[Federal Register Volume 61, Number 153 (Wednesday, August 7, 1996)]
[Notices]
[Pages 41252-41279]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 96-19962]



[[Page 41251]]


_______________________________________________________________________

Part VI





Environmental Protection Agency





_______________________________________________________________________



Availability of Permits Improvement Team Concept Paper on Environmental 
Permitting and Task Force Recommendations; Correction; Notice

  Federal Register / Vol. 61, No. 153 / Wednesday, August 7, 1996 / 
Notices  

[[Page 41252]]



ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

[FRL-5546-1]


Notice of Availability of Permits Improvement Team Concept Paper 
on Environmental Permitting and Task Force Recommendations; Correction

AGENCY: United States Environmental Protection Agency.

ACTION: Correction.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

SUMMARY: On July 19, 1996 in the Federal Register at page 37744, the 
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), announced the availability of 
the document entitled ``Concept Paper on Environmental Permitting and 
Task Force Recommendation'' and the Agency's request for stakeholder 
comment. EPA intended to publish the document in the Federal Register 
on the same day as the announcement, but it was inadvertently not 
published. EPA is correcting this error by publishing the document in 
this Federal Register issue.

    Dated: July 26, 1996.
James Mathews,
Deputy Assistant Administrator, Office of Solid Waste and Emergency 
Response.

Permits Improvement Team Final Draft of Concept Paper on Environmental 
Permitting and Task Force Recommendations, July 1996

Table of Contents

Executive Summary
Concept Paper on Environmental Permitting
Administrative Streamlining Task Force Recommendations
Alternatives to Individual Permits Task Force Recommendations
Enhanced Public Participation Task Force Recommendations
Performance Measures Task Force Recommendations
Pollution Prevention Incentives Task Force Recommendations
Training Task Force Recommendations

Executive Summary

    The Permits Improvement Team (PIT) was established by Administrator 
Browner in July 1994 to improve environmental permitting processes. 
Extensive outreach was conducted to obtain input from all stakeholders 
on issues of concern in the specific media permitting programs. This 
input aided EPA in selecting specific areas to develop recommendations 
and demonstrated the need for a concept paper on the overall direction 
of the permit reform effort. The PIT's recommendations include a 
Concept Paper on Environmental Permitting and specific activities in 
six areas that would assist in the transition from the current 
permitting system to that envisioned as the future approach.
    The analysis conducted as part of this project revealed that 
existing environmental statutes may limit EPA's latitude in fully 
implementing this new approach. As implementation proceeds, EPA will 
make changes to the various permitting programs that can be conducted 
under the existing statutes and will identify specific legislative 
barriers to full implementation.
    The PIT's concept paper attempts to address the greatest challenge 
for EPA today: to answer the public demand for more environmental 
protection at less cost. This demand of ``more for less'' requires EPA 
to examine both the philosophy and practice of its permitting systems, 
to determine how they can be made to function more effectively while at 
the same time decreasing costs for environmental agencies and the 
regulated community. The PIT concluded that public access to 
information can be a driver that can lead to improved environmental 
results with less governmental involvement in individual facility 
activities.
    The concept paper seeks to resolve these concerns by establishing a 
revised approach to environmental permitting: public performance-based 
permitting. This approach incorporates two concepts; one, the 
establishment of a defined level of performance to be achieved by the 
permittee and two, providing the public with the necessary information 
so they can monitor the permitting process and compliance of permitted 
facilities. After final approval of the concept paper, it will be used 
by EPA permit programs as official guidance on environmental 
permitting. Other environmental permitting programs, such as those of 
state, tribal or local governments, are also encouraged to adopt these 
principles where appropriate.
    The essence of public performance-based permitting is to shift the 
focus of environmental permitting towards the measurement and assurance 
of performance, while providing flexibility as to how a permittee will 
meet performance standards. The focus of this system will not simply be 
performance, but performance within a public arena: to the extent 
possible and appropriate, the public should be involved in the setting 
of performance standards and the measurement and judgement of 
performance. The Team determined that too much time and resources are 
spent reviewing the technical means by which a permittee will comply 
with permit conditions. While detailed technical reviews were warranted 
25 years ago, sufficient progress has been made in verifying technology 
and increasing corporate environmental responsibility that it is now 
appropriate to re-evaluate this approach.
    Public performance-based permitting involves three different types 
of performance: environmental results, facility compliance, and Agency 
performance.

Environmental Results

    The ultimate measure of the performance of EPA's environmental 
permitting systems is the condition of the air, land and water. Current 
permitting systems focus primarily on gathering information about 
permittees' compliance, but comparatively little information is 
gathered on the actual effects of permitted activities on human health 
and the environment. To a large extent, environmental permitting 
systems also lack the flexibility to restructure and rearrange their 
priorities in response to such environmental performance data, since 
they are often set up to issue individual permits based solely on the 
potential impacts of each facility. However, changes are being proposed 
in this area as permitting authorities consider ecosystem and community 
based approaches to permit issuance.
    Increasing ambient monitoring while decreasing other compliance 
information requirements at the source would allow permitting agencies 
to prioritize permitting information requirements based on real 
environmental impacts. But permitting agencies should be encouraged and 
allowed to take this idea one step further, and prioritize which 
facilities will receive full-fledged individual permits and which 
facilities can receive general permits or no permit at all, based on 
certain conditions or levels of emissions. The better ambient 
information becomes, the more precisely permitting agencies can and 
should gear environmental permitting systems to the most significant 
risks to the environment. This could entail protection of high quality 
areas as well as focusing on areas where environmental standards are 
not being achieved.

Facility Compliance

    The goal in reforming the existing permitting systems is to make 
permitting systems less prescriptive and more performance-based, in 
other words, to continue to tell a permittee what standards to achieve, 
but to no longer mandate, in most cases, how they are to achieve them.

[[Page 41253]]

    In addition to allowing permittees the flexibility to determine the 
technical means by which they meet EPA standards, there are several 
other ways to increase permittees' operating flexibility. Permitting 
agencies should consider these alternatives and incorporate them into 
their permitting processes as appropriate. Any alternatives that 
provide increased flexibility to the regulated community need to ensure 
that the requirements are enforceable.
    In general, where technologies are already proven or verified, 
there would be less need to perform technical review as part of the 
permitting process. EPA should give state, tribal and local governments 
the flexibility to reduce such reviews. EPA program offices should 
evaluate existing regulations, policies and priorities that limit this 
flexibility and make appropriate revisions where authorized by statute.
    Another method to encourage flexibility includes allowing 
permitting agencies to reduce the number of times permits need to be 
formally modified. Generally, permit modification should be required 
only where process changes will increase pollution, or are needed to 
ensure proper operation or monitoring of a facility. Permitting 
agencies should be able to tailor their permit modification 
requirements by facility; facilities with good compliance records may 
be made subject to less prescriptive requirements.
    Additionally, permitting agencies should use the permitting process 
to encourage municipal and industrial facilities to practice pollution 
prevention. One of the primary purposes of making permitting 
performance-based rather than technology-based is to encourage and 
allow facilities to pursue innovative technological approaches to 
preventing pollution at the source. In addition to pollution prevention 
technologies, the permitting system should encourage the use of more 
cost effective innovative technologies of any type, where practicable 
and consistent with legal requirements.
    The flexibility provided to facilities must be coupled with the 
public reporting of compliance status that would provide visible and 
understandable information on whether or not facilities are meeting 
their permit conditions. In this way the public will be able to monitor 
the results of the modified permitting system based on the actual 
performance of individual facilities.

Agency Performance

    EPA, state, tribal and local permitting programs should establish 
standards of performance upon which the program would be evaluated and 
institute systems of continuous evaluation and improvement of their own 
performance. The performance of EPA and other permitting agencies, like 
the performance of permittees and the actual condition of the 
environment, needs to be publicly reported in clear, understandable 
terms. By bringing these types of performance into the light, public 
performance-based permitting will focus attention on the results of 
environmental permitting systems, and use those results to continually 
make these systems more responsive and environmentally protective.

Task Force Recommendations

    The recommendations of the six PIT Task Forces are highlighted 
below. The main report contains detailed discussions on each 
recommendation.

Administrative Streamlining Task Force Recommendations

     Create a predictable, user-friendly federal permit 
process.
     Encourage and implement flexible permitting projects.
     Tier permitting programs in proportion to environmental 
significance.
     Establish computer systems.
     Regional permit process assistance.

Alternatives to Individual Permits Task Force Recommendations

     Consider the appropriateness of using alternative permit 
approaches.
     Consider the performance of state, tribal and local permit 
programs that may regulate the same or similar activities.
     Develop and maintain a clearinghouse of permit 
alternatives being developed and used in federal and state/tribal/local 
programs throughout the country.
     Specific recommendations for alternatives to individual 
permits in the air, water and waste permitting programs.

Enhanced Public Participation Task Force Recommendations

     Develop ``easy reference'' guidance for public 
participation activities.
     Utilize the Environmental Justice Public Participation 
Checklist as guidance to the extent appropriate and feasible.
     Develop an inventory of mechanisms that promote access to 
environmental information.
     Explore, and possibly conduct pilots for, the development 
and use of comprehensive multi-media Community Involvement Plan.
     Develop a series of case studies on the effectiveness of 
public participation activities.

Performance Measures Task Force Recommendations

     Develop generic performance measures covering: process; 
results; and customer service.
    Process--timeliness and number of pending permits.
    Results--environmental indicators and level of compliance.
    Customer service--customer satisfaction.
     Develop generic tracking measures covering: process and 
results.
    Process--overall time required for permit issuance; permit 
application completeness; cost of permitting program; and number of 
pending renewal (air/water) and interim status (RCRA) permits.
    Results--pollution prevention/innovative technology.

Pollution Prevention Incentives Task Force Recommendations

     Link performance-based permitting with facility-based 
permitting, consolidation of permitting requirements, and cross-media 
permitting.
     Create industry-sector inventories of regulatory 
thresholds for permitting.
     Explore offering alternative emissions tracking in 
exchange for using pollution prevention practices.
     Share pollution prevention data with permit applicants and 
affected communities, and give basic pollution prevention training to 
permit writers.
     Develop an enforcement policy to accommodate the 
possibility that innovative pollution prevention technologies may not 
perform as expected or may take longer to achieve compliance.
     In all general permits and permits-by-rule, include 
language that explains the preference for using pollution prevention 
approaches and the potential economic benefits of pollution prevention.

Training Task Force Recommendations

    Provide information to the regulated community and others.
    Provide information on every new significant rule.
    Define and provide training on core skills and knowledge needed to 
issue permits.
    Store and provide critical knowledge.

[[Page 41254]]

Concept Paper on Environmental Permitting

I. Introduction

A. Purpose of the Concept Paper
    Over the past 25 years, EPA has continually searched to find the 
best ways to protect the environment. Among the most successful methods 
have been EPA's programs requiring industrial and municipal facilities 
to obtain permits to control their pollutant emissions 1 to the 
air, land and water. Programs such as New Source Review for air 
emissions, National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) for 
water discharges and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) 
for hazardous waste management have in many ways reduced the negative 
impacts of industrial and municipal facilities on human health and the 
environment.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \1\ The terms ``emission'', ``release'' and ``discharge'' are 
used interchangeably in this paper.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    But numerous environmental challenges remain. Perhaps the greatest 
challenge for EPA today is to answer the public demand for more 
environmental protection at less cost. This demand of ``more for less'' 
requires EPA to examine both the philosophy and practice of its 
permitting systems, to determine how they can be made to function more 
effectively while at the same time decreasing costs for environmental 
agencies and the regulated community.
    The Paper is intended to be a comprehensive list of recommendations 
to serve as a guide to Agency programs as they strive to improve the 
issuance, implementation, and compliance and enforcement of 
environmental permits. The Permits Improvement Team (PIT) recognizes 
that there is much ongoing work in this area. While some of these 
efforts are mentioned in conjunction with the recommendations, the PIT 
did not attempt to identify each and every program activity. Clearly, 
the Agency is already moving to implement some of the Paper's 
recommendations.
    The PIT recognizes the ongoing work of a number of other groups 
that have been formed by the Agency to meet current environmental 
challenges through innovative approaches: for example, the Common Sense 
Initiative (CSI), Project XL, the Environmental Leadership Program, the 
Incentives for Environmental Auditing and Self Policing, the Small 
Business Policy, and the Incentives for Small Communities Policy. The 
PIT recognizes the new directions the Agency is undertaking as guiding 
principles for the PIT recommended projects. In fact, many of the 
recommendations contained in this report may be or may become pilot 
projects within these efforts. While some of the activities described 
within this Paper are ongoing efforts, others may require a redirection 
of Agency resources and/or changes to current statutory schemes.
    This concept paper provides guidance by developing a revised 
approach to environmental permitting: public performance-based 
permitting. This approach incorporates two concepts: one, the 
establishment of a defined level of performance to be achieved by the 
permittee, and two, providing the public with the necessary information 
so they can monitor the permitting process and compliance of permitted 
facilities. Once the final draft of this concept paper has been 
completed and approved (following the incorporation of additional 
comments), it should be used by EPA permit programs as guidance. EPA 
Program offices affected by these changes are urged to develop plans 
outlining how they can implement these principles (e.g., policy, 
regulatory or process changes) consistent with statutory requirements. 
These plans could take the form of program specific strategic plans 
that would include short and long-term goals for moving the public 
performance-based permitting concepts forward. Through these plans, EPA 
programs will prioritize the recommendations and determine which can be 
implemented based on resources, other program commitments, and 
constraints.
    Other environmental permitting programs, such as those of state, 
tribal or local governments, are also encouraged to adopt these 
principles where appropriate.

B. EPA's Relationship With State, Tribal and Local Environmental 
Agencies

    Before discussing the principles of a modified permitting system, 
it is important to understand the context in which these principles 
would be carried out. Rather than issuing most permits itself, EPA 
generally has established programs to authorize state, tribal and local 
permitting authorities, to perform most of the permitting. Recently, 
EPA and the states signed an agreement, the National Environmental 
Performance Partnership System, aimed at making EPA oversight of states 
less uniform and prescriptive and more based on performance, so that 
states with more effective programs and proven environmental results 
may receive less oversight. A similar approach is being developed for 
tribes. This concept paper follows the principles of the new EPA/state 
relationship, with the goals of making EPA permitting systems more 
performance-based and providing authorized permitting authorities more 
flexibility to find the best approaches to permitting and data 
management. The principles in this paper, therefore, should be 
understood as approaches that EPA would like to encourage through 
flexibility and assistance to state, tribal and local governments, and 
not as any kind of new mandates. A key aspect of that assistance is the 
provision of information from EPA databases. A comprehensive effort to 
upgrade the quality and breadth of these databases is needed. Some of 
the individual Task Force recommendations that follow this paper 
identify specific projects to improve the Agency's delivery of 
information. In addition, specific changes to the permitting system 
need to be developed through continued dialogue with state, tribal and 
local environmental agencies and other stakeholders 2.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \2\  The term stakeholder(s) is used in this paper to refer to 
all groups interested in environmental permitting, including 
environmental, community and environmental justice groups, regulated 
entities, and state, tribal and local permitting agencies.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

C. Permits Improvement Initiatives

    While EPA and many other environmental agencies have taken, and are 
taking, specific actions to improve their permitting systems, there is 
also a need to re-examine EPA's overall approach to permitting. Toward 
this end, the Permits Improvement Team (PIT) was founded by EPA's 
Administrator in July 1994 to comprehensively examine the permit reform 
efforts going on around the country and determine how, taking the best 
of these efforts, EPA's overall approach to permitting could be 
improved. (A compilation of over 100 environmental agency permitting 
reform projects, entitled ``The Inventory of USEPA/State Permit 
Improvement Initiatives'' can be accessed via the internet at 'gopher:/
/gopher.epa.gov' or at 'http://www.epa.gov'. After reaching either of 
these internet sites, locate the search function and type 'Permit 
Improvement Team' to locate the inventory. A hard copy of the inventory 
can be obtained by calling 908-321-6782.)

