an entire facility has a number of
important negative effects. These include some of the state pollution prevention facility
planning requirements), this fragmentation encourages media-specific pollution control
fixes rather than overall reductions in the pollutants generated, allowing cross-media
transfers of pollutants, and discouraging companies from comparing the t0tj costs and
benefits of pollution control systems in all media with the costs and benefits of pollution
prevention alternatives. Continuing this approach will become increasingly less effective
environmentally and inefficient economically.
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FINDING 2:
Existing permitting and compliance authorities at all levels of government
lack flexibility necessary to encourage technology innovation for
environmental purposes.
In its previous report, Permitting and Compliance Policy: Barriers to U.S.
Environmental Technology Innovation, the TIE Committee analyzed the impact of the
current permitting system on the development and use of innovative technologies. The
Committee concluded that the system provides neither the flexibility nor the certainty
required to support risk taking in the research, development, demonstration, and commercial
introduction of new environmentally beneficial technologies. Uncertainty and inflexibility
limit the willingness of companies to invest in development of these technologies, and limit
the willingness of regulators to take risks on new, unproven technologies which might
confer substantial environmental benefits. This problem is magnified for the development
and implementation of pollution prevention approaches. Many of the pollution prevention
options which companies could consider involve substantial efforts to adapt general
technological approaches to specific conditions in which their performance is uncertain. In
addition, the current system often takes little account of potential multi-media benefits.
FINDING 3:
Greater flexibility is required under federal, state, and local enforcement
policies to allow and encourage facilities to use pollution prevention
approaches as part of compliance and other environmental improvement
activities.
Current federal, state, and local enforcement practices are predominantly based on a
single-medium, pollution control outlook. The overwhelming majority of inspections are
single-medium and relatively few inspectors are trained to inspect in more than one medium.
Enforcement actions tend to be based on the most certain strategies for achieving
compliance, which generally results in implementation of standard pollution control
technologies. As with permitting, the system is not structured to reward those who take
risks to promote pollution prevention or technology innovation, or those who take the
additional time required to explore options for improvements in media other than that which
is the subject of a violation. Taking on these risks and expending the time are critical for
pollution prevention technologies and techniques. The TIE Committee did note some
promising movement toward multi-media pollution prevention and technology innovation
thinking both at the state and federal levels but implementation has been extremely
limited (see further discussion of Issue 3).
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FINDING 4:
Facility-wide pollution prevention planning can be a valuable tool for
encouraging regulated parties to comprehensively evaluate the cost and
environmental implications of a range of product design and technical
production alternatives, rather than simply focusing on mechanisms for
environmental compliance.
The TIE Committee found that state pollution prevention facility planning
requirements have a significant potential to increase awareness of both single-medium and
multi-media source reduction opportunities which could be economically beneficial to the
facility. Because the development of relevant information for the plans requires input from
production personnel, and not just environmental staff, the full costs of alternative process
options are more likely to be considered. Where pollution prevention facility planning is a
regulatory requirement, it also is likely to generate more awareness among regulators both
permit writers and enforcement personnel of the potential benefits of multi-media
pollution prevention solutions to environmental problems.
FINDING 5:
The positive relationship between industrial productivity and
environmental protection is not yet well understood or accepted by many
leaders in industry and government. Pollution prevention can help achieve
both industrial productivity and environmental improvement.
In spite of the progress being made under EPA and some state programs in
promoting pollution prevention, and in spite of the passage of the federal Pollution
Prevention ^4(r/and a few state statutes, pollution control is still the dominant response to
environmental regulations. Relatively few regulated facilities and regulators have begun to
think in terms other than single-medium pollution control. Fewer yet have taken advantage
of the opportunities presented by linking productivity and environmental decisions. To
change the dominant culture to pollution prevention will require numerous coordinated
actions, including changes in the basic signals of the tax, regulatory, and permitting and
compliance systems; pollution prevention training at all levels of industry and government;
the development and use of full-cost accounting systems for industrial decision makers; and
redesign of curricula in business administration and engineering for those who will hold the
basic jobs in facility operations and management and/or in environmental compliance,
regulation- and permit-writing, and inspection and enforcement in the future.
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FINDING 6:
Reward systems for EPA personnel place high value on the development,
implementation, and enforcement of single-medium, pollution-control
regulations without creating strong incentives for activities that encourage
and support pollution prevention.
The most crucial factor in shaping any organization's activity is the system of
rewards and career advancement. Since EPA's founding two decades ago, the agency's
system of personnel advancement has been dominated almost exclusively by traditional
single-medium regulatory objectives. While some rewards are now being provided for
those advancing pollution prevention, the overall impact is still extremely limited; a more
dramatic shift is likely to be necessary to bring about a general shift of perspective and
culture within the agency.
FINDING 7:
EPA leadership in rewarding pollution prevention efforts outside the
agency provides significant encouragement for state and local regulatory
personnel and for staff of regulated parties to explore the use of pollution
prevention innovations.
One important means of promoting change in the national culture from pollution
control to pollution prevention is through recognition and rewards to those who are working
to promote pollution prevention opportunities at all levels of government and in the
regulated sector. While not a substitute for needed revisions to the traditional permitting
and compliance system, such recognition does signal the agency's intention to foster and
encourage change. EPA's Administrator's awards for pollution prevention thus provide
some notice to both regulators and regulated facilities that the agency's long-term objective
is to promote a shift from a traditional single-medium pollution control system to a more
innovative multi-media pollution prevention culture.
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ISSUE AREA FINDINGS
1. MULTI-MEDIA PERMITTING
Overview The permitting system is an administrative linchpin of the
environmental management system. New approaches to
permitting and compliance are urgently needed to encourage both U.S. businesses and
government agencies to take a whole-facility, pollution prevention perspective that reduces
the generation and release of pollutants and encourages investment in integrated production
and environmental planning. Because of the rising costs of compliance (and remediation)
and the declining cost-effectiveness of incremental end-of-pipe pollution control and waste
management strategies, pollution prevention is fast becoming the focus of many industrial
and of many federal, state, and local environmental protection programs.
The increased use of multi-media permitting systems has the potential to facilitate
the introduction and widespread use of proven and new pollution prevention technologies,
techniques, and practices throughout U.S. industry. The TIE Committee reviewed the
potential regulatory, environmental, and economic impacts of multi-media permitting from a
federal and state perspective. It considered a number of possible multi-media program
elements or approaches, including the following:
Facility-wide Permits: The development of integrated, "facility- wide"
(multi-media) permitting systems to improve compliance activities and to
encourage pollution prevention.
e: The increased use of flexible "permit-by-rule" systems
to streamline the permitting process and to encourage innovation.
Relationship of Planning Goals to Permitting and Compliance: The
integtation into multi-media permits and compliance programs
specific facility planning goals. (e.g., pollution prevention performance
standards or best management practices) .
Incentives in Permitting: The incorporation into multi-media permits of
pollution prevention incentives (e.g., waste-audits, technical assistance) to
encourage source reduction.
Compliance Waivers: The selected use of compliance waivers in
permits (perhaps tied to overall net reductions in emissions or releases)
to give industries time to design and implement new environmental
protection techniques.
There was some concern among many TIE Committee members that unconstrained
flexibility in the permitting and compliance process might compromise the capability of
federal and state regulatory agencies to protect human health and environmental quality.
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The Committee agreed, however, that for industry to effectively implement pollution
prevention, sufficient flexibility must exist to encourage industry to look at its environmental
management operations from a multi-media, facility-wide perspective. As noted above, the
Committee felt that a rigorously enforced system based on defined standards of
achievement and performance could provide both the necessary protection and flexibility.
Findings With The TIE Committee concluded that more effective realization
Respect to of the goals of environmental innovation and pollution
Incentives and prevention must be based on recognition that companies vary
Barriers widely in their level of environmental awareness and
commitment, their knowledge of alternative environmental
management approaches, resources available for meeting environmental objectives, and the
degree to which they have internalized pollution prevention as part of their internal
management system. The application of a uniform system of environmental management
requirements which ignores these differences can have adverse consequences for both
short-term and long-term environmental progress. The TIE Committee found that multi-
media permitting may provide a way to address issues of regulatory inflexibility and over-
reliance on inflexible requirements that have characterized single media permit programs to
date.
The TIE Committee's review suggests that multi-media permitting could prove to be
an effective regulatory mechanism for encouraging businesses to look at their environmental
management operations from a facility-wide, total quality management (TQM) perspective
an effort that should promote the goals of pollution prevention. The success of such
innovative approaches to pollution prevention clearly depends on federal and state efforts to
increase cross-media integration and regulatory flexibility within the nation's permitting and
compliance programs for air, water, and hazardous wastes. The success also depends on an
increased understanding by the required parties of the potential cross-media shifts of risks.
The TIE Committee also noted, however, that some of the changes which would be
desirable in the permitting system depend on more general changes in the regulations that
the permitting system implements and on statutory changes.
State Initiatives Several states are currently initiating steps toward multi-
Considered media permitting. Since these efforts are new, and there are
as yet no results, the TIE Committee looked at the plans and
program designs. The TIE Committee looked at a number of states (New Jersey, California,
Massachusetts, Kansas, New York, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Texas) that are beginning to
design and implement new regulatory incentives as part of the permitting process in order to
specifically encourage pollution prevention within industry.
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Many of these same states are beginning to incorporate pollution prevention
planning ("facility planning") requirements into traditional and non-traditional permitting
and compliance programs. A variety of additional regulatory incentives and other support
mechanisms are being used to stimulate the development of pollution prevention activities,
including:
Coordinated or Multi-Media Permitting: Developing coordinated or
comprehensive, multi-media permitting systems that contain mandatory
facility planning conditions (New Jersey, Massachusetts, Kansas).
Permit Writers'Pollution Prevention Training: Training permit writers
to incorporate pollution prevention incentives into single or multi-media
permits (New Jersey, Massachusetts, Kansas, Wisconsin, California,
Kentucky).
Compliance Waivers: Using compliance waivers to encourage
innovative changes in waste management and generation to promote
pollution prevention (Illinois).
Expedited Permit Review Process: Expediting the permit review process
for businesses which implement source reduction techniques (California,
Texas).
Incentives in Permits: Direct incentives, such as pretreatment
requirements and mass-based limits in permits for POTW facilities
(California).
A few states (e.g., New Jersey, Massachusetts) are in the process of developing
comprehensive, multi-media permitting programs that are designed specifically to facilitate
pollution prevention. Other states (e.g., New York), while not developing multi-media
permits, are attempting to coordinate the timing of all single-medium permits to encourage a
more comprehensive environmental review of each manufacturing facility.
New Jersey: New Jersey, -with grant support from the EPA's Office of
Pollution Prevention, has initiated a pilot project to test the "facility-
wide" permitting approach as a means of "encouraging the development
and use of pollution prevention approaches and technologies." The
project is attempting to coordinate all single-medium permit
requirements (except RCRA-HSWA) for each facility. The State is
working with three volunteer facilities. The next stage of the four-year
project will involve 15 facilities.
New Jersey's pilot multi-media permit program will include a number of
direct incentives for pollution prevention. For example, in order to
improve the overall efficiency of the permitting and compliance
programs, the program will consolidate permit application requirements
and monitoring and reporting requirements for the air and water
programs. The State is also revising its air permitting requirements to
eliminate pre-construction approval for certain process changes. The
overall goal of this pilot program is to use both direct incentives and
flexible permitting requirements to encourage facilities to meet and go
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beyond existing regulatory standards and to be economically
competitive.
Massachusetts: Massachusetts' Toxics Use Reduction Act (TURA)
encourages multi-media inspections as a means to achieve toxics use
reduction. Under a Pollution Prevention Incentive Grant from EPA, the
State will conduct a pilot project in permitting for toxics use reduction; it
will probably include a multi-media component. The State is building on
the experience of the earlier multi-media inspection and enforcement
project in the Blackstone River valley.
Several states are using expedited permitting, permit modifications with specific
source reduction requirements, and regulatory compliance waivers as regulatory incentives
for pollution prevention. For example,
Sanitation Districts in California: In several local sanitation districts in
California, permits set total mass limits for specific contaminants that are
of local concern as part of the compliance requirements, including zero
discharge requirements for certain industries such as automotive and
radiator repair shops.
Illinois: Under the Illinois Pollution Prevention Act, companies
implementing innovative pollution prevention initiatives can apply for a
compliance waiver and also have their permit processed more
expeditiously.
California: California has recently established a "fast-track" permitting
mode for industries which generate wastes that can be incinerated and
\vhich pursue source reduction measures for such -wastes. California is
facing a capacity crunch for wastes that can be incinerated even with
recycling and out-of-state disposal. With California's strict air
requirements and active citizenry who oppose all attempts at siting
incinerators, the capacity problem is not expected to go away easily.
Instead of focusing on unpopular siting showdowns, California
Department of Health Services (DHS) decided that it would be better to
avoid the generation of such waste. The fast-track permitting is thus a
"carrot-type" incentive to get facilities to do something which is in
everyone's best interest.
Federal Initiatives A number of federal initiatives are being conducted to
Considered explore ways to either promote, or remove the barriers
to, pollution prevention in federal (or federally-delegated)
permitting processes. A few of these are multi-media. For example, EPA is -working -with
three states New Jersey, Massachusetts, and South Carolina as experimental "Model
States" for cross-media permitting. The objective in each case is to develop a cooperative
program between the individual states, an EPA region (I, II, or VII), and EPA headquarters,
in which EPA will provide policy and technical support for this national pilot program; EPA
will also evaluate the three pilots to learn the nationally applicable lessons. A memorandum
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beyond existing regulatory standards and to be economically
competitive.
Massachusetts: Massachusetts' Toxics Use Reduction Act (TURA)
encourages multi-media inspections as a means to achieve toxics use
reduction. Under a Pollution Prevention Incentive Grant from EPA, the
State will conduct a pilot project in permitting for toxics use reduction; it
will probably include a multi-media component. The State is building on
the experience of the earlier multi-media inspection and enforcement
project in the Blackstone River valley.
Several states are using expedited permitting, permit modifications with specific
source reduction requirements, and regulatory compliance waivers as regulatory incentives
for pollution prevention. For example,
Sanitation Districts in California: In several local sanitation districts in
California, permits set total mass limits for specific contaminants that are
of local concern as part of the compliance requirements, including zero
discharge requirements for certain industries such as automotive and
radiator repair shops.
