AEPA
EPA-190-B-10-002
FY 2011-2015 EPA Strategic Plan
Cross-Cutting Fundamental Strategy: Strengthening State, Tribal, and International Partnerships
Deliver on our commitment to a clean and healthy environment through consultation and
shared accountability with states, tribes, and the global community for addressing the highest
priority problems.
EPA will strengthen its state, tribal, and international partnerships to achieve our mutual environmental
and human health goals. As we work together, our relationships must continue to be based on
integrity, trust, and shared accountability to make the most effective use of our respective bodies of
knowledge, our existing authorities, our resources, and our talents.
Successful partnerships will be based on four working principles: consultation, collaboration,
cooperation, and accountability. By consulting, we will engage our partners in a timely fashion as we
consider approaches to our environmental work so that each partner can make an early and meaningful
contribution toward the final result. By collaborating, we will not only share information, but we will
actively work together with our partners to use all available resources to reach our environmental and
human health goals. As our work progresses, we will cooperate, viewing each other with respect as
allies who must work successfully together if our goals are to be achieved. Through shared
accountability, we will ensure that environmental benefits are consistently delivered nationwide. In
carrying out these responsibilities, EPA will ensure through oversight that state and tribal
implementation of federal laws achieves a consistent level of protection for the environment and human
health.
With States
Under our federal environmental laws, EPA and the states share responsibility for protecting human
health and the environment. With this relationship as the cornerstone of the nation's environmental
protection system, EPA will:
1. Improve implementation and consistent delivery of national environmental programs through closer
consultation and transparency.
2. Work with states to seek efficient use of resources through work-sharing, joint planning using data
analysis and targeting to address priorities, and other approaches.
3. Play a stronger management role to facilitate the exchange of data with states to improve program
effectiveness and efficiency.
4. Consult with state and local governments on a routine basis to ensure that the development and
implementation of rules is consistent with ERA'S Action Development Process: Guidance on
Executive Order 13132 (Federalism), which recognizes the division of governmental responsibilities
between the federal government and the states.
5. Strengthen state-EPA shared accountability by focusing oversight on the most significant and
pressing state program performance challenges, using data and analysis to speed program
improvements.
6. Ensure a level playing field across states to improve compliance and address the most serious
violations.
With Tribes
The relationship between the United States Government and federally-recognized tribes is unique and
has developed throughout the course of the nation's history. In strengthening this relationship, EPA
will:
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1. Focus on increasing tribal capacity to establish and implement environmental programs while
ensuring that our national programs are as effective in Indian country as they are throughout the
rest of the nation.
2. Enhance our effort as we work with tribes on a government-to-government basis, based upon the
Constitution, treaties, laws, executive orders, and a long history of Supreme Court rulings.
3. Strengthen our cross-cultural sensitivity with tribes, recognizing that tribes have cultural,
jurisdictional, and legal features that must be considered when coordinating and implementing
environmental programs in Indian country.
With Other Countries
To achieve our domestic environmental and human health goals, international partnerships are
essential. Pollution is often carried by winds and water across national boundaries, posing risks many
hundreds and thousands of miles away. Many concerns, like climate change, are universal. In the
international arena, EPA will:
1. Expand our partnership efforts in multilateral forums and in key bilateral relationships.
2. Enhance existing and nurture new international partnerships to promote a new era of global
environmental stewardship based on common interests, shared values, and mutual respect.
FY 2011 Action Plan: Strengthening State, Tribal, and International Partnerships
This FY2011 Partnership Action Plan lists the specific priorities and implementation strategies that
EPA will carry out in partnership with states, tribes, and international organizations to achieve the goals
of the Cross-cutting Partnerships Strategy in the Strategic Plan. Annual Action Plans will be developed
for each year of the Plan.
With States
1. Continue Agency consultations with state (and local) elected officials on EPA rulemakings and
policies (Supports Principles 1 and 4).
• Conduct rule-specific consultations with the ten major state and local government associations
for regulatory actions that have Federalism implications (i.e., impose substantial compliance
costs on government entities or preempt state or local law), as defined in EPA's Action
Development Process: Guidance on Executive Order 13132 (Federalism).
• Complete a review of EPA's process for Federalism consultations and make a determination if
adjustments are needed.