D. Public Performance-Based Permitting

    The purpose of permitting is to establish the level of performance 
needed by facilities or individuals to protect human health and the 
environment. To do so, EPA has in some cases set performance standards, 
determined the technical means by which facilities must comply with 
these

[[Page 41255]]

standards, and then required monitoring and inspection to assure their 
compliance. In some instances, standards were highly prescriptive 
(including detailed technology or management requirements) that 
eliminate or severely restrict alternative approaches to achieving 
compliance. In other cases EPA bases a standard on a technology, which 
can be viewed by the regulated community as the technology of choice.
    It is the contention of this paper that too much time and resources 
are spent reviewing the technical means by which a permittee will 
comply with permit conditions. While detailed technical reviews were 
warranted 25 years ago, sufficient progress has been made in verifying 
technology and increasing corporate environmental responsibility that 
it is now appropriate to re-evaluate this approach. In instances where 
technologies are new or unique, detailed technical review may still be 
warranted; in circumstances where proven or verified technology is 
being permitted, however, such level of review may be inappropriate. 
Conducting detailed technical reviews for off-the-shelf technologies 
has resulted in several negative consequences:
     Permitting agencies are overloaded with routine detailed 
paperwork to review. This takes time away from other activities, as 
verifying the equivalency of performance for innovative technologies, 
causes permit actions to take an unacceptable amount of time, and 
prevents a more logical and beneficial ordering of priorities. In 
addition, the excessive focus on the means of compliance distracts 
attention from evaluation of progress on the end of improving 
environmental conditions.
     The regulated community, in addition to sometimes being 
burdened by unwarranted paperwork, a slow permitting process and 
unnecessary economic hardships, is in some cases not provided the 
flexibility--or any incentives--to seek the kind of technological 
innovations which could prevent pollution at its source, and/or provide 
better environmental results at lower cost.
     The permitting process is largely focused on technical 
issues, sometimes, beyond the grasp and interest of the general public. 
The permitting agency and permittee can spend much time grappling with 
these issues, while the public is usually excluded until such a time 
when these issues have been resolved through the writing of a draft 
permit. The public's ability and opportunity to judge the permit 
process and results can thus be unduly limited.
    In order to remedy this situation, this paper proposes a permitting 
approach called public performance-based permitting, or P3. The essence 
of this approach is to shift the focus of environmental permitting 
towards the measurement and assurance of performance, while providing 
flexibility as to how a permittee will meet performance standards. The 
focus of this system will not simply be performance, but performance 
within a public arena: to the extent possible and appropriate, the 
public should be involved in the setting of performance standards and 
the measurement and judgement of performance. It is recognized that the 
existing environmental statutes may limit EPA's latitude in fully 
implementing this approach. As EPA seeks changes to its various 
permitting programs in accordance with this approach, specific 
legislative barriers will need to be identified. As opportunities 
develop to address these barriers, specific legislative changes should 
be evaluated.
    The P3 principle includes three different types of performance. The 
existing permitting programs each contain elements of this principle. 
The objective of the permitting programs will be to more fully 
implement each type of performance.
    1. Environmental results: How are permitted activities actually 
affecting the environment? To improve knowledge and understanding of 
this performance factor, this paper proposes that permitting agencies 
increase ambient (environmental) monitoring as a permit condition in 
selected permits, while comparatively reducing other emissions 
monitoring and reporting requirements. Ambient monitoring results 
should be reported to the public in understandable terms. Ambient 
monitoring would not eliminate individual facility monitoring 
requirements.
    2. Facility compliance: How well are permitted facilities complying 
with their permits over time? To increase the rates at which facilities 
comply with their permit conditions, permitting agencies should (1) 
Establish reporting requirements based on a facility's level of 
compliance (e.g., reduce reporting for facilities with good compliance 
records) and potential impact of an activity, (2) create incentives for 
pollution prevention and technological innovation, and (3) provide 
compliance assistance to facilities that are making good-faith efforts 
but finding it difficult to comply (e.g., small businesses and local 
governments). Furthermore, compliance data should be put in 
understandable terms and made available to the public.
    3. Agency performance: How good a job are EPA and other 
environmental permitting agencies doing? To ensure that they continue 
to protect the environment in the most effective and efficient ways 
possible, this paper recommends that EPA devise methods to measure the 
performance of permitting systems and to continually improve these 
systems based on performance data received. These methods shall be 
provided for the use of state, tribal and local environmental agencies 
as well. Information on the performance of all permitting agencies 
should be publicly reported in understandable terms.
    The proposals for these three types of performance are detailed in 
the following sections. But first, it is necessary to discuss in more 
detail the importance of public participation in the approach to 
permitting specified in this concept paper.
    Traditionally, permitting agencies have limited public 
participation to public comment periods and hearings at the latter 
stages of the permit process. This concept paper sets forth a more open 
process that provides the public opportunities for earlier and more 
meaningful participation, within the context of the requirements 
specified in federal and state laws. This model builds on some recent 
initiatives in public participation, including EPA's RCRA Expanded 
Public Participation rule and the Chemical Manufacturing Association's 
(CMA) Responsible Care Program.
    These initiatives are based on the concept of direct reporting of 
information to the public early in the permitting process and in 
understandable terms. In addition to increasing public awareness 
regarding facility operations, these programs can serve as a powerful 
incentive for facilities to reduce their toxic emissions, so as to 
avoid arousing public concern. P3 would extend these concepts to the 
public reporting of ambient monitoring results, facility compliance 
data and information on how well EPA and permitting agencies are 
performing.
    Furthermore, an effective permitting process (for individual 
permits) requires that the public be involved early and intimately 
enough that their needs and concerns may be incorporated into permits 
and other aspects of facility and/or agency policy. Such opportunities 
can defuse the kinds of adversarial relationships which otherwise may 
slow and obstruct the permitting system with, for example, lawsuits or 
permit appeals. A key

[[Page 41256]]

element of this approach is determining who will represent the public. 
The Petroleum Refinery Subcommittee of CSI is addressing this issue in 
their equipment leaks project. They are considering a process where 
community members would be ``self-selected''; meaning if a person 
volunteered to participate they would be part of the stakeholders 
group.
    In part to address public participation concerns, the CMA 
established its Responsible Care program. Under this program, chemical 
plants are encouraged to establish community advisory panels, through 
which the facility and members of its surrounding community can 
establish a continuing dialogue. The Departments of Defense and Energy 
have developed similar programs to encourage community participation in 
their environmental projects. Such forums allow the public and the 
facility new opportunities to educate each other on their respective 
needs and concerns, and to jointly resolve differences on environmental 
issues. EPA should encourage the development of community advisory 
panels at more facilities, by facilitating the establishment of 
committees in situations where the public and regulated community 
determine it would be beneficial.
    Public performance-based permitting is designed to change the 
relationships among permitting agencies, permittees and the general 
public. The permitting process is currently often burdened with 
mistrust and adversarial relationships among all three of these 
parties. If these relationships can be rebuilt on a basis of trust, 
partnering, accountability and cooperation, the most serious obstacles 
to an effective and efficient permitting system will have been removed. 
(See Figure I)
    The PIT specifically notes that there are regulatory or statutory 
barriers to some of the approaches listed below. The Agency's ability 
to implement each of these options under current law would need to be 
investigated further as these options are developed in more detail.

II. Environmental Results

    The ultimate measure of the performance of EPA's environmental 
permitting systems is the condition of the air, land and water. Current 
permitting systems focus primarily on gathering information about 
permittees' compliance, but comparatively little information is 
gathered on the actual effects of permitted activities on human health 
and the environment. To a large extent, environmental permitting 
systems also lack the flexibility to restructure and rearrange their 
priorities in response to such environmental performance data, since 
they are often set up to issue individual permits based solely on the 
potential impacts of each facility. However, changes are being proposed 
in this area as permitting authorities consider ecosystem and community 
based approaches to permit issuance.
    Yet in order to answer public demands for more environmental 
protection at less cost, there is a need to determine how to focus more 
resources on the activities producing the greatest environmental 
impact, while divesting from activities of lesser significance. To do 
so effectively, better information is needed on the effects industrial 
and municipal activities are actually having on the air, land and 
water.
    Establishing ambient monitoring conditions in individual permits 
may be a long-term venture. It has wide-ranging technological and 
policy implications for EPA, the states, the public, and the regulated 
community. EPA needs to research how to perform ambient monitoring in a 
cost-effective manner, how to collect useful data and how to trace 
pollution found through such monitoring back to the source(s). 
Different media present varying challenges: air monitoring, for 
example, is particularly complex. It might be beneficial to work on 
these issues in a multi-program team with Office of Research and 
Development (ORD) support.

BILLING CODE 6560-50-P

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[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TN07AU96.003



BILLING CODE 6560-50-C

[[Page 41258]]

    Despite these challenges, some programs are already beginning to 
achieve these objectives. The Greater Houston Partnership, for example, 
is a voluntary program under which Houston-area refineries have set up 
an air monitoring network. In the short term, EPA should encourage and 
set up more such pilots and feed all results into a study of how to run 
effective ambient monitoring programs. These pilots should cover each 
media (air, surface water and ground water) jointly or separately, and 
some of the pilots should incorporate the concept of involving the 
community in monitoring, facilitated by experts from government or the 
private sector.
    At the same time, it is important not to increase the information- 
gathering and reporting burden on permitted facilities. On many 
occasions, the regulated community has raised concerns about having to 
meet duplicative or counter-productive compliance monitoring, reporting 
or record-keeping requirements. In exchange for increasing ambient 
monitoring requirements, therefore, EPA should concurrently identify 
and eliminate other compliance information requirements. The PIT 
recommends that the Program offices, in consultation with the Office of 
Enforcement and Compliance Assurance and external stakeholders, conduct 
regulatory reviews that prioritize compliance monitoring, reporting and 
record-keeping requirements according to the best estimate of their 
actual value to the environment and determine where different media 
requirements for compliance information duplicate and/or conflict with 
one another. The reviews should be followed by proposals and schedules 
for permit programs to streamline reporting requirements.
    This approach is an element in several other EPA initiatives. In 
response to a Presidential initiative, EPA is examining how it can 
reduce paperwork requirements by 25%. This effort should be a major 
portion of the reviews discussed in the preceding paragraph. In 
addition, EPA's ``one-stop reporting initiative'' aims to streamline 
reporting requirements, for example by replacing separate facility 
identification codes used by different EPA programs with a single 
facility identifier.
    Increasing ambient monitoring while decreasing other compliance 
information requirements at the source would allow permitting agencies 
to prioritize permitting information requirements based on real 
environmental impacts. But permitting agencies should be encouraged and 
allowed to take this idea one step further, and prioritize which 
facilities will receive full-fledged individual permits and which 
facilities can receive general (non-individual) permits or no permit at 
all, based on certain conditions or levels of emissions (this would 
require statutory amendments for some programs). The better ambient 
information becomes, the more precisely permitting agencies can and 
should gear environmental permitting systems to the most significant 
risks to the environment. This could entail protection of high quality 
areas as well as focusing on areas where environmental standards are 
not being achieved.
    Since EPA began issuing environmental permits in the early 1970's, 
there have been a number of instances where either general permits or 
permits-by-rule have been used (e.g., RCRA permits-by-rule are 
routinely given to Publicly-Owned Treatment Works and the development 
of numerous general permits for water discharges). These permits were 
issued to replace individual permits requiring less administrative 
oversight. In addition, current Agency initiatives are exploring ways 
to streamline permitting so that it works more efficiently, encourages 
innovation, and creates more opportunities for public participation.
    One of the major efforts is CSI. One of the six main areas targeted 
by the six CSI sectors is permitting. CSI subcommittees are reviewing 
and identifying areas where permitting requirements could be 
consolidated across programs and where program specific requirements 
could be simplified. The CSI subcommittees are also working with the 
states to explore opportunities to coordinate permits across programs. 
As an example, the Iron and Steel subcommittee is working on two 
permitting projects: multimedia permitting at a mini-mill and a 
streamlined permit process.
    The PIT's Alternatives to Individual Permits Task Force has 
identified two criteria to be used to determine when either general 
permits, permits-by-rule, hybrid permits, or conditional/de-minimus 
permits might be used. These criteria are:
     Issue permits only where there is a real or potential 
adverse environmental impact and the regulatory agency needs to be 
involved (add value) in developing proper controls. Inclusion of these 
criteria would require enactment of amendments to certain environmental 
statutes.
     Issue individual permits only where there is a potential 
for significant environmental impact or high degree of variability in 
regulatory requirements at individual facilities.
    It is important that the public be involved in the development and 
implementation of any alternatives to individual permits, and that 
adequate compliance and enforcement programs be put in place where 
alternatives to individual permits are developed.
    In the long term, and in conjunction with the pilots and research 
discussed above, --and recognizing the legal constraints that may 
exist-- EPA Program offices should revise policies and regulations to 
provide state, tribal and local permitting agencies more flexibility 
and guidance to: increase ambient monitoring, reduce end-of-pipe/stack 
monitoring and reporting requirements, adjust databases to focus on 
ambient data, and tier permitting systems based on the actual 
environmental impacts of different types of facilities and activities. 
Some programs (e.g. OW) are already developing guidance for reducing 
reporting and monitoring requirements.

III. Permittee Compliance

A. Hierarchy of Permitting Standards
    While permitting systems need to be better geared towards actual 
environmental impacts, as discussed above, they still must include 
sufficient monitoring to determine permittee compliance. The key is to 
make permitting systems less prescriptive and more performance-based, 
or in other words, to continue to tell a permittee what standards to 
achieve, but to no longer mandate, in most cases, how they are to 
achieve them.
    This more flexible approach is designed to:
     Help the environment by encouraging pollution prevention;
     Help permittees by giving them the opportunity to develop 
more cost-effective (and equally or more environmentally effective) 
approaches to pollution control and prevention; and
     Help permitting agencies by allowing them to shift 
resources from extensive engineering and paperwork reviews to a focus 
on establishing ambient monitoring programs, environmental problem 
analysis, standard setting, compliance assistance and enforcement.
    Permitting based on performance standards rather than on technology 
or management requirements is not a completely new idea. EPA's NPDES 
program, for example, currently uses such an approach to a large 
extent. Performance-based permitting will now be the preferred 
approach, wherever

[[Page 41259]]

feasible and appropriate, for all of EPA's permitting programs, and 
state, tribal and local governments will be provided the flexibility 
and guidance to implement similar approaches. Programs not using 
performance-based permitting should evaluate why that approach is not 
appropriate (e.g., see Underground Injection Control (UIC) example 
below). This evaluation should be done in writing and could be 
incorporated into a program's strategic plan, described above.
    Thus, EPA programs will follow the hierarchy of preferred 
approaches shown below in setting permitting standards:
    i. Set performance standards based on ambient environmental goals.
    ii. Set performance standards based on technological achievability.
    iii. Set technology- or management-specific standards.
    The ideal approach is where EPA sets performance standards based on 
actual environmental needs and projected impacts. EPA and other 
environmental agencies should follow this approach wherever possible 
and appropriate. It may be appropriate to combine the above approaches 
in an overall permitting system (e.g. establish a base level of 
performance and only require higher levels of performance where 
environmental conditions are not being achieved). This later approach 
is currently prescribed by statute in many of the Agency's permitting 
programs.
    In cases where EPA is not able to establish permit conditions based 
on environmental needs, e.g., due to costs and complexities involved 
with obtaining useful ambient data, or due to methodological 
difficulties (there are significant difficulties with implementing 
ambient standard schemes, including contentious scientific issues), the 
second-best approach is for performance standards to be based on what 
is technologically achievable. For example, based on EPA's knowledge of 
the removal efficiency of a particular water pollution control device, 
the Water program may set a numerical standard that facilities will 
have to meet in order to be in compliance with statutorily established 
control standards. While the permitting program will make information 
available about what technologies are capable of achieving that 
standard, it will allow the facilities to make their own determination 
of what technologies to use to meet the numerical standard. In some 
cases, facilities may substitute a technology or procedure at earlier 
stages of its process, rather than at the end of the pipe or 
smokestack, so as to more efficiently prevent pollution and save having 
to deal with its consequences.
    There will be instances in which technology- or management-specific 
standards are warranted. For example, the underground injection control 
(UIC) program has a non-degradation policy backed up by engineering 
requirements that are supported by industry as well as by the 
permitting agency. In this program, the cost of ambient monitoring to 
ensure compliance would be excessive compared to establishing technical 
requirements.
B. Increasing Facilities' Operational Flexibility
    In addition to allowing permittees the flexibility to determine the 
technical means by which they meet EPA standards, there are several 
other ways to increase permittees' operating flexibility. Permitting 
agencies should consider these alternatives and incorporate them into 
their permitting processes as appropriate. Any alternatives that 
provide increased flexibility to the regulated community need to ensure 
that the requirements are enforceable.
    First, permitting agencies' review of permits should be more 
performance-based. This would involve reducing review steps to those 
needed to reasonably demonstrate that the permittee will meet 
performance standards. Upfront technical (engineering) reviews, 
therefore, would be reduced or even eliminated where possible and 
appropriate. In general, where technologies are already proven or 
verified, there would be less need to perform technical review as part 
of the permitting process. EPA should give state, tribal and local 
governments the flexibility to reduce such reviews. EPA Program offices 
should evaluate existing regulations, policies and priorities that 
limit this flexibility and make appropriate revisions where authorized 
by statute. In addition, EPA should evaluate whether to shift grants 
funding from this stage of the permitting process to other more 
productive stages (such as compliance assistance and enforcement). This 
flexibility in use of grants is consistent with the Performance 
Partnership Grant program proposed in the FY96 EPA budget.
    As an example, lengthy and detailed technical reviews may often be 
necessary under the RCRA program for most land disposal and combustion 
facilities, but may be less necessary for many standard container and 
tank storage operations. The PIT is working on a project with 
California and Texas to develop a general (non-individual) permit for 
this class of facilities, thus substantially streamlining the RCRA 
permitting program.
    As noted in Section II, permitting agencies should also be given 
the leeway to reduce reporting and compliance monitoring requirements 
which are deemed to be unnecessary or duplicative.
    Second, permitting agencies should be allowed to reduce the number 
of times permits need to be formally modified. Currently, lengthy 
permit modification processes discourage facilities from making needed 
process changes--including changes which could reduce emissions. 
Generally, permit modifications should be required only where process 
changes will increase pollution, or are needed to ensure proper 
operation or monitoring of a facility (this is likely to require 
regulatory revisions in some permit programs). Permitting agencies 
should be able to tailor their permit modification requirements by 
facility; facilities with good compliance records may be made subject 
to less prescriptive requirements. Each EPA permitting program should 
review their modification requirements and make appropriate revisions 
to only require permit modifications where needed to protect human 
health and the environment.
    As discussed in Section I-D above, permitted facilities should be 
encouraged to establish mechanisms for conducting regular dialogue with 
the public, such as community advisory committees. Major changes in 
plant operations may well be appropriate topics for dialogue regardless 
of whether a permit modification is required.
    Third, permitting agencies should use the permitting process to 
encourage municipal and industrial facilities to practice pollution 
prevention. One of the primary purposes of making permitting 
performance-based rather than technology-based is to encourage and 
allow facilities to pursue innovative technological approaches to 
preventing pollution at the source. However, additional incentives and 
technical assistance are needed. In addition to pollution prevention 
technologies, the permitting system should encourage the use of more 
cost effective innovative technologies of any type, where practicable 
and consistent with legal requirements.
    In many cases, encouraging pollution prevention and innovative 
technologies will require facility-specific actions, e.g., drafting a 
flexible permit that allows the permittee discretion to do what is 
needed to prevent pollution. This is the approach of a major EPA 
initiative, Project XL, under which