Illinois: Under the Illllinois Pollution Prevention Act, companies
implementing innovative pollution prevention initiatives can apply for a
compliance waiver and also have their permit processed more
expeditiously.
California: California has recently established a "fast-track" permitting
mode for industries which generate wastes that can be incinerated and
\vhich pursue source reduction measures for such -wastes. California is
facing a capacity crunch for wastes that can be incinerated even with
recycling and out-of-state disposal. With California's strict air
requirements and active citizenry who oppose all attempts at siting
incinerators, the capacity problem is not expected to go away easily.
Instead of focusing on unpopular siting showdowns, California
Department of Health Services (DHS) decided that it would be better to
avoid the generation of such waste. The fast-track permitting is thus a
"carrot-type" incentive to get facilities to do something which is in
everyone's best interest.
Federal Initiatives A number of federal initiatives are being conducted to
I^OnsideFed explore ways to either promote, or remove the barriers
to, pollution prevention in federal (or federally-delegated)
permitting processes. A few of these are multi-media. For example, EPA is working with
three states New Jersey, Massachusetts, and South Carolina as experimental "Model
States" for cross-media permitting. The objective in each case is to develop a cooperative
program between the individual states, an EPA region (I, II, or VII), and EPA headquarters,
in which EPA will provide policy and technical support for this national pilot program; EPA
will also evaluate the three pilots to learn the nationally applicable lessons. A memorandum
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of understanding (MOU) has been signed with New Jersey, and other MOUs will follow
with additional states. This initiative is major part of a broader agency effort to streamline
EPA and state permit programs, and to link environmental protection and economic
productivity objectives. State multi-media initiatives under this program include one-stop
permitting, facility-wide pollution prevention planning, and basin-wide planning for natural
resource protection. EPA will provide technical assistance and guidance, serve as a
clearinghouse for information exchange, evaluate the national lessons which can be derived
from successes and problems, and provide seed funding.
EPA's Air Office also is involved in a collaborative federal/state effort to promote
pollution prevention. The Office is funding positions for permit writers in three states who
-will have the specific responsibility of developing incentives to promote the use of source
reduction measures as a means of compliance with air standards.
Another initiative, involving the Amoco Corporation, EPA, and the State of Virginia,
has resulted in a joint effort to identify regulatory incentives and obstacles for multi-media
permitting and pollution prevention at Amoco's Yorktown Refinery. The project involves
extensive monitoring, the evaluation of releases and contaminants at the plant, assessment of
the potential for risk reduction, and identification and ranking of source reduction and
control options.
Some of the changes required to promote pollution prevention involve interagency
cooperation at the federal level. For example, EPA has reached an agreement with FDA
under which FDA will provide expedited renewal for permits at pharmaceutical companies
that undertake pollution prevention process changes.
EPA's Source Reduction Review Project, which involves cross-media coordination
of the development of regulations to promote pollution prevention, should have some longer
term impact on pollution prevention issues in permitting. Under the Project, EPAw/77
collect detailed cost and benefit information on pollution prevention technologies as part of
the information-gathering process for the technical background for new rules. The agency
expects that, if this information is made widely available to permit writers, it will enable them
to work with regulated parties to promote the use of alternatives to the end-of-pipe control
technologies on which the standards are likely to be based.
Other Options In addition to the regulatory incentives discussed above, the
Considered TIE Committee considered the following options as
requiring more study:
Permit-By-Rule: The use of "permit-by-rule" systems, which have the
potential to increase the overall efficiency of the permitting process. The
benefit of this approach is in freeing scarce resources that can then be
used to develop more comprehensive, multi-media based compliance
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(i.e., monitoring and inspection) programs (see more detailed discussion
in the Agency Resources section).
Creditsfor Voluntary Efforts: The use of credits for documented,
effective "voluntary" pollution prevention in subsequent regulatory and
permitting decisions. (New Jersey is trying to incorporate this type of
incentive into its new pilot "facility-wide" permitting program.)
Required Audits: Requiring multi-media pollution prevention audits,
without tying them to mandatory reductions. This is akin to bringing the
horse to water.
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2. PERMITTING OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
Overview In the TIE Committee's report, Permitting and Compliance
Policy: Barriers to U.S. Environmental Technology
Innovation, the Committee emphasized the need for effective research and development
(R&D) permitting, which would encompass the entire development process for innovative
technologies including research, development, demonstration, testing, and evaluation. The
Committee found that special permitting is necessary at times during the R&D cycle to
allow the operating flexibility to determine performance parameters (i.e., range of applicable,
cost-effective performance) of an innovative technology or technique or of an innovative
application or adaptation of a technology or technique currently used in other manufacturing
settings or applications. The Committee suggested that an effective R&D permitting
process was critically important not only for technologies and techniques designed
specifically for control and remediation of environmental pollution, but also for the
development and implementation of production (manufacturing) systems involving new (or
significantly altered) processes or for the use of new feedstocks with significant pollution
prevention potential. To fully meet the needs for such R&D activities, a single, multi-media
R&D permit or coordinated single-medium R&D permitting process should be available to
address limitations on releases of all regulated pollutants.
In the federal air and water programs, technology tests can be conducted under the
compliance terms of facility operating permits. This allows considerable R&D by the in-
house engineering staffs of regulated parties, but affords less opportunity for independent
technology developers. There are at present no special permits for air or water releases that
may occur during R&D activities whose compliance performance is uncertain. The
Committee found that arrangements to permit R&D operations involving release to those
media are otherwise absent or ad hoc. While RCRA provides for research, development,
and demonstration ("RD&D") permits for R&D on hazardous waste treatment
technologies, the Committee found as have EPA's in-house studies that the RD&D
permitting process does not yet effectively meet R&D needs.
It is notable that a recent EPA study evaluated the effectiveness of the RCRA
RD&D program. The study gauged the opinions of four involved groups: permit writers,
successful applicants for RCRA RD&D permits, unsuccessful applicants, and companies
that have recently submitted applications. Among the study's findings were that RD&D
permits had low priority in EPA regional offices, that applicants perceived problems both
with slow agency response and with permit writers lacking experience in innovative
technology, and that since the application process for RD&D permits was lengthy and
expensive, a pre-screening mechanism should be developed to give applicants some sense of
the likelihood of success. In addition, the study indicated the importance both of clear
guidance about the application process and of the availability of technical assistance from
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the agency for those going through the application process. While RCP A RD&D permits
are for treatment technologies rather than process technologies, many of the problems and
needs suggested by the study may require consideration in the development of R&D
permits for pollution prevention technologies.
The Committee made a general recommendation that multi-media permitting
processes for R&D should be designed to meet the special needs of such R&D activities,
and that requirements in single-medium operating permits could be crafted so that more
enforcement flexibility is built in for R&D associated with incremental engineering
improvements. The new permitting approaches should include conditions providing for
"soft landing" (or "fail soft") alternatives in the event that the original pollution reduction
objectives can not be met. The Committee recommended that the R&D permitting issue
should be explored in more detail with respect to potential impacts on pollution prevention
innovation and implementation.
Findings With The TIE Committee considered how pollution prevention
Respect to R&D for innovative production processes is impacted by
Incentives and current permitting and compliance systems. It noted several
Barriers problems generic to R&D which it felt could affect
development of pollution prevention technologies. The
Committee also noted that since implementation of pollution prevention process or input
changes in specific facilities often involves extensive technological adaptation or use of
techniques or materials previously untried in similar applications, the R&D difficulties for
pollution prevention technologies and techniques may be more widespread and significant
than those involving pollution control technologies in a plant's day-to-day operations.
There are several points in the R&D process where regulatory action could be
triggered. For example, a research lab developing a new chemical process may, at some
point, exceed 1,000 kg of hazardous waste, and encounter problems with the treatability
provisions under RCRA. Authority far RD&D permitting falls under RCRA, section
3005(g), which provides for permits for the RD&D on innovative technologies. Some
members of the TIE Committee felt that R&D on treatment technologies is relevant to
pollution prevention, but others felt that treatment technologies under RCRA should not be
considered pollution prevention. All members agreed that to the extent RCRA regulations
are applicable to R&D on pollution prevention technologies and techniques, an effective
RD&D permit program under RCRA is very important. Similarly, research involving use
of a new chemical feedstock may generate air releases requiring a new permit or a permit
modification. Experimental work may alternatively require modification of a facility's water
discharge permit.
The following example may illustrate clearly the importance of an effective,
predictable R&D permit process for the development and use of innovative pollution
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prevention technologies and techniques. The operators of a textile dyeing plant wanted to
experiment with mineral oils as a replacement for mineral spirits as a dye carrier. Continued
use of mineral spirits, a major source of VOC emissions, would require installation of
incinerators for emissions control. There was a risk that use of the mineral oil could lead to
both substantial releases of smoke and to oil residues on the fabric which would be
unacceptable to customers. Because no R&D permit -was available, the flexibility necessary
to experiment with this alternative had to be accomplished through an enforcement
agreement pursuant to a minor violation. Initially, the change resulted in high levels of
smoke that would have caused a violation without the enforcement agreement. After some
experimentation, the smoke was eliminated and this pollution prevention approach to VOC
reduction was successful.
This example illustrates the types of problems which can frequently emerge in
efforts to develop, adapt, and then implement pollution prevention technologies or
techniques. The initial efforts to achieve operating objectives both with respect to product
quality and environmental releases may involve significant learning curves, engineering
modifications, and operating adjustments. The more innovative the approach, or more
complex the system and/or the engineering effort required, the lengthier the adjustment
process may be. Without a system of R&D permits and compliance flexibility associated
with R&D, it may often be far less risky for facilities to avoid the potential costs of
compliance penalties or other enforcement actions by simply adopting well understood
control alternatives even where the control alternatives are both less efficient economically
and less effective environmentally that pollution prevention solutions.
The limitations in flexibility created by permit restrictions may naive from either the
regulatory requirements or from the interpretation of those requirements by those who have
to write permits; there may be elements of each in a specific situation. Under the effluent
guidelines, for example, requirements are stated in the form of performance standards. In
theory, performance standards allow flexibility in how to meet the regulatory objective. In
practice, there could be two problems. First, control technologies are likely to have been
used as the basis for standard development. Permit writers, consulting engineers, and staff
of regulated parties may therefore regard implementation of the control technology as the
lowest risk solution to meeting the standard even if alternatives could achieve better
environmental results (perhaps both medium-specific and multi-media) and, potentially,
lower the net cost of production. Second, the form of the performance standard may limit
flexibility. Some Committee members noted that the inflexible use of concentration-based
standards rather than mass-based standards for effluent limitations could discourage use of
pollution prevention technologies that greatly reduce both contaminant and water releases,
resulting in substantial reductions of total pollution, but increased concentrations due to
reduced water volume. Comprehensive R&D permits would allow the development of
technologies and techniques even if all the potential implications of regulatory requirements
can not be foreseen, and if the effective implementation of a new technology or technique
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requires experimentation with performance parameters before environmental objectives can
be met or exceeded.
Generally, members of the TIE Committee agreed that:
Because of permit limitations and the costs associated with regulatory
oversight of R&D, a company may not be willing to investigate process
changes with significant pollution prevention potential or may face
unnecessary cost penalties associated with R&D undertaken anyway.
Special R&D permits under each of the media programs, if coordinated,
or a special multi-media permit covering all programs, would facilitate
companies' investigations of alternative ways of using different
feedstocks and explorations of innovative process changes.
With the extension of predictable R&D permitting into the air and water
programs and the flexibility of these permits to allow for full-range
engineering tests of feedstock changes or process changes, companies
may be more likely to investigate innovative process technologies and
techniques that reduce pollution.
otate Initiatives An innovative reward system for the implementation of new
Considered technologies has been explored in both Texas and Illinois.
Illinois offers permittees seeking to implement innovative
technologies (includes pollution prevention approaches) the possibility of an innovation
waiver from some of the more standard permitting conditions. Texas, on the other hand,
allows for expedited review (similar to fast-track permitting, but not across all permits) in
similar situations.
Federal Initiatives EPA's federal facilities enforcement program has begun
Considered what the TIE Committee considers to be an important effort
to expedite the testing and use of innovative technologies for
pollution prevention and control by encouraging the development of testing centers at some
federal facilities. This program involves EPA's Office of Federal Facilities Enforcement
(OFFE), the Technology Innovation Office (110) in the Office of Solid Waste and
Emergency Response, and the Office of Research and Development's Office of
Environmental Engineering and Technology Demonstration (OEETD). The Departments
of Defense and Energy are full partners in this program with EPA. The initiative involves
the co-sponsorship by EPA and another federal agency of technology tests, whether they
are conducted by private sector users and their federal partners, by one or more federal
agencies, or by one or more private parties. The first testing center opened in late 1992 at
McClellan Air Force Base, and a pollution prevention testing center is being planned. The
Committee believes that federal facility-based test centers can through risk sharing,
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speedy regulatory oversight, and technological sophistication ~ supplement R&D
permitting.
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3. POLLUTION PREVENTION-BASED COMPLIANCE
AND ENFORCEMENT INITIATIVES
Overview Strong, effective, consistent, predictable enforcement is a
critical factor in promoting pollution prevention. It is also
essential for a fair, level playing field for all regulated parties. Facilities faced with the
certainty that non-compliance will result in enforcement actions and that they must comply
with environmental requirements are more likely, especially as the cost of compliance
increases, to look for cost-effective alternatives for reducing generation of pollution in the
first place. But beyond the general incentive enforcement creates, positive efforts to use
enforcement actions and inspections to promote pollution prevention can provide a major
additional opportunity to enhance environmental management.
EPA has made significant progress in developing and implementing pollution
prevention-based compliance and enforcement initiatives since the TIE Committee's first
report, particularly with respect to encouraging pollution prevention activities and innovative
technologies as part of enforcement actions. The TIE Committee has explored the potential
for more extensive implementation of this approach and the relationship between permitting
and enforcement requirements.
Findings with The TIE Committee found that many of the recent state and
Respect to federal efforts relating to compliance and enforcement
Incentives provide elements which could lead to an environmental
and Barriers management system with both greater flexibility to allow
pollution prevention and greater incentives to encourage
documented and effective voluntary source reduction actions that go beyond compliance.
