10020023
National Advisory Council for
Environmental Policy and Technology
August 5, 2002
Governor Christine Todd Whitman
Administrator
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20460
Dear Governor Whitman:
On behalf of the National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and Technology
(NACEPT), I am pleased to forward the Council's advice letter regarding the National Environmental
Technology Competition. At the request of the U.S. EPA Office of Research and Development,
NACEPT has reviewed EPA's preliminary plans for the creation of the National Environmental
Technology Competition (NETC). As you are aware, the NETC is an FY2003 budget initiative
designed to identify the most important technological needs of the future and reward those who create
the innovations to meet them.
Let me first express my sincere appreciation for the efforts of the NACEPT NETC Workgroup
members who spent many hours reviewing the NETC Preliminary Implementation Strategy and other
pertinent documents, and further time discussing the program's important governmental and market
implications. The Workgroup, chaired by Dan Watts of New Jersey Institute of Technology, was ably
assisted in its efforts by the participation of the following experts:
F. Henry Habicht II, CEO, Global Environment & Technology Foundation
• Harvey M. Bernstein, President and CEO, Civil Engineering Research Foundation
Andrew Patterson, Partner, Environmental Business International
• Costis Toregas, President, Public Technology, Inc.
David F. Stead, Executive Director, Energy & Environmental Capital Network
• Timothy C. Lindsey, Manager, Illinois Waste Management & Research Center
Penelope Hansen, Senior Research Associate, SCG, Inc.
The advice accompanying this letter addresses the four questions posed to NACEPT by the
ORD Charge on this issue (see Attachment 1), amplified by the NETC Preliminary Implementation
Strategy document (Attachment 2), and modified by the information and issues raised in discussions
with the experts listed above and EPA staff.
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In closing, I would like to thank the EPA management and staff who worked very collegially
with us on this project, Jay Benforado, Stephen Lingle, E. Timothy Oppelt, Walter Kovalick, Jr., Mark
Joyce, and Sonia Altieri. And finally, let me express a note of thanks to my colleagues on the
NACEPT Workgroup for their time and thoughtful contributions to this report:
Dan Watts, New Jersey Institute of Technology (Chair)
Randal Coburn, Empire State Development, Albany, NY
Charles Jones, Commissioner of Douglas County, Lawrence, KS
Marc Rogoff, HDR Engineering, Tampa, FL
Richard Sustich, Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, Chicago, IL
• Patricia Wood, Georgia Pacific Corporation, Washington, DC
We look forward to future collaboration on NETC as it develops through the years and hope
that its successful implementation by the Agency will assist in the proliferation of cost-effective
environmental technologies in the United States and around the world.
Sincerely,
Dorothy Bowers
Chair
National Advisory Council for Environmental
Policy and Technology
Enclosure
cc: Eileen McGinnis, Chief of Staff
Paul Oilman, Assistant Administrator, ORD
Jay Benforado, Deputy Associate Administrator, OPEI
Peter Preuss, Director, National Center for Environmental Research, ORD
Stephen Lingle, Director, Environmental Engineering Research Division,
National Center for Environmental Research, ORD
Timothy Oppelt, Director, National Risk Management Research Laboratory
Walter Kovalick, Director, Technology Innovations Office, OSWER
Daiva Balkus, Director, OCEM
Gordon Schisler, Deputy Director, OCEM
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National Advisory Council for
Environmental Policy and Technology (NACEPT)
National Environmental Technology Competition Advice Letter
July 19, 2002
The NACEPT NETC Workgroup, a subset of the Council, was formed at the request of EPA's
Office of Research and Development (ORD) to review the National Environmental Technology
Competition (NETC). The Workgroup convened four times between May and July 2002, three
times by conference call and at a planning meeting on June 11-12, 2002, in Washington, DC. At
the meeting, the members were joined by seven experts in various aspects of environmental
technology (e.g., markets information, local government, industry, demonstration, program
design) and a number of EPA managers and staff. The conversation ranged both broadly and
deeply across the complex topic of technology development, financing, demonstration, testing,
verification, marketing, diffusion, policy, and regulation. ORD presented the group with two
documents, a Preliminary Implementation Strategy and a charge document that laid out specific
questions to be answered by the Workgroup. Although the exchange of information and ideas
was very broad, this summary captures the responses of the Workgroup members to the questions
asked at the two day meeting which are highlighted below. A 40 page transcript of the two day
meeting and copies of the briefing materials by the experts are available.
The following advice was presented to the NACEPT Council by Dan Watts, the Workgroup
Chair, on July 19, 2002, and was subsequently approved by the Council
Issue #1 - Approach.
Will the general approach outlined in the Preliminary Implementation Strategy
achieve the Administrator's goal of fostering implementation of innovative, cost
effective technologies in high priority problem areas?