[[Page 41260]]

facilities are exempted from certain regulatory requirements if they 
can demonstrate that they will achieve better environmental results 
through other means. In addition, the PIT is working on a project with 
the state of New Jersey, under EPA's Environmental Technology 
Initiative (ETI), to develop and implement a protocol to encourage the 
utilization of innovative technologies and pollution prevention.
    ETI is also sponsoring more than two dozen other projects, programs 
and demonstrations in order to remove barriers to technology innovation 
in the permitting process, through facility-specific actions as well as 
more general regulatory, administrative and procedural changes. The 
Office of Policy, Planning and Evaluation has established a program to 
coordinate these ETI permitting projects and to provide information and 
assistance to other EPA offices, state, tribal, and local permitting 
agencies, and outside groups.
    Turning to the additional incentives needed for encouraging 
pollution prevention the Pollution Prevention Incentives Task Force 
recommends, among other things: (1)increasing the use of facility-wide 
permitting, and (2) inserting language in general permits stating that 
pollution prevention is the preferred means of reaching compliance. 
Permitting agencies, at their discretion, may decide to use similar 
incentives to encourage recycling or other beneficial management 
methods as well as pollution prevention.
    EPA's Multi-Media Pollution Prevention (M2P2) Permit Project is 
currently working with several states on multimedia permitting. This 
should become the long-term direction of EPA's permitting programs; 
however, the transition from single-medium to multi-media permitting 
will take time and careful planning. EPA's evaluation under the M2P2 
Project will be used to plan that transition.
C. Public Performance-based Compliance Assurance and Enforcement
    Regardless of the level of flexibility provided to permittees, 
there will always be a need for environmental agencies to monitor, 
assure and enforce compliance with permits. In fact, where upfront 
technical reviews are reduced or eliminated, these functions become 
even more important. Whereas the existing permitting system is in some 
ways geared to hold all permittees to requirements based on the worst-
case scenario, the proposed system would gear requirements to actual 
environmental performance. A tiered approach to compliance assurance, 
is one possible approach, under which less significant violators are 
provided technical assistance, while more significant violators become 
subject to penalties that should be harsh enough to deter activities 
that may threaten human health or the environment.
    In addition, information about permittee compliance performance 
should become available to the public in clear, user-friendly databases 
and publications. It is not enough for an industrial or municipal 
facility to perform to the satisfaction of the permitting agency; the 
surrounding community has the right to know how well a facility is 
complying with its permits and use this information for itself. The 
concept behind this approach is to employ the power of public 
disclosure, so that a permittee would be deterred from violating 
permits by the public relations implications of poor compliance, or 
conversely be encouraged to maintain a high level of compliance by the 
public relations benefit of being in compliance.
    The Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA), in 
consultation with appropriate stakeholder, will investigate and 
recommend ways to publicize, in an easy to understand format, 
facilities' compliance records. Some possibilities are an annual report 
(developed by the permitting authority) or requiring compliance 
reporting as part of a facility's permit. This compliance reporting 
could be based on a third-party audit, conducted by an impartial 
auditor, or a self-audit, possibly used at facilities with excellent 
compliance histories. The developed approach would probably have to be 
piloted in particular media programs, regions or states before it is 
ready to be applied to all permitting programs individually and on a 
multimedia basis. It will also require study by OECA to ensure that 
this system is successfully designed to be legally defensible, fair, 
efficient and enforceable.
    The criteria behind the compliance reporting should take several 
factors into account. First, there should be a clear distinction 
between paperwork violations of little or no direct consequence to the 
environment and permit violations with the actual potential to damage 
the environment or human health. It is recognized that certain 
paperwork requirements are critical to determining permit compliance. 
Furthermore, continued violation of paperwork requirements should 
result in enforcement action. Second, there could be separate ranking 
systems for small and large facilities, since they face different 
challenges when it comes to permit compliance. (With small facilities, 
the greatest challenge can be having the time and resources to 
understand and afford to comply with permit requirements. With larger 
facilities, the top challenge may be achieving compliance given 
different process lines, smokestacks, discharge pipes, etc.). 
Regardless of the final criteria used, they should be clear enough that 
there is no dispute as to whether or not a facility is in compliance.
    Compliance assurance and enforcement activities should also take 
into consideration facilities' compliance records. This could help EPA 
and state, tribal and local permitting agencies to better target 
inspections, enforcement actions and penalties based on the severity of 
the violations. For smaller facilities with labelling or paperwork 
violations, EPA may target technical assistance at them (e.g., in 
cooperation with universities or other programs which provide such 
assistance) so as to improve their understanding of permit requirements 
and how to comply with them.
    On the other hand, facilities whose non-compliance has the 
potential to threaten human health and the environment more 
significantly, should be much higher priorities for reporting, 
monitoring and attention. In the most severe cases, EPA or the 
permitting authority should reserve the option of halting a plant's 
operations until it complies with essential permit conditions. This 
targeted enforcement approach should make it possible to respond to the 
worst threats in a more immediate fashion.

IV. Agency Performance

    No reform can ever permanently solve every problem with a 
particular system, because problems and public perceptions of them are 
constantly evolving. Therefore EPA, state, tribal and local permitting 
programs should institute systems of continuous evaluation and 
improvement of their own performance.
    As illustrated in Figure II, this system would involve several 
steps:

BILLING CODE 6560-50-P

[[Page 41261]]

[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TN07AU96.004



BILLING CODE 6560-50-C

[[Page 41262]]

    (1) Identify performance standards for the permit program: the 
PIT's Performance Measures Task Force has developed draft standards by 
which permit program performance could be measured, including 
timeliness of permit reviews, permit backlogs and customer 
satisfaction.
    (2) Determine how these standards would be measured: e.g., design 
surveys to measure customer satisfaction. As part of EPA's Customer 
Service efforts, surveys have been drafted for citizens involved in 
permitting decisions, permit applicants and delegated/authorized 
permitting agencies. Customer service standards have also been drafted 
based on these surveys. Surveying will begin in Federal Fiscal Year 
1996. This step needs to be carefully designed to avoid burdening 
agencies with tedious ``bean-counting'' exercises. Streamlined ways of 
recording performance, including user-friendly electronic means, are 
encouraged.
    (3) Compile performance data: e.g., conduct surveys, measure 
performance rates, etc.
    (4) Report to public on permit program performance: compile results 
into a regular (e.g., yearly) report on performance which is clearly 
understandable and easily accessible, in print as well as on the 
Internet. Establish mechanisms to receive public feedback, via 
Internet, phone and mail. Permit programs may also decide to hold 
public meetings or focus groups to obtain more feedback, as 
appropriate.
    (5) Review permit program standards, processes and approaches based 
on evaluation results and public feedback: permit programs should 
conduct periodic program evaluations based on the input received from 
this process. They should determine what changes to implement in their 
programs to respond to any shortcomings in performance. Performance 
standards will also need to be periodically revised to respond fully to 
program needs.
    (6) Revise permitting program processes and approaches: implement 
the changes that have been identified and return to step one of the 
continuous performance improvement system.
    The performance of EPA and other permitting agencies, like the 
performance of permittees and the actual condition of the environment, 
needs to be publicly reported in clear, understandable terms. By 
bringing these types of performance into the light, public performance-
based permitting will focus attention on the results of environmental 
permitting systems, and use those results to continually make these 
systems more responsive and environmentally protective.

V. Public Access to Information

    The implementation of the P3 approach is based on a common 
denominator; public access to information. Environmental results must 
be reported in a time frame and manner that will be useful to all 
stakeholders. This will provide information on ambient conditions and 
how they relate to established goals. As EPA and the states implement 
the National Environmental Performance Partnership System (NEPPS), this 
information will be critical to the joint planning and priority setting 
that is a key component of this system. Making the environmental 
results readily available to the public will allow them to participate 
in the NEPPS process and individual permit applications with a common 
foundation of information. The provision of facility compliance and 
permitting agency performance information will provide all stakeholders 
with important data on how these groups are performing based on defined 
standards.
    The provision of information that focuses on environmental results 
and performance will replace the need to use activity measures, that 
count the number of things done, to measure success. Providing all 
stakeholders the critical information they need to participate in the 
programmatic and individual issues being addressed by environmental 
agencies should result in discussions that focus on defining the cause 
of environmental problems and their solutions rather than the number of 
permits issued. Thus, public access to information becomes the driving 
force to encourage behaviors that are designed to protect human health 
and the environment.

Administrative Streamlining Task Force Recommendations

Goal for Administrative Streamlining

    The goal of the Administrative Streamlining Task Force was to 
improve the permit process by analyzing successful permit programs 
across the country and recommend permitting process changes (guidance, 
policy, regulations, procedures) designed to apply these successes more 
broadly.

Recommendations

1. Create a Predictable, User-friendly Federal Permit Process
    a. Information and Process. Currently, EPA permitting programs have 
different processes that follow different timeframes (See Attachment 
1). The lack of coordination among these programs, and the lack of 
predictability created by this situation, can unnecessarily complicate 
the permitting process for permittees, state, tribal and local 
permitting authorities, and the public. In addition, EPA's oversight of 
delegated or authorized permitting programs varies by Region and media 
program.
    Therefore, EPA should to the extent consistent with its various 
statutory authorities develop one unified, standard timeline model 
applicable to all of its permitting programs (it may be necessary to 
have one model for new permit applications and permit modifications and 
another for facilities that are required to upgrade to meet new 
requirements). It may also be necessary to have different timelines 
based on the type of permit (e.g. major or minor). This model timeline 
is intended to be used as a management tool for permitting agencies to 
set realistic and desirable time goals; if goals are not being met, 
permitting agencies should review their processes to identify and 
eliminate inefficiencies and unnecessary or unproductive procedures.
    In the long term, one uniform model should be approved by EPA as 
non-binding guidance for state, tribal and local permitting 
authorities. Where allowed by statute or regulation, EPA permitting 
programs should provide sufficient flexibility to allow authorized 
permitting authorities to adopt this timeline in lieu of specific 
program timeframes.
    Appendix 2 contains a proposed uniform timeline model. Under this 
model, the timeline would be subject to extension if the applicant 
consents to negotiate permit terms, if the applicant must submit 
further information, or if the permitting agency determines that the 
project is unusually complicated. The process should include a 
mechanism that clearly identifies the reason for any time extension and 
whether the applicant is responsible for any actions that would re-
start the clock on the timeline. The applicant's failure to submit 
needed information would constitute a basis for denying the 
application. The timeline could include options for enforcing the time 
limits and ``calling the question'' on the permit action, as determined 
by each permitting jurisdiction.
    Several options for ``calling the question'' on a permit 
application were considered by the Task Force. One option would include 
a refund of permit fees for failure to meet the timelines. A few states 
have implemented this approach. Another option would be a judicial 
cause of action or other administrative remedy to compel agency

[[Page 41263]]

action on the permit, if the controlling statute made meeting the 
deadline a non-discretionary duty. A third option would be to allow a 
permit to go into effect automatically if the agency does not meet the 
deadline. This option is inconsistent with current law and would be 
contrary to the PIT's recommendations to enhance public participation 
and is therefore not endorsed by the PIT. In addition, this option may 
also foreclose the ability of the permitting authority to comply with 
applicable requirements in federal cross-cutting statutes.
    Permits that are issued by the Regions or by state, tribal or local 
permitting authorities that are authorized pursuant to federal law 
would have legal impediments to some of the above options. Most 
importantly, if the last option caused the elimination of required 
public participation the resulting permit would not comply with federal 
law.
    The proposed timeline includes a notice to the public of either the 
complete application, the proposed draft permit, or both, depending on 
program needs and statutory constraints.
    Implementation (short term): Each EPA Program office should release 
a uniform model timeline (by permit type--major/minor) to its 
authorized authorities as guidance, and establish, as policy, that 
Regions and state, tribal and local permitting authorities, to the 
extent allowed by statute and regulations, will be allowed to follow 
this timeline in lieu of specific EPA permitting program timeframes 
that may otherwise conflict with it.
    Implementation (long term): A high-level cross-office team should 
be established in FY96 to reach consensus on what changes should be 
made to EPA statutes, regulations, policies, guidances and processes so 
as to bring all major EPA permit programs under a single uniform 
timeline and oversight approach. This team should also define the 
resource burden of making these revisions along with the potential 
savings from reducing EPA oversight of delegated or authorized agency 
issued permits. The PIT has already identified some of the statutory 
and regulatory barriers to a uniform timeline. The proposed team would, 
with stakeholder input, agree on the specific changes to be made and 
work with Program offices to ensure that these changes are implemented 
or proposed for statutory change.
    b. Single Point of Contact for All Media Permits. In addition to 
basic level, point of entry offices, each permitting agency should 
assign senior permitting personnel to projects in which a facility 
receives multiple permits. This can help ensure cross-program permit 
coordination and provide each permittee with one senior staff contact 
to coordinate the resolution of any cross-cutting issues. In cases 
where state/tribal/local permits and federal permits are being issued 
to the same facility, permit coordination is also needed between the 
permitting agencies.
    Example: EPA Region 6 multi-media permit teams.
    Implementation: We recommend that a PIT workgroup draft policy and 
operational guidance, to be issued by EPA's Administrator, for Regional 
Administrators to implement a single point of contact approach during 
FY 1996.
2. Encourage and Implement Flexible Permitting Projects
    EPA and state, tribal and local permitting authorities should 
create opportunities for facilities to negotiate alternative permit 
conditions that maximize operational flexibility and encourage 
pollution prevention while maintaining or increasing levels of 
environmental protection. Each permitting agency should identify those 
situations where a modification can occur without review. Presently, 
initiatives such as Project XL, CSI, the Environmental Technology 
Initiative (ETI) and the Clean Air Act Title V permit program are 
piloting approaches and mechanisms to promote greater flexibility in 
permits.
    Examples of flexible permits:
     Intel Corporation, U.S. EPA, the Oregon Department of 
Environmental Quality, and the Pacific Northwest Pollution Prevention 
Research Center developed a flexible Title V operating permit with the 
goal of accommodating shifts in emissions within the facility and 
encouraging pollution prevention, while preserving the enforceability 
of the Clean Air Act's requirements. Under ETI, EPA Regions 1, 9 and 10 
are working with the Office of Air and Radiation; the Office of 
Prevention, Pesticides and Toxics; and the Office of Policy, Planning 
and Evaluation to expand the Intel flexible permitting experience to 
several other states and industries. This national expansion of the 
Intel experience will provide EPA and the States with valuable 
information and will help ensure the development of enforceable Title V 
regulations that allow for permit flexibility and the incorporation of 
pollution prevention and innovative control technologies.
     EPA and Minnesota Pollution Control Agency worked with 3M 
corporation to develop a flexible permit which, while ensuring all 
necessary environmental protection, allows the source to make physical 
and operational changes without triggering major new source review 
requirements under the Clean Air Act.
    Implementation: EPA should, through Regional Offices, serve as a 
clearinghouse for good examples of flexible permits and serve as a 
resource to state, local and tribal governments and the public in 
implementing these approaches. This proposal should be implemented 
through the electronic clearinghouse recommended in 4d below, as well 
as through the Regional Permit Process Assistance program recommended 
in 5 below.
3. Tier Permitting Programs in Proportion to Environmental Significance
    EPA should establish a policy and guidance to encourage state, 
tribal and local permitting authorities to tier their permit programs 
according to the environmental significance of facilities' polluting 
activities. Such a policy should allow agencies to reduce monitoring or 
other reporting requirements for less significant activities so 
agencies can focus on the actions with the greatest potential for 
environmental impact.
    Suggested ways to do this include: increasing thresholds for small 
emissions; exploring use of impartial third-party certification 
systems; exempting certain activities; requiring less frequent/
consolidated reporting; expediting the review for low tier permits; and 
providing incentives for good compliance records and for use of 
pollution prevention approaches. Some of these approaches would require 
regulatory and possibly statutory changes in order to be implemented.
    Examples: A number of states are moving towards tiered permits, to 
reduce permit process requirements in accordance with the location of 
the project, environmental significance of the impact imposed by the 
project, etc. Examples include California Tiered Permitting for 
hazardous wastes, Minnesota's Air and RCRA Programs, and the 
Massachusetts 401 Certification Program.
    Implementation: As an FY96 project, a PIT workgroup should conduct 
an analysis of current approaches to tiered permitting, and then, based 
on this analysis, draft EPA policy and guidance promoting such 
approaches where appropriate. This analysis should also focus on 
projects such as Project XL, to