The TIE Committee concluded that more effective realization of the goals of environmental
innovation and pollution prevention must be based on a recognition that stringent
compliance policies are a driving force behind much pollution prevention activity.
In the first place, compliance policies create a "level playing field" in which non-
compliance is not a viable option. Second, these policies can cause facilities to institute
pollution prevention voluntarily when the alternative necessary for compliance, such as
control technology, is either inadequate or more expensive. Strict regulation of hazardous
waste has resulted in higher costs for its management, treatment, and disposal. This has led
firms to reduce or eliminate the generation of hazardous wastes. For example, many
Publicly Owned Treatment Works (POTW) are finding that strict compliance requirements
for sludge, air toxics, and National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) limits
are encouraging them to institute pollution prevention activities with their dischargers.
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Pollution prevention-based enforcement actions seem to offer the opportunity to
achieve greater environmental improvements at industrial facilities than are required by
applicable regulations. Enforcement actions by federal, state, and local governments, as well
as POTWs, may require firms to undergo waste minimization audits. These audits can lead
facilities to identify and implement pollution prevention options that reduce their discharge
to zero. This was done by a discharger to a POTW in California in a case detailed in the
following section on state initiatives.
EPA policies are beginning to encourage the inclusion of pollution prevention
activities and the consideration of innovative technology solutions in settlement agreements.
Such measures may be utilized either to correct the violation or, pursuant to agreements
under the Policy on Supplemental Environmental Projects (SEPs), to go beyond
requirements imposed to redress the original violation. Measures exceeding what is
required to correct the violation are encouraged by lowering the gravity portion of the
assessed fine for non-compliance. SEPs are designed to reduce risks posed to human
health and the environment beyond the level which would be required by law.
The TIE Committee supports the use of effective and consistent enforcement as a
way of promoting pollution prevention, but does not believe that strong enforcement should
be the sole method of achieving it. Among the advantages of using enforcement actions to
promote pollution prevention are that the actions are:
Effective. Including pollution prevention activities in enforcement actions
does promote reduction in generation and release of pollutants, and helps
achieve compliance. It gives high priority to industries most in need of
revising their practices.
Controlled. When the pollution prevention activity is used in an
enforcement context, each case receives special attention and close
scrutiny. Industry actions and results are closely monitored by the
responsible environmental agency.
Educational. Working with industries under enforcement orders leads
to the development of a broad knowledge of economically feasible
pollution prevention techniques by- the regulating agency. The settlement
actions document pollution prevention efforts which, under some
conditions, could be used by other companies in the same industry or
other industries. (The TIE Committee is concerned, however, that the
potential disclosure and dissemination of proprietary information gained
under settlement actions is a significant issue that requires careful
examination.)
Drawbacks are that they are:
Negative. Enforcement actions represent a negative regulatory incentive
for pollution prevention. The TIE Committee would like to see more
emphasis put on creating positive incentives for instituting pollution
prevention.
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i Litigious. Negotiating settlements can be very costly and can drain
resources from regulatory activities as well as from the regulated entity.
The enforcement process takes a long time and requires a lot of staff
resources. Intermediate levels of enforcement, such as non-compliance
orders with follow up and pre-enforcement conferences, avoid many of
these disadvantages, and should be heavily relied upon as a means of
promoting source reduction and pollution prevention in a way that is
most efficient for a given regulated party.
2. inconsistent Enforcement and compliance actions do not promote the
consistent use of pollution prevention on either an industry-wide or
multi-media basis.
i Focusednnrrnw ly. Enforcement actions only apply to one case with a
single purpose.
The TIE Committee also found that multi-media inspections provide incentives to
both regulators and facility managers to look at a facility as a whole. If inspections are
coupled with technical assistance, they provide facility managers with information about
opportunities to economically reduce pollutants to or below levels required to meet single-
media compliance regulations. Inspectors may provide a useful role in identifying the
potential for pollution prevention approaches they are familiar with in individual facilities; to
do this effectively, however, they need to be well trained and have adequate technical
expertise. With appropriate sensitivity and expertise, they can identify when the company
should be encouraged to call on pollution prevention technical assistance specialists to
analyze alternative approaches for the company. The issue of technical assistance support
and training is discussed more fully, infra.
The TIE Committee found that, most commonly, inspectors can be valuable by
simply, as a first approach for facilities out of compliance, directing companies to providers
of technical assistance whether government or private who do not share the
enforcement responsibilities and, indeed, may be in a completely independent organization.
This avoids the potential problems of having the enforcer "recommend" a solution, or of
companies fearing that a request for technical assistance is likely to lead to an enforcement
action. In addition, specialized technical assistance personnel are more likely to have the
necessary expertise to assist companies in identifying and evaluating the technical options
which would be appropriate to their operations.
For inspectors to play such a potentially positive role, it is important for state and
local agencies and the federal government to involve inspectors in a continuing system of
pollution prevention training. At least eighteen states, including Massachusetts; Kentucky,
and Minnesota, have begun multi-media compliance inspections or pilot projects.
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Federal Initiatives EPA has adopted flexible enforcement as a key to
Considered encourage pollution prevention and innovative solutions in
the Office of Enforcement (OE)'s Interim Policy on Pollution
prevention and Recycling Conditions in Settlements and the Policy on Supplemental
Environmental Projects (SEPs). The first policy allows federal negotiators to offer to
extend the compliance schedule or to reduce the punitive portion of a penalty in a settlement
agreement for a respondent's agreement to correct the violation with a pollution prevention
activity and the use of an innovative technology. The second policy allows federal
negotiators to reduce the gravity portion of the penalty in a settlement agreement when the
facility agrees to undertake a supplemental environmental or innovation-related project.
SEPs can be categorized as pollution prevention projects and pollution prevention related
projects such as pollution reduction, environmental restoration, environmental auditing, and
enforcement-related and environmental public awareness projects.
There is some question about how aggressively these flexible approaches are being
applied. One factor limiting their use is that SEPs are potentially more difficult for
enforcement personnel to understand and implement than standard enforcement actions.
This problem is similar to the problems which have limited innovative permitting actions,
and could be ameliorated by more extensive technical and pollution prevention training for
enforcement personnel. In addition, some enforcement personnel have indicated concern
that credit should not be given for changes a company may already have initiated or planned
to undertake for economic reasons. As a result of these limitations and concerns, the TIE
Committee was unable to identify many examples of the use of pollution prevention
conditions or SEPs in enforcement actions for any of the media programs other than in the
enforcement efforts of the Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances (OPPTS).
In order to overcome these difficulties, the SEP Work Group of the Deputy Administrator's
Pollution Prevention Senior Policy Council recommended that the Office of Research and
Development (ORD) work with the programs to identify and disseminate pollution
prevention opportunities specifically applicable to the facilities that each program regulates
and the types of violations that these programs detect. ORD is now working with OE and
the program offices through the SEP Work Group.
OPPTS' compliance program, however, has been active in integrating SEPs into
settlement agreements. In its 1992 report, Pollution PreventinnThroughCompliance and
Enforcement, this office has compiled summaries of a selection of the 265 cases under
TSCA, EPCRA, and FIFRA with SEPs which were settled in 1990 and 1991. Among those
summarized was the case of 3-V Chemical Corporation which was alleged by EPA to have
violated TSCA. The final settlement included a reduced penalty of $30,000 and 3-V's
agreement to undertake a pollution prevention and a pollution reduction project. The
company agreed to purchase and install a closed loop solvent recycling system which
should reduce by more than 50 percent its point source emissions of an unregulated ozone
depleting substance (1-1-1-trichloroethane) and dichloromethane, which is a probable
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human carcinogen. 3-V has also agreed to implement a leak detection program for fugitive
emissions of these two solvents and will report annually on pollution prevention efforts.
Under a cooperative agreement between EPA and the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT), MIT is evaluating the pollution prevention settlements to date. The
Office of Enforcement plans to use the results of this analysis in the further development of
its policy for use of pollution prevention proposals and projects in settlement negotiations.
A pollution prevention compliance initiative at the federal level is in the Office of
Solid Waste's (OSW) pollution prevention program. Its policy, which is based on the use
of rather limited authorities, emphasizes the requirement, included in the Hazardous and
Solid Waste Amendments of 1984, for generators to certify the existence of a waste
minimization program on manifests and for a similar certification in TSD permits.
Inspectors can check the certification because it is an enforceable admission. Once the
certification is signed, the facility must be able to demonstrate that there is such a plan, and
that actions at the facility are consistent with the plan. These plans give the inspector
something to enforce. Inspectors can also try to persuade a plant to improve its plan by
providing information on available technical assistance and inform the plant of generic
pollution prevention opportunities, but they cannot force change in the plans.
EPA's Office of Federal Facilities Enforcement (OFFE) is developing a "Multi-
media Enforcement Strategy for Federal Facilities" which will include discussions of goals,
authorities, targeting, inspections, enforcement, technical assistance, and program
coordination. OFFE has developed an automated Federal Facility Tracking System (FFTS)
which provides a comprehensive overview of federal facility compliance rates across all
media programs. To target multi-media inspections, regional staff will use four primary
factors:
Historic non-compliance, using the FFTS those facilities in chronic
violation in one of more media.
Regional risk ranking of threat posed by the facility to human health or
aquatic systems.
Significance to other national or regional initiatives.
Opportunity for pollution prevention.
OFFE will also conduct multi-media inspections, in which the inspector will complete a
multi-media screening checklist for other media programs. The checklists will be forwarded
to the appropriate media offices, which may conduct follow-up inspections. Once violations
are identified, OFFE plans to make a major effort to promote use of pollution prevention
settlements to address compliance problems.
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EPA's Enforcement Management Council has requested development of a national
multi-media inspection screening checklist for use by EPA compliance inspectors. OE is
planning to distribute this package during FY 1993. The proposed national checklist has
been developed based on analysis of the inspection screening checklists being used in
EPA's regional offices during FY 1991 and FY 1992. This multi-media checklist, however,
is not structured primarily to identify pollution prevention opportunities.
EPA is now getting credit for referring multi-media civil suits to the Department of
Justice. In the past, each suit was counted once, whether it involved multiple media or a
single medium. (For example, a violation of both the Clean Water Act [CWA] and the
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act [RCRA] was counted as one referral.) Now, each
medium involved in a suit is considered in accounting for referrals. This gives EPA's Office
of Enforcement more credit and more incentive for multi-media enforcement.
State Initiatives The TIE Committee looked at a number of examples of the
Considered ways states and POTWs are integrating pollution prevention
into their enforcement and compliance activities. Among
them were technical assistance programs of the Orange County Sanitation Districts
(CSDOC) and the multi-media inspections and technical assistance referrals of the
Blackstone Project in Massachusetts.
In the case of the Orange County Sanitation Districts, an escalating program of
enforcement has been developed which includes a technical assistance (TA) program. The
first step is a Notice of Violation, which is followed by a compliance meeting. At the
compliance meeting, pollution prevention options are suggested. Chronic violators that do
not achieve compliance are served with a Probation Order which requires that a pollution
prevention audit be conducted and economically feasible pollution prevention methods be
implemented. If additional time is needed to construct, acquire, or install equipment,
CSDOC may require the discharger to enter into an Enforcement Compliance Schedule
Agreement that sets out the goals and deadlines for achieving compliance.
One of the dischargers to the POTW, a medium-size manufacturer of aerosol
cleaning products for the sanitary, automotive, and industrial markets lo cated in Orange
County, was violating discharge limitations for wastewater. The cause of the non-
compliance was attributed to rinses from the chemical reaction and blending tank washouts,
and overflow from the hot water bath, which was used for pressure and leak testing of all
aerosol cans. To resolve the non-compliance problems on a long-term basis, the company
was required to conduct, under the provisions of a Probation Order, an industrial waste
survey and to implement an effective waste management and waste minimization plan. The
company was notified that if compliance could not be achieved through implementation of
waste minimization techniques, it would be required to install a toxic organic treatment
facility. In response to the Probation Order, the company evaluated three alternatives and
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decided the most cost-effective action was to modify its manufacturing and operational
processes to create a closed loop system which would result in 100 percent recycling and
reuse of materials and wastewater. As a result of choosing a zero discharge system, the
company was able to disconnect its industrial sewer connection and no longer needed an
industrial wastewater permit.
One state, Massachusetts, has been planning and training for multi-media
compliance inspections since 1988. With grant support from EPA's Office of Pollution
Prevention, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection conducted a pilot
project named "Blackstone" which tested various formats for multi-media inspections. The
Blackstone project focused on approximately 25 metal-intensive manufacturing facilities
located in the service area of the Upper Blackstone sewerage system (POTW). The project
had several specific objectives: incorporating source reduction into enforcement programs,
testing the efficiency of various enforcement models, and coordinating regulatory activities
with technical assistance to identify source reduction opportunities. The key factors linking
compliance requirements to pollution prevention were that the inspections were multi-media,
and that all facilities with compliance problems were referred by the inspectors to the State's
pollution prevention technical assistance office.
A main objective of the Blackstone project was to ensure that the facility would be
viewed holistically, rather than as a series of separate releases to different media. In meeting
this overall objective, inspectors from each of the media programs coordinated their efforts,
conducting multi-media inspections either jointly or individually.
The Blackstone project has served as a model for multi-media inspections planned
for other states, as well as for expanded application in Massachusetts. Almost all of the
manufacturing facilities referred to the Office ofTechnical Assistance (OTA) implemented
at least some of the recommendations made by OTA, and many made significant changes to
their processes. It is notable that OTA provided information about a wide range of technical
options, including pollution prevention approaches. Of the first 25 or so firms receiving
compliance notifications, about 22 availed themselves of the technical assistance services
that were offered to them. This extremely high success rate was apparently due to the
combination of two factors. First, the "hammer" of a compliance requirement established
the need to take action (which might normally have been met through treatment or control).
Second, the source of technical assistance was an organization independent from the
environmental regulatory agency and not reporting to it.
The pilot project also showed that multi-media coordination resulted in greater
efficiency in inspection programs. However, significant time is required for the initial
training and coordination. In the case of Blackstone, EPA provided significant support for
the project's development. Similar support is likely to be needed for development of
comparable initiatives in other states.