Throughout the discussions on NETC, both Workgroup members and experts were in
agreement on two basic statements. First, as a program created specifically to speed the
development and implementation of new, more cost-effective technologies to address high
priority environmental problems, NETC must be focused on actions that facilitate marketplace
acceptability, encourage technology investment or project funding, and advance technology
diffusion. Participants focused the bulk of their discussion time on the complexities of the
environmental marketplace, the difficulty in affecting its actions and reactions, and the need for
NETC to structure its program to be a positive force within that marketplace. Without a realistic
focus on market needs and opportunities, the program will not be successful. "Awards will not
drive the market," as one participant stated, but a program designed to draw out technological
innovation to meet specific long term environmental goals that are clearly articulated by the EPA
may assist in improving the nation's overall environmental protection.
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Second, the Workgroup understands that the NETC is only one of EPA's ongoing
activities to bring new private sector developed technologies to bear on environmental problems
and does not shoulder the entire burden of this challenge. From R&D support through Small
Business Innovative Research (SBIR) grants, to performance verification by the Environmental
Technology Verification (ETV) program, to a variety of individual research, regional, and
program office activities, the Agency is actively engaged in facilitating private sector technology
development. In addition, many states, local governments, non-governmental organizations
(NGOs), associations, large industries, and small businesses are actively involved in other efforts
aimed at the same end. While NETC alone will not be able to accomplish the Administrator's
ambitious goals, it can be expected to make additional and important contributions to this process
if focused and implemented correctly.
After reviewing the four step approach contained in the NETC Preliminary
Implementation Strategy, the material presented by the experts, and the discussion among its
members, the Workgroup recommended a slightly altered approach for the first step, or
Technology Gaps Identification, portion of the program. We believe that this approach,
combined with the core competition process presented in the Strategy, will offer the Agency an
opportunity to be pro-active in the technology area without being prescriptive, and will allow the
marketplace to do what it does best — respond appropriately to clear market signals.
EPA is now engaged in a series of goal setting and strategic planning exercises that have
already born significant fruit. The recently published innovation strategy, Innovating for Better
Environmental Results: A Strategy to Guide the Next Generation of Innovation at EPA, the
NACEPT produced The Environmental Future: Emerging Challenges and Opportunities for
EPA, the Clear Skies proposal, and several regulatory actions such as the diesel motor standards
and arsenic in drinking water rules, all look toward the future in the form of goals to be attained
over time. Many of these goals will be reached only through the broad diffusion of technologies
that are now available but rarely used, or those that are in development but have not been brought
to commercial-ready status, or those that have not even been invented yet. The NACEPT
Council believes that the most important contribution that NETC can make to the increased
implementation of outstanding innovative technologies, as they become available over time, is
recognition of their potential contribution to attaining important national environmental goals to
which the Agency has committed itself and the nation.
The Council also believes, however, that EPA should not be in the business of
preselecting types of technologies that will be the most effective in achieving these goals. Once
goals are clearly established, the research and development community and commercial
marketplace are fully capable of responding to them with creativity and engineering excellence.
Unfortunately, the experience of numerous states, tribes, cities, small towns, manufacturers, and
large and small businesses has repeatedly shown that the marketplace can also produce
technologies that do not perform as their vendors claim, or have operational problems that
prevent their use, or have hidden costs that make them prohibitively expensive. While EPA is
not in a position to predetermine the technologies that may be most effective in solving large
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national environmental problems, it can make a contribution to the more rapid diffusion of these
technologies and protection of the environment through evaluation and shining the spotlight of
NETC on outstanding technologies.
The Council recommends, therefore, that the Agency pursue the following series of steps
in carrying out the NETC program. Most of these steps are already contained in the NETC
Preliminary Implementation Strategy. The process outlined below is thus a mixture of the
Council's approach, the group's consensus on several policy and procedural issues on which
ORD requested input on its charge document, and the process outlined in the NETC Strategy.
1. The Council concurs that EPA should select the four major environmental problem areas
defined in the EPA Innovation Strategy (greenhouse gas, smog, water quality protection
and restoration, and water infrastructure) as the focus areas for NETC. These are indeed
the most pressing and intractable environmental problems the nation faces and a
reasonable focus for NETC (see discussion below on Issue #2).