[[Page 41264]]

determine where principles applied to individual facilities (e.g., 
pollution prevention incentives) can and should be applied to whole 
classes of facilities.
4. Establish Computer Systems
    a. Integrated facility data bases with Geographic Information 
System (GIS) interface. Permitting authorities should combine cross-
media information for each facility into a single database which 
provides instant access and search capability. EPA has initiated this 
task at the national level through the efforts of the Key Identifiers 
Workgroup.
    Example: Massachusetts DEP's Environmental Protection Integrated 
Computer System (EPICS) system takes information supplied by 12 
separate MADEP Divisions, such as air emissions, hazardous waste and 
water supply and combines it into a single database. This gives MADEP 
employees instant access to all the agency's information and allows 
them to search for data on a facility by entering its name and 
location. This and a two-year cross-training program have allowed 
inspectors to do multi-media inspections. EPICS is currently developing 
an interface with GIS to help site new businesses and to assess 
cumulative threats to resources for targeted compliance/enforcement.
    b. Permit software systems. EPA should collect and make available 
state, tribal, local and regionally developed software for a menu-
driven system to train permit-writers and assist them in drafting 
permits. The system should contain and cross-reference all appropriate 
regulations and procedures, and provide a mechanism for tracking.
    Examples: Maryland/Region 3 software program for NPDES permit 
writing and tracking. Also, the Indiana Department of Environmental 
Management has begun a project to develop a menu-driven, expert system 
to help permit writers in drafting permits. This project was started in 
an effort to provide training to new permit writers in the state. The 
expert system takes permit writers through the process of writing a 
permit, cross-references all appropriate state regulations and internal 
procedures, and results in a draft permit. This system could also be 
made available to permittees and the public.
    c. Electronic permitting and reporting. EPA should facilitate 
permitting authority efforts to provide permit application forms on 
disk or by dial-in, issue permits electronically (while providing for 
public notice, access and opportunity to comment), develop permit 
tracking capability, and establish electronic facility-based compliance 
reporting. Model permits (like the RCRA model permit) in electronic 
format may be provided to applicants to fill-out as a supplemental part 
of their permit application if they choose to do so. This can greatly 
reduce the time required for a permit writer to transform permit 
application proposals into permit conditions. The permit writer can 
also easily verify that the permit conditions proposed by the applicant 
meet all applicable requirements. The use of electronic exchanges in 
permitting will not replace the need to continue to provide appropriate 
permitting information through non-electronic means.
    d. Electronic database/clearinghouse. EPA should establish, provide 
access to and maintain an electronic database/clearinghouse which 
contains relevant information necessary for permit writers in all 
media, including: pollution prevention, toxics use reduction, pollution 
allocation/Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) models, site specific 
protocols, etc.
    Implementation: Recommendations 4a-c above should be referred to 
EPA's Office of Information Resource Management to identify existing 
capabilities, develop resource needs and schedules to adopt across 
media Program offices. Recommendation 4d should be referred to Research 
Triangle Park's Internet Group to identify existing capabilities, 
develop resource needs and a schedule to allow adoption across media 
Program offices.
5. Regional Permit Process Assistance
    Under the National Environmental Performance Partnership System 
agreed to between EPA and the states on May 17, 1995, EPA will be 
reducing direct oversight of authorized state programs. The Regions are 
in an excellent position to help the states improve their permitting 
processes by keeping abreast of the latest changes that are being 
implemented, and sharing that information with the states. Working 
together, a Region and state would identify areas in need of 
improvement in a permitting process and evaluate existing approaches 
that have been utilized to help address the identified area.
    Implementation: As an FY96 PIT pilot project, a Region and a state 
(possibly Texas) should develop an approach whereby the Region would 
assist the state in evaluating a permitting process. The purpose of 
this evaluation would be for the Region to help identify improvements 
that could be implemented. The Region would make use of national 
clearinghouses and data bases (see recommendation 4d) to help identify 
approaches that could be of assistance to the state. The Region could 
also provide any needed training to the state. The state would make the 
final decision on implementing any improvements.
    The Region (with input from the state) would prepare a report on 
the lessons learned from this pilot and, working with a PIT workgroup, 
propose an approach that other Regions could utilize in providing 
assistance to states and tribes in their respective region.
Attachments
1. A table of current permit program timetables
2. A proposed uniform timeline for all major and minor federal permits 
(see Recommendation 1.a., above)

                            Attachment 1.--Federal Permit Programs Current Timetables                           
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                            Public notice            Public hearing                             
               Statute                       requirement              requirement            Permit duration    
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RCRA\1\..............................  Notice of draft permit   30 day public notice.    10 years, review every 
                                        in newspaper and         Required if written      5 years for land      
                                        radio. 45 day comment    opposition to draft      disposal facilities.  
                                        period.                  permit.                  May be reviewed/      
                                                                                          modified at any time. 
Prevention of Significant air quality  Notice of draft permit   30 day notice. Silent    No expiration date. New
 Deterioration (PSD).                   in newspaper. 30 day     on threshold.            permit required to    
                                        comment period.                                   modify.               
Clean Air Act Title V................  Notice of draft permit   30 day notice. Silent    Up to 5 years. 3 types 
                                        in newspaper. 30 day     on threshold.            of modifications      
                                        comment period.                                   follow new permit     
                                                                                          process.              
NPDES................................  Notice of draft permit   30 day notice. Silent    5 years.               
                                        in newspaper. 30 day     on threshold.                                  
                                        comment period.                                                         

[[Page 41265]]

                                                                                                                
UIC..................................  Notice of draft permit   30 day notice. Silent    Classes I & V: Up to 10
                                        in newspaper. 30 day     on threshold.            years. Classes II &   
                                        comment period.                                   III: Up to operating  
                                                                                          life.                 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ These requirements do not include the changes for enhancing public participation included in RCRA Expanded  
  Public Participation Rule.                                                                                    



Alternatives to Individual Permits Task Force Recommendations

A. Background/Approach

    The Permits Improvement Team is exploring alternatives to 
individual permits in order to deliver government services more 
efficiently, target EPA resources at environmental priorities, and 
encourage pollution prevention. EPA's National Performance Review 
included the goal ``Target Permit Priorities'', with the following 
objectives:
     Issue individual permits only where there is a high degree 
of environmental concern and where it is necessary to apply tailored or 
site-specific requirements.
     Use alternatives where possible, such as compliance with 
self-implementing regulations (e.g., permit-by-rule) and general or 
class permits.
    This report refers to six different types of permitting, defined 
below:
    Individual permitting refers to authorization granted to a person 
through an adjudicatory process on a site-specific basis. Typically, 
the permittee initiates the individual permitting process through 
submission of an application. The permitting agency then develops a 
proposed permit (which may or may not be developed in coordination with 
the permit applicant) and publishes notice of the proposed permit for 
public comment. After consideration of public comments, the permitting 
agency will issue a final decision on the permit application. In some 
instances, permitting agencies provide an opportunity for 
administrative appeal of a final permit before it becomes effective.
    General permitting refers to a rulemaking-type process where 
requirements are developed based on a prototype facility. The 
permitting agency develops a general permit applicable to facilities or 
activities of substantially similar nature. General permit 
authorization is granted after a person registers with the permitting 
authority its intention to comply with the terms of the general permit. 
The general permit rulemaking process may be initiated by the 
permitting agency or by petition to that agency. Depending on 
programmatic needs and legal requirements, a hearing may be required on 
whether the general permit applies to a particular facility (or 
activity). Typically, general permits are issued for environmental 
activities of ``medium to low'' concern where there is little 
variability from the prototype facility or activity considered in 
development of the general permit. Under the Clean Water Act, general 
permits are widely used, particularly for storm water discharges. 
Public involvement occurs at time of development of the general permit.
    Hybrid permitting refers to a combination of general permitting and 
individual permitting. Though the permittee is subject to a single 
permit, the permit terms with which the permittee must comply are 
developed in part through rulemaking (general permit) and in part 
through adjudicatory processes to determine site-specific requirements 
(or to comply with site-specific notice or applicability requirements). 
Hybrid permitting is not currently used by EPA, so there is no 
established procedure, but such a process could be established through 
modification of the general permitting process. Hybrid permitting may 
be more appropriate than general permitting where there is greater 
variability from the prototype, or where there is a statutory 
requirement for site-specific hearings.
    Permitting-by-rule (PBR) refers to authorization that does not 
require subsequent action either by the permit applicant or the 
permitting authority. For certain RCRA requirements, EPA has issued 
permits-by-rule when compliance with a permit under one statute is 
``deemed'' to be permitted under RCRA. Alternatively, a general permit 
that does not require registration may be considered to be a permit-by-
rule.
    De minimis exemptions to permitting refers to the regulatory 
exclusion of an activity that might otherwise fall within the scope of 
activity regulated by a statute. Application of the de minimis 
exemption theory is subject to some legal restrictions.
    Conditional exemptions refer to activities which are not subject to 
permitting if the conditions of the exemption are met. Conditional 
exemptions would be used where it is important to establish some ``non-
permit'' substantive standards; e.g., a standard of performance or 
management practice. Conditional exemptions may represent an 
enforceable means to establish that a facility/site/source falls below 
some ``applicability threshold'' for a given permit program (such as a 
de minimis pollution threshold). Conditionally exempt activity is not 
subject to permitting, but is subject to some enforceable requirement. 
The conditional exemption theory has not yet been tested in the courts.

B. Methodology for Choosing Recommendations

    This Task Force's recommendations were based upon the following 
criteria:
     Issue permits only where there is a real or potential 
adverse environmental impact and the regulatory agency needs to be 
involved (add value) in developing proper controls.
     Issue individual permits only where there is a potential 
significant environmental impact or high degree of variability in 
regulatory requirements at individual facilities.
     Involve the public in the development and implementation 
of any alternatives to individual permits.
     Ensure adequate compliance and enforcement activities 
where alternatives to individual permits are developed.

C. Recommendations

    These recommendations need to be implemented by the applicable EPA 
Headquarters permitting program. As part of that implementation, each 
Program office needs to review their legal authority for utilizing 
alternatives to individual permits. If the statutory authority exists 
but current regulations restrict the use of alternative approaches, the 
Program office should propose appropriate revisions.

General Recommendations

    1. Each Program office should formally consider the appropriateness 
of using alternative permit approaches. Consider the degree of 
environmental risk, level of public interest, site variability in 
application of

[[Page 41266]]

requirements and duplication of state, tribal, and local permits in 
establishing permitting approach.
    2. In administering EPA-issued permits, each Regional office should 
consider the performance of state, tribal and local permit programs 
that may regulate the same or similar activities. Regional offices may 
appropriately provide a less rigorous level of review in those 
jurisdictions where the state, tribal or local permitting authority 
provides equivalent protection. In some cases, where a facility may 
operate lawfully without a federal permit, it maybe appropriate for the 
Regional office to place lower priority on issuing federal permits in 
such jurisdictions. Where the facility is required to have a federal 
permit, EPA Program offices should investigate the development of 
general permits that reference the state, tribal, or local permits.
    This recommendation does not solve the underlying problem of 
authorizing state, tribal and local permitting programs that provide a 
substantially equivalent program but not identical to EPA's approach. 
Each Program office should revise their regulations to streamline the 
authorization process and provide for greater flexibility where allowed 
by statute. If a statutory barrier exists, the Program office should 
seek revisions to the statute to provide clear direction on when 
authorization can occur.
    3. Each EPA Program office should share information on permit 
alternatives being developed and used in federal and state/tribal/local 
programs throughout the country. The Program offices should consult 
with their state, tribal and local counterparts to determine the most 
appropriate information to provide, given available resources. State, 
tribal and local permitting programs are encouraged to submit copies of 
any alternative permit approaches in electronic form for ready use by 
other permitting authorities interested in pursuing similar approaches.

Program Specific Recommendations

1. Stormwater--National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES)

    a. The Task Force agrees with the Office of Water's ongoing permit 
reform efforts for Phase I and Phase II, conducted under a Federal 
Advisory Committee Act (FACA) charter, and recommends they be 
continued.
    b. The Task Force agrees with the further development of general 
permits as part of Office of Wastewater Management's (OWM) projected 
permit improvements in the NPDES program in the final 1992 Non-
Construction Industrial permit and the proposed Multi-Sector stormwater 
general permit and recommends they be continued. Specifically;
     The development of general permit language that emphasizes 
pollution prevention (P2) and Best Management Practices (BMP) in the 
Non-Construction Industrial permit and the Multi-Sector permit.
     The establishment of appropriate monitoring requirements, 
based on industry type, water quality, or capability to implement BMP.
    c. The Task Force recommends the continued use of the clearinghouse 
for general permits.
    d. Where non-approved states, tribes, or localities are issuing 
substantially similar permits, EPA Regions should defer to those 
permitting authorities by prioritizing permitting actions to focus on 
non-approved permitting authorities without substantially similar 
programs.

2. NPDES--Process Wastewater

    a. Because of the need to control specific dischargers, individual 
permits should be maintained for water quality limited areas, where 
Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDL's) are necessary or wherever specific 
conditions to be addressed in a permit are not amenable to a general 
permit.
    b. Permit duration should be increased from 5 to 10 years or the 
life of the facility. Under this approach, there should be a provision 
to allow permits to be re-opened if there are facility, regulatory, or 
water quality changes. This recommendation requires a statutory change. 
This increase would be an incentive for states to move toward the 
watershed protection approach.
    c. OWM should develop and expand the use of general permits in non-
water quality limited areas and non-TMDL areas through policy 
directives, development of general permit boilerplates and 
establishment of a national clearinghouse of general permits.
    d. A permit-by-rule (PBR) should be established for de minimis 
discharges that establishes threshold conditions below which no 
reporting would be required. They could be based on industry-type, 
percentage of loading, etc. The rationale for the established PBR for 
Metal Products should be used to develop de minimis PBR's for other 
discharge categories.
    Recommend PIT FY'96 Pilot Project with the State of Washington, 
Region X and OW to develop PBR for de minimis discharges.
    e. Overall monitoring requirements should be decreased, but include 
ambient as well as end-of-pipe monitoring. Ambient monitoring would be 
used primarily to set permit limits where national technology based 
standards and state water quality based standards have not achieved 
environmental goals.
    The PIT recommends a Pilot Project be conducted by OW, with a 
Region and State, to determine achievement of program goals.

3. Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)

    The Task Force's initial recommendations included the consolidation 
of PCB disposal requirements into the RCRA requirements. However, the 
current position of the Office of Solid Waste (OSW)/Office of Pollution 
Prevention and Toxics (OPPT) workgroup evaluating this issue, for a 
variety of reasons, is to leave the two programs separate but to 
improve communications to make them more compatible. This Task Force 
defers to the workgroup on this issue.
    The workgroup is identifying options that can be readily 
implemented to improve the disposal of PCB's, while considering costs 
to industry, states (unfunded mandates), and EPA. Several potential 
goals have been identified to help direct the workgroup's efforts:
    1. State primacy for the PCB disposal program (one stop shopping) 
(may require statutory change);
    2. Consolidation of hazardous waste requirements (avoid program 
duplication); and
    3. Utilization of EPA grant money for state actions (PCB and 
hazardous wastes).
    The Task Force recommends that the PCB combustion authorization 
requirements be incorporated into the Air permit program if legally 
permissible. Other portions of the TSCA program would remain in OPPT. 
This recommendation is consistent with the recommendation below 
concerning the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) combustion 
program. This recommendation avoids the problems associated with 
incorporating the PCB disposal program into RCRA, but would place all 
permitted air emissions under one program.
    The PIT recommends an OPPT and Office of Air and Radiation (OAR) 
workgroup be formed to develop appropriate procedures.

4. Safe Drinking Water Act--Underground Injection Control (UIC) Program

    a. Shallow injection wells (Class V wells): Continue use of 
authorization by rule, which has been granted to all Class

[[Page 41267]]

V wells, providing that they comply with certain minimal requirements 
(e.g., well inventory) unless the well may endanger underground sources 
of drinking water.
    b. Injection of fluids related to oil and gas production (Class II 
wells): Where appropriate, continue use of area permits; promote use of 
non-individual permits by authorized permitting authorities.
    c. Individual permitting should continue for Class I wells (deep 
wells for industrial, municipal and hazardous waste).

5. RCRA Permit Program (see Attachment for More Detail)

    The PIT specifically notes that there are regulatory or statutory 
barriers to some of the approaches listed below. The Agency's ability 
to implement each of these options under the current law would need to 
be investigated further as these options are developed in more detail.

RCRA Base Program

    a. Maintain individual permits for facilities requiring operating 
and post-closure land disposal permits.
    b. OSW should establish a general permit boilerplate and promote 
the use of general permits for non-commercial storage or treatment 
facilities, including, for example, laboratories. The general permit 
conditions may need to be supplemented, in some cases, with site-
specific conditions identified by the permitting authority or through 
local public participation. In this situation the permit would be a 
hybrid permit.
    PIT FY'96 project to pilot the use of general permits in the states 
of California and Texas with Regions VI and IX and OSW.
    c. Extend the generator storage time frames from 90 to 270 days for 
laboratories as part of regulatory re-invention.
    d. For hazardous waste combustion facilities, Regional offices 
should incorporate RCRA requirements into the Air permit program, where 
both apply; a facility's Air permit would address both Air and RCRA 
combustion and emission requirements (this is one alternative provided 
for in EPA's proposed Hazardous Waste Combustion Regulation, Subpart 
O). Other RCRA requirements (e.g. storage and non-thermal treatment, 
corrective action) would be addressed through either an individual, 
general or hybrid permit. This recommendation should be implemented 
after the proper regulatory authorities are in place. Revised RCRA and 
CAA regulations are expected to be proposed in March 1996.

RCRA Corrective Action

    a. Explore the possibility of allowing a facility to perform 
corrective action through a state/EPA order cross-referenced in the 
permit, or through an individual, general or hybrid permit.
    b. Prioritize the issuance of corrective action permits and orders 
by focusing on state programs that are not authorized and that do not 
have substantially similar cleanup programs. States with substantially 
similar programs should be a lower priority. The decoupling of 
corrective action from RCRA permitting for regulated units is being 
considered as part of the Post-Closure rule (Subpart C) proposal. In 
addition, the Subpart S Advanced Notice of Rule Making (ANPRM--issued 
May 1, 1996) requested comment on the use of alternate authorities to 
compel corrective action. Under this approach a Region would be relying 
upon another agency to serve as lead in this situation.
    c. EPA should focus the majority of its corrective action resources 
on states without substantially similar cleanup programs. To achieve 
maximum overall environmental benefit, EPA should also explore allowing 
EPA RCRA resources to be shifted to support states in clean-up of 
higher state priority non-RCRA facilities. The legal authority to 
implement this recommendation needs to be evaluated.
    d. Subpart S needs to provide incentives for performing clean-ups 
by allowing conditional exemptions from permitting for:
--On-site storage of contaminated media and off-site storage and 
transfer of clean-up waste, especially from spill response activities,
--Non-RCRA facilities performing voluntary clean-ups.
    e. Explore the possibility of allowing low-priority RCRA facilities 
to conduct voluntary (early) corrective action through general or 
hybrid permits, memoranda of agreement between the facility and the 
permitting authority that achieve defined performance standards, or 
through amendments to the interim status regulations. There may be 
obstacles to using memoranda of agreements, since they would not 
provide legal protection to a facility that is required to obtain a 
federal permit.
    f. Investigate third-party certification of general and hybrid 
permits for hazardous waste management that is generated through 
corrective action activities. In addition, OECA's Office of Compliance 
is implementing the Environmental Leadership Program (ELP), a major 
component of which is piloting third-party audits and certification. 
EPA is also asking for comment on this concept in the Subpart S ANPRM. 
The Agency should continue to investigate third-party certification by 
looking at these, the Massachusetts initiative to utilize certified 
remediation contractors, and other such programs.
    g. Fast-track the Hazardous Waste Identification Rule (HWIR) and 
Definition of Solid Waste Rule, to limit regulation to wastes that are 
truly hazardous, allow general or hybrid permits to regulate recyclers 
and utilize the HWIR media rule concept of remediation management plans 
(RMP) for off-site storage and treatment of remedial waste.

6. Air--New Source Review (NSR) Permit Program

    a. The Task Force agrees with the Office of Air Quality Planning 
and Standards (OAQPS) NSR reform efforts, particularly the following;
     Implementing plant-wide applicability limit (PAL) policy.
     Allowing states more flexibility to match the level of 
permitting effort to environmental significance. This recognizes that 
there may be facilities which do not require permits at all.
     Including special provisions to encourage the use of 
innovative technologies.
     Acknowledging and promoting pollution prevention 
activities.
    If the NSR reforms do not receive stakeholder support, consider 
establishing a PIT workgroup to conduct an independent evaluation and 
develop recommendations.
    b. Develop a more expansive definition of minor sources through the 
use of the following:
     The Agency has recognized for some time that the current 
definition of potential to emit may have been too restrictive. The 
Agency has and is currently working to redefine potential to emit in a 
consensus forum.
     Develop and promote the use of general permits by 
preparing boilerplate language for applicable sources and establishing 
a national clearinghouse of general permits.
    c. State, tribal and local permitting authorities should establish 
additional de minimis levels for selected minor sources under which no 
permit would be required, in conformance with existing regulations. 
This will provide that only true health and environmental risks require 
permits.

7. Air--Title V Permit Program

    a. The Task Force supports the National White Paper and 
Supplemental Part 70 proposal, and recommends:
     Evaluating techniques to take inherent operating 
limitations into

[[Page 41268]]

account in determining potential to emit.
     Investigating methods to simplify the renewal process to 
allow for automatic renewal upon recertification that no facility 
changes have occurred and no new requirements have come into effect 
since the initial permit issuance.
    b. Develop and promote the use of general permits for sources with 
low actual emissions by preparing boilerplate language for applicable 
sources and establishing a national clearinghouse of general permits.
    PIT recommends a FY'96 pilot project with the State of Iowa, Region 
VII and OAQPS to develop general title V permits (e.g. for paint 
booths). This project should be coordinated with the ongoing ETI Title 
V project.
    c. Allow a self-implementation alternative for facilities with 
actual emissions of less than 50% of applicable standards.
     Implement flexible permits, through the use of plant-wide 
applicability (PAL) limits.
     Allow states more flexibility in deciding the most 
effective monitoring methods and controls.
    d. Allow state, tribal and local permitting authorities to 
establish additional de minimis levels for selected minor sources under 
which no permit would be required. This will provide that only true 
health and environmental risks require permits. For example, in MA, 
emissions below 1 ton/year do not require a permit.

D. Attachment

    A more complete discussion of the RCRA proposals follows.

Attachment--RCRA Alternative Permitting Recommendations

    Task Force recommendations do not cover all aspects of RCRA 
permitting, but highlight areas both where continued use of 
individual permits seem most appropriate, as well as areas where 
alternatives may be particularly useful. Also, as is the case with 
some recommendations in other programs, there are regulatory or 
statutory barriers to some of the approaches listed below. The 
Agency's ability to implement each of these options under current 
law would need to be investigated further as these options are 
developed in greater detail.

RCRA Base Program

1. Continued Use of Individual Permits

    The Task Force recommends continuing to use individual permits 
for facilities requiring operating and post-closure land disposal 
permits. Although some aspects of these facilities could be 
regulated by general permits or other alternatives to individual 
permits, the Task Force felt that the potential environmental 
impacts of these facilities particularly warranted regulatory 
attention and public comment on an individualized basis.
    The Task Force also recognized that combustion facilities 
(incinerators, burners and industrial furnaces) warranted highly 
focused regulatory and public attention on an individual basis. 
However, efficiency could be obtained by having the impacts of these 
facilities reviewed in concert with air permitting. If so, the RCRA 
program could issue a general or hybrid permit to address any 
additional technical requirements not covered by the Clean Air Act 
permit process (e.g., corrective action), and could also address 
permit requirements for any ancillary units (e.g., storage units).

2. Ninety-day Accumulation and Treatment for Generators

    The Task Force also recommends providing guidance or otherwise 
clarifying the enforcement discretion available when a facility 
exceeds applicable time frames or violates any of the management 
conditions referenced in 40 CFR 262.34. The Task Force recommends 
that it be made clear that enforcement against such a facility may 
be handled as a violation of the specific requirements of 
Sec. 262.34 (e.g., storage over 90 days, failure to mark containers, 
etc.) rather than as a failure to have a permit. Some prior agency 
statements have suggested that a facility that failed to mark a 
container would necessarily be subject to full permit 
requirements.3
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \3\ See, e.g., In the Matter of Humko Products, Docket No. V-W-
84-R-014 (March 7, 1985) at p.20 (facility storing waste over 90 
days ``is subject to * * * the permit requirements of 40 CFR Part 
270''), p. 26 n. 12; Permit Policy Compendium No. 9453.1989(05), 
Letter from Sylvia Lowrance to Stephen Axtell, April 21, 1989 
(generator who fails to mark accumulation date ``has not met the 
pre-conditions for the exemption from permitting requirements and is 
an operator * * * subject to permit requirements'').
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

3. Third Party Certifications

    The Task force recommends consideration of the use of third 
party certifications both for corrective action and for hazardous 
waste management requirements. Where, for example, a regulatory 
agency might otherwise be inclined to require extensive regulatory 
review of a corrective action, unit design, contingency plan, or 
other RCRA-regulated activity in the context of an individual permit 
review, the agency might be able to shift that activity to a general 
or hybrid permit if the facility notification were accompanied by a 
third party certification that indicated comparable review has been 
conducted by an independent third party. There is a legal concern, 
however, presented by EPA's need to defend information and 
conclusions in the permitting decision that EPA itself did not 
develop.

RCRA Corrective Action

1. Corrective Action

    Where a state with a well developed cleanup program is 
authorized for the base RCRA program, but has not yet become 
authorized for corrective action, the Task Force recommends that EPA 
consider issuing a ``rider'' general permit that would require 
treatment, storage or disposal (TSD) facilities receiving state RCRA 
permits to satisfy corrective action obligations by complying with 
the requirements of the state's cleanup program. For this approach 
to be legally defensible, EPA would need to explain the basis for 
finding that the state controls satisfy federal corrective action 
requirements. Another option would be for the federal permit to set 
a schedule of compliance for corrective action measures contingent 
on completion of the state cleanup in order to see whether further 
corrective action measures are necessary at that point. For this 
approach to be effective, EPA must be willing to defer to the 
State's overall site prioritization system. This may mean that there 
is less near-term cleanup at RCRA facilities, if there are higher 
priority non-RCRA facilities.4
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \4\ EPA sometimes currently defers on a case-by-case basis to 
other cleanup programs in deciding how to address corrective action 
in a RCRA permit. In considering this recommendation, EPA might also 
consider whether its current practice sufficiently meets the goals 
of this recommendation, or whether there are alternative means of 
achieving a similar result through improvements on existing 
practice. For example, are there better ways of reflecting this 
deferral process in the permit than is currently the case.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Under this approach, EPA could then focus its resources and 
attention on corrective action in states without cleanup programs 
and on high priority RCRA facilities not otherwise being addressed 
by the states.
    General or hybrid permits could include provisions that 
authorize low-priority TSD facilities not otherwise receiving 
regulatory attention to conduct early cleanups, subject to 
performance standards identified in the general permit (or through 
use of Memoranda of Agreement between the facility and permitting 
authority). Again, however, there may be legal barriers to these 
approaches under the current statute and regulations. An analysis of 
the possible alternatives to individual permits for corrective 
action and the legal barriers to those alternatives is ongoing 
within the PIT and its subgroup on general permits.
    Another way to ensure that facilities receive federal permits 
would be for EPA to issue a permit that simply ``copies'' the 
state's permit, relying on the state's supporting record. EPA would 
not develop a record for the permit independently. In this approach, 
the facility would obtain a federal permit and would not be liable 
for operating without a permit. However, this approach would be 
viable only to the extent EPA feels comfortable that it will be able 
to defend against any permit challenges based on a record developed 
by a separate entity (i.e., the state). The issue of deferral to the 
state, in general, is one that is still being examined by the PIT 
subgroup.

2. Non-RCRA Cleanups

    Many facilities that do not require RCRA permits have the 
potential to trigger RCRA permit requirements while conducting 
cleanups, whether voluntarily or under State direction. Many persons 
have noted that the possibility of subjecting a facility to full

[[Page 41269]]

RCRA permitting, including fenceline-to-fenceline corrective action 
for cleanup activity is a disincentive to conducting focused cleanup 
and conversion of brownfields. EPA is currently developing 
approaches to many of these problems through the HWIR rulemakings. 
The Task Force recommends considering alternative approaches to 
permitting through the following scenarios which may go beyond the 
HWIR concepts in some applications:
     off-site storage and transfer of cleanup waste, where 
the cleanup activity is being directed or supervised by EPA or a 
State regulatory agency;
     on-site storage of contaminated media (includes 
voluntary cleanups as well as cleanups under regulatory supervision) 
(action would be subject to best management practices); and
     activities at facilities not currently subject to RCRA 
conducting voluntary cleanup.
    Of these various options, the last is most expansive, and goes 
beyond the more limited proposal for on-site storage of contaminated 
media. The second and third recommendations go beyond the HWIR 
approaches currently being considered in that they would apply to 
voluntary cleanups as well as cleanups under regulatory oversight.

Enhanced Public Participation Task Force Recommendations

A. Background

    An important ingredient for improving the permitting process is 
improving and expanding public involvement in the process. The Enhanced 
Public Participation Task Force was tasked with developing 
recommendations for providing opportunities for early and more 
meaningful public participation, including provisions for addressing 
environmental justice concerns.
    Public participation has many aspects. It can be seen as 
involvement through participation in the permitting process--e.g., 
providing notice of upcoming events, or opportunities for meetings with 
businesses, communities, and regulating agencies. It can also be seen 
as involvement through access to quality information--e.g., businesses 
need quality information to identify opportunities to prevent pollution 
and save money, and communities need access to information to 
participate in decision-making in a meaningful and informed manner.
    The Task Force looked into both areas, and developed five 
recommendations. The first three recommendations discussed in this 
report focus on short-term products (i.e., ones that might be developed 
in FY 1996) that are intended to fill an immediate need for 
information. These products may be used by permitting agencies, 
industry, and communities alike to (1) learn about potential ways to 
involve themselves or each other in the permitting process, and (2) 
find out what types of information are available, and how they can 
access it. These three recommendations were discussed with stakeholders 
and modified to incorporate their comments.
    The remaining two recommendations were developed based on general 
public participation discussions that took place during the PIT's 
stakeholder meetings. These recommendations are good candidate projects 
for the continuing efforts of the PIT.