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Other Options The TIE Committee also considered the option of third-party
Considered auditing for certain types of reporting and measurement
requirements, as a supplement to local, state, or federal
enforcement capabilities. Review by third-party auditors would be paid for by the facility.
Some members of the TIE Committee saw the advantages as being:
More efficient targeting of governmental enforcement resources on the
more environmentally significant enforcement opportunities.
Helping expedite the permit process, in cases where inspections were
required for permit approvals.
Other members were concerned about the effects which reliance on independent, third-party
auditors would have on the integrity of the enforcement system. Issues were raised
regarding the need for certifying environmental auditors. Also, audit requirements raised
questions about the confidentiality, release of attorney-client privileged information, and the
risk of self-incrimination with respect to exposure to criminal liability.
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4. FACILITY PLANNING
Overview The TIE Committee reviewed pollution prevention facility
planning as a means for encouraging industrial and/or
commercial facilities to evaluate cost-effective opportunities to reduce environmental
pollution on a -whole-facility, multi-media basis. Several states have initiated pollution
prevention facility planning requirements. While these state initiatives differ in a variety of
ways (e.g., the extent to which planning information is public, whether changes are
mandatory, the scope and applicability of the planning requirement), they have in common
requirements that the facility evaluate the technical and economic feasibility of process,
materials, and product alternatives, and that senior corporate management take ultimate
responsibility for the plans. The TIE Committee also discussed the voluntary planning
efforts undertaken by some industrial facilities.
The TIE Committee considered the implications of the alternative approaches taken
by the states, the different levels of pollution prevention planning activity and environmental
awareness at industrial facilities, and the potential for differential treatment of industrial
facilities based on some measure of past performance.
The TIE Committee's review of facility planning identified several issues:
Scope: Whether the scope of applicability of planning should be limited
to either hazardous waste or TRI chemicals, or should be broadened to
include all non-product materials released from a facility.
Effect of Track Record: Whether companies with proven pollution
prevention track records should be required to fulfill the facility planning
requirement, and if so, how the requirement might be modified to reflect
the ongoing nature of a facility's commitment, or whether the
requirement should be limited to companies with poor environmental
records. Specific alternatives included whether or not (or to what
degree) the public release of plans should depend on such factors.
Measurement The basis of measurement for determining whether a
facility has done enough. This would be necessary either for mandatory
reduction requirements (currently mandated in only one state), or for
variations in requirements based on past performance (above). It would
create, however, the potential negative incentive of minimum targets.
Confidentiality of Proprietary Information: The problem of protecting
the confidentiality of proprietary information in the facility plan.
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Findings With The TIE Committee found that pollution prevention facility
Respect to planning can be a valuable tool for getting a company to look
Incentives at the whole facility and at a wide range of technical and cost
and Barriers options, rather than simply focusing on environmental
compliance. For pollution prevention facility planning to be
effective, it must become a part of the overall production planning process involving
operational and top management personnel. In this sense, pollution prevention planning is
analogous to Total Quality Management (TQM); it is a process, not a finishing point.
The Committee also found that the wide diversity of state approaches provides an
opportunity to learn what planning requirements are most effective. The diversity of state
approaches offers the additional advantage of state leadership and commitment, and creates
a valuable opportunity to examine and evaluate the differing outcomes. As a result, the TIE
Committee found that the current federal role of providing technical and financial support to
state planning efforts is the appropriate one; EPA should not attempt to impose a uniform
planning requirement on all the states. It should, however, evaluate state approaches to learn
nationally applicable lessons and facilitate exchange of information between the states on
the individual state experiences.
The TIE Committee found that companies are at widely different points in terms of
incorporating pollution prevention approaches into corporate actions and culture, and that
this may be a factor to consider in developing facility planning requirements.
State Initiatives Nineteen states have passed legislation requiring some form
Considered of facility planning either for solid or hazardous waste
reduction specifically, or for multi-media reduction in the use
and/or release of toxics (based on the release of chemicals subject to reporting for the
Toxics Release Inventory). Several other state legislatures or state environmental offices
have considered, or are currently considering, facility planning legislation. Examples of the
diverse approaches and laws reviewed by the TIE Committee include:
Four laws that emphasize planning for toxics reduction, rather than
just reductions in generation or release of hazardous wastes or toxics.
Others have a dual emphasis.
Increased emphasis on targeting large-volume generators and users of
toxics, especially for mandatory program elements. One of the effects of
facility planning requirements has been to expand the need for technical
assistance programs to larger companies, as well as smaller companies.
Planning processes in a few states tied to permits or to enforcement
actions. Four states are able to enforce against a facility for substantive
reasons (e.g., in New York and California, failure to implement the
plan), rather than being limited to enforcing "process" violations such as
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the failure to submit a required facility plan. In most states, the contents
of a facility plan are generally not enforceable.
Two programs (New York and California) in which facility plans are
public documents. In most states, progress reports and/or plan
summaries are made public, but the plans themselves are not public.
One state, New Jersey, that not only requires facility planning, but is
evaluating the potential for incorporating pollution prevention options
into facility-wide multi-media permits. This State is participating in an
important outgrowth of a TIE Committee report, EPA's "Model States"
program.
State plans tied to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) (e.g., Minnesota,
Massachusetts) that are intrinsically multi-media. State plans initially
developed out of concern for meeting state capacity assurance planning
(CAP) requirements tend to be single-medium hazardous waste
requirements. New York, which has such a single-medium requirement,
is trying to use other state authorities to require single-medium air and
water plans, and then to persuade facilities to do a single multi-media
plan.
A state-level facility planning requirement (California) for generators of
hazardous waste. The requirement to plan waste reduction there is
limited to hazardous waste. In some locations in the state, however,
industrial or commercial facilities discharging to sewers must also
respond to pollution prevention planning requirements from Regional
Water Quality Boards, sanitation districts, and/or POTWs. For example,
because of high concentrations of heavy metals, the San Francisco Bay
Regional Board identified target sources of metallic wastes and feasible
waste minimization technologies and measures, and provided potential
reduction estimates to both the sources and the POTWs in the San
Francisco area. The Board found that further reductions of metals
entering the sewer system were possible through a combination of
expanded pretreatment restrictions and the initiation of waste
minimization efforts. A companion technical assistance program aims at
helping regulated parties understand their options. The Board has
issued permits to the POTWs requiring that the pilot waste minimization
programs:
Be tailored to address the targeted industrial sector(s).
Establish best management practices and waste minimization
alternatives for the targeted industries.
Require waste minimization plans in response to industry violations
and as a condition of permitting for new permit applicants.
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Federal Initiatives EPA's role in facility planning has been one of providing
Considered support to the states. The support has consisted both of
provision and exchange of technical information and
financial support. Through its Pollution Prevention Incentives for States grants, EPA has
funded state programs to develop and initiate facility planning requirements. Since most
state facility planning statutes include mechanisms for financial support for the state's
implementation of the facility planning requirement, long-term EPA support of these
programs -will not generally be necessary.
Other Options The TIE Committee considered, but did not come to any
Considered conclusions about, recommendations that pollution
prevention "leaders" and "laggards" in the industrial
community should be treated differentially with respect to pollution prevention facility
planning.
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5. POLLUTION PREVENTION SUPPORT AND TRAINING
Overview The TIE Committee considered a range of alternatives for
supporting regulatory organizations, regulated parties, and
others in their efforts to undertake the risks necessary in permitting and enforcement
processes to develop, finance, encourage, and promote pollution prevention objectives and
initiatives. The issue of support for pollution prevention builds on one of the key
recommendations of the first report of the TIE Committee, Permitting and Compliance
Policy: Barriers to U.S. Environmental Technology Innovation (January 1991), that the
agency "should support regulators and other involved communities to maximize the
effectiveness of improvements recommended in permitting and compliance systems." The
TIE Committee was addressing the idea that the ability and willingness of regulatory
personnel to promote pollution prevention is impacted by the strength or weakness of
informational and motivational support. The development and retention of skilled, motivated
people is at the heart of this issue.
Findings With The TIE Committee found that many of ;he barriers
Respect to discussed in its previous report on the relationship between
Incentives technology innovation and permitting and compliance policy
and Barriers also apply to pollution prevention. Individuals in both
regulatory organizations and regulated parties lack a positive
system of support and incentives that would foster and reward their efforts to try to utilize
pollution prevention approaches within the context of standard, media-specific, permitting
and enforcement programs. Their needs are similar to those of people who try to foster the
development and use of innovative technologies through permitting and compliance
decisions.
In addition, the Committee found that there is a need for better informational and
technical resources, such as clearinghouses of pollution prevention-based enforcement
actions, or sample permits with details of pollution prevention focused permit conditions
that could help regulators craft permits and/or settlements that more effectively enable
pollution prevention. Regulated parties could also benefit from such technical assistance
(TA) and technology transfer (TT) resources. For example, if permittees had more certainty
that a particular range of source reduction approaches was potentially acceptable, more
would be willing to pursue innovative technologies or pollution prevention solutions rather
than opting for conventional abatement or control.
The TIE Committee found that there is little federal guidance available to states on
how to incorporate pollution prevention into existing medium-specific programs. Moreover,
adequate guidance is not yet available to state personnel on conducting multi-media
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inspections an activity which the Committee agreed was one of the more promising ways
to help a facility discover, and potentially act upon, pollution prevention opportunities. The
agency has, however, taken an initial step towards the development of such guidance. In
May 1992, EPA modified the policy Framework on State /EPA Enforcement Agreements by
issuing Addendum D. Multi-Media Enforcement. This addendum lays out principles for
EPA and the states to follow in working together to coordinate and package multi-media
cases and target multi-media inspections.
The Committee was briefed on a number of separate multi-media inspection projects
at the state and local level; the members agreed that much can be learned from sharing the
lessons from such experiences. For multi-media activities to be successful, representatives
of the single-medium programs must begin a dialogue to discover similarities and
differences among their respective needs, authorities, limitations, and goals. Almost half of
the states have now established intra-agency task forces or working groups to begin such a
process. More support, however, is needed at the federal level to coordinate, facilitate, and
disseminate the states' experiences with multi-media initiatives.
Members of the TIE Committee also believe it is important not only to look at
improving pollution prevention support and training for individuals within the
regulated/regulator relationship (e.g., permit writers, permittees, inspectors), but also to
consider ways of utilizing business-to-business support and informational systems,
industry training programs, and higher educational programs for engineers, managers, and
business majors to disseminate knowledge of, and industry experience with, pollution
prevention. In its report, Permitting and Compliance Policy: Barriers to U.S.
Environmental Technology Innovation, the TIE Committee also discussed the need for
cross-training that builds mutual knowledge and understanding by staffs of regulated and
regulatory organizations. EPA has, based on this previous recommendation, begun pilot
courses to explore how to do this effectively. As noted in the TIE Committee report,
Improving Technology Diffusion for Environmental Protection, pollution prevention
technical assistance also needs to be institutionalized as a role for both the regulated
community (including trade and professional associations) and environmental service
providers, not just as a service of government agencies whether regulatory or non-
regulatory. The TIE Committee felt that while some progress has been made in
incorporating pollution prevention concepts into certain engineering curricula, the
development of business school courses to educate corporate managers on the economic,
environmental, and management benefits of pollution prevention has lagged further behind.
State Initiatives The burden of knowing all of the rules, regulations, and
Considered compliance requirements falls on the regulated entity. One
of the most important roles state agencies can play is
outreach and education. Ideally, this involves providing both technical information and
regulatory information (especially as rules change). Many states and local agencies have a
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history of successful outreach initiatives aimed at educating, training, and guiding facilities
towards pollution prevention; North Carolina, Minnesota, and New York have programs
dating back a decade or more. Such activities make it more likely that industry will be aware
of both technical options and their relationship to regulatory requirements.
Technical assistance and informational outreach is most crucial for small and
medium-sized firms which are often frustrated and confused by rapidly changing
requirements and limited in their ability to identify, test, and apply technical alternatives.
Some state technical assistance programs are limited to such smaller facilities. The design
of state programs that aim at encouraging regulated parties toward pollution prevention must
be based on the recognition of the importance of providing in-depth technical information to
support industrial innovation. In the permitting process, this support might take the form of
process-oriented technical assistance on pollution prevention for permit writers or detailed
instruments such as guidances and checklists to support pollution prevention focused
compliance activities of inspectors. Other TA programs should be based in non-regulatory
agencies, NGOs and other non-profit organizations, and the private sector (e.g., trade
associations and consulting engineers).
The TIE Committee considered the experiences of a number of state initiatives
(including some based outside state regulatory agencies) whose goals were to provide
support and training for pollution prevention, not only for regulated parties but also within
the regulatory agencies themselves. Activities generally fell under the following categories:
Outreach on compliance information and opportunities to implement
pollution prevention responses.
Technical assistance to firms, sometimes including on-site pollution
prevention audits.
Human resource development and training.
Rewards, recognition, and other incentive approaches.
Informational mechanisms (clearinghouses, publications).
Advisory committees (technical, regulatory, cross-program).
Federal Initiatives Within EPA, pollution prevention training and support is
Considered currently being provided to permit writ= and inspectors in
some of the media programs as well as to all new agency
employees. For example, the Office of Water has conducted pollution prevention training
workshops for permit writers. Permit writers are being trained to use flexibility and
judgement in areas such as monitoring requirements. Permit writers are also receiving
training in the application of "best management practices" as they apply to pollution
prevention, and are being encouraged to consider innovative solutions in draft permits as a
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means of achieving performance-based standards, rather than relying simply on
off-the-shelf technologies to comply with Best Available Control Technology (BACT).
In the technical outreach arena, EPA has created a national Pollution Prevention
Information Clearinghouse (PPIC). The clearinghouse includes a computerized pollution
prevention information exchange system (PIES) which allows users (including permit
writers, regulators, and inspectors at the federal, state, and local levels, as well as industrial
users, academics, environmental professionals, and ordinary citizens) access to databases,
information networks, document summaries, and ordering information, etc. A national
hotline similar to the RCRA/Superfund hotline is envisioned in the near future.
The TIE Committee has found one of EPA's most important and valuable
contributions to pollution prevention to be its support of state pollution prevention programs
through the Pollution Prevention Incentives to States (PPIS) grants. Since 1988, EPA has
supported the initiation and development of a range of state pollution prevention activities.