2. The Agency should then adopt where already available, or develop if not now articulated,
long term goals for each of the four areas, specifying, for example, numerical targets or
percentage reduction amounts from a known baseline for specific pollutants within
specific periods of time (others could focus on different goals such as cost effectiveness
or efficiency measurements). The most recent example of a goal statement of this type
would be the Clear Skies proposal for reducing SO2, NOx, and mercury by an average of
70% by 2020. EPA's newly developing Strategic Plan may provide an opportunity to
consider such goals. In NETC competitions, EPA would seek "to honor those
technologies that make a substantial contribution toward the achievement of these
national environmental goals." It is important to note that no single technology is likely
to enable the achievement of broad national environmental goals by itself. For this
reason, honoring many technologies that make a substantial contribution is more effective
in terms of real world environmental protection than waiting for the one "magic bullet"
that may never come. Nor will it be necessary to wait until the goal year (2020 in the
example above) for technologies to emerge that make a substantial contribution to the
goal. Several are ready today in the smog area, for example, and may be expected to
compete as soon as EPA announces its solicitation dates.
3. EPA may wish to work with stakeholders to develop suggested environmental problem
areas within each national goal area to further focus solicitations on particularly pressing
needs. The Council suggests that technologies of at least four generic categories are
appropriate for awards, and thus should be included in award solicitations. In general,
innovative technologies may fall into the areas of (a) monitoring or measuring devices
(e.g., source, ambient, field monitors), (b) decision making tools (e.g., models, expert
systems), (c) control technologies (e.g., pollutant removal systems), or (d) source
management changes (e.g., raw material substitution, process redesign), hi some areas,
restoration technologies may be appropriate (e.g., sediment approaches for contaminated
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streams, wetlands regeneration).
4. Twice a year, or at some other regular time interval selected by EPA, NETC would solicit
commercial-ready technology award candidates. Solicitations should remain open to
candidate technologies over time to allow new and improved technologies to continually
flow into the program and the national spotlight and to prevent the freezing of innovation
at certain levels of achievement.
5. It is imperative that technology selected by NETC actually "work" in both a technical and
cost-effective manner. The Council strongly endorses the limiting of applications to
those that have been tested through independent and quality assured methods such as
those carried out by the ETV program (see discussion below on Issue #3). Peer review
panels would then proceed with their review of application/data reports and make award
recommendations to the NETC Awards Board. The Awards Board would evaluate the
peer panel's work, make their decisions, and recommend appropriate awards to assist the
winning technologies in their diffusion and commercialization efforts (see discussion
below on Issue #4).
One other alternative program structure to that presented in the Preliminary
Implementation Strategy was discussed by the experts and Workgroup members at the meeting.
The suggestion was made that EPA give grants to NGOs or other federal agencies that currently
or prospectively conduct technology competitions in lieu of conducting competitions itself. The
Workgroup does not recommend that EPA take this step at the present time.
Issue #2 - Environmental Technology Gaps Identification.
Is the Administrator's recently published Innovation Strategy with its focus on the
priority problem areas of greenhouse gasses, smog reduction, water quality
protection and restoration, and water infrastructure a reasonable focus mechanism
for NETC? How can EPA ensure that it has broad but substantive input from
stakeholders on the priority technology needs in these or other categories?
There was universal agreement that the four broad problem areas identified in the
Innovation Strategy are important and reasonable categories for NETC to focus its attention on.
All are multi-faceted, long-term issues, with numerous technology needs within each category.
All are characterized by the need for thousands of small changes by all parts of society rather
than the traditional large industry, large pollutant source focus; all require technologies that are
cost-effective and broadly marketable. The Innovation Strategy itself is a product of a broad
outside stakeholder and internal vetting process and it is reasonable to have NETC use this
recently conducted work to serve as the basic focus structure for its efforts.
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The discussion on the methodology to be used in the so-called "gaps identification
process" began with an amplification of the process proposed in the Preliminary Implementation
Strategy. EPA proposed four broad annual visioning processes (one in each Innovation Strategy
area) that would be conducted by a balanced group of major stakeholders from all parts of that
problem area to define specific technology needs for the Competition. The discussion of exactly
how to conduct a gaps identification process resulted in a wide array of approaches and little
initial agreement. The Workgroup subsequently reached agreement and endorses the approach
described above in Issue #1, that the Agency establish ambitious, broad environmental goals for
the future and identify problems within these goals where necessary to focus competitions, rather
than the development of a technology gaps list. This will give the marketplace the signals and
regulatory stability that is needed to facilitate technological innovation.
Issue #3 - Technology Competition Process.
What is the level of data and information needed to assure that technologies selected
for these prestigious EPA awards are truly the most effective available to address
the nation's priority environmental problems? Will the process outlined in the draft
strategy document result in finding both the "best" and the most cost effective
technologies? Is it too cumbersome? Too expensive? Unfair to small companies?
Too demanding? Not demanding enough? Will it be a fair process for all vendors?
Will it prevent the selection of ineffective technologies?