• Promote transparency through the use of the Agency's Rulemaking Gateway and explore
additional tools such as social media and internal policies to support early engagement and
implementation of new regulations.
2. Use the National Environmental Performance Partnership System (NEPPS) as a platform to
improve EPA's working relationship with the states (Supports Principles 1, 2, and 3).
• Establish an Agency-wide taskforce to determine parameters for worksharing, identify program
elements where worksharing can be applied, and areas where statutes or regulations prohibit
worksharing. Include best practices and examples of worksharing in FY 2012 NPM Guidances.
• Complete a review of current NEPPS implementation practices and identify potential new
approaches that may improve overall effectiveness, public credibility, and program
accountability.
3. Improve the effectiveness and efficiency of state-federal interactions and facilitate the exchange of
data with states (Supports Principles 1, 2, and 3).
• Define a specific path forward in collaboration with states for implementing the ECOS-EPA
Business Process Improvement Memorandum of Understanding, signed in March 2010.
• Implement the Exchange Network Action Plan in collaboration with states to enhance efficiency
and improve the quality, timeliness, and accessibility of environmental information.
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• Increase state utilization of the Exchange Network to 60 percent for priority data flows by
providing technical and financial support to state partners as they transition to the National
Environmental Information Exchange Network.
4. Strengthen state-EPA shared accountability (Supports Principles 2, 5, and 6).
• Implement integrated and strategic annual planning in the National Pollution Discharge
Elimination System (NPDES) permitting and enforcement program, initiated in FY 2010 through
regional-state integrated planning meetings, by developing joint commitments that ensure that
the most significant sources of pollution and the most serious violations identified in the planning
will be addressed through state and EPA actions. Develop with states a set of performance
criteria for NPDES permitting and enforcement programs and implement a national strategy to
address long-standing performance issues in state enforcement programs.
With Tribes
1. In collaboration with tribal partners, identify the gaps in the implementation of EPA programs in
Indian country or related to Alaska Native Villages and define a path forward for eliminating key
regulatory, policy, and programmatic voids (Supports Principles 1 and 2).
• Work with tribal partners to identify the gaps in the implementation of EPA programs in Indian
country or related to Alaska Native Villages.
• Finalize the plan to implement actions recommended by the Tribal Environmental Measures
workgroup (by July 2011).
2. Consistent with the Tribal Consultation Policy, work with tribes to identify mutual environmental
priorities (Supports Principle 2 and 3).
• Develop guidance to the Agency on implementing EO 13175, Consultation and Coordination
with Indian Tribal Governments, supporting the Administration's November 2009 Memorandum
on Tribal Consultation.
• All EPA employees complete the "Working Effectively with Tribal Governments" training.
3. Enhance the content, accuracy, and usability of EPA databases that gather and analyze trend data
on environmental conditions in Indian country (Supports Principle 1).
• As part of the Tribal Data Management Strategy, increase tribal participation in the Exchange
Network (as measured by the number of tribal data exchanges) by 20 percent.
With Other Countries
1. Develop a successor U.S. - Mexico Border Environment Program strategic design that will address
the most severe environmental and human health issues in the border region (Supports Principles 1
and 2).
• Create an inclusive Border Drafting Committee, including representatives from Agency regional
and program offices, Mexican Secretariat of the Environment and Natural Resources
(SEMARNAT), U.S. Department of State, and federally recognized tribes.
• Complete first draft of successor framework (by July 2011) and conduct public review sessions
along the Border.
2. Strengthen the working relationship between the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP)
and EPA (Supports Principles 1 and 2).
• Lead an Agency-wide review of existing EPA-UNEP partnership work and identify and agree on
near-term work consistent with key areas, as appropriate, through a series of meetings across
the Agency and with program experts and UNEP staff (by November 2010).
• Develop a Memorandum of Understanding that articulates a common vision of future EPA-
UNEP work indicating near term partnership priorities and implementation activities (by
February 2011).
3. Advance work on environmentally sustainable practices in the lead up to the Rio 2012 Conference,
which marks the 20th anniversary of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit (Supports Principles 1 and 2).
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Develop a concrete proposal for an initiative to promote sustainable consumption and
production and sustainable urban planning (by May 2011).
Hold at least two meetings with the nongovernmental community to further partnership on
emerging issues related to Rio 2012 (by June 2011).
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