These have included expanded technical assistance, pollution prevention enforcement and
permitting pilot projects, education and training programs, and innovative pollution
prevention efforts in agriculture and energy. By supporting the leadership role of the states
in promoting the identification and adoption of pollution prevention technologies and
techniques to meet the needs and problems of their own industries, EPA has made a major
contribution to expanding the awareness and impact of such approaches.
The TIE Committee applauds efforts by EPA to support pollution prevention
initiatives both within the agency and outside of it (i.e., in the industrial and state and local
government sectors). However, the Committee noted specific areas that could benefit from
additional support. As discussed elsewhere in the findings, support is needed in the way of
guidance and/or training on how to incorporate pollution prevention into existing media-
specific programs. A clearinghouse of successful pollution prevention permitting and
compliance actions (e.g., SEPs in enforcement cases) was also mentioned as a pressing
need.
Other Options The range of activities the TIE Committee considered within
Considered the topic area of support and training for pollution prevention
was quite broad. Beyond what has been mentioned above
under state and federal initiatives, the Committee looked at the following as being among the
more promising avenues for broadening the base of pollution prevention support and
training:
The National Pollution Prevention Center just established at the
University of Michigan with a grant from EPA. The Center will develop
pollution prevention curricula for undergraduate and graduate students,
focusing within the schools of natural resources, engineering, and
management.
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The MIT Program on Technology, Business, and the Environment which
focuses on education, research, and promoting public discourse on
pollution prevention. A principal goal is to foster leadership and
learning in students and in practicing professionals.
The UCLA Center for Clean Technology (CCT), a consortium of
research centers that specialize in hazardous substance control,
intermedia transport research, and risk/systems analysis for toxics
control. Projects have included curricula developed to integrate
environmental issues and concerns (including pollution prevention) into
mainstream engineering design procedures.
The American Institute of Chemical Engineers' (AIChE) Center for
Waste Reduction Technologies campaign to encourage industry
sponsorship of pollution prevention research and training.
Technical assistance models that parallel the U.S. Department of
Agriculture's extension service program. Initiatives like this have begun
in both Kentucky and Georgia.
The development of accounting systems to allow the incorporation of
environmental obligations into the day-to-day management of companies
and facilities. While some larger companies have such systems or are
developing them, most mid-sized and smaller companies have no such
system. Without this, it is difficult to measure the amount of waste
being generated and even more difficult to measure waste reduction
possible from process changes, chemical substitutions, or improved
housekeeping.
Corporate sponsorship or support of company-wide integrated pollution
prevention. One example of a well developed corporate environmental
management system is "3M Quality Environmental Management
Program."
Short pollution prevention training programs for CEOs and other senior
level executives at the Harvard Business School or other major business
institutions. EPA could support the development of such programs.
Support or provision by EPA of training to small and medium-sized
businesses on the development and implementation of improved
environmental management systems that emphasize the integration of
environmental and other business decisions.
The Committee also refers the reader to the new report and recommendations of the
TIE Committee's Diffusion Focus Group, Improving Technology Diffusion for
Environmental Protection, which discusses extensively the critical role of the diffusion of
information about environmentally beneficial technologies in the environmental management
system. This report describes a number of policy and action steps that can help accomplish
this strategic environmental management approach.
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6. AGENCY RESOURCES/ADMINISTRATIVE EFFICIENCY
Overview The TIE Committee considered the issue of agency
resources as essentially addressing the question of how EPA
and state and local agencies can more effectively manage their limited resources to:
Allow staff time for detailed assessment of opportunities for technology
innovation and pollution prevention.
Optimize the performance of permitting and compliance systems to
address the most pressing environmental problems first
Today, too high a percentage of state and federal agency resources are spent in the
administration of single-medium permitting actions, a high proportion of which are routine
and provide little opportunity to have a significant environmental impact. It is estimated, for
instance, that nearly 50 percent of a state's permitting resources are used for the routine
reissuance of permits.
Findings With The TIE Committee found that current resource
Respect to commitments and requirements by state and federal agencies,
Incentives and statutory and regulatory constraints, and standard operating
Barriers procedures which have developed in permitting and
compliance limit the degree to which those agencies can
promote or encourage innovation or pollution prevention, or differentiate between
companies with differing commitments and practices. The cost and time associated with the
current permit application, negotiation, and renewal process is excessive, not only for
permittees but also for the agencies which must process, draft, negotiate, review, conduct
hearings, and finally approve or deny each, new permit, permit modification, or permit
renewal.
The TIE Committee found that there are significant opportunities to save resources
in the permitting and compliance process. To take advantage of these opportunities,
however, EPA must provide the maximum flexibility to the states compatible with the
agency's statutory responsibilities.
The TIE Committee found that modifications to current permitting and compliance
systems, such as increasing the use of permits-by-rule or reducing the time taken
administratively to process and review standard permit renewals, could help free up
resources so that agencies could not only focus on innovative pollution prevention
alternatives across the board, but also shift their scarce resources to deal with those permits
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and enforcement cases which are the most environmentally pressing and that could,
therefore, benefit most from pollution prevention approaches.
State Initiatives The TIE Committee looked at a number of ways states are
Considered beginning to streamline and improve the permitting process,
such as expedited review of innovative technology and
pollution prevention-focused permits (Illinois), standardized exemptions from the new
source review (NSR) process (Texas), and environmental benefit permit renewal strategies
(New York) which shift agency resources away from administrative or regulatory calendar-
linked renewals, redirecting them toward projects of high environmental interest. The TIE
Committee considered such state initiatives in light of agency resource savings they could
realize, and the potential they have for achieving resource savings that could then be
redirected to efforts focused on pollution prevention and on more significant environmental
risks.
New York's environmental benefits permit strategy is a unique approach to permit
renewals. Previously, renewals were driven by calendar-linked schedules rather than
opportunities for high environmental payoffs. The new strategy makes all state pollution
discharge elimination system (SPDES) permit renewals administrative in nature i.e., they
will become essentially automatic with administrative changes (changes in name, address,
etc.) only. All substantive permit changes would be processed as permit modifications, and
a special environmental priority file is being developed to guide the processing order and
degree of attention such permit modifications will receive. Factors to be considered in
establishing priorities for permit modifications include:
Problem areas identified by either the state, permittees, or the public.
Multi-media targeted facilities.
Toxics reduction targets.
Facilities with history of permit non-compliance.
Facilities discharging to receiving waters that have been reclassified.
Areas with combined sewer overflow (CSO) problems.
Other special industry features (e.g., PCB dischargers).
At least annually, the state will establish rankings for workload assignment and
permit-drafting purposes; the rankings will include lists of specific permits to be acted
upon. Savings in agency resources the state realizes (from the resources previously
expended on reviewing permit renewals involving no changes) will be directed to addressing
the most problematic facilities. The TIE Committee found that linking the permit
modification process to environmental priorities has much potential for fostering pollution
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prevention, not only because of its multi-media, toxics reduction focus, but also because
problem facilities can benefit most from pollution prevention solutions.
Federal Initiatives Over the years, EPA has utilized elements of class permits,
Considered general permits, permits-by-rule, or simple notifications
within a number of regulatory programs to impose standards
and requirements covering a large number of facilities. Under the RCRA underground
storage tank (UST) program, for example, EPA established technical and general
performance standards, but left program development and implementation up to the states.
Many states chose a combination of notification/permit-by-rule and class permit systems,
and have been successful in bringing a previously unregulated activity, involving literally
millions of units, into an environmental management system. Incineration of PCBs under
the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) is another area where EPA has successfully used
a class permit approach.
In April of this year, EPA issued a final rule describing a national strategy for
issuing general storm water discharge permits under the NPDES program. The general
permits will be issued to groups of industries or municipalities, or to types of activities
\vhich are sufficiently similar to warrant a general approach. For a basic compliance
mechanism, the storm water program will rely on site inspections to provide an efficient and
cost-effective approach for evaluating the effectiveness of the general permit requirements.
Facilities will be required to self-certify (annually) that pollution reduction measures
identified in the general permit have been adequately and properly implemented, and to
evaluate whether additional controls are needed. In some cases, monitoring of storm water
discharges may be required (e.g., primary metal industries, incinerators). The monitoring
information will help EPA determine if such facilities warrant additional permits or
requirements not covered under the general framework. The program provides for a simple
notice-of-intent (NOI) facilities that wish to participate only have to notify EPA of their
intent to take part. There is no formal permit application.
The TIE Committee identified and discussed a range of issues centering on
permit-by-rule approaches and how they might help foster pollution prevention by reallocating
resources. Concerns were raised about how universal a permit-by-rule approach could be
(e.g., it might not be appropriate for hazardous waste incinerators). Members of the TIE
Committee felt strongly that, regardless of how streamlined or fast-tracked permitting might
become, public participation in the permitting process is essential. There are opportunities
for efficiencies in the public hearing or public comment process, however. New York, for
example, will batch public notices for all SNPDES permit renewals, and if there are any
public challenges to a particular permit, that permit will not be renewed administratively ~ it
will be tracked into the priority file. Finally, there was some concern expressed in the TIE
Committee that general permits scoped out and drafted by regulators might serve to narrow
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opportunities rather than broaden them, and discourage the technology innovation and
process redesign/modification that is so important to pollution prevention.
Other Options In exploring the issue of reallocating agency resources, the
Considered TIE Committee looked at a number of other approaches that
might complement permit-by-rule or environmental benefits
review-type strategies. Such approaches centered on fostering more "back-end" oversight
(i.e., through enforcement/compliance systems) at the expense of "front-end" oversight
(i.e., through permitting systems). The following were considered and discussed:
Self-Reporting: Increased use of self-reporting mechanisms (e.g.,
expanded use of checklists, questionnaires, self-audits). SABA 313
(TRJ) reporting was cited as a model of what can be achieved through
increased informational requirements outside of a permitting system.
Facility Siting Contracts: Facility siting contracts with local
governments and environmental public interest organizations which
define the standards of environmental performance/result to be achieved
during facility operations. Such contracts could be negotiated in
conjunction with initial permitting of a facility. As long as the facility
keeps faith with the terms of the contract, subsequent permit
modifications or renewals might be automatic or streamlined. Standard
state or federal compliance systems would be augmented, not only by the
additional legal authority (i.e., the contract) but also by the heightened
scrutiny the facility would be under from local interests.
Third Party A uditing: Third party auditing, paid for by the facility, to
supplement state or federal agency inspections. As defined by the TIE
Committee, third party auditing would be utilized as part of the
enforcement scheme and would not replace traditional enforcement
activities. The TIE Committee considered both the potential benefits of
reducing resource demands on government resources, and potential
problems associated with having a private entity fulfill an essentially
governmental enforcement role.
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7. POLLUTION PREVENTION IMPLEMENTATION AT EPA
Overview IQ considering the issue of pollution prevention
implementation at EPA, the TIE Committee addressed several
questions. Broadly, how does the desire to promote pollution prevention interact with the
current culture and mission of EPA? Specifically, how can EPA refrain; accountable
planning targets, base grants, measurement and reward systems, and other mechanisms so
that pollution prevention is integrated in the day-to-day business and the primary
expenditures of state and local agencies, the regions, and EPA headquarters?
Findings with The TIE Committee concluded that more effective realization
Respect to °f me goals of environmental innovation and pollution
Incentives prevention must be based on a recognition that effective
and Barriers pollution prevention requires a long term commitment by
management to a process of continuous environmental
improvement. The TIE Committee had findings in three areas, including national policy and
goals, resources, and culture.
The TIE Committee found that a clearly articulated national pollution prevention
policy and goal would greatly support industrial pollution prevention. The National
Environmental Policy Plan (NEPP) of the Dutch government provides an example of such a
plan. The NEPP is a strategic plan for the medium and long term (through 2010), and
defines target groups and environmental objectives for that period. While the Dutch
approach is specific to that country's needs, several TIE Committee members expressed an
interest in such longer term setting of targets and defining of objectives. Not only would
such an approach make clear the nation's environmental needs and requirements, but it could
provide a more stable horizon for industrial planning and a more predictable market for
environmentally beneficial technologies. Possible types of goals discussed by the TIE
Committee include improved regulatory compliance, reduction of waste generation on an
annual percentage basis, achievement of zero discharge in certain circumstances, or the use
of a hierarchy in formulating waste management/reduction strategies. Some key
components of a longer term policy, although beyond the scope of permitting and
compliance, could include capital investment incentives to reduce emissions and tax credits
for achieving pollution prevention.
Because undertaking pollution prevention (or any major culture shift) can be
resource intensive, resources need to be freed up (see the Agency Resources Finding,
supra). As a key supplier of resources to states, EPA can help address this barrier by
freeing up base grant funds to meet compliance goals through using pollution prevention.
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The state core grant programs do not currently provide adequate flexibility for the states to
pursue pollution prevention and multi-media approaches within the existing programs.
At the philosophical level, the TIE Committee recognized that incorporation of
pollution prevention into industrial and government planning requires a cultural shift in
perspective. One way that EPA can support this culture shift is to change its own priorities
from command and control to incentives and support. EPA's budgeting and personnel
advancement policies do not currently encourage the institutionalization of the pollution
prevention approach in the day-to-day business of the agency.
The TIE Committee recognizes that incorporation of pollution prevention into
industrial planning is a strategic issue. It affects a company's public image and
environmental integrity. The environmental information developed for analyzing pollution
prevention opportunities also can enable regulated parties to improve their business
management; an understanding of the generation of waste can be used as a diagnostic tool
in analyzing opportunities to increase productivity.
State Initiatives A few states have begun to address pollution prevention
Considered resource questions in their relationships with EPA
headquarters and regional offices. For example, Alaska is
working out a program with Region 10 to dedicate 5 percent of core grants (across all
programs) to pollution prevention activities. In addition, states in Regions 1 and 2 are
working with their EPA regional offices to modify current agency approaches to
accountability on use of EPA's grants to the states. Their objective is to create ways to
provide additional credit for multi-media inspections, permitting, or enforcement actions, and
greater flexibility in implementing permit review requirements.
