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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