B. Task Force Recommendations

1. Develop an ``Easy Reference'' Guidance for Public Participation 
Activities
    Description: The purpose of the guidance should be to serve as a 
valuable reference of public involvement activities. The guidance 
should not cover every possible type of activity. Rather, it should 
serve as a supplement to existing guidance developed by EPA Program 
offices, trade associations, or environmental groups. It could be used 
by businesses, communities, and permitting agencies in putting together 
public involvement strategies appropriate for particular situations. We 
recommend that the guidance be kept fairly short, perhaps 20 pages, in 
order to facilitate quick reference. The guidance should consist of 
three sections: an introduction, a matrix of public involvement 
techniques, and an attachment with additional reference information.
    The introduction should lay out both the purpose and limitations of 
the guidance. The introduction should also:
     encourage all stakeholders--regulators, facilities, and 
communities--to take an active role in opening up the permitting 
process and promoting meaningful public involvement;
     urge industry and communities to explore innovative public 
involvement programs, such as the Responsible Care Program (through 
CMA) and Good Neighbor Agreements (through the Good Neighbor Project); 
and
     encourage regulators, facilities, and communities to 
coordinate public involvement activities across media programs whenever 
appropriate and feasible.
    The matrix of public involvement activities should list a wide 
variety of public involvement techniques, and provide a brief 
description of the activity (technique), and some of its advantages and 
disadvantages. Any activity currently required by an EPA Program office 
will be footnoted as a regulatory requirement. Since final 
recommendations regarding alternatives to individual permits have not 
yet been implemented, the easy-reference guidance should not attempt to 
``tier'' public involvement activities by type of permit. The guidance 
should, however, have a mechanism to help people determine what 
activities they could use.
    For its ``first edition,'' the guidance should identify ``Level I'' 
and ``Level II'' activities. Level I activities are those that should 
be considered for use in every situation, regardless of the type of 
permit, type of facility, or level of community interest. Level II 
activities represent a variety of ways to go beyond basic approaches to 
public involvement, and should be considered for use as necessary to 
meet the needs of the situation at hand. When developing subsequent 
editions of the easy-reference guidance, the mechanism for ``ranking'' 
activities (i.e., Levels I and II) should be re-evaluated to determine 
if it is still appropriate or if it should be replaced.
    The attachment for additional resources should include: (1) the 
main telephone numbers of all State environmental permitting agencies; 
(2) the main telephone numbers of all EPA regional permitting offices; 
(3) a list all of the EPA-sponsored hotlines and information centers, 
and (4) a recap of the activities required by each EPA media Program 
office and a list of resources (e.g., guidance manuals) available 
through those offices.
    Implementation: The RCRA Permits Branch in the Office of Solid 
Waste should take the lead on developing the initial edition of the 
easy-reference guidance. A draft of the guidance should be shared with 
a PIT workgroup for review and comment, as well as with the Siting and 
Public Participation Subcommittees of the National Environmental 
Justice Advisory Committee (NEJAC).
    Hardcopy Distribution: The PIT should distribute copies to its 
stakeholder mailing list. The PIT should also provide camera-ready 
copies of the guidance to the Office of Communications, Education and 
Public Affairs (OCEPA) and to the Office of Regional Operations, State/
Local Relations (OROSLR) so they may distribute the guidance to their 
respective contacts and mailing lists. Furthermore, each media program 
office at the federal, state, local and tribal levels should also be 
encouraged to distribute the guidance as widely as possible.

[[Page 41270]]

    Electronic Distribution: The Enhanced Public Participation Task 
Force leader should coordinate with appropriate Agency personnel to 
post the easy-reference guidance on the Internet. Access to the 
guidance should be provided through EPA's home page as well as through 
each media office's menus.
    Training: The Enhanced Public Participation Task Force should 
coordinate with the Training Task Force to evaluate potential ways to 
provide training, if necessary, on techniques included in the easy-
reference guidance.
2. Utilize the Environmental Justice (EJ) Public Participation 
Checklist as Guidance to the Extent Appropriate and Feasible
    Description: The environmental justice movement has sparked a lot 
of discussion on ways to improve communications and working relations 
among agencies, industries, and communities. The InterAgency Working 
Group on Environmental Justice, led by EPA, developed a Public 
Participation Checklist that lays out ways to identify, inform, and 
involve stakeholders (e.g., environmental organizations, business and 
trade associations, civic/public interest groups, grassroots/community-
based organizations, tribal governments, and industry). It reflects a 
combination of: guiding principles for setting up and conducting 
activities, such as public meetings; specific activities for ensuring 
widespread and meaningful involvement; and recommendations on how to 
effectively carry out those activities.
    Although the checklist was initially developed in the context of 
environmental justice, to help federal agencies prepare for the first 
public meeting to discuss their EJ strategies, it embodies sound 
principles that apply to public participation for all communities. 
Therefore, the Task Force recommends that:
    (1) EPA (through its Office of Communications, Education, and 
Public Affairs) should widely distribute the EJ checklist for use as 
guidance, so that permitting agencies, businesses and the public may 
benefit from it.
    (2) A PIT workgroup continue to coordinate with the Office of 
Environmental Justice (OEJ) and the InterAgency Working Group on 
Environmental Justice in order to promote consistency in Agency 
approaches to enhancing public involvement. The Task Force should 
forward any suggestions it receives for modifying or enhancing the EJ 
Checklist to the OEJ and/or InterAgency Working Group.
    Implementation: Public Participation Task Force representatives 
should meet with contacts in OEJ to: (1) review and discuss suggestions 
the PIT received regarding the Checklist, (2) develop an introduction 
to accompany the Checklist (describing its origins, etc.), and (3) to 
plan for further interactions between the two groups. Any changes to 
the Checklist should be made by OEJ or the InterAgency Working Group, 
since they originated the Checklist. Their continued ``ownership'' of 
the Checklist, and our combined efforts to keep the list current, will 
help ensure that the two teams continue to work in partnership to 
address environmental justice concerns, particularly in the context of 
public involvement. If OEJ (or the InterAgency Working Group) chooses 
to revise the Checklist, a PIT workgroup could provide assistance.
    Hardcopy Distribution: Once the list is revised, OEJ should provide 
a camera-ready copy of the Checklist to the Office of Communications, 
Education and Public Affairs (OCEPA) for distribution to its contacts 
and mailing lists. In addition, camera-ready copies should also be 
provided to the Office of Regional Operations, State/Local Relations 
(OROSLR) so they can distribute the Checklist to their contacts and 
mailing lists. Finally, each media program office at the federal, 
state, tribal and local levels should be encouraged to distribute the 
Checklist as widely as possible.
    The Task Force assumes that OEJ sends the checklist out to its 
contacts across the country, and that these contacts include EJ and 
community groups. In order to target industry for receiving copies of 
the Checklist, OEJ should provide the Checklist to trade associations 
for distribution to their member companies.
    Electronic Distribution: The Task Force leader should coordinate 
with appropriate Agency personnel to post the EJ Checklist on the 
Internet. Access to the Checklist should be provided through EPA's home 
page as well as through each media office's menus.
3. Develop an Inventory of Mechanisms That Promote Access to 
Environmental Information
    Description: Access to information is an essential component of 
public involvement. Meaningful, quality information is needed by 
regulators, regulated industries, and the public alike in order to 
promote sound environmental decision-making. Within the federal 
government, offices are revisiting what types of information should be 
collected and how information may be more readily shared.
    An inventory with abstracts of existing sources of information, as 
well as of the efforts underway to improve quality of and access to 
information, and the appropriate contact person or office for each, 
would be a useful reference document. It could be used to inform 
agencies, businesses and the public of the wide variety of mechanisms 
available to them.
    Development: The inventory of mechanisms should be developed under 
the direction of EPA's Office of Information Resources Management 
(OIRM). Identifying and describing the numerous and diverse data 
systems, information sources, and so on is beyond the scope of PIT 
resources; however, a PIT workgroup should meet with OIRM to discuss 
the project and to be available to provide assistance on an as-needed 
basis.
    Primary focus of the inventory should be on Agency automated 
sources of information (e.g., data systems, bulletin boards), 
``hardcopy'' information sources (e.g., Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) 
Report), and means of accessing information sources (e.g., through the 
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) process, the Internet, via the 
National Technical Information Service--NTIS). The inventory should 
also, to the extent possible and feasible, discuss efforts-in-progress 
(e.g., the Key Identifier and One-Stop Public Access and Reporting 
Initiative). The inventory should include innovative systems promoted 
by Program offices to improve community involvement and help empower 
communities (e.g., Landview II being used by the Office of Solid Waste 
and Emergency Response). Finally, the inventory should include 
mechanisms to obtain access to pollution prevention information, such 
as on-line EPA computer systems like Enviro$ense or the Technology 
Transfer Network.
    The inventory of mechanisms should be presented in an 
understandable, user friendly manner. In addition, because not every 
agency, business and member of the public will have electronic access 
to bulletin board systems and the Internet, proposals for increasing 
access to information should also include making material easily 
available in the traditional manners (e.g., printed copies at agency 
offices, in information repositories, mailed to interested parties, 
announced in press releases or through radio ads).
    Distribution: Distribution of the inventory should be coordinated 
by OCEPA. The inventory should be available in hardcopy format as well 
as through the Internet.

[[Page 41271]]

    In addition, OCEPA should investigate more effective ways to 
publicize the many sources of information the Agency has, and the 
avenues to obtaining that information. For example, the Agency develops 
a thick (over 600 pages!) publication entitled ``Access EPA''--a 
comprehensive directory with detailed descriptions of the Agency's 
information resources. Unfortunately, relatively few people know of, or 
have access to, ``Access EPA.'' OCEPA should look into the feasibility 
of using innovative mechanisms to more widely and effectively 
distribute this directory, such as entering into an agreement with a 
national bookstore chain to get their stores to carry ``Access EPA'' 
and/or certain other EPA publications.
4. Explore, and Possibly Conduct Pilots for, the Development and Use of 
Comprehensive Multi-Media Community Involvement Plans
    Background: Under the Agency's current regulations, there are 
various public participation requirements in each media program area--
hazardous waste, water, and air. The requirements focus on the 
individual media permit, and are not consistent across programs. In 
meeting their regulatory obligations for each media permit, industries 
and regulators alike often create more confusion than clarity among 
members of the public who, for the most part, do not segment their 
involvement along statutory lines--their interests lay with the 
facility in its entirety. Moreover, having to conduct multiple, yet 
similar, activities (e.g., one public hearing for the air permit and 
another for the RCRA permit) imposes an unnecessary burden on a 
facility; having to keep track of and attend these multiple activities 
imposes an unnecessary burden on the public. Further exacerbating the 
problem is the way information about a facility is collected and 
reported--also a media-by-media approach. No clear picture of the 
facility as a whole, its total emissions or releases, its comprehensive 
compliance record, is readily available.
    Discussion: In order to create an environment that truly fosters 
effective interactions between facilities and their neighboring 
communities, the Agency needs to make the entire public participation 
process more user-friendly. Using Community Involvement Plans (CIPs), 
in concert with some programmatic adjustments from other PIT Task 
Forces, could accomplish this objective.
    It is envisioned that a facility, in close coordination with 
community stakeholders, would be responsible for drafting a CIP. The 
elements of a CIP would most likely vary, although certain core 
elements may ultimately be defined. In essence, the CIP would serve as 
a vehicle through which a facility and a community could form a multi-
media approach tailored to meet their particular situation. They could 
address issues on an aggregate basis, instead of on the media-by-media 
basis perpetuated by EPA's current structure and regulations. At a 
minimum, a CIP should set objectives for educating the community on the 
facility and its operations and for providing routine opportunities for 
information exchange. Techniques to achieve these objectives could 
include: community advisory panels, facility tours, integrated 
compliance reporting, and so on.
    The appropriate role of the regulatory agency would also need to be 
laid out in the CIP. There would need to be an incentive offered in 
exchange for a facility undertaking the integrated approach to public 
involvement embodied by the CIP concept--for example, expedited permit 
processing, aggregated (multi-media) permit processing, or relief from 
media-specific public participation regulatory obligations. This does 
not mean, however, that the regulator does not continue to play a key 
role--the permitting agency would need to interface with both the 
facility and the community.
    Implementation Ideas: The Task Force recommends that the CIP 
concept be piloted with a few facilities and their neighboring 
communities. It may be possible to coordinate this effort with other 
Agency initiatives, such as Project XL or Brownfields, that are 
intended to pilot innovative approaches to environmental management. 
The PIT could take the lead on evaluating the results of the pilots. If 
the efforts prove successful, the Agency should promote widespread use 
of CIPs and pursue the regulatory changes needed to implement the 
incentives described above.
     Pros--There are many potential benefits to be gained by 
using CIPs. For example, they move us away from a ``command and 
control'' approach by allowing flexibility to follow a plan that makes 
sense for the situation at hand. If CIPs ultimately replace media-
specific public participation requirements, there would still be a 
basic ``level playing field'' by virtue of the fact that everyone would 
have to develop a plan founded on mutual (facility, community, 
regulator) needs and concerns. Finally, CIPs enable a facility and a 
community to deal with issues on an aggregate basis, which may help to 
move EPA towards a more integrated approach to environmental 
management.
     Cons--Providing some relief from current media-specific 
public participation requirements in exchange for using CIPs will 
necessarily result in a lack of consistency in approaches to public 
participation. The lack of consistency could create confusion for 
industry, communities, and regulators alike--no one would be certain 
what they should do or what their opportunities for involvement are. In 
considering this aspect, however, it is important (1) to remember that 
there is already inconsistency in public participation requirements 
across the Agency's media programs; (2) to question whether the desire 
for consistency outweighs the need for flexibility; and (3) to focus on 
the need for improved results.
5. Develop a Series of Case Studies on the Effectiveness of Public 
Participation Activities
    Description: Guidance materials and checklists for promoting public 
participation provide very useful tools. However, there is a lot that 
can be learned from real world successes and failures as well. A 
compilation of actual case studies would be a useful tool to help 
permitting agencies, industry, and communities put suggested public 
involvement activities into a context meaningful to their own 
situations--in other words, it gives people something concrete they can 
relate to.
    Development: The Task Force recommends that a PIT workgroup compile 
a number of case studies as a project in FY 1996. The PIT should 
collect existing case studies from various sources, such as (but not 
limited to) EPA Program offices, Regional or State community relations 
offices, and environmental justice groups. Further, the PIT could 
develop its own case studies based on recommendation 4, above.

Performance Measures

Task Force Recommendations

Background

    An important aspect of improving the environmental permitting 
process concerns how the performance and success of the permitting 
programs are measured. Too often in the past, regulatory agencies have 
measured success based on the number of permits that have been issued. 
This ``bean counting'' has been identified as one of the problems in 
the current system that needs to be improved.
    On September 11, 1993, President Clinton signed Executive Order 
12862, Setting Customer Service Standards. This Order, in part, 
requires each

[[Page 41272]]

department and agency to ``post service standards and measure results 
against them''. The performance measures presented below have been 
prepared to comply with the Executive Order. These measures should be 
publicly available so that all Agency stakeholders can review the 
performance of the permitting programs.
    The Performance Measures Task Force developed the following 
performance and tracking measures based on the input received at 
stakeholder meetings held during the PIT project and the written 
comments received on the draft recommendations. The performance 
measures should be used to evaluate how a permitting program is doing 
in achieving environmental results and customer satisfaction. The 
measures focus on the performance of the permitting process and are 
designed to evaluate the system as a whole. These measures should help 
EPA identify where changes may be needed in a program to achieve the 
desired results. The tracking measures provide information on changes 
to the permitting processes over time and should be used to identify 
areas of opportunity for process improvement.
    The performance and tracking measures are broken down into the 
following three categories:
    1. Process--those measures that specify how the permitting process 
is doing compared to established criteria;
    2. Results--those measures that determine whether the permits are 
having their desired outcome; and
    3. Customer Service--those measures that evaluate how the general 
public and regulated community feel about the permitting process.
    It is recommended that the performance and tracking measures be 
piloted in a Region that is still issuing a significant number of 
permits. This will allow the measures to be field tested and any 
modifications made prior to full implementation. The Permits 
Improvement Team would assist the Regional office as necessary.
    It is further recommended that each Regional office provide these 
measures to any state, tribe or local government, that is authorized to 
issue permits, for their consideration. These permitting authorities 
should not be required to adopt these measures. They should be free to 
modify them or develop their own measures of a successful permitting 
program.

