Guidance on Federally-Reportable Violations for
Stationary Air Sources
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance
Office of Compliance
Washington, DC 20460
April 1986

-------
04/11/86
Guidance on Federally-Reportable Violations for
Stationary Air Sources
APR 11 1986
MEMORANDUM
SUBJECT: Guidance on Federally-Reportable Violations for
Stationary Air Sources
FROM: J. Craig Potter
Assistant Administrator
for Air and Radiation ( ANR-443 )
TO:	Regional Administrators
Regions I - X
Attached is guidance on what constitutes a Federal-reportable violation
for stationary air sources. This guidance is the culmination of an
extended effort initiated in FY 1985 within the Agency and with
representatives of State and local air agencies. This guidance should
be implemented in FY 1987 through your State enforcement agreements or
similar appropriate vehicle. Once implemented, it should improve
immeasurably our understanding of, and ability to deal with, the
problem of assuring continuous compliance by stationary air sources.
Traditionally, compliance status information is reported to EPA by
States on a "snapshot" basis. This means the State reports the
compliance status of the source ( based on the most recent assessment )
as of the end of the reporting period, generally quarterly. Thus EPA
would know the source's compliance status only as of the end of the
reporting period. It would not know of any changes in compliance status
which took place during the period not reflected by the status as of
the end of the period.
This was not a serious problem when the focus of the compliance program
was on obtaining initial compliance and compliance status changed only
infrequently. However, as the focus has broadened to include
maintaining continuous compliance, the current method of reporting is
inadequate. For instance, a source could go in and out of compliance
multiple times within a reporting cycle due to poor operation and
maintenance practices. Yet, if it were in compliance at the period's
end, under the snapshot approach the source would be reported in CDS as
being in compliance with no record of the continuous compliance
problems having occurred.
This results in an understating of the true noncompliance rate and
makes it more difficult to assess and improve the effectiveness of the
program. It also tends to mask compliance problems of intermittent
violators, sometimes delaying assuring that those sources are brought
into continuous compliance.

-------
The attached guidance addresses this problem by requiring that
information be provided on many violations which occur and are resolved
wholly within the reporting period. This will significantly improve
our understanding of the true compliance picture for those sources and
what actions are being taken to resolve the violations.
This guidance was accepted by STAPPA at its March 18 Board of Directors
meeting. It was not accepted by the ALAPCO Board of Directors.
However, given the fundamental importance of improving the current
system and the willingness of STAPPA to accept the guidance, we believe
it is important to implement the guidance in FY 1987 as planned.
I think it is particularly important that the guidance be implemented
in the spirit in which it is intended. Concerns have been expressed
about highly obtrusive Federal enforcement actions and undue reporting
burdens. To address these concerns, I would like to provide the
following guidance.
Where a newly-identified violation has already been resolved at the
time of reporting to EPA, an EPA enforcement action would rarely be
warranted. (Even under the timely and appropriate response guidance,
such violations would normally be resolved before EPA issues a Notice
of Violation). If the violation appears to be an isolated one, no EPA
action is warranted. If, however, the violation is part of a pattern
of such violations by the source, it is certainly appropriate to raise
the matter with the State or local agency and to assure that action is
taken to resolve the pattern of persistent violations.
Relative to the reporting of information to EPA, this guidance
necessarily requires reporting of additional data to EPA for inclusion
in the Compliance Data System ( CDS ). Such data, once received, must
be entered into CDS in a timely manner. The guidance also requires
that certain additional information about the violation be made readily
available to EPA upon request. This information should be requested
only when essential for a clearly-defined purpose and with full
sensitivity to the potential resource burdens information requests
create.
I believe implementation of this guidance constitutes an important
milestone for our air compliance program. I look forward to working
with you and our State and local agency colleagues in assuring its
successful implementation in FY 1987.