All participants agreed that technologies selected by NETC must "work" in the sense that
they must perform in the manner for which they are being honored. The public relations damage
of technologies evaluated and honored by EPA that did not perform would go far beyond the
failure of the individual technology or Agency embarrassment. An expert in technology
financing stated that the environmental market is viewed as a loser by Wall Street precisely
because highly touted technologies of the past, which were supposed to make their investors rich,
did not do so, frequently because they did not work or were prohibitively expensive. He also
stated that a highly visible technology failure would impact the entire environmental technology
field, no matter which sector it was. While there was concern that high quality performance data
packages addressing all of the pertinent criteria might prove expensive to acquire, there was
agreement that such data are absolutely necessary to prevent failure. The Workgroup endorses
independent ETV or ETV-like data packages as being the appropriate level for NETC
competition input. Several members felt that performance data packages that were not produced
by ETV should be quality reviewed by them to maintain a level playing field among contestants.
In addition, the Workgroup, continuing its emphasis on marketplace issues, felt that the
criteria for awards, and even for evaluation, would have to contain a heavy emphasis on both the
cost effectiveness and the market potential of each technology coming through the program.
While these factors are difficult to analyze and evaluate, they will be critical to the effectiveness
of the Competition in moving innovative technologies forward.
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Finally, the peer review panel process outlined in the Preliminary Implementation
Strategy appears to be an appropriate mechanism for the evaluation of technology candidates.
Issue #4 - Awards and Actions to Foster Implementation.
Success for NETC will be defined as the actual implementation of selected
technologies in appropriate situations across the country. How can the awards
process be structured to foster this? What role should cash awards play? What
other types of support for winning technologies can be used to overcome some of the
barriers found in today's environmental marketplace to promote the use of these
technologies?
Almost all participants agreed that the primary measurement for the success of NETC
will be actual use of the winning technologies, and through that use, actual improvement in the
environment. This ultimate measure of success factor added considerable emphasis to the need
discussed above to assure that winning technologies "really work." There was concern expressed
by an industry representative on the Workgroup, however, that "pressure" not be brought to bear
on industry to use "NETC blessed technologies" because the need to use a wide variety of
technological and other approaches differs markedly from one industrial facility to another. The
site specificity of P2 approaches, particularly for large industrial facilities, has frequently been an
issue for EPA and state sponsored programs in the technology assistance area. Technology
assistance by government for this group must be very carefully crafted and conducted as a
public/private partnership in order to be effective. P2 technology assistance to sectors
characterized by numerous, small- and mid-sized businesses, however, is more generally
transferable. In general, broad agreement was expressed that environmental effectiveness and
actual use of winning technologies would have to be the ultimate measures of success.
The Workgroup agreed that the awards structure of the program needs to be very carefully
designed to promote the marketability of the outstanding new technologies identified by NETC.
In general, "honoring" the technology (shining the EPA spotlight, heavy publicity of the award,
direct information to states, local governments, other potential customers, etc.) was seen to be a
given and potentially helpful. The Workgroup felt strongly, however, that NETC planners need
to give considerably more attention to awards design than indicated in the draft strategy
document. Awards that assist in market creation and/or directly result in market penetration are
the only kind of awards that should be considered. Several of the experts at the Workgroup
meeting emphasized that each environmental marketplace is unique. Some market segments may
not be amenable to new technology because the demand structure currently appears to be in
decline (hazardous waste management, fixed based laboratory, and remediation technology, for
example). Other market segments will be well situated to absorb new technologies because they
are growing at a rapid rate (urban infrastructure of all kinds is a prime example), but will have
other constraints such as cost, availability, or inherent conservatism (local governments must be
risk averse because of the potential political backlash if new technologies fail). The attached
Figure 1 shows the record of the last 30 years, while Figure 2 contains the latest environmental
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industry 2010 forecast by Environmental Business International, clearly illustrating the macro
trends over time in the various environmental marketplaces. Because the constraints to market
penetration are different in each area, the awards must also be different to be effective. The
Workgroup believes that EPA, in partnership with important public and private organizations in
each market, must carefully design awards for each technology area to assist in the unique
challenges that marketplace presents. These types of awards could range from barrier reduction
(elimination or modification of regulations and/or outdated or prescriptive consensus codes), to
state or local demonstration grants, to support of business plan development or other types of
commercialization training either through direct funding to the winning developer or through
support of state or local commercialization organizations, to outright purchase by interested
federal agencies (including EPA itself). Several Workgroup members and experts stated that
EPA, like other federal agencies such as the Department of Defense, should initiate discussions
with Wall Street to promote investment in new and needed environmental technologies.
There was little or no support for direct cash awards, which were seen as being too small
to be effective in commercializing technology. Cash awards were viewed as being tokens of
appreciation at best that would make only small contributions to the real capital needs of
technology developers. Workgroup members were in agreement, however, that financial awards
could take many forms and could be linked to any number of activities to facilitate diffusion of
the winning technology. Diffusion is the goal, and thus, the appropriate reward.