Federal Initiatives While the TIE Committee found that pollution prevention is
Considered still far from becoming the central focus of EPA programs, it
found a number of valuable initiatives which move towards
re-directing priorities. Beyond the specific agreement with Alaska, for example, EPA has
recently issued guidance for incorporating pollution prevention into the agency's media
grant programs to the states. The guidance document states that pollution prevention "is
EPA's preferred approach to environmental management where technically and
economically feasible," and that proposals from the states consistent with the pollution
prevention principles in the guidance should be considered "good candidates for funding
through the grant programs." The Administrator's proposed budgets for FY 1993 and
FY1994 show pollution prevention activities as a percentage of core grants across the board.
EPA has used the "2 Percent Set-Aside Projects," a Pollution Prevention Awards
program, and the 33/50 program to voluntarily promote pollution prevention and to attempt
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to elevate the priority that pollution prevention is given by firms and by agency employees.
The agency is incorporating pollution prevention in the comprehensive, four-year strategic
plans developed by each program office. In addition, EPA is beginning to include pollution
prevention-related activities in its operating guidance, accountability measures, and
regulatory review and development processes. Examples of 2 percent set-aside projects
include "Pollution Prevention By and For Small Businesses," which provided awards of
$25,000 each to small businesses to demonstrate innovative approaches to pollution
prevention, and "RCRA Inspectors: Pollution Prevention Opportunities in the Field," which
investigated the role of RCRA facility inspectors to determine when it is feasible and
appropriate for them to provide waste reduction information.
In the agency's regulatory development process, a formal pollution prevention review
process has been initiated for significant regulations. The regulations subject to this review
are identified in a Source Reduction Review Projects (SRRP) which focuses, for example,
on major regulatory initiatives (e.g., MACT requirements) which will establish the
framework for EPA's environmental management for the next decade or more. In the
SRRPs, the development of all new regulations will be coordinated across the media for 17
industrial categories and source reduction opportunities will be intensely evaluated during
rule development. In this way, the relative priority of problems can be addressed and cross-
media shifts can be considered and avoided, where possible.
On the "reward" side, a new initiative involves establishing cash awards for EPA
facilities and individuals who create policies or activities that promote pollution prevention.
The Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards (OAQPS) has begun to offer $1,000
cash awards to staff members who make the greatest contribution to promotion of pollution
prevention. For several years now, EPA has given annual awards to private companies and
local governments for "excellence" in promoting the principles and practices of pollution
prevention or in instituting them at the facility or company level. Such award programs are
away to point out and reward (in terms of positive publicity) the leaders in the effort to
incorporate pollution prevention into environmental management systems.
EPA has also established an awards program to recognize those private, non-profit,
or governmental entities making outstanding contributions in the implementation or
promotion of pollution prevention technologies and techniques. During the past year,
recipients of the award were selected through a process which began at the EPA regions.
The agency sent out over 8,000 notices of the availability of the awards and requests for
applications. Regional offices selected from among the original applicants, and Renew
America (a non-profit organization which is involved in other environmental awards) put
together a panel of judges which included representatives from state and local agencies,
environmental public interest groups, and businesses. Final selections were made by EPA's
Assistant Administrators.
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The 33/50 program is designed to encourage large facilities to voluntarily reduce
releases of some of the most toxic industrial chemicals. While the principal objective is to
encourage pollution prevention, companies can achieve credit for reductions in releases
achieved through control, treatment, or recycling, as well.
To promote more rapid internal EPA adoption of pollution prevention measures and
approaches, and to provide guidance and direction for the effort to undertake the transition
to pollution prevention, the agency has formed a Senior Policy Council which is comprised
of top managers representing EPA's national programs and review and approve agency wide
pollution prevention initiatives, and to evaluate their implementation. The group has been in
existence for just over a year, and has focused on pollution prevention initiatives in the areas
of rule development, enforcement, state grants, and budget. Specific accomplishments have
included the state media program grants guidance, allocation of the 2 percent pollution
prevention set-aside projects, and development of the Source Reduction Review Project
which will ensure promotion of pollution prevention options and consideration of multi-
media effects in 24 major media program rules during the next ten years.
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RECOMMENDATIONS
The TIE Committee has concluded that there are significant permitting and
compliance barriers to the implementation of pollution prevention technologies and
techniques. The barriers create major impediments for innovative pollution prevention
technologies, although these barriers are often significant even for the implementation of
readily available and/or widely utilized process or material changes. The Committee has
also reached consensus on many of the policy and program changes which are necessary to
effectively overcome these bathers, creating additional incentives for pollution prevention.
The TIE Committee believes that the changes it is recommending will be conducive to
greater and more rapid development, commercialization, and use of environmentally
beneficial pollution prevention technologies and techniques.
The TIE Committee wishes to re-emphasize, however, a general finding stated earlier
in this report. Permitting and comph'ance procedures are not the only barriers to pollution
prevention in the environmental management system. Indeed, some of the barriers which
become apparent in the operations of the permitting and compliance system are inherent in
the regulations and statutes. Eliminating such bathers will require modifying this
underlying system of constraints and requirements.
These recommendations address changes which the TIE Committee believes are
within the scope of EPA's permitting and comph'ance system. Many can be accomph'shed
within the agency's current statutory authorities. While there is consensus on the TIE
Committee about many of the changes needed to reduce bathers and increase incentives, the
Committee believes that much remains to be learned about the impacts of specific
combinations of approaches to these permitting and comph'ance issues. The integration of
pollution prevention into the environmental management system is a complex undertaking
that will require a sustained commitment lasting several years.
Effective implementation of the Committee's recommendations will, in some cases,
require significant experimentation with, and the testing of, alternative approaches. EPA
should promote and encourage a range of local, state, and federal pilot projects or
"initiatives", including currently emerging state and local experiments. Pilot projects should
have both clearly defined goals and objectives, and a clearly delineated time frame with
interim milestones. It is critical that EPA support and/or cooperatively conduct evaluations
of the effectiveness of pilot projects to learn nationally applicable lessons. These pilots,
should be part of a focusedprogramto make long-termchangesto current procedures.
Informationdeveloped throughpilot projects should provide the basis for designing future
agencvactions.
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RECOMMENDATION 1
Re-design permit procedures to foster and reward efforts by regulated
facilities to expand their use of both multi-media management and
pollution prevention approaches for environmental improvement.
The TIE Committee believes that EPA needs to examine its permitting procedures to
determine where greater flexibility in approach would be conducive to implementation of
pollution prevention technologies and techniques, while still meeting the requirements of the
agency's governing statutes. EPA's current procedures have been developed to meet the
exigencies of single-medium pollution control programs. The Committee believes that
modification of the design of these implementing programs, consistent with statutory
requirements, would in some cases lead to the increased development and use of pollution
prevention technologies and techniques and improved environmental results.
1.1 Maximize the implementation of multi-media pollution
prevention alternatives during permit development by
emphasizing environmental results rather than the specific
means of attainment.
The 'TIE Committee found that some regulatory standards, even though formulated
as performance standards, tend to be implemented as de facto control technology-based
standards; this can create an obstacle for firms wishing to meet the standards through
implementation of innovative process technologies or use of alternative feedstocks. For
both air and water regulatory requirements, for example, EPA carries out extensive
technology evaluations during the process of standard development. While the performance
standards are legally separate from the technologies used to derive them adoption of the
model technologies sometimes is treated, by federal or state agency and industry personnel,
as the best way to achieve the standard.
A similar opportunity for additional flexibility at the operational permitting level
relates to the form of the performance standard. The TIE Committee discussed some cases
where standards are written as concentration limits, but where significant reductions could
occur if mass-based limits were used; one member reported that a publicly owned treatment
works (POTW) achieved substantial water use and contaminant loading reductions in its
influent by encouraging industrial users to implement pollution prevention changes under a
mass-based standard. However, although the quantity (mass) of pollutants was reduced, the
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reduced flows resulted in some cases in an increase in effluent concentrations. The EPA
regional office decided to use concentration limits as the governing standard, which resulted
in violations in spite of the reduction in the quantity of pollutants released. All EPA
regional offices should adopt a consistent policy which maximizes the flexibility necessary,
to encourage and approve reduction measures of this kind.
The TIE Committee suggests that a specific example of an implementation
consequence of this recommendation could be that EPA would provide guidance to permit
writers. This guidance would prohibit the use of end-of-pipe technologies that resulted in a
significant cross-media impact and did not result in a net environmental gain.
1.2 Administer single-medium permit requirements flexibly to
encourage environmentally beneficial multi-media pollution
prevention initiatives by regulated parties.
The TIE Committee notes that many permitting requirements are based on
regulatory and statutory provisions with a significant degree of flexibility, but that such
flexibility is often lost in standard implementation procedures. Rigid enforcement of single-
medium permitting discourages regulated facilities from either evaluating cost-effective
multi-media plantwide approaches to reducing pollution, or from proposing to implement
such approaches. The Committee recommends that EPA adopt implementation policies
which utilize the maximum allowable 'flexibility in single-medium permitting to encourage
plants to undertake environmentally beneficial multi-media reductions. Such policies
should then be clearly communicated to regulated organizations. As an initial step in this
effort, EPA should examine a number of the more widespread industrial activities for which
there are significant pollution prevention opportunities. The agency should determine what
problems there might be in showing equivalency with the single-medium standards that are
based on end-of-pipe control technologies.
1.3 Initiate, and encourage state and local agencies to initiate,
fast-track permits for pollution prevention initiatives at facilities
with well-documented, good compliance records.
Certainty and timing are often crucial considerations for facilities seeking permits
for alterations in their production processes, particularly if the changes for which the
permits are sought are innovative or involve pollution prevention solutions which differ from
the treatment or control options standardly approved by the reviewing agency. One way to
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minimize the risk necessarily involved in such changes is for the reviewing agency to
provide its decisions (or raise questions needing resolution) quickly.
The TIE Committee believes, however, that expedited permitting should not just be a
reward for a new idea; it should be a reward for good environmental performance. A
facility's environmental performance includes both its past compliance record and future
factors that are proposed to improve compliance. For instance, the addition of advanced
monitoring capabilities would enable an agency to better track the performance of proposed
innovative technologies which might otherwise raise enforceability concerns because of the
uncertainty of their performance. Where both the pollution prevention initiative and
environmental performance warrant, the TIE Committee believes that the reviewing agency
should expedite the permit review. The Administrator could direct such a change for
federally administered permits, encourage or direct the change for state or locally
administered, federally mandated permits, and provide support for this change by increasing
the credit in the administrative system for pollution prevention permits which are processed
within a specified time period.
1-4 Support additional state and local multi-media permit pilot
projects (with well-defined objectives and timelines) and
initiatives to synchronize timing and coordinate issuance of
single-medium permits.
The TIE Committee recommends that the Administrator direct EPA staff to provide
maximum support and discretion to the states in their efforts to adapt the existing system of
permitting to multi-media and pollution prevention objectives. It commends EPA for the
MOU, under the Model States Program, between Region 2 and New Jersey to support that
state's effort to carry out a multi-media pollution prevention pilot project. EPA should
support additional multi-media permit projects and initiatives to synchronize the timing and
coordinate the issuance of single-medium permits. For example, without going as far as
multi-media permitting, New York is trying to synchronize the scheduling of permits for a
facility, so that all the permits will be renewed simultaneously, thus creating an incentive for
the facility to evaluate all of its environmental releases at the same time. This, too, is an
effort which EPA should encourage, support, and help to disseminate.
EPA should evaluate these pilot efforts to identify nationally applicable lessons.
Evaluations are critical to determine what types of multi-media permitting best promote the
use of pollution prevention technologies and techniques and what steps (federal and state)
might need to be taken to promote multi-media permitting, if it is shown to be beneficial to
pollution prevention.
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1.5 Redeploy scarce regulatory agency and regulated organization
resources from procedural or redundant permitting activities,
and reallocate resources for the permitting of multi-media,
pollution prevention, and innovative approaches.
Substantial federal and state resources are expended in reviewing permit renewals or
minor modifications with little or no environmental impact. This reduces the resources
available for reviewing either those applications which involve potentially significant
environmental impacts, or which involve technically challenging pollution prevention
alternatives. It also drains resources which could be used to enhance enforcement, which
the TIE Committee believes to be critical in creating the atmosphere in which companies
look for pollution prevention alternatives. One important use of agency resources freed by
these arrangements is facilitating the development of innovative pollution prevention
settlements. The TIE Committee recommends that EPA's regional offices review their
current permitting and compliance administrative workloads to determine where
redeployment can occur.
The TIE Committee recognizes that streamlining routine permits also potentially
allows industry to focus more effort on developing and negotiating pollution prevention
approaches to meeting environmental standards. Environmental management resources
which would otherwise be involved in developing routine applications may be freed to focus
on pollution prevention and other innovative approaches. Redeployment and reallocation
can provide critical support for the permitting of multi-media, pollution prevention, and
innovative technology approaches. For example, in a recent review, the State of New York
found that 85 percent of its NPDES permitting resources were being used to review permit
renewals involving no significant change. The State has now initiated a program under
which routine renewals will be batched administratively and not subjected to individual
review. Any permit applications which are challenged, or which involve facilities which any
of a series of State indicators show to be potentially problematic, will still be subject to
individual review (see Findings section on Agency Resources, supra).
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1.6 Support expanded use of permits-by-rule for permit renewals
and selected new permits under certain conditions to encourage
pollution prevention.
Permit renewals involving no significant changes.
Renewals or new permits for facilities:
With good compliance records with existing
requirements.
Which have involved the public in the planning process
for the specific permit, or more generally for pollution
prevention plans at the facility.
Which have provided the state agency or EPA with
requested environmental or operational information
beyond that legally required.
EPA currently uses or allows streamlined permit mechanisms, such as
permits-by-rule (PER), simple notifications or general permits for PCB incineration under the Toxic
Substances Control Act (TSCA), permitting under the stormwater discharge programs, and
state implementation of the underground storage tank (UST) program (fee Findings section
on Agency Resources). The TIEifnmmitteeconcludes that while there are definite limits to
the types of situations to which PBRs could apply, substantial resource and time savings.
could he achieved through their appropriate use. The TIE Committee believes that the
>?current 3 SRI JlJI JlJ tu DL ii
The TIE Committee recognizes that there may be circumstances where PBRs would
be substantively appropriate, but where their use would be constrained by statute. Several
years ago, for example, EPA explored and prepared to promulgate a rule allowing PBRs for
permits for hazardous waste storage facilities. But the linkage of such permits to corrective
action requirements (which the agency believed to inherently require individual review)
legally eliminated the utility of a PER approach.
