State Innovation Grant Program: Kentucky
Environmental Excellence through Environmental Leadership and Voluntary
Performance Improvement (2007 Competition)
ie innovation urani rrogram 10 support
efforts led by state environmental agencies to test innovative approaches
for achieving better environmental results and improved efficiency in
permitting programs. Between 2002 and 2007, the State Innovation Grant
program competition awarded over six million dollars to support 35 state
projects that test permitting innovation for a variety of regulated entities
including several small business sectors. Asummary of the awards by year
appears in the table below.
State Innovation Grant Program Statistics, 2002-2007
Competition Proposals Proposals Total Program
Year Submitted Selected Funding ($)
2002/2003
$618,000
$1.425 Million
$1.479 Million
Cumulative
$1.243 Million
$1.611 Million
$6.376 Million
"Innovation in Permitting" has been the theme of the State Innovation Grant
competition since its inception. In the last three competition cycles states
received awards for projects in the following three categories:
• The Environmental Results Program (ERP) is an innovative
approach to improving environmental performance based on a system
of the interlocking tools of compliance assistance, self-certification
(sometimes, where permissible, in lieu of permitting), and
statistically-based measurement to gauge the performance of an entire
business sector. The program utilizes a multimedia approach to
encourage small sources to achieve environmental compliance and
pollution prevention. (See: http://www.epa.gov/permits/erp/)
• Environmental Management System (EMS) is a system involving a
continual cycle of planning, implementing, reviewing and improving the
processes and actions that an organization undertakes to meet its
business and environmental goals. EMSs provide organizations of all
types with a structured system and approach for managing
environmental and regulatory responsibilities to improve overall
environmental performance and stewardship.
(See: www.epa.gov/ems/info/index.htm)
• Performance Track is a partnership that recognizes top
environmental performance among participating US facilities of all types,
sizes, and complexity, both public and private.
(See: http://www.epa.gov/performancetrack/)
NCEI has provided awards also for projects testing watershed-based
permitting, and for permit process streamlining in past competitions. For
more information on the history of the programs, including information on
solicitations, state proposals, and project awards, please see the EPA State
ittD://www.eDa.aov/innovation/statear
Project Background:
The Kentucky Department for Environmental Protection
(KDEP) has long implemented regulatory programs that
permit, inspect, and enforce environmental activities
across the state. These traditional command-and-
control programs have resulted in significant
improvements to the environment and increased the
quality of life of Kentucky's citizens. In spite of these
improvements, this approach has its limitations. Under
the current compliance-based regulatory system, the
performance of a facility is measured only against
minimum regulatory standards. To complement its
traditional programs, Kentucky recently established its
compliance assistance and environmental leadership
programs to facilitate enhanced environmental
performance.
Project Description
KDEP has received a US EPA State Innovation Grant to
develop and implement the Kentucky Environmental
Excellence through Environmental Leadership and
Voluntary Performance Improvement project. The project
will: 1) implement a Targeted Assistance Project (TAP) to
improve performance at targeted facilities that have
shown a demonstrated record of non-compliance; 2) use
the TAP as a recruitment tool that will expand the
membership of Kentucky's environmental leadership
program, KY EXCEL, to more than 500 entities; and 3)
encourage these new KY EXCEL members to perform
waste reduction or energy efficiency projects at their
facilities.
The project will achieve improved environmental
compliance by focusing on outcomes (number of
participants in the TAP Program and Number of TAP
participants that join KY EXCEL) over traditional
regulatory outputs (number of inspections and permits
issued) to measure performance. This integrated
approach to achieving compliance improvement and
voluntary environmental leadership will improve
Kentucky's environmental quality.
NCE
NATIONAL CENTER FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL INNOVATION
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The project start date was October 1, 2007 and the work
will take three years to complete. As of October 2007,
KDEP had started to identify sectors to be included in the
TAP program.
Connection to EPA's Goals
This program directly supports EPA's Strategic Goals by
(Goals 1 and 2) encouraging pollution prevention practices
and directly measuring the amount of pollution reduced to
each media; by (Goals 3 and 4) identifying and rewarding
the completion of projects that specifically improve the
community through cooperative efforts; and by (Goal 5)
improving overall compliance performance and developing
the concept of environmental stewardship.
For more specific information on the Kentucky State
Innovation Grant, please visit KDEP's Environmental
Excellence through Environmental Leadership and
Voluntary Performance Improvement website at http://
www.dca.ky.gov/kyexcel/, or contact one of the project
individuals below:
Project Contacts:
For more specific information on the
Kentucky State Innovation Grant, please
contact one of the individuals below:
Aaron B. Keatley, Director
Kentucky Division of Compliance Assistance
300 Fair Oaks Lane
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
(502) 564-0323
Aaron. Keatley@ky.gov
Tom Harmuth
US Environmental Protection Agency- Region 4
61 Forsyth Street, S.W.
Atlanta, GA 30303-8960
(404) 562-8294
Harmuth.Thomas@epa.gov
Andy Teplitzky
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency - HQ
Washington, DC 20460; MC (1807T)
(202)-566-2947; FAX 202-566-0966
Teplitzky.Andy@epa.gov
Program Contact:
Sherri Walker
State Innovation Grant Program
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Washington, DC 20460 (MC1807T)
(202)-566-2186; FAX (202) 566-2220
walker.sherri@epa.gov
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office of Policy,
Economics and Innovation
(1807T)
June 2008
EPA-100-F-08-046
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