Finally, the Workgroup believes that within each technology category,
"Finalists" (i.e., all those that fulfill basic performance, operations, and cost criteria)
should be honored by receiving EPA awards as finalists, thus avoiding the stigma of
being "losers";
• Annual NETC winning awards should be reserved for truly outstanding, breakthrough
technologies;
The Awards Board should also always have available the option to award either multiple
NETC winners or not to select any NETC winners.
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Attachment 1
ORD Charge to the
National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and Technology
Background:
The President's FY '03 budget request to Congress includes a $10 million initiative called the
National Environmental Technology Competition (NETC). The NETC is a new public/private
partnership to stimulate technology development in areas where gaps in environmental protection
exist. The program seeks to recognize and reward the developers of innovative technologies that
produce more effective and lower cost solutions to environmental problems. EPA will work with
a broad spectrum of stakeholders to identify specific present and future environmental problems
for which new technology may hold the key to cost-effective solutions. National solicitations
will be announced in these areas seeking innovations and approaches that meet defined
performance objectives, challenging the development community to create solutions for the
twenty-first century. External panels of experts will judge these technologies, and the best will
be honored with prestigious awards.
Committee Charge:
To establish a collaborative partnership with the National Advisory Council for Environmental
Policy and Technology (NACEPT), ORD invites NACEPT to help us design the NETC, and to
monitor its implementation and results. ORD seeks initial advice from NACEPT at the Council
meeting scheduled for July 2002, and requests continued, periodic involvement as the program is
developed and implemented. We understand that a workgroup consisting of a subset of the
Council will be established prior to the July 2002 Council meeting. If NACEPT agrees to this
partnership with ORD, we propose the following initial charge to the Council:
ORD requests that NACEPT review ORD's proposed approach to implementing the NETC. The
document accompanying this charge, NETC: A Preliminary Implementation Strategy, spells out
current thinking on the goals, operating principals, and process for the program. An EPA NETC
Workgroup has reviewed this document and identified the issues found below as key decisions in
shaping the NETC. Comments from NACEPT are welcome, however, on any aspect of the
program objectives and design.
Objectives and approach: The NETC represents a new approach to stimulating
technology development that leverages normal competitive market forces by providing
clear targets of need that identify market opportunity, and by offering the additional
incentive of national recognition and possible monetary rewards. This approach has not
been used broadly. Will this approach achieve the goal of producing technologies that are
more effective and offer lower cost solutions to environmental problems? Will it
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stimulate technological development in areas where gaps in environmental protection
exist? Will it create potential market opportunities in the future? What "stoppers" do
we need to anticipate?
Environmental Technology Gaps Identification: EPA is planning to engage state and
local government organizations, industry, and public interest groups through a series of
meetings and workshops to receive input on the highest priority environmental problems
needing new technological solutions. EPA's research, program, and regional offices will
be active participants in this process. Is this an appropriate approach to identifying gaps?
Should NETC initially focus on the Agency's priorities in its new Innovation Strategy
(i.e., smog, greenhouse gases, water quality maintenance and restoration, and water
infrastructure technologies) or be open from the beginning to any type of need? What
criteria should be used to set priorities among individual technology types, e.g., risk, cost,
potential to support emerging regulatory directions, etc.? Should challenges be broad
difficult issues, e.g., replacing municipal infrastructure at a significantly reduced cost, or
more reachable targeted challenges, e.g., a cheap, reliable monitor for VOCs to support
emissions trading?
Technology Evaluation Process: EPA is planning to use external expert review panels to
evaluate technology candidates. Special panels of experts will be convened depending on
the technology category. A key issue is the level of performance information and data
that the panels should have before them in order to evaluate the technologies. We are
concerned that the program and the Agency would lose credibility if awards were made
for technologies that ultimately proved to be ineffective. ORD believes that an
independent performance evaluation, using standard protocols and data quality criteria is
necessary. However, this would force responders to seek third party performance testing
such as that provided by the Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) program, or
equivalent processes. Does this place too much of a restriction on participation in the
NETC program? If cost is an overriding issue in defining technology needs, how does
EPA set cost criteria or cost protocols? Should we have stakeholders and partners do it?
Type of awards: EPA sees the awards as serving two principal purposes - an incentive to
encourage technology developers to produce new technologies in targeted gap areas, and
a way to help overcome certain barriers to commercialization found in the environmental
marketplace. Honorary awards, e.g., the "2003 Presidential Award for Environmental
Technology Innovation", have been considered a given. The desirability of providing
monetary awards, whether modest, e.g., $25 -100 K, or larger, is less clear. Does
NACEPT believe such awards would increase response to the competitions? Would they
add to the visibility of the program and the technologies honored by it or provide other
benefits? Are there negatives to providing cash awards? Are there large company/small
company issues? What other types of monetary benefits should be considered? For
example, support for early field application or support for state and local organizations to
assist in technology implementation?