-------
Attachment
April 1986
GUIDANCE ON FEDERALLY-REPORTABLE VIOLATIONS
FOR STATIONARY AIR SOURCES
INTRODUCTION
A basic objective of the Federal EPA's air program is to ensure
national consistency in the interpretation and implementation of the
Clean Air Act. Nowhere is consistency more critical than in the area
of enforcement. The primary enforcement responsibility of the Act
clearly lies with the States1. However, EPA has a well-defined and
important role as well.
The Agency is charged by the Act with assuring that State programs
enforcing State Implementation Plans and, where delegated, NSPS and
NESHAPS standards, are adequately and consistently implemented and
regulations enforced. This responsibility has been met through various
State program oversight activities ( NAAS ), grant negotiations, and by
requiring the reporting of certain State compliance monitoring and
enforcement activities.The primary existing mechanism by which State
actions are reported to EPA is through the Compliance Data System
(CDS).
A continuing problem with this oversight function is that while there
is a mechanism for tracking data on violations, EPA has never clearly
defined in national guidance what it considers to be a reportable
violation.
While a State agency's legal obligation to enforce its regulations is
clear, some discretion exists on what violations should be reported,
and when and how such violations are to be reported. Such discretion
generally allows the agency to direct limited resources to areas of
greatest need and to respond more equitably to different types and
magnitudes of violations. However, it can also lead to excessively
variable practices on what to report as a violation and when to report
it, resulting in unequal treatment of sources.
All Regions have developed approaches in working with State agencies on
reporting of violations.	However, in the absence of national
guidance, inconsistencies exist from Region to Region, and State to
State, regarding what constitutes a reportable violation, when and how
it is entered in CDS, and what information is necessary to support the
reported violation. It is the intent of this guidance to address the
basis of these inconsistencies and minimize their impact. It is not
the intent of this guidance to require compliance status information
for purposes of the Agency routinely overriding basic State enforcement
responsibility and decision making.
1 "State" as used throughout this guidance also refers to local agencies
where they have enforcement authority.

-------
The task of developing the above mentioned national guidance is divided
into five basic issues:
•	What is a Federally-reportable violation, i.e., which violations
does EPA want reported to it by the State?
•	What specific information about reportable violations does EPA
require to effectively monitor the universe of violating sources?
How will the minimum information to be reported on violators be
transmitted to EPA?
•	At what frequency must minimum information on violators be
reported to EPA?
•	How will the compliance status of reported violators be tracked?
•	How will EPA use the information provided to it by the State?
These issues are addressed in the following sections. They deal only
with State reporting of fundamental data about violators of Federally-
enforceable air requirements. For the purposes of this guidance,
violators include significant violators as well as all other violators
that meet the criteria discussed below.
The scope of reporting and reporting procedures and frequency required
by this guidance do not supercede the monthly informal consultations
and monthly updating of CDS required for sources subject to the
"Guidance on'Timely and Appropriate' EPA/State Enforcement Response for
Significant Air Violators", dated June 1984.
REPORTABLE VIOLATION
The task here is not to establish what constitutes a violation, but
rather to assess whether a violation of a Federally-enforceable
requirement should be reported by the State to EPA. That is, all
detected violations are not of immediate Federal concern. However,
certain violations are. National guidance that permits the States to
make this distinction is provided below.
For a violation to be reportable to EPA, two conditions must be met.
First, the source must either be an NSPS or NESHAPS facility or, if a
SIP source ( including those subject to NSR and PSD regulations ), be
classified A1 or A2 ( by the EPA definition of class ).
Secondly, to be Federally-reportable, a violation must also meet at
least one of the following criteria:2
•	An emissions violation includes not only a violation of numerical
emissions limitations but also violations of other requirements
that directly impact the amount of allowable emissions, such as
equipment standards, work practice standards, and sulfur-in-fuel
limitations.
2 For the purpose of this guidance, specific terms used in the above
criteria are defined in the following manner:

-------
•	A significant procedural violation of a State consent decree,
court order, or administrative order includes failure by the
source to accomplish or maintain interim emission reductions and
failure to achieve interim increments of progress which
jeopardizes the ability of the source to meet the final
compliance dates.
•	A significant procedural NSPS violation includes such source
activities as failure to install a Continuous Emission Monitoring
System ( CEMS ) or other monitoring equipment, failure to conduct
timely performance tests, and failure to conduct appropriate
monitoring and associated recordkeeping. It does not include a
failure to report on time such activities as start of
construction or operation and late reporting of quarterly
compliance reports.
•	A continuing violation ( emission or significant procedural )
shall include violations which, while not necessarily continuous
for seven days ( i.e., 168 or more hours ), reoccur regularly or
intermittently, and have not been adequately addressed or
resolved by the source. A violation of this nature shall become
reportable if it cannot be or is not resolved within seven days
after the enforcement agency first becomes aware of the
violation. Such a violation is Federally-reportable even if a
source is in compliance on the last day of the reporting period,
i.e., at the time of the traditional static "snapshot."
•	A significant procedural SIP violation includes such source
activities as failure to install CEMS, failure to obtain required
permits ( NSR and PSD ), and the like.
1.	Any emissions or significant procedural violation of a
State consent decree, court order, or administrative order,
which was issued by the State to resolve a Federally-
enforceable violation.
2.	Any violation of a NESHAPS requirement, emissions or
procedural.
3.	Any emissions or significant procedural violation of an
NSPS requirement continuing for, or likely to continue for,
at least seven days.
4.	Any emissions or significant procedural violation of a
Federally-approved or Federally-promulgated SIP
requirement( including an NSR or PSD regulation )
continuing for, or likely to continue for, at least seven
days .
Any violation determined through a Continuous Emission Monitoring
System ( CEMS ) or any other continuous monitoring device or method,
where such device or method is the official emissions compliance test
method prescribed by a Federally-enforceable SIP, NSPS, or NESHAPS
requirement, would be covered by and reportable under one of the
criteria specified above.

-------
REPORTABLE VIOLATION DATA
In order for EPA to carry out its national program oversight
responsibility, the State must provide adequate information about the
reported violation and their enforcement position in a timely fashion
to assure EPA that the violation is being properly addressed. Because
this places a reporting burden on the State, only essential information
needed to satisfy the EPA oversight mission will be required. A
portion of these data, as discussed later, will be tracked through CDS.
At a minimum, the following information, where applicable, must be
provided or made available to EPA for all reportable violations. The
information for items 1-3 must be reported to EPA in all instances.
Items 4-6 need not be regularly reported to EPA, however, they must be
made readily available upon EPA's request.
1.	Source and emission point identification data;
2.	Nature of violation ( i.e., pollutant and emissions or procedural
violation ), location of violation( i.e., point, process or unit
), and the Federally enforceable regulation that has been
violated;
3.	Method and date of initial detection, e.g., stack test, quarterly
compliance report, inspection report, malfunction report;
4.	Duration and magnitude if emissions violation;
5.	Known/possible causes of violation, e.g., lack of proper O&M,
emergency release; and
6.	State enforcement position and timeframe of expected action.
Once a source has been returned to compliance, the method of compliance
verification and the date of compliance achievement must as well be
reported in all instances to EPA according to the same frequency as
reporting violations.
If the Region receives copies of State inspection reports, these may
serve in lieu of the above-listed minimum information if the State
inspection reports provide sufficiently detailed information, at the
required reporting frequency, to permit EPA to meet its mission as
stated in this guidance.
The minimum information detailed for items 1-3 above should be entered
into CDS in a timely fashion. The information required to be regularly
reported or made available to EPA from States on all reportable
violations may be transmitted either by personal communications, manual
reports, or through CDS. However, for items 4 and 5, it will be
sufficient if the information is made available to EPA during an onsite
visit if the State prefers.

-------
FREQUENCY OF REPORTING
The information required by this guidance to be reported to EPA must be
reported on at least a quarterly basis. For newly reported violators,
the initial quarterly report should consist of the minimum information
discussed under the "Reportable Violation Data" section, to the extent
it is available at that time. Subsequent quarterly reports should at
least consist of compliance status changes that occurred during the
past quarter. All such information shall be reported to EPA not more
than 45 calendar days after the close of the quarter the information
became known to the State.
METHODS OF COMPLIANCE TRACKING
The compliance status of reported violators will be tracked in CDS by
two procedures. One will be the traditional static "snapshot" based on
the most recently observed compliance assessment of the source,
generally, meant to be the compliance status of record as of the end of
the quarterly reporting period. This compliance status is defined to
be the most recently confirmed assessment of source compliance of
Federally-regulated processes, emission points, or units for all
Federally-regulated air pollutants.
The second compliance indicator is intended to track the performance
record of such sources, i.e., a more continuous assessment of
compliance, insofar as that information is available to the enforcement
agency. For instance, a source could go in and out of compliance
multiple times within a quarter's reporting cycle. Yet, if it was in
compliance at quarter's end, under the snapshot approach, the source
would be reported in CDS as being in compliance with no record of the
continuous compliance problems having occurred. A great deal of
valuable information about a source's operational characteristics, and
difficulties, is lost using such traditional static compliance
reporting methods. In addition, a static assessment of compliance does
not lend itself to an evaluation of truly representative operating
conditions when a physical site visit is made, nor does it encourage
source practices that maintain compliance on a more continuous basis.
To accommodate this second assessment procedure, a continuous
compliance status indicator code will be entered in CDS. With the
addition of such an indicator, not only will we know a source's static
compliance status, but we will as well know its compliance picture
during the reporting period even though its static compliance status
may not indicate a violation at quarter's end. The actual form,
mechanics, and schedule of CDS modifications necessary to monitor the
continuous compliance history of sources will follow in more detailed
guidance at a later date. However, the concept is to enable agencies
to more effectively monitor the continuous compliance practices of
problem sources.
EPA USE OF DATA
EPA has a bonafide mission of national program oversight. The type and
amount of information EPA is requiring the State to provide about
reportable violations through this guidance is necessary to achieve
that mission. More specifically, EPA will use these data to:

-------
1.	Maintain a nationally consistent and uniform Federal/State
compliance program;
2.	Assess the State's ability to implement and enforce compliance
with the Act;
3.	Identify the national air compliance program's strengths and
weaknesses, and improve the program in areas where the data
indicate a need;
4.	Determine what is a "realistic" noncompliance rate; and
5.	Provide EPA Regions with more detailed background data for
monthly conferences with their States.

-------