Where PBRs are appropriate, the TIE Committee believes that there are additional
conditions, beyond those above, which the Administrator might consider attaching to their
use. Use of PBRs for renewals or other permits might be limited to facilities:
Offering single-medium or multi-media pollution prevention reductions exceeding
requirements.
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With pollution prevention facility plans which incorporate significant continuous
reductions, and direct involvement and commitment of highest corporate
management in the planning for those reductions.
With facility siting contracts with local governments, state governments, and/or
environmental groups which incorporate performance standards and/or pollution
prevention 'eduction agreements.
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Recommendation 2
Accelerate the development of innovative pollution prevention
technologies and techniques and encourage their use by implementing
the recommendations in the TIE Committee report on fostering
technology innovation through permitting and compliance policy.
In its previous report on technology innovation in permitting and compliance policy,
Permitting and Compliance Policy: Barriers to U.S. Environmental Technology
Innovation, the Committee found that associated R&D problems were not unique to
pollution control and pollution abatement technologies, but-were similarly germane to the
development, demonstration, and use of pollution prevention technologies and techniques.
The TIE Committee's current work confirms its original findings. The TM Committee
therefore reaffirms the original recommendations and urges the agency to accelerate their
implementation. The Committee notes that several recommendations have been
implemented, in whole or in part, and commends EPA for these actions.
2.1 Foster the development, testing, and demonstration of
innovative pollution prevention technologies:
a. Institute a working permitting system (covering
all media) for research, development, and demonstration
(RD&D), testing, and evaluation. This could be
accomplished through a special, multi-media "RD&D"
permit or through the creation and effective coordination
of single-medium RD&D permits.
b. Develop a system of dedicated centers for tests and
demonstrations, for example with the Departments of
Energy and Defense (DOE and DOD).
c. Develop a simple, practical system for cross-media
and cross-jurisdictional coordination of reviews of
such permit applications.
Testing of pollution prevention technologies is usually necessary at various points
during the research and development cycle to define their parameters of performance and
cost of performance. As indicated in the previous report on permitting and compliance
policy, provisions for testing under the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act are ad hoc
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only, while provisions under RCRA are little used. EPA's support for the testing of
innovative pollution prevention technologies and techniques could be improved by
maximizing use of allowed permitting flexibility under the statutes, coordinating the review
of permit applications across the media (and across the levels of government), and ensuring
a systematic interpretation between regions.
The TIE Committee commends EPA for extending its plan to establish testing
centers for innovative technologies at federal facilities by planning, with the Department of
Defense, a center where innovative pollution prevention technologies and techniques can be
tested. EPA should develop specialized permits for such centers that are located at sites not
on federal property. In order to encourage testing of pollution prevention technologies and
techniques that have multi-media benefits, a special effort should be made to coordinate all
single-medium permitting decisions for testing or to create through legislation a single,
multi-media RD&D permit.
Licensing and marketing of such technologies could be promoted through
clearinghouses, publications, and other means, and facilitated through Federal Technology
Transfer Act agreements, if the technologies are federally owned.
2.2 Implement permitting processes that aid the commercial
introduction of innovative pollution prevention technologies
and techniques. This will require increased flexibility of
permitting processes involved in the commercial introduction
of pollution prevention technologies and techniques.
Many of the recommendations in this report address the additional flexibility
required to implement innovative technologies and techniques. This need is particularly
great for pollution prevention approaches, since even plant-specific adaptations of many
technologies require substantial innovation. But in addition to the general needs discussed
elsewhere in this report, the first commercial introduction of a new pollution prevention
technology or technique may require many of the specific remedies to the current permitting
system suggested in the previous report, such as revitalized waiver authorities. "Soft
landings" (i.e., policies designed to avoid punishing good faith innovative technology efforts
that do not fully succeed) and other flexible enforcement approaches are needed to
complement and reinforce permitting flexibility.
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2.3 Recognize in compliance or enforcement policies and
practices the need for flexibility during the development,
testing, and early uses of innovative pollution prevention
technologies and techniques.
The Committee re-emphasizes the recommendation it made in its previous report on
permitting and compliance policy: while flexibility in permitting is essential to foster
innovative pollution prevention technology development and use, EPA needs to make
complementary changes in enforcement policy to increase flexibility, such as through "soft
landing" strategies, and to increase coordination in compliance programs across the
environmental media and across jurisdictional lines. The Committee believes that unless
both permitting and compliance policies are flexible in a coordinated fashion, there will be
unnecessary discouragement to the development and use of pollution prevention
technologies and techniques. EPA should increase its use of the Interim Policy on
Pollution Prevention and Recycling Conditions in Settlements and the Policy on
Supplemental Environmental Projects.
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Recommendation 3
Work with the states to encourage and develop pollution
prevention enforcement initiatives.
Strong, predictable, effective, consistent enforcement is critical in fostering the use
of pollution prevention technologies and techniques. It is not, however, sufficient.
Enforcement flexibility is needed to allow and encourage facilities to use pollution
prevention approaches to come into, or go beyond, compliance. EPA's recent pollution
prevention enforcement policy statements are positive, but their implementation has been
limited. Strong incentives and extensive technical support are necessary to spur EPA and
state regulators toward this kind of enforcement approach. Unorthodox and innovative
settlements often require more time, and create more risk, for both regulators and managers
at regulated facilities. The rewards must be commensurate. The Committee recommends
that the agency provide the necessary technical support, incentives, and guidance to
encourage increased use of pollution prevention approaches in enforcement actions in
accordance with its policy initiatives.
3.1 Increase use of pollution prevention enforcement policy
J^ernatives, such as those in EPA's Interim Policy
Dilution Prevention and Recycling Conditions in
Settlements and Policy on Supplemental Environmental
Projects.
The TIE Committee believes that EPA's enforcement policy initiatives to
incorporate pollution prevention into enforcement actions (see Finding 3) are a strong
positive step towards promoting pollution prevention approaches, where applicable, as a
preferred approach to standard pollution control approaches. Curent information reviewed
by the Committee indicates, however, that there has been little use of pollution prevention-
oriented SEPs in enforcement actions for media programs other than the Office of
Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances (OPPTS). The TIE Committee urges EPA to
pursue -- and to provide the necessary technical support, incentives, and guidance to
encourage others to pursue ~ active implementation of these and other similar enforcement
policy initiatives for air, water, and solid waste media program enforcement actions. These
policy initiatives allow federal negotiators to offer to extend the compliance schedule or to
reduce the punitive portion of a penalty in a settlement agreement for a respondent's
agreement to correct the violation with a pollution prevention activity, or to reduce the
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gravity portion of the penalty in a settlement agreement when the facility agrees to
undertake a supplemental pollution prevention-related or innovation-related project.
3.2 Establish easily accessible mechanisms (e.g., a
clearinghouse and the pollution prevention information
exchange system network [PIES]) for sharing successful
experiences about the use of pollution prevention in
enforcement settlements.
An easily accessible information exchange is critical to the effective implementation
of the agency's new pollution prevention enforcement policy. The Office of Pollution
Prevention and Toxic Substances (OPPTS) has taken an excellent step in this direction
through its study earlier this year, pollution Prevention through Compliance and.
Enforcement: A Review of (OPPTS^ Accomplishments. It is a review of all pollution
prevention-oriented OPPTS enforcement settlement agreements during the previous three
years. OPPTS plans to update the report on an annual basis. Similar reviews are needed
for all of the agency's enforcement areas - and information about them made widely
available ~ so that state and federal enforcement officials can learn what types of pollution
prevention opportunities have been used successfully in resolving other enforcement
actions.
3.3 Develop a multi-media compliance inspection package,
including training opportunities, for use by EPA, state,
and local (especially publicly owned treatment works
[POTW]) inspectors. EPA should aggressively encourage
adoption and use of this inspection scheme to promote
pollution prevention.
There have been a number of state and local initiatives in multi-media inspections of
industrial facilities. The original program of this kind was the Blackstone project in
Massachusetts, but a number of other states have now undertaken similar efforts (see
Findings section on Enforcement). Each of these programs has needed to train single-
medium inspectors on how to carry out multi-media inspections. EPA should make use of
the experience of the states, and work with them to develop a multi-media training and
inspection package which would be available in the future for all federal, state, and local
inspectors. As the experience in Massachusetts demonstrated, it is important that
inspectors also be familiar with and able to direct facilities to sources of pollution
prevention technical assistance, so that the facilities have ready access to the widest range
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possible of credible technology information. They will then be better able to select the tools
to respond to the multi-media inspection results.
3.4 In evaluating state performance under delegated programs,
adopt a policy giving additional credit for multi-media
inspections.
In meeting their federal evaluation criteria, state and federal inspectors are required
to carry out specific minimum numbers of inspections. Because of the greater value of
multi-media inspections in directing facilities toward pollution prevention alternatives, it is
important that these inspections be accorded a higher value than the usual single-medium
inspections. If multi-media inspections are only counted the same as single-medium
inspections, then it is not likely that state or federal inspectors will undertake the additional
effort required for a multi-media inspection. One way to resolve this would be to give
credit separately for each individual single-medium inspection incorporated in a multi-media
inspection.
3.5 Provide technical support for multi-media inspections.
Modify base grant objectives for the states to promote
multi-media inspections.
For several years, EPA has provided support to states for initiating pollution
prevention activities through competitive Pollution Prevention Incentive for States (PPIS)
grants. These grants are, however, both limited in the time allowed for execution and in
dollar amount. They are not designed to sustain state pollution prevention efforts.
The basic single-media program grants to the states, by contrast, provide
operational support on a continuing basis. The criteria for those grants have been linked to
date to very specific program requirements. The TIE Committee commends the recent
action of EPA to allow allocation of a portion of these grants to pollution prevention
activities in the next two fiscal years, and believes this is an important step in the right
direction. The Committee recommends that EPA maximize support for pollution
prevention activities under these grants.
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Recommendation 4
Proactively support state initiatives in multi-media pollution
prevention facility planning.
The TIE Committee believes that pollution prevention facility planning is a critical
element in long-term industrial adoption of pollution prevention alternatives and, more
importantly, in the integration of pollution prevention perspectives into all of the industrial
planning processes of a facility. The current diversity of state approaches to facility
planning reflects leadership and commitment. These efforts provide a real-world laboratory
in which it will be possible to observe and evaluate the effectiveness of alternative
approaches. EPA should play a major leadership role by supporting and evaluating the
numerous and varied state pollution prevention facility planning programs which have been
initiated or are currently being considered.
4.1 Work with state officials to evaluate the effectiveness
of alternative approaches to facility planning. Draw the
national lessons from state experiments and facilitate
transfer of information and results of evaluations between
states.
The Committee emphasizes that pollution prevention facility planning has been an
area in which the states have seized the initiative, and in which states are implementing a
diverse array of approaches. At present there is little experience on which to base the
selection of a single ideal approach to pollution prevention facility planning. Extensive
analysis will be needed as these programs develop to determine which strategies and
program elements are most effective. The Committee recommends that rather than
developing a single national model for pollution prevention facility planning at this time,
EPA should develop baseline criteria (e.g., that programs be multi-media in scope) that do
not discourage states from developing their own facility planning programs. In addition,
EPA should work with the states to analyze results of the current state efforts and to
facilitate exchange of information between states.
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4.2 Establish industry-specific advisory groups to facilitate
the transfer of pollution prevention technical information
and provide support for pollution prevention facility
planning for selected industries, with due regard for
protecting confidential business information.
One important way in which EPA can provide technical support for state efforts is
through the creation of advisory panels of experts on specific industries. These panels,
made up of industry experts plus a broad representation of stakeholders, could evaluate and
provide information to the states on pollution prevention technology approaches for the
particular industry. The selection of industry areas for such panels should be made
cooperatively by EPA and the states. The panels would serve as official advisory
committees under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA).
4.3 Augment industry-specific and process-specific
information sharing through the national pollution
prevention information exchange system network (PIES).
EPA should provide technical support to state and local agencies (and to regulated
parties, consulting engineers, the public, and others involved in environmental
improvement) by developing a significantly augmented industry-specific and process-
specific information bank in PIES. This would include both technical pollution prevention
and economic information, and might include specific information on problem areas or
barriers to pollution prevention. Since many of the state and local technical assistance
programs have developed a significant level of expertise about specific industries, it would
be important to work cooperatively with them in developing such a system. A good
starting point would be to begin with the industries for which advisory groups are
established. Another good place to start is with the 17 industrial categories which are the
focus of the Source Reduction Review Project; source reduction opportunities will be
intensely evaluated during rule development for the 17.
It is particularly important that such a system be readily and easily accessible for all
potential federal, state, local, and industry users; it should include hotline support to help
users obtain the information they need. The current PIES system has been perceived by
many potential users as too complex and difficult to use.
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Recommendation 5
Create a culture change by working with federal, state, and
local agencies, non-profit organizations, universities, trade
associations, and environmental groups to facilitate the
implementation of pollution prevention technologies and
techniques by expanding training, educational, and technology
diffusion efforts.
The TIE Committee found that there is still a widespread need to educate leaders in
both the private and public sectors on the positive relationship between industrial
productivity and environmental protection. While some leaders in both industry and
government understand and are committed to utilizing pollution prevention approaches,
most of those engaged in environmental management still do business as usual. To change
this environmental management culture will require intensified efforts in training and
education and in technology diffusion both for present and future officials in regulated
organizations and regulators at all levels of government. It is critical that EPA adopt a
major role in guiding a change in the typical U.S. environmental management culture. EPA
should support this culture change by making a major expansion in its support for training,
educational, and technology diffusion efforts.
Some positive steps have already been taken. For example, the Committee found
that EPA's support for state programs through the Pollution Prevention Incentives for
States (PPIS) grants, -while limited, has been a significant factor both in initiating new state
pollution prevention programs and in the expansion of pollution prevention initiatives
within existing state programs. The TIE Committee believes that the state grants program
is a crucial and valuable role for EPA, one that should be complemented.
