[Federal Register Volume 65, Number 105 (Wednesday, May 31, 2000)]
[Notices]
[Page 34704]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 00-13559]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
[FRL-6707-1]
Internet Availability of Evaluation Report on the Sector Facility
Indexing Project and SFIP's Future Expansion
AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency.
ACTION: Notice of availability of evaluation report and future
expansion of the SFIP.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is announcing the
Internet availability of an evaluation report on the Sector Facility
Indexing Project (SFIP). Based upon the evaluation results, the EPA is
also announcing the future expansion of the SFIP. The EPA is now
working to add to the project a subset of federal facilities. The SFIP
is a community-right-to-know and data integration project that
currently provides environmental performance data for facilities within
five industry sectors. The industry sectors currently profiled within
the SFIP are automobile assembly; petroleum refining; pulp
manufacturing; iron and steel; and primary smelting and refining of
aluminum, copper, lead, and zinc (nonferrous metals). On May 1, 1998,
the EPA released the Internet website containing the SFIP data. (See 63
FR 27281, May 18, 1998). The SFIP website is designed as an interactive
tool that allows users to customize the information and delve into
greater detail to look at information that is too voluminous to include
in a hard copy report.
DATES: The SFIP evaluation report is currently available to the public
on the Internet. A limited number of hard copies of the report are also
now available. EPA's goal is to have the expansion to federal
facilities completed and available on the website later this year.
ADDRESSES: The SFIP's data and the evaluation report on the project may
be accessed electronically via the Internet at the following address:
http://www.epa.gov/oeca/sfi. Requests for a hard copy of the evaluation
report may be sent to: SFIP, 55 Wheeler Street, Cambridge, MA 02138.
Requests may also be made to the SFIP telephone hotline at: (617) 520-
3015.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Robert Lischinsky, U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency, Office of Compliance (2223-A), 1200 Pennsylvania
Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20460; telephone: (202) 564-2628, fax:
(202)564-0050; e-mail: [email protected]
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: When EPA launched the SFIP website
(www.epa.gov/oeca/sfi) in May 1998, the Agency was committed to
monitoring and evaluating the progress of this project. Specifically,
we wanted to look at SFIP's success in meeting the two goals of
providing greater public access to accurate compliance and facility-
level information, as well as improving multimedia facility profiling
and sector-based analysis.
For the evaluation, EPA obtained input from user groups both inside
and outside the Agency, including the EPA Regions, States, industry,
environmental groups, and trade associations. The results have been
positive. Extensively used, SFIP has enhanced public access to and
knowledge of the environmental performance of individual, regulated
facilities. The project has improved multimedia facility profiling;
provided useful data in a ``user-friendly'' website; improved data
quality in underlying databases; and served as an incentive to achieve
and maintain compliance.
The evaluation also identified widespread interest for an expansion
of SFIP that would build upon its success and make the project an even
more valuable analytical tool. Thus, EPA is announcing that the SFIP
will be expanding to include a subset of federal facilities. This
expansion will encourage greater accountability on the part of federal
facilities, and will allow the public to obtain important environmental
information about these facilities located in their communities. EPA is
working to arrive at a subset of the federal facility universe that is