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Past or future accomplishments: Should this program be prospective only (new
technologies not yet developed or in the earliest stages of commercialization) or should it
also recognize past technology achievements? For example, a competition could seek
companies who had been exemplary in adopting innovative technologies and achieving
outstanding environmental results or cost savings. One option being considered is to
partner with the Department of Commerce through the National Medal of Technology
competition, which recognizes past accomplishments.
How many winners: Should we try to identify only the "best" in each technology
category, or make multiple awards to all technologies that the review panels believe meet
certain criteria? How should we deal with technologies that are good, but not best? Can
we name one or two winners in a category, without producing a significant number of
"losers" that still have good technology? And how do we deal with technologies that are
clearly superior in performance, but significantly more expensive than their alternatives?
This can also have a time dimension; for example, a technology gap maybe addressed by
a particular single or group of approaches now and by other, perhaps superior
technologies that may appear within the next few years. Should competitions remain
open for new innovations in the future or be one time events? Is having multiple winners
or time scales either confusing or diluting to the program?
Success factors: How should we measure the effectiveness of this program and how will
others judge its success? Possible criteria include the extent to which results are
produced, e.g., the number of successfully developed technologies, the number of
implementations of award winning technologies, improved environmental performance
measures, and the quality of the process, e.g. fairness, inclusiveness, broad stakeholder
participation, effective state partnerships. Are there others that should be considered?
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Attachment 2
The National Environmental Technology Competition
NETC
A Preliminary Implementation Strategy
April 2002
" The goal of EPA 's NETC program is to help recognize and reward innovative
technologies that produce more effective and lower cost solutions to environmental
problems and to stimulate development where major technology gaps exist. This
competition builds public-private partnerships, fosters technological innovation through
competition and promotes the development of new, cost-effective technologies that
address some of our most pressing environmental challenges. "
Governor Christine Todd Whitman
EPA Administrator
February 2002
The National Environmental Technology Competition (NETC), a FY2003 Presidential
initiative, has been created to stimulate the flow of American technological innovation toward
the invention and deployment of new technologies to better protect the environment. The
program will result in annual Presidential awards to those technology developers who produce
the best innovations to address environmental problems for which the country does not now have
adequate solutions. The clear identification of technology gaps that exist today and those that are
likely to exist in the future is an important part of the Competition mandate. Therefore, two
broad goals are fundamental to NETC which seeks to:
• Stimulate private sector technology development where gaps in environmental protection
exist, and
• Recognize and reward innovative technologies that produce more effective and lower cost
solutions to environmental problems.
This paper offers an early view of the goals, operating principles, and procedures that are
expected to be used in the execution of the program. One of the most important aspects of the
NETC articulated by Governor Whitman, however, is that it will be conducted as a public-private
partnership. As the partnerships between EPA and the diverse groups described below are
formulated and put into practice, the operational specifics of the program will evolve and change.
Many of the aspects of NETC laid out in this paper are open to discussion and modification.
Readers are encouraged to comment.
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Operating Principles
The following five principles are basic to the conduct of the entire NETC program and
structure most of the processes that will be used to carry it out.
1. The NETC will operate as a public/private partnership in its major functions, seeking
input and participation from a broad spectrum of individuals and organizations with
knowledge about both the needs of the environment and the innovative technologies that
can meet them.
2. The NETC will utilize existing resources and priority setting processes within EPA to
rapidly and efficiently put in place the infrastructure necessary to assist its new
partnerships in (1) identifying technology gaps or needs, (2) establishing criteria for
technologies to meet those needs, and (3) evaluating commercial ready technologies
submitted by the private sector for award consideration.
3. The NETC will develop its list of technology needs through an ongoing process of
identification and refinement, seeking input from state and local governments, technology
buyers in both the public and private sectors, academic and technical environmental
experts, and from all parts of the Environmental Protection Agency.
4. The NETC will establish selection criteria for needed technologies that take into
consideration all pertinent facets of technological performance including the ability to
reduce, prevent or measure pollution, multi-media impacts, capital and operating costs,
reliability and practicality of operation, and any other aspects that are deemed to be
important by stakeholders.
5. The NETC will select commercial ready technologies for awards based upon
independently derived, high quality data to assure fairness to all developers and to the
technology using and buying public who will look to this award program for guidance.
Public - Private Partnerships.
Over the last decade, public-private partnerships have become increasingly common
mechanisms to carry out programmatic activities that utilize private sector cost reduction and
profit motivations to achieve publicly defined goals. This has been especially true in the
environmental technology area in which the public goal of monitoring, decreasing, or controlling
pollutants is virtually impossible to achieve without the active participation of the private sector.