The TIE Committee's report, Improving Technology Diffusion for Environmental
Protection, recommends in detail an expanded governmental role to enhance and coordinate
the diffusion of pollution prevention technologies, techniques, and culture. The Committee
recommended that EPA adopt an enhanced strategic role for technology diffusion in the
environmental management system, strengthening itself organizationally (e.g., create the
position of an agencywide technology advocate), redeploying diffusion and research
resources, and integrating the diffusion role in policies and programs. Further, the
Committee proposed that EPA establish a stronger partnership with the developers of
technology information and with technology diffusion providers and users in the public and
private sectors, and increase its emphasis on incentives for technology diffusion. These
actions are important complements to the state grants program and to other initiatives
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through which EPA has begun to expand its support for training, educational, and
technology diffusion efforts.
5.1 Provide or support intensive, regular multi-media
inspection training to federal, state, and local inspectors
and encourage rotating these personnel across different
medium-specific assignments.
Since the overwhelming majority of current inspections, whether state, local, or
federal, are of a single environmental medium, and since many of those who carry out such
inspections have experience only in a single medium, it is important to develop training
materials to enable people to improve their skills in conducting multi-media inspections.
(Source reduction training, though not explicitly multi-media, for state and federal permit
issuance, inspection, and enforcement personnel is required under Section 66Q4 of the
Pollution Prevention Act of 1990.) In addition, it is important to broaden the experience of
a significant proportion of state and federal inspectors by rotating them through inspection
assignments in other media. Inspectors who have had such rotational assignments are
likely to find it easier to adapt to the needs of multi-media inspections.
If multi-media compliance inspections are to become a strong lever to promote
pollution prevention, it would also be valuable for some inspectors, both state and EPA, to
take a rotational assignment in a state compliance or pollution prevention technical
assistance office. This should be established as regular personnel policy for EPA's
regional offices.
5.2 Provide or support training to increase the technical
proficiency of inspectors and technical assistance
personnel, both with respect to rules and regulations
and with respect to production and compliance technologies
and techniques.
Many inspectors are not highly trained with respect to the technological production
alternatives available to the facilities whose compliance status they are responsible for
evaluating. In some cases, inspectors may be relatively junior employees who do not fully
understand all the relevant regulatory requirements with which a facility must comply.
With the exception of special programs like the Blackstone project, where a specific
objective of the project is to link facilities to technical assistance specialists, inspectors who
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are not technically knowledgeable are unlikely to recognize that pollution prevention
opportunities exist and to suggest evaluating the compliance potential of pollution
prevention technologies and techniques. They are more likely to focus on checklists of
standard pollution control techniques or technologies and may not know when to
recommend contact with a technical assistance program.
For state and local technical assistance specialists, general knowledge of pollution
prevention approaches is unlikely to be sufficient for more than the first pollution
prevention steps in an industrial facility. More specialized technical knowledge of the
options for a particular industry will often be required. Except for the largest state technical
assistance programs, it will be difficult to hire and retain specialists (and to maintain their
state-of-the-art knowledge) with experience in each of the industries and industrial unit
processes of environmental concern to the state.
EPA is in the best position to guide states and to help them close these gaps in their
inspection and technical assistance programs. The agency should provide and support
training programs for inspectors and technical assistance personnel on industry-specific and
process-specific information on pollution prevention technologies and techniques, and
support them with aggressive information dissemination programs (see
subrecommendation 5.4).
5.3 Support development at one or more major business
schools of training programs for senior and middle
corporate managers on the economic benefits of
implementing pollution prevention technologies and
techniques.
Members of the TIE Committee noted that a critical factor in converting American
businesses to a pollution prevention mentality is educating the current top management on
the benefits of pollution prevention in increasing productivity and competitiveness, as well
as potentially reducing environmental management costs substantially. The Committee
noted that corporate leaders will occasionally attend special short seminars at business
schools to exchange views or obtain information on subjects of practical, special
importance. EPA should fund, and should work with one or two major business schools
to establish, such a short course in pollution prevention.
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5.4 Adopt the specific measures recommended in Improving
Technology Diffusion for Environmental Protection for
promoting a partnership for the dissemination of pollution
prevention information and the adoption of pollution
prevention technologies and techniques.
In its recent report on technology diffusion, the TIE Committee recommended
several steps EPA should take to promote diffusion of environmentally beneficial
technologies. Adoption of these recommendations would serve to promote diffusion of
pollution prevention technologies and techniques. The five general recommendations are:
Make technology diffusion a major supporting mission for EPA.
Build a stronger partnership with technology diffusion providers and users.
Make diffusion and incentives the emphases of EPA's pollution
prevention programs.
Expand support for the international diffusion of environmental
technologies to help meet U.S. environmental and competitiveness
objectives.
Increase support for the diffusion of technology provided by EPA's
research programs on environmentally beneficial technologies.
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Recommendation 6
Alter personnel reward systems to encourage EPA staff to
champion pollution prevention.
The system of evaluation, rewards, and career advancement at all levels for
individual EPA and state personnel will ultimately determine how effective EPA is in
making pollution prevention the primary basis of its environmental programs. The
integration of pollution prevention into the environmental management system is a complex
undertaking that will require a sustained commitment lasting several years. Unless the
personnel system quickly reflects the need to establish and reinforce pollution prevention,
EPA will fail in its goal of promoting pollution prevention because its people will not
support the change. The TIE Committee recommends that the current system of rewards
and advancement be changed systematically to reflect new agency priorities relating to
encouragement of pollution prevention.
6.1 Incorporate both pollution prevention and multi-media
factors into agency personnel performance evaluation
criteria and into the agency award system.
So long as federal or state personnel evaluation criteria are based on standard
single-medium program criteria, the career rewards for both managers and staff will be
determined by the degree to which they effectively implement and manage those programs.
It is important to build encouragement and promotion of pollution prevention into the
evaluation criteria for all permit writers, inspectors, and other enforcement personnel.
Evaluating the adequacy and legitimacy of pollution prevention options is often more time
consuming and risky for agency personnel than evaluating standard pollution control
options.
Many agency personnel are knowledgeable about the engineering specifications of
available control or treatment equipment, but know far less about the process engineering
requirements or needs of the actual production operations. Without express support from
the personnel management system for their efforts to understand industry-specific and
process-specific factors, there will he little incentive for them to become proponents of
pollution prevention alternatives and there will be reduced incentives for regulated parties to
adopt them.
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6.2 Make promotion of a multi-media pollution prevention
culture at EPA a primary criterion for agency awards for
senior staff.
Since management attitudes drive much of the action of agency staff, it is important
for management personnel to be given both direction and incentive to promote pollution
prevention -within agency programs. The TIE Committee recognizes, however, that many
of EPA's mid-level managers have spent their entire careers building and implementing the
current single-medium pollution control and abatement system. To encourage them to
adopt pollution prevention as a priority, it is important to provide them with special
incentives and rewards to do so. The TIE Committee commends the $1,000 pollution
prevention cash awards established by OAQPS as an example of a step in the right
direction. The TIE Committee commends the $1,000 pollution prevention cash awards
established by OAQPS as an example of a step in the right direction.
Senior EPA personnel are provided special incentives to meet agency objectives in
the form of cash and other awards. The TIE Committee recommends that, especially
during a period when the agency is trying to go through a transition from a pollution
control to a pollution prevention culture, such awards be based substantially on pollution
prevention-related criteria.
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Recommendation 7
Expand and publicize the system of national recognition and
awards honoring outstanding pollution prevention research,
training, and technology implementation.
EPA should recognize annually those individuals and organizations outside of EPA
taking an outstanding leadership tole In pollution prevention. Pollution prevention can only
be successful when individual decisions and organizational actions result in the integration
of environmental objectives into overall planning. The organizations, or champions within
organizations, who take the initial innovative steps towards the pollution prevention
alternative often have to overcome substantial resistance. The TIE Committee believes that
an expanded system of national recognition for outstanding efforts would help both to
encourage and strengthen the efforts of these individuals and organizations, and to establish
them as models for others to emulate. It would also serve to publicize particularly
successful or innovative technologies and techniques, strategies, and approaches to
pollution prevention. The agency's current Administrator's awards program for
accomplishments in pollution prevention is an excellent step in the right direction. The
awards program could be made a more effective vehicle for education and widespread
recognition of pollution prevention approaches if it included more of a focus on technology
diffusion. For example, the agency could facilitate diffusion of innovative, non-proprietary
technologies or innovative pollution prevention programs by recognizing them (their
creators and implementers) in the awards program.
7.1 Expand and publicize a system of national recognition for
individuals in other federal agencies making outstanding
contributions to promoting pollution prevention.
Some of the country's most important opportunities for promoting pollution
prevention require actions by managers of federal government facilities and decisions by
federal government program managers outside of EPA (e.g., Department of Energy,
Department of Defense). EPA should develop, therefore, in cooperation with those other
federal agencies, a system for rewarding those individuals possibly including a cash
award.
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7.2 Expand and publicize a system of national recognition for
outstanding pollution prevention efforts by state and local
agencies and officials.
Much of the initiative for current pollution prevention activities has come from state
and local programs. Many of these programs have been highly innovative, and/or have had
to struggle with limited budgets against more entrenched approaches to environmental
protection. State and local government agencies are both op the front line in interacting
-with regulated parties, and deeply involved in the day-to-day process of making the
environmental permitting and compliance system adequately flexible to allow for or to
encourage pollution prevention. While EPA has frequently acknowledged the key role of
state and local governments in promoting pollution prevention, the TIE Committee believes
that it is extremely important to specifically recognize both those individuals and those
organizations whose contributions have been particularly innovative and effective. These
should include both outstanding achievements in technical assistance and training, and
innovative approaches to promote pollution prevention through permitting and compliance.
7.3 Expand and publicize the system of national recognition
for regulated parties making major strides in
institutionalizing pollution prevention approaches to
environmental protection.
Rewards for private sector organizations would be similar in intent to the Malcolm
Baldridge awards made by the Department of Commerce for outstanding business
performance. They would both provide .a means for companies to advertise their excellence
and a vehicle for educating other companies on the competitive advantages and
technical/managerial means for utilizing pollution prevention to achieve exceptional
environmental results. Since the needs and situations of smaller and larger companies can
differ substantially, the Committee recommends that there be separate recognition
categories for small and large firms. EPA's re-wards program for the private sector should
strive for simplicity and practicality.
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7.4 Expand and publicize the system of national recognition
for non-profit institutions (e.g., public interest groups,
universities) making major pollution prevention
contributions.
In addition to the frontline efforts of companies and government agencies,
significant contributions have been made to pollution prevention by universities and other
non-profit organizations particularly in research, training, and technical assistance. The
Committee recommends that EPA recognize these efforts, either through awards to the
institutions or to the key individuals, or to both. Once again, a key factor to making the
recognition meaningful is following through. For these organizations, this could involve
either support for disseminating a new organizational approach to promoting pollution
prevention technologies and techniques, or diffusion support for innovative pollution
prevention research or technology concepts they develop.
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1. AGENCY USE ONLY (Leave blank)
2. REPORT DATE
March 1993
3. REPORT TYPE AND DATES COVERED
Final
4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE Transforming Environmental Permitting And
Compliance Policies To Promote Pollution Prevention:
Removing Barriers And Providing Incentives To Foster Tech-
nology Innovation: Productivity, And Environmental Protect
5. FUNDING NUMBERS
on
6. AUTHOR(S)
David R. Berg, Robert L. Kerr, Steve Fleischer, Maureen
Gorsen, Eva Harris, Sean Iverson for the TIE Committee
7. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES)
National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and
Technology/ Technology Innovation and Economics Committeei
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (A101-F6)
401 M Street, SW
Washington, DC 20460
PERFORMING ORGANIZATION
REPORT NUMBER
EPA/OA/OCEM
EPA 100-R-93-004
9. SPONSORING/ MONITORING AGENCY NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES)
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Cooperative Environmental Management
499 South Capitol Street, SW Rm. 115 (A101-F6)
Washington, DC 20460
10. SPONSORING / MONITORING
AGENCY REPORT NUMBER
11. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES
12a. DISTRIBUTION / AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
12b. DISTRIBUTION CODE
is. ABSTRACT (Maximum 200 words) Reaiizing environmental objectives in the United States and simultaneously
improving economic performance and sustainability will require changes in manufacturing processes,
feedstocks and product designs to reduce the volume and toxicity of pollutants prior to treatment and
control. The Technology Innovation and Economics (TIE) Committee, a standing committee of EPA's
National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and Technology (NACEPT), concluded that major
changes are needed in federal and state permitting and compliance programs to encourage adoption of
practical pollution prevention approaches to environmental protection. Following an extensive review and
analysis of current programs and new initiatives, the Committee recommends seven major areas for
improvement, including: (1) Redesigning permit procedures to encourage regulated facilities to expand
multi-media and pollution prevention environmental improvement efforts; (2) Accelerating development
and use of innovative pollution prevention technologies and techniques through special permitting and
review procedures during RD&D and commercialization phases; (3) Developing and expanding federal and
state pollution prevention enforcement initiatives; (4) Supporting state initiatives in pollution prevention
facility planning; (5) Expanding pollution prevention-related training, educational and technology diffusion
efforts to better reach managers in all sectors of the economy; (6) Altering personnel reward systems to
encourage EPA staff to champion pollution prevention; (7) Expanding and publicizing the system of
national awards honoring outstanding pollution prevention research, training and technology
implementation.
14. SUBJECT TERMS permit, compliance, enforcement, technology
tion, environmental technologies, regulatory barriers, pollution i
Prevention, pollution control, environmental policy, incentives!
for innovation, regulatory-, R incentives, multimedia permitting, (cont
1 7 . SECURITY CLASSIFICATION
OF REPORT
Unclassified
SECURITY CLASSIFICATION
OF THIS PAGE
I Unclassified
IS SECURITY CL SSIFi A I
OFABSTRAC1"
Unclassified
NSN 7540-01 280-5500
/lii tF OF A
98 (Re v. 2 -89)
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14. SUBJECT TERMS (Key Words) continued: facility planning, environmentally
beneficial technology, environmentally beneficial equipment, multimedia
pollution prevention, pollution prevention technologies, cross-
jurisdictional coordination, culture change, incentives for pollution
prevention
Primed a, Recycled Paper
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