[Federal Register Volume 64, Number 51 (Wednesday, March 17, 1999)]
[Notices]
[Pages 13187-13189]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 99-6513]


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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

[FRL-6311-4]


Formation of a Task Force on Innovative Approaches to 
Environmental Protection and a Public Meeting on draft recommendations 
for innovative actions by the Agency

AGENCY: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ACTION: Notice of formation of the Task Force on Innovative Approaches 
to Environmental Protection and notice of a public meeting on draft 
recommendations for innovative actions by the Environmental Protection 
Agency.

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SUMMARY: On January 28, 1999, Administrator Browner formed a Task Force 
on Innovative Approaches to Environmental Protection to assess the 
Agency's progress on reinvention activities designed to achieve 
improved environmental protection at lower cost, with greater 
efficiency, and with less burden on the regulated community. The Task 
Force will review the effectiveness of innovative activities designed 
to achieve compliance with environmental requirements and to encourage 
broader environmental stewardship. The Task Force will submit 
recommendations to the Administrator on May 15, 1999 that include 
practical actions that can be implemented over the next 12 to 18 months 
to further our progress toward compliance and stewardship. Involvement 
from EPA's State partners, the regulated community, the environmental 
community and the public, as well as EPA staff will be essential to 
identifying the best opportunities for successful action with the 
greatest environmental benefit. In order to obtain this input, EPA 
program offices and regional offices are holding a series of focus 
group sessions to develop a broad range of ideas. In addition, input 
received in recent stakeholder meetings conducted by the Office of 
Enforcement and Compliance Assistance will be integrated into the input 
that the Task Force considers in developing draft recommendations for 
public comment, before preparing final recommendations to submit to the 
Administrator. There are two opportunities for comment in this process. 
The Office of Reinvention has established a web site at http://
www.epa.gov/reinvent/taskforce. Users may provide comment directly at 
the web site with initial suggestions as well as comments on draft 
recommendations when they are available. The Office of

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Reinvention is also convening a one-day public meeting of stakeholders 
and State Partners to discuss draft recommendations, with a time 
allotted for public comments.

DATES: The public meeting will be on April 15, 1999 from 9 AM until 
4:30 PM in room 6208 of the Ariel Rios Building, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave. 
NW, Washington, DC 20004. The Ariel Rios Building is located at the 
Federal Triangle Metro stop. If you plan to attend, please inform one 
of the contacts listed below, as seating is limited.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Cynthia Nolt (telephone 202-260-9642) 
or Patricia Cohn (202-260-9643) of the Office of Reinvention (MC1801), 
U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, 401 M St. SW, Washington, DC 
20460. Also see http://www.epa.gov/reinvent/taskforce.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Scope and Objectives of the Innovations Task 
Force: EPA's leadership, at the direction of Vice President Gore and 
with the support of the National Partnership for Reinventing Government 
(NPR), has formed the Task Force on Innovative Approaches to 
Environmental Protection to take stock of EPA's reinvention work and 
find new approaches to improve environmental compliance and 
performance. The Task Force is charged with developing a set of 
proposals that can be promptly implemented to improve or expand the 
Agency's reinvention activities with input from employees, EPA's state 
partners and stakeholders.
    Innovative efforts are underway in all parts of EPA--the media-
based program offices, the regional offices, and the cross-cutting 
offices--and state environmental programs. Through various reinvention 
initiatives, the Agency has streamlined regulatory requirements, tested 
innovative regulatory approaches through programs such as Project XL 
and the Common Sense Initiative, initiated voluntary programs to 
encourage environmental improvement, and launched new programs and 
policies to assist businesses in complying with environmental laws.
    It is now time to take stock of these efforts: to identify ``what's 
working'' and to integrate successful approaches more broadly into day-
to-day operations. The task force will look for specific, concrete and 
readily implementable ideas, focusing on innovative ways to:
     achieve the baseline of regulatory compliance, and
     encourage environmental improvements beyond that baseline.
    The Task Force is soliciting feedback on these topics from EPA 
staff, state partners and external stakeholders in March and April 
1999. The task force, chaired by Deputy Administrator Peter Robertson, 
will submit its final report to the Administrator by May 15.