Bringing new technologies into the marketplace where they can be purchased and used to protect
the environment involves many players. All of the groups found below would be considered
primary participants and customers for the NETC.
Public sector agencies at the federal, state, and local level, including regulators,
researchers, permittors, enforcers, and technology system purchasers.
• Private sector technology developers, the testing, research and development organizations
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that support them, and the associations that both represent and inform them on
government requirements and marketplace trends.
Private sector technology purchasers, the consulting and financial advisors employed by
them for direction and facilitation, and the associations that both represent and inform
them on government requirements and cost parameters.
A myriad of other non-governmental organizations (NGOs), academic institutions, and
not-for-profit organizations of every type and purpose who play an increasing role in the
facilitation of new environmental innovations.
Public-private partnerships are used to facilitate the achievement of at least the following
objectives in developing and executing a new program such as the NETC:
Gaining up front participation, definition, clarity, and buy-in to the goals and objectives
of the program by those who must ultimately carry out important roles in making the
goals into reality.
• Communicating information about the program to the various communities (e.g., air
pollution control state regulators and technology vendors) that will have to become
motivated to participate in order to make the program happen.
• Communicating information from widely divergent viewpoints on the real world
opportunities and constraints that can make or prevent the program from achieving
success.
• Leveraging both human and financial resources from multiple sources to get the job done
more thoroughly, quickly, and effectively.
• And, in the end, communicating about the new and breakthrough technologies that are
identified and spotlighted by the NETC awards.
Mechanisms for effective partnering are numerous and may be contractual or voluntary in
nature. Both are effective in their appropriate place. Voluntary contributions such as self-
supported participation in stakeholder groups and expert review of technical documents make
significant contributions and save substantial amounts of money for the program. Financial
support could be given to organizations such as the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS),
the International City Managers Association (ICMA), or other consortia of state, local, and
private entities. Some organizations may simply agree to participate. NETC has already
requested and received the support of the National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy
and Technology (NACEPT), which has formed a workgroup to assist the program in formulating
its initial design and working through the many issues that must be decided as the program is
implemented. The EPA Science Advisory Board (SAB) will be requested to review the program
in the future. All of these mechanisms may be used by NETC, as appropriate.
Finally, it is very important to assure that the goals and operating principles of the
program are clearly defined and clearly conveyed to all participants before any partnerships are
started. These important touchstones are returned to again and again as partners work together.
Since every participant will have a slightly different motivation for his or her participation, a
clear and definitive statement of what the program is and, by inference, is not aimed at achieving
is critical. One of the major purposes of this Preliminary Implementation Strategy is to provide
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that understanding to potential NETC partners.
Program Process
As presently envisioned, the Competition process will consist of four major steps. First,
technology gaps will be identified in each of four priority areas. Evaluation and testing criteria
will then be established for each technology. Solicitation and evaluation of submitted
technologies will be conducted by independent panels resulting in a list of recommended
finalists. And finally, a National Environmental Technology Awards Board will make the
selection of award recipients. Each of these steps will be characterized by the participation of
important groups both inside and outside government. The first and last steps will be conducted
through new partnership activities and the second and third by existing EPA partnership
programs.
Step 1 - Determine National Environmental Technology Gaps. One of the most
important products of the NETC will be the public identification of environmental technology
gaps that the country now has or is expected to have in the future. The analysis and listing of
these gaps will evolve over time and serve as an information resource for all technology
developers, whether they choose to enter the competition or not. This list will be created through
input from stakeholders across society, but particularly from the EPA program and regional
offices, the states, local government, consulting groups, and the technology-buying public and
private sector. In order to leverage priority setting activities already underway in the agency,
EPA will structure the initial list based upon its recently issued, Innovating for Better
Environmental Results: A Strategy to Guide the Next Generation of Innovation at EPA.' This
document lays out a broad direction and mandate for innovative activity and stipulates four
priority problem areas for particular attention. These are greenhouse gas, smog, water quality
maintenance and restoration, and water infrastructure. The use of these categories is consistent
with NETC's commitment to focus on technologies that solve problems rather than those that are
narrowly defined to regulatory areas. To begin the gaps identification process, EPA, after
conducting appropriate background studies, will seek broad input through partnerships with
organizations such as ECOS, ICMA, NACO, the Civil Engineering Research Foundation, and
others. With these state, local, and private sector partners, EPA, represented by appropriate
program office, regional, and research staff, will hold a series of four workshops focused on each
of the four identified sectors. These workshops will result in an initial identification of
technology gaps and priorities that will be sent to the Administrator for her review and public
announcement. They can then be used in 2003 and 2004 to structure the rest of the NETC
process. It is planned that the four partnerships will remain in existence and meet annually to
review the state of the technology. Each annual meeting will result in recommendations for
refinement of the evolving gaps list for each area. Other areas of concentration may be selected
by EPA in the future if circumstances indicate that this is appropriate.