Generic Performance Measures

Process

1. Timeliness
    Each Regional office that is issuing permits should establish 
processing time goals for each type of permit they issue (presented as 
a percentage of applications processed within a specified timeframe). 
Each Regional media permitting program should determine the 
appropriateness of dividing their permit universe based on the degree 
of environmental impact (e.g. minor, significant minor, major). Four 
distinct processing times could be established to cover the entire 
permitting process, from receipt of application to permit 
effectiveness. In addition, the total processing time of each permit 
should be a tracking measure.
    Example: For (type of permit5), the time required from receipt 
of an application to agency determination that the application is 
complete is as follows:

____% determinations made within 30 days;
____% determinations made between 30 and 60 days;
____% determinations made between 60 and 90 days.

    For (type of permit5), the time required from receipt of a 
complete application to issuance of the proposed (or final if no public 
comment is necessary) agency decision to approve or deny the permit is 
as follows:

____% proposals/decisions made within 60 days;
____% proposals/decisions made between 60 and 90 days;
____% proposals/decisions made between 90 and 180 days.

    For (type of permit5),the time required from the issuance of 
the proposed decision to approve or deny the permit to the final agency 
action is as follows:
    Where limited and straightforward comments are received and no 
public hearing:

____% decisions made within 60 days;
____% decisions made between 60 and 90 days.

    Where substantial and complex comments are received and no public 
hearing:

____% decisions made within 90 days;
____% decisions made between 90 and 120 days.

    When a public hearing is held:

____% decisions made within 180 days;
____% decisions made between 180 and 240 days.

    For (type of permit5), that are appealed, the time required 
from issuance of the Region's final permit decision to the effective 
date of the permit is as follows:

____% effective within 90 days;
____% effective between 90 and 270 days;
____% effective between 270 and 455 days;
____% not effective within 455 days.

    Purpose: To have the Regional offices focus on each step of the 
permit process. The time required to process a permit is influenced by 
the performance of both the regulatory agency and the permittee as well 
as by the level of public comment. To achieve the most rapid processing 
of a permit as possible the agency and permittee need to work together 
(and with the public as necessary). Therefore, this performance measure 
is written to identify how long the permit process is taking for each 
of the major steps. If the actual processing time of the Regional 
office is longer than the established goal, steps can be identified to 
improve the performance in that area.
2. Number of Pending Permits
    Each Regional office that is issuing permits should establish a 
goal for the maximum number of permits for new discharges, emissions or 
releases (either new facilities or modifications required to address a 
new discharge at an existing facility) that have exceeded the specified 
times for approval or disapproval provided in 1 above.
    Example: (#) of new applications and permit modifications for (type 
of permit5) have not been approved or disapproved within the ---- 
days set as the maximum for this type of permit action.
    Purpose: To provide a measure of the number of permits for new 
discharges that have not been processed within the defined time 
periods. This performance measure is just for new discharges. Backlogs 
of permit renewals are a tracking measure (see below), since there may 
be a need to prioritize the issuance of certain renewals (e.g. 
ecosystem based priorities) rather than renew a permit after it has 
expired but remains in effect. Trend analyses would allow the 
regulatory agency to readily determine whether they are improving or 
falling further behind. A backlog above the goal would trigger an 
evaluation to determine its cause and how to improve the Region's 
performance.

Results

1. Environmental Indicators
    The success of permitting programs need to evaluated based on the

[[Page 41273]]

environmental conditions that exist in a particular area. Although 
permitted discharges are not the only source of pollutants, they are 
regulated to limit their impact so that environmental goals are 
achieved. Therefore, it is recommended that all permitting authorities 
develop specific environmental indicators that will be used to evaluate 
the overall success of their permitting programs.
    The Agency is in the process of developing environmental indicators 
for the nation. Once the national indicators are determined each 
Regional office should work with the respective state and tribal 
governments to establish specific indicators for that jurisdiction. 
This is being accomplished through the development of Environmental 
Performance Agreements (EnPA) with states and tribes. EnPA's will 
include indicators that will be re-evaluated yearly and updated, 
revised or replaced as needed to accurately measure environmental 
progress. The first EnPA's will be for states and tribes volunteering 
in Fiscal Year 1996, with full implementation scheduled for FY97. A key 
component of the EnPA's is stakeholder participation, which includes 
the development of appropriate environmental indicators for each 
jurisdiction. The environmental indicators will be used to determine 
priorities for the next year, including permitting activities.
2. Level of Compliance
    The compliance status of all permitted facilities is an important 
performance measure for permitting programs. In order for environmental 
protection to occur, facilities must be in compliance with their 
permits. Just issuing the permit doesn't ensure protection, therefore, 
it is necessary to determine the level of compliance with those permits 
to help identify where greater clarity of permit conditions is needed 
and where to provide technical assistance.
    The initial PIT recommendations on how to measure the level of 
compliance did not contain sufficient detail to allow stakeholders to 
give their opinion on this approach. The comments received focused on 
the need for more detail to better define this performance measure. In 
addition, the Agency has compliance categories for the individual media 
programs. However, for the most part these have not been developed with 
stakeholder input. Therefore, it is recommended that a project team of 
EPA Headquarters and Regional offices and state and tribal agencies be 
established to further develop this measure as needed. The project team 
would work with stakeholder groups in the development of a proposal to 
measure the level of compliance of permitted entities and identify the 
causes of non-compliance. The Office of Enforcement and Compliance 
Assurance (OECA) should be responsible for establishing and leading the 
broad based project team.

Customer Service

1. Customer Satisfaction
    Customer service surveys and standards have been drafted for three 
groups to which EPA provides service: citizens participating in the 
permitting process; permit applicants; and authorized state, tribal or 
local governments. The surveys have been approved by the Office of 
Management and Budget (OMB) and EPA plans to begin using the surveys in 
FY'96. The customer service standards will be discussed with 
stakeholder groups prior to finalization. EPA will prepare a report on 
the results of the customer service surveys in September 1996.
    The Office of Policy Planning and Evaluation (OPPE) has been 
recommended to conduct the surveys and analyze the results. Each 
Regional permitting office would receive a report identifying any 
situations where the customer service standards were not met. In these 
cases, the Regional office could hold focus group meetings or other 
outreach activities with appropriate stakeholders to determine a course 
of action that is intended to improve customer service.

Generic Tracking Measures

Process

1. Time Required for Permit Issuance
    Each Regional office that is issuing permits should determine the 
average time required from receipt of a permit application to the 
Region's final permit decision (this does not include the time to 
address any appeals). The range of time required to issue each type of 
permit should also be determined. This information should be made 
available in any fact sheets and permit application information 
distributed by the Regional office.

    Example: The average time required to issue (type of permits) is 
____ (days, weeks, months) with a range of ____ to ____ (days, 
weeks, months).

    Purpose: To provide the applicant and public with an estimate of 
the total time required to process a given type of permit. This 
measure, coupled with the timeliness performance measure will show the 
amount of time the applicant spends working on the permit as well as 
EPA.
2. Permit Application Completeness
    Each Regional office that is issuing permits should track the 
number of resubmittals (additional/revised information required for the 
permitting authority to be able to act on the application) required to 
obtain a complete application. This information should be presented as 
a percentage of the total universe of permit applications received.

    Example: The percentage of (type of permits) applications 
requiring resubmittal prior to being complete is as follows:

____%--No resubmittals required
____%--One resubmittal required
____%--Two resubmittals required
____%--Three or more resubmittals required

    Purpose: To have the Regional offices track and make public the 
number of resubmittals needed to obtain a complete permit application. 
Regional offices should work with their regulated community to identify 
causes of excessive resubmittals and determine corrective actions. 
Permitting programs with high percentages of applications requiring 
multiple resubmittals would indicate a problem somewhere in the permit 
process. This could include the information being requested, the 
clarity of the deficiency letter, the training provided to the 
regulated community, etc. Trend analysis could be used to determine if 
progress was being made to reduce the number of applications requiring 
resubmittal.
3. Cost of Permitting Program
    Each Regional office that is issuing permits should estimate the 
total agency work hours required to process each type of permit they 
issue and the average number of work hours required to process each 
individual permit. This information would allow the EPA Region to sum 
the totals from each permit category to obtain the overall work hours 
expended on environmental permitting in that Region.

    Example: The total work hours of processing all (type of 
permits) was (#) for ____ (calendar or fiscal year). The average 
work hours expended on each permit, based on the processing of (#) 
permits, is (#) for the same reporting period.

    Purpose: To provide an estimate of the total work hours expended on 
environmental permitting programs. The average work hours information 
would be useful in determining if programs of similar complexity had 
significantly different averages. This information could also be used 
to compare the average processing times of

[[Page 41274]]

the Regional offices. Evaluations could then be conducted to determine 
the cause of the difference and learn from successful programs. Trend 
analysis could be used to determine if work hours are increasing or 
decreasing.
4. Number of Pending Renewal (Air/Water) and Interim Status (RCRA) 
Permits
    Each Regional office that is issuing permits should track the 
number of permits that have expired but remain in effect and have not 
been renewed, or in the case of RCRA, the number of facilities that are 
operating under an interim status designation.

    Example: (#) (type of permits) have not been renewed by the 
expiration date as of ________ (reporting period).

    Purpose: To provide a measure of the number of permits that have 
not been renewed by their expiration date. Trend analyses would allow 
the Regional office to readily determine whether the number is 
increasing or decreasing. Additional analysis would be needed to 
determine if an increasing trend was a problem or the result of a 
decision by the Region to focus on ecosystems and allow permits in non-
priority areas to remain in effect.

Results

1. Pollution Prevention/Innovative Technology
    Each Regional office that is issuing permits should track the 
number and percent of their permits that include innovative technology 
or pollution prevention conditions that are included as a means, in 
whole or in part, to achieve compliance. These conditions could include 
actual pollution prevention activities or investigations into possible 
pollution prevention techniques that could assist the facility in 
complying with permit conditions. Discharge, emission and release 
limitations would not be considered pollution prevention conditions. 
The Regions would require the same information from delegated state, 
tribal and local agencies.

    Example: (#) and (%) of (type of permit \5\) that includes 
pollution prevention conditions (this term requires definition) in 
the permit as a means, in whole or in part, to achieve compliance 
with permit conditions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \5\ Type of Permit--Each permitting authority would individually 
define the permit universe that would be included within the 
performance or tracking measure.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Example: (#) and (%) of (type of permits) that utilize 
innovative technology (this term requires definition) to achieve 
compliance with permit conditions.

    Purpose: To determine the effectiveness of permitting programs in 
encouraging the use of pollution prevention and innovative 
technologies. If the percentage is below what a regulatory agency was 
hoping to achieve, additional analyses could be conducted to determine 
why pollution prevention approaches or innovative technologies were not 
being used to achieve permit compliance. This tracking measure should 
be reevaluated, within 1-2 years, to determine if it should be changed 
to a performance measure, with a specific goal as to the percentage of 
permits that should utilize pollution prevention techniques or 
innovative technologies to achieve compliance.

Pollution Prevention Incentives Task Force Recommendations

A. Background/Approach

    The Pollution Prevention Incentives Task Force derived its mission 
from the recommendations of the National Performance Review (NPR). The 
NPR stated that EPA should encourage pollution prevention (P2) by 
providing flexibility, creating P2 incentives in permits and compliance 
approaches, and issuing guidance on how to implement innovative 
strategies and procedures. The NPR also recommended that EPA facilitate 
permitting of innovative technologies and identify what changes are 
necessary to achieve this.
    EPA has a strong commitment to fostering pollution prevention 
because experience has shown that it is good for the environment and 
the economy alike. To implement P2 on a larger scale calls for flexible 
thinking, concrete and ambitious goal-setting, strong commitment at all 
levels of government and industry, and an innovative effort that only 
business can supply. The P2 Incentives Task Force explored these 
dynamics to help EPA improve the permitting system to encourage 
investment in P2 measures.
    The Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 establishes a hierarchy for 
environmental protection (source reduction, reuse, recycle, treat, 
store and dispose) with P2 as the preferred approach. As the hierarchy 
acknowledges, P2 approaches are not attainable in all instances. In the 
discussion that follows, many of the recommendations are relevant to 
P2, recycling, or other innovative approaches.
    Streamlined permitting may have an important role in fostering P2. 
The PIT is focusing on eliminating factors of the permitting system 
that are overly rigid, cumbersome, and time-consuming. These changes 
can free up additional resources for potential investments in P2. Yet, 
streamlined permitting might not mean more pollution prevention unless 
we also allow greater flexibility, and design incentives to encourage 
P2-based activity.
    This Task Force is emphasizing incentives for P2 because, as a 
general rule, it is in industry's interest to prevent pollution. Our 
goal is to create permitting incentives and eliminate barriers for 
industry to do what is largely in their own best interest.
    The following Task Force recommendations present approaches for 
forging the necessary connection between more efficient permitting and 
real progress in preventing pollution.

B. Task Force Recommendations

1. Link Performance-Based Permitting With Facility-Based Permitting, 
Consolidation of Permitting Requirements, and Cross-Media Permitting
    The Task Force recommends that EPA and state, tribal and local 
permitting authorities use performance-based permitting as a means of 
achieving greater flexibility. By performance-based permitting, the 
Task Force means permitting which recognizes that a standard containing 
a numeric level does not automatically dictate which technology 
facilities are to use. On the rule development side, this means writing 
standards that set numeric levels where possible and appropriate. Many 
EPA technology-based rules have in fact been written that way. This is 
because ``technology-based'' is short-hand for a rule that sets a 
standard at the numeric level at which the referenced-technology 
performs. The reference technology is determined by the type of 
standard being set, such as best demonstrated available technology.
    What is key is how ``technology-based'' rules are interpreted by 
permit writers. Often, they interpret the rules as requiring the use of 
the referenced technology. To avoid this, EPA rulemakings should 
explicitly acknowledge that permit writers are authorized to evaluate 
technologies other than the referenced technology. Flexibility is 
needed to allow facilities to use innovative approaches that prevent 
pollution and achieve greater emission reductions across media. 
Flexibility would not be allowed to compromise environmental 
protection, since the permit writer would still have to be satisfied 
that the permit applicant could meet the performance standard in 
question.