Key Issues and Questions

I. Achieving the Compliance Baseline.

    Full compliance with environmental laws is the baseline standard of 
environmental performance. A wide variety of EPA activities, in 
addition to enforcement actions, address this issue. These activities 
include:
    1. New approaches in regulatory requirements. EPA is testing 
regulatory approaches that establish clear standards, while providing 
flexibility in how those standards are achieved. In one program, the 
Agency has consolidated scattered rules that apply to a single industry 
into a clearer and more understandable package. We are also writing new 
regulations in ``plain language'' to reduce confusion about what is 
expected of regulated parties. These efforts should promote improved 
compliance. Are there additional steps that EPA can take to make 
regulatory requirements easier to understand and comply with?
    2. Results-oriented permitting and reporting. Unnecessarily 
complicated permit conditions and reporting requirements can be sources 
of non-compliance. EPA has carried out a number of pilots to test 
simplified or consolidated environmental reporting and has experimented 
with many approaches for getting better results from permits, such as 
watershed trading. Can EPA use this experience to make broader changes 
that will reduce the frequency of non-compliance associated with 
complex permit and reporting requirements?
    3. Compliance assistance. EPA and other regulators are using a 
number of innovative approaches to help regulated parties comply, 
ranging from compliance assistance centers, to compliance manuals, to 
onsite technical assistance and hotlines. Should EPA expand the use of 
these strategies? What is EPA's role versus the role of state agencies 
in providing compliance assistance? Based on the experience of the past 
five years, are there ways that compliance assistance strategies can be 
adjusted to get the maximum benefit? Are there new strategies that 
should be adopted?

II. Encouraging Environmental Stewardship:

    The work of the the Task Force also includes identifying incentives 
to stimulate environmentally beneficial behavior beyond what is legally 
required. Included in this effort may be reductions in emissions below 
the levels required by regulations and permits, helping to solve 
environmental problems that are not regulated by EPA, such as energy or 
water use, or actions which support broadly desirable goals such as 
sustainability. There are an increasing number of companies and 
communities which are demonstrating leadership through pollution 
prevention, product stewardship, providing others with guidance about 
environmental responsibilities, and developing other creative ways to 
achieve environmental results.
    1. Encouraging top performance. Some companies consistently perform 
well above required levels environmentally--not only meeting the 
compliance baseline, but going well beyond it in addressing 
environmental issues. Is EPA doing enough to reward and encourage this 
kind of outstanding environmental performance? What specific 
opportunities are there to employ other incentive approaches to promote 
these objectives? What types of incentives are likely to be most 
effective?
    2. Encouraging voluntary improvements. An increasing number of 
companies are interested in improving their environmental performance 
beyond minimum regulatory requirements--e.g., by participating in 
targeted voluntary programs. Similarly, communities are working to 
solve local environmental problems such as habitat loss, traffic 
congestion, and loss of open space. There is widespread interest in 
actions individuals can take to reduce their impact on the environment. 
Are there additional steps EPA should be taking to encourage 
improvement by these parties? Are there unaddressed problems, or 
problems not fully addressed by regulatory approaches, that present 
promising opportunities for using voluntary approaches? Is there a 
particular industry or set of pollution sources that presents 
opportunities? Should EPA develop more comprehensive strategies for 
encouraging continuous improvement by companies and communities?
    3. Integrating environmental and business decisions. New business 
tools have been developed that incorporate environmental considerations 
into traditional business systems. For example, some companies now use

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robust accounting systems that track environmental costs and benefits 
thereby providing information necessary for the organization to achieve 
greater economic efficiencies and improved environmental performance. 
Are there additional opportunities to accelerate the adoption of these 
new practices in related areas such as capital budgeting, design, 
materials management, underwriting, and finance?

    Dated: March 11, 1999.
Jay Benforado,
Acting Associate Administrator, Office of Reinvention.
[FR Doc. 99-6513 Filed 3-16-99; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6560-50-P