1 Readers are encouraged to review this document, which has been widely vetted
throughout the Agency. The four problem areas identified are very broad and will require a wide
variety of both existing and new technologies to address their many causes and effects.
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Step 2 - Determine the Technology Evaluation Criteria for Each Gap Area. Once the
lists of technology gaps are enumerated and prioritized by EPA and the partnerships described in
Stepl, the Agency will seek input from the existing stakeholder groups and expert technology
panels formed to assist the Environmental Technology Verification Program (ETV) to establish
technology criteria.2 ETV stakeholder groups consist of federal, state and local regulators and
permitters, technology developers and purchasers, consulting engineers, academic, professional,
and trade associations, technology exporters and financial entities for examples). These groups
give broad input on the performance needs of the individual environmental marketplace. After
performance needs are identified, ETV technical panels, made up of technical specialists in the
particular technology area being verified, are formed to convert these performance needs into
detailed testing and quality assurance protocols. ETV now has stakeholder groups and expert
technical panels operating in all of the four areas discussed above. These partnerships have as a
part of their mandate:
The formulation of specific factors that need to be known about technologies in order to
determine their technical performance, practicality, and ability to be implemented. These
may include control or measurement of regulated and non-regulated pollutants, operation
and maintenance factors such as energy use, reliability, labor intensivity, and cost
. information of all types. Cost is expected to be a particularly prominent factor in NETC.
• The type and range of test procedures needed to substantiate performance,
• The data quality assurance levels needed to substantiate the tests.
The establishment of the three types of criteria described above for each technology gap area will
allow NETC to stipulate the particular types and quality of data and information to be contained
in technology solicitations and submittals. Technology developers will understand from the
beginning what will be expected from the technology in terms of performance and what will be
required in data packages submitted for Competition awards.
Step 3 - Solicit and Evaluate Technologies in Each Gap Area.3 Once priorities are set
and evaluation criteria are determined for technology categories selected, EPA will issue
competitive solicitation announcements. Allowed response time may vary from a few months to
a year or more, and may include more than one response deadline to accommodate technologies
in different stages of development. Technical Review Panels will be established to review and
evaluate the responses to each competition. In keeping with the second principle of utilizing
existing EPA capability to rapidly implement the NETC program, ORD will build on the existing
peer review process and infrastructure used for its current competitive solicitations to conduct
2 The Agency may choose to use other standards and test procedure design organizations
in instances in which ETV does not have coverage or capacity.
3 The first competitions of the program will start with this step to enable EPA to pilot its
awardee selection process while the gap and technology criteria processes are put in place. In the
first year, EPA will select one or two well known gap areas on which to focus awards selection.
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these evaluations. Review panels will be comprised of national experts for each environmental
technology area. The Technical Review Panels will evaluate all submitted technology data,
analysis, and information packages using the criteria established in Step 2. They will then
recommend all technologies that meet the established criteria to the National Environmental
Technology Awards Board as NETC Finalists. Each submitted technology will receive a written
evaluation from the Technical Review Panel whether it becomes a Finalist in the Competition or
not. All Finalists will receive recognition.
Step 4 - Select National Environmental Technology Competition Winners. The NETC
proposes to create a separate National Environmental Technology Awards Board to be composed
of six to ten distinguished national figures representing both the public (a governor or mayor, for
example) and private (corporation president or major academic figure) sectors. They will review
and evaluate the recommendations of the individual Technical Review Panels, and make final
award recommendations (multiple awards are expected) to the Administrator. The Awards
Board will seek truly outstanding, break-thru technologies that are believed to significantly
advance the nation toward solving the identified environmental challenges. Presidential NETC
awards would be presented by the Administrator and widely publicized. In addition to the
recognition and honor bestowed by these awards, additional award possibilities, both monetary
and non-monetary are under consideration. These could include facilitated permitting assistance,
state grant support, regional field demonstrations, cash prizes, or a combination of the above, as
appropriate.
Measures of Success
NETC will ultimately be judged by several factors.
• The vision and clear thinking of a gaps process that engages all sectors of the
environmental community and identifies the legitimate technological needs of the 21st
Century.
The definition of clear and comprehensive criteria and test procedures for each
technology gap area identified.
• A fair technology solicitation and selection process that produces legitimate Competition
Finalists and then identifies the "best of the best" as the ultimate awardees.
And finally, the number of deployments of these technologies over a five year period after
award and the extent of increased environmental protection gained because of them.
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