[[Page 41275]]

    It is key to recognize that permit writers are generally burdened 
with heavy case loads, and that it substantially increases their burden 
if they must regularly evaluate alternative technologies to determine 
whether they perform at a level equivalent to that of the standard's 
reference technology. Making it easier for permit writers to evaluate 
alternative technologies is a task that EPA and state, tribal and local 
permitting authorities need to address systemically. Hopefully, some of 
the specific steps provided at the end of this section will meet this 
need.
    The steps in this recommendation should provide the following 
advantages: (1) making it easier for facilities to use innovative 
technologies (often key for P2); (2) giving facilities more latitude to 
explore P2 approaches; and (3) giving facilities a greater economic 
incentive to explore P2 approaches. Looking at a facility as a whole, 
rather than a collection of individual pipes each of which needs to 
meet an individual emission level, can often provide significantly 
greater opportunities for preventing pollution and making wise 
investments that yield long-term savings.
    The Task Force recommends that EPA, state, tribal and local 
permitting authorities take steps to link performance-based permitting 
with facility-based permitting, consolidation of permitting 
requirements by industry sector, and cross-media permitting. These 
recommendations build on the Administrative Streamlining Task Force's 
recommendation for flexible permitting. It is important to note that 
the focus here is on facility-based permitting, and not company-based, 
which is a different issue.
    These steps are also in line with the alternatives being explored 
in a host of new EPA initiatives, including several priority projects 
of the Administration's program to reinvent environmental regulation. 
Project XL, and alternative strategies for industry sectors, 
communities, and federal agencies, can address a combination of 
facility-based permitting and cross-media permitting issues; 
consolidating federal air rules for the chemical industry will be a 
test case for consolidation. Demonstration projects in multi-media 
permitting, as led by the Pollution Prevention Policy Staff are 
expected to produce several multi-media P2-oriented permits in the next 
year. The Environmental Technology Initiative's (ETI's) Innovative 
Technology Permitting Program, being implemented by the Office of 
Policy, Planning and Evaluation, is currently advancing over two dozen 
projects designed to eliminate barriers to technology innovation in the 
permitting process. In addition, ETI's Environmental Technology 
Verification Program, being implemented by the Office of Research and 
Development, will soon begin providing credible performance information 
on more cost effective innovative technologies.
    Based on the foregoing, the Task Force recommends the following:
    a. The concepts of this first recommendation should be incorporated 
into CSI, Project XL, ETI, and multi-media permitting. PIT members 
should work with these initiatives to help achieve the implementation 
of these concepts.
    b. As Regional offices disinvest from oversight of state permit 
programs, they should collaborate with state, tribal, and local 
permitting authorities in assessing relevant P2 techniques, where 
appropriate.
    c. To the extent possible, subsequent EPA rulemakings should 
explicitly acknowledge that permit writers are authorized to exercise 
their judgment in establishing performance-based limitations based on 
the technology referenced in the development of the regulatory 
standard. For example, in the NPDES program, the permitting authority 
does not approve technologies. The permit writer prepares a permit 
which includes limitations and conditions, and it is up to the facility 
to determine how they will meet the permit limits.
    d. Examine what steps would be necessary to move towards 
institutionalizing some of the approaches described above in core EPA 
programs. This should be undertaken by a PIT workgroup.
    e. State permitting authorities should use the results of the 
Environmental Technology Verification Program or similar state programs 
to reduce the need for testing and indepth engineering review during 
permitting.
2. Create Industry-Sector Inventories of Regulatory Thresholds for 
Permitting
    The Task Force recommends developing a public inventory of existing 
federal regulatory thresholds for permitting requirements on an 
industry-by-industry basis. Specifying the thresholds would help 
facilities to assess the costs and benefits of going below the 
thresholds and opting out of the permitting system. The Task Force 
believes that in most instances the savings achievable by getting out 
of the permitting system would more than offset the investments needed 
to get releases below thresholds.
    Data in this inventory could serve as a reference point for 
discussions between communities and local facilities about financial 
incentives for using pollution prevention approaches. Mutual 
discussions could more easily be tied to the financial incentives for a 
facility to reduce releases to a level where permitting is reduced or 
unnecessary, and outcomes that could represent cost savings to the 
facility.
    The Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT) in EPA is 
piloting this approach for the metal finishing industry, which is 
comprised mainly of small to medium-sized businesses. Since industry 
faces federal and state regulations, OPPT will try to include key state 
regulatory requirements, too. If it appears that some opportunities for 
getting below certain thresholds bear more promise than others, EPA 
would emphasize those opportunities most likely to result in success.
    EPA recognizes that some explanation about possible permit 
variances or exemptions will be needed in an industry-sector inventory. 
In some instances, for example, emissions trading is allowed, and a 
facility may have legitimately purchased an emissions trading credit. 
EPA will need to provide sufficient explanation so that users of the 
inventory will find its data relevant and meaningful to their own 
applications.
    To be clear, the scope of an inventory will be limited to linking 
permitting thresholds with the economic incentives for getting below 
thresholds. It will not provide facility-specific information or 
health/environmental effects data.
    The Task Force's specific recommendations are:
    a. OPPT should develop a pilot inventory for an industry sector, 
such as metal finishing (this effort has already started).
    b. OECA is developing additional sector notebooks and is exploring 
the possibility of expanding the existing 18 notebooks to include 
information to assist in determining compliance costs. OECA, with 
support from the Program offices, should continue to explore the type 
and extent of compliance cost information that can and should be 
included in the sector notebooks.
3. Explore Offering Alternative Emissions Tracking in Exchange for 
Using P2 Practices
    The Task Force recommends that EPA explore whether an alternative 
emissions tracking approach could be offered in exchange for a facility 
commitment to use P2 practices to achieve compliance in whole or in 
part. Federal permitting requirements

[[Page 41276]]

generally require facilities to monitor releases (using EPA-approved 
methodology) and report this data to regulatory agencies. An 
alternative approach would be to allow a facility to use third-party 
auditors to convert its proprietary process control measurements into 
release data that would be reported to EPA as public data.
    A primary reason EPA is interested in this approach is that using 
process data encourages facilities to find opportunities for pollution 
prevention. Second, it may provide communities with significantly more 
reliable data on facility emissions in their communities. Third, there 
may be a significant economic incentive for industry to avoid the cost 
of expensive monitoring equipment.
    The recommended approach is basically an equivalent alternative to 
current monitoring requirements. (Reducing monitoring requirements is 
beyond the scope of this particular recommendation.) The Task Force 
acknowledges that EPA would need to verify P2 commitments made in 
exchange for using this alternative.
    EPA recognizes that there are some concerns about whether the 
public would have confidence in this recommended approach. One concern 
is that industry consultants might lack credibility with local 
communities. The key difference in what the Task Force is proposing is 
that industry would not pay a third-party auditor directly. The apt 
analogy is the third-party auditor system used in this country for 
accrediting laboratories. Labs pay a non-profit organization for the 
services of the third-party auditors. The auditor's sponsoring 
organization (the non-profit) has an overriding interest in maintaining 
the integrity and independence of their auditors, because a biased 
auditor reflects badly on the organization and the entire accreditation 
system.
    Third-party auditors would have to be trained and accredited by an 
accrediting organization. Among other things, they would probably need 
to be trained in knowing what kind of data to get from facilities, and 
learning the calculations to perform to convert facility process data 
into reportable emissions data. Given the great diversity of American 
industry, this may be an idea that could be piloted on an industry-
sector basis.
    The Task Force recommends the following specific steps:
    a. A PIT workgroup should consult with the project team for 
piloting third-party audits for industry compliance (one of the 
President's 25 initiatives for reinventing environmental regulation) to 
further investigate the viability of this approach.
    b. This PIT workgroup should also explore potential overlap with 
International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14000 efforts.
4. Share P2 Data With Permit Applicants and Affected Communities, and 
Give Basic P2 Training to Permit Writers
    The Task Force recommends that EPA and state, tribal and local 
permitting authorities share P2 data with permit applicants and 
affected communities, and give basic P2 training to permit writers. 
Both of these ideas would provide a way for P2 to be emphasized up-
front in the permitting process.
    Most permit writers are at the state, tribal, and local level and 
face workloads that are generally perceived as heavy. To date, their 
experience with P2 has ranged from no involvement to personal 
commitment to P2, with lack of time and knowledge often being cited as 
barriers to their promoting P2.
    Despite this perception about the difficulty permit writers face in 
promoting P2, a recent survey of permit writers in northeastern states 
conducted by the Northeast Waste Management Officials' Association 
(NEWMOA) indicates the vast majority of those surveyed wanted P2 
training. They said they wanted training in when, how, and where they 
can use P2 directly in their jobs, and under what authority they can 
act. NEWMOA is piloting a P2 training for permit writers, based on a 
review of many permits where P2 has already been incorporated. Efforts 
such as NEWMOA's could serve as a model for training in other parts of 
the country, and could be tailored according to the permitting 
authority and regional needs.
    At a minimum, permit writers could serve as a reference for 
facilities on where to turn (such as local technical assistance 
centers) for P2 information. It is key that they have a baseline of 
information about P2 concepts and appreciate the value of sharing P2 
data with facilities. Training could most effectively be offered at the 
state and EPA regional level. EPA, in consultation with states, tribes 
and local permitting authorities, should evaluate whether P2 reference 
materials need to be developed and sent to permit applicants and made 
available to the public.
    The Task Force recommends that pollution prevention be made part of 
the core training for permit writers being advocated by the PIT 
Training Task Force. Stakeholders have suggested that P2 training 
should also be given to enforcement and regulatory personnel.
5. Develop Permit Conditions To Accommodate the Possibility That 
Innovative/P2 Technologies May Not Perform as Expected or May Take 
Longer To Achieve Compliance
    The PIT recommends that permit writers across all media programs be 
encouraged to work with the regulated community to incorporate 
innovative/P2 technologies within the terms and conditions of the 
permit. The PIT recognizes that innovation may result in a longer 
compliance schedule as compared with traditional permit options. 
However, carefully constructed compliance schedules could assist 
members of the regulated community to accurately assess their 
compliance obligations. The permit could also include a fall-back 
position, specifying future actions, if the innovative/P2 technology 
does not meet permit limits. As the terms of the permit are those which 
are legally enforceable, and given the permit-as-a-shield doctrine, the 
notion of enforcement as a barrier to innovative/P2 technologies should 
be alleviated.
6. In All General Permits and Permits-by-Rule, Include Language That 
Explains the Preference for Using P2 Approaches and the Potential 
Economic Benefits of P2
    The Task Force recommends that EPA and state, tribal and local 
permitting authorities incorporate language in all general permits and 
permits-by-rule that explains the environmental management hierarchy 
(source reduction, reuse, recycle, treat, store and dispose), the 
preference for using P2 to achieve compliance, and the potential 
economic benefits associated with P2. If there are differences between 
EPA's and a state, tribal or local permitting authorities' hierarchy, 
the permitting authority could list both.
    Individual permits are not included in this recommendation because 
it is recognized that, in these cases, major opportunities for P2 can 
be identified while the permit conditions are being developed--before 
permit issuance. Therefore, for individual permits, it would be better 
to put this type of language up-front in the process, such as in permit 
call-in letters or model permit applications used in the RCRA program. 
Also, implementing recommendation 4 would encourage including P2 up-
front in the process of preparing individual permits.
    It is recommended that a PIT workgroup develop sample language and 
make it available for distribution through core training sessions for 
permit writers. The workgroup should include

[[Page 41277]]

permit writers from the Regions and state, tribal and local permitting 
agencies.

Training Task Force

Recommendations

Background

    The National Performance Review Team for Permit Streamlining 
identified training for permit professionals as a priority. Their 
specific recommendation included the following suggestions: establish 
an EPA Permits Institute, require State/Federal permit professionals to 
complete core curriculum, review permit organizational staffing for 
appropriate skills mix and provide financial/other incentives and 
awards to permit professionals. In addition to these specific 
proposals, training was also highlighted under the category of 
``Increasing Access to Permitting Information.'' Suggestions under this 
category discussed training for the public and applicants. Specific 
recommendations included: draft clear, understandable guidance manuals 
for states, tribes, local authorities, applicants and the general 
public; and hold periodic training workshops in conjunction with state 
associations, trade associations and citizens' groups. The PITs 
Training Task Force chose to address training broadly to include the 
regulated community, public and permit professionals.

Overview

    Effective environmental permitting relies upon effective 
transmittal and use of information by all interested parties. State, 
tribal, local and EPA permit writers need information of the specific 
characteristics of the facilities being permitted, and need knowledge 
of the applicable statutes and regulations. The regulated community 
also needs information, in particular of the permitting process and how 
regulators use their information. Citizens and environmental groups 
also need to know the permitting process in order to effectively 
participate in the permitting process.
    The lack of information leads to several problems. Delays in 
completing permits occur if permittees and citizens do not understand 
the permitting process and use the appeals process to delay issuance 
until they are satisfied they fully understand all provisions of the 
permit, including how each provision was developed. Inconsistencies 
between permits, that should be similar, occur if permit writers do not 
understand the basis and reason of the underlying regulations or do not 
know of applicable guidance.

Recommendations

    In order to provide the necessary information to EPA, state, tribal 
and local permit writers, the regulated community, and citizens and 
environmental groups, the Task Force recommends four actions.
    1. Provide information to the regulated community and others. The 
Task Force recommends that EPA national Program offices use a series of 
informational tools to educate permittees and citizens about the permit 
process. Specific tools to be used or developed are:
    a. Using the Internet, trade associations and small business 
development centers to announce training opportunities and distribute 
training materials. The announcement should include an explanation of 
the contents of the training. Program offices should also coordinate to 
standardize and post these announcements and develop and implement a 
program to educate the public on the permitting process using tools 
such as: press releases, infomercials, radio/TV announcements and 
commercials.
    b. Development of a generic fact sheet which summarizes a new 
permitting project in plain English and may be used as a tool to 
explain to interested parties the permitting action. The Program 
offices should coordinate in the development of these fact sheets to 
achieve as much consistency in format and information provided as 
possible. After the generic fact sheet is developed, all permitting 
authorities should prepare a fact sheet, following the model, as part 
of the permitting process.
    c. Develop a clearinghouse of existing model permitting 
applications and instructions (this should be accomplished in 
cooperation with state, tribal, and local associations). In addition, 
the Program offices should request the permitting authorities, 
especially if EPA, to use ``plain English'' instructions with 
application forms and to include a single point of contact (see 
Administrative Streamlining Task Force report).
    2. Provide information on every new significant 6 rule. The 
Task Force recommends the development and use of a series of 
informational tools to educate Regional, state, tribal, and local 
permitting authorities, permittees, and citizens about the requirements 
and reasons for new rules. Specific actions are:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \6\  A significant permitting rule should be determined by 
considering its environmental impacts, community concerns, and/or 
complexity of the regulated facilities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    a. Program offices should prepare, as part of regulatory 
development for significant rules, a package of information which 
explains the new requirements, including information about permitting 
and any implementing guidance. The information package should contain 
materials targeted to different audiences, the regulated community, the 
permitting authorities and the public and provide contacts for 
additional information. This package of information must be available 
at the time of promulgation (e.g., via Internet). Include in the 
Federal Register information about the availability of this material.
    b. A PIT workgroup (including representatives from program offices) 
should develop a standardized fact sheet format to be used with each 
new significant rule. Once developed, the Program offices should use 
this format for transmitting information about each new significant 
rule either electronically (e.g., Internet) and/or via mailing lists.
    3. Define and provide training on core skills and knowledge needed 
to issue permits. The Task Force has developed the core skills and 
knowledge that are recommended for permit writers to be effective in 
their jobs. The Task Force recommends that the Administrator endorse a 
training program for permit writers, including the core curriculum for 
permit writers (listed below). This will require the commitment of 
resources to develop the training and travel funds to attend the 
training. A PIT workgroup (comprised of representatives from each 
Program office) should take the lead in designing the training program. 
States, tribes, and local permitting authorities should participate on 
the workgroup. Each Program office also needs to identify the 
additional media specific knowledge which would be necessary for that 
program. All training should be made available to interested parties, 
both internal and external to EPA. Examples of these core skills and 
knowledge include:

 the need and purpose of permits,
 factors that comprise an enforceable permit,
 applicable parts of the environmental statutes,
 when a permit application is complete,
 pollution prevention and innovative technology,
 waste management hierarchy,
 development of permit conditions,
 public speaking and communicating with different audiences,

[[Page 41278]]

 technical writing,
 sensitivity (understanding needs of stakeholders),
 environmental justice,
 holistic view of permitting--multi-media/coordination of 
permits, and
 training on the new permitting approach (if adopted).

    4. Store and provide critical knowledge. The Task Force has 
identified a series of tools to better provide written guidance and 
accumulated permitting office experience to Regions, states, tribes, 
local authorities, permittees, and citizens. The Task Force recommends 
that the national Program offices develop these tools and make them 
available as needed. These tools are:
    a. Provide electronically (Internet) an index and synopsis of 
guidance documents. For Example, the Office of Solid Waste has the RCRA 
Permit Policy Compendium which contains guidance on important RCRA 
permit policies and procedures. It is updated annually and is available 
electronically through the Internet.
    b. Creation of EPA subject-based work groups, for example to 
coordinate issuance of combustion permits between the Air, RCRA and 
TSCA programs. To assist in the development of the subject based work 
groups, the Regions should establish regional multi-media permit 
coordination work groups. These specific work groups should focus on 
implementing more organized permit ``quality control'' (e.g., 
collecting, storing and disseminating EPA, state, tribal, local 
agencies, and permit writers appeal issues (major and minor) and/or 
other issues that have an impact on the effectiveness and 
enforceability of permits). CSI is exploring this and other options to 
streamline and improve environmental permitting.
    c. Establishing quasi-independent permit review teams to assure the 
issuance of quality permits. The review teams may consist of 
representatives from the above-mentioned, subject-based work groups. 
The review teams would evaluate significant permitting actions 7 
to assure all aspects of the permitting process were addressed 
(environmental justice, pollution prevention, public notice/hearing, 
and understandable compliance terms). In FY-96, the permit review team 
and a state volunteer should conduct a pilot to assess the 
effectiveness of the permit review team.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \7\ A significant permitting action should be determined by 
considering the environmental impacts, community concerns, and/or 
complexity of the facility being permitted.

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[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TN07AU96.005


[FR Doc. 96-19962 Filed 8-6-96; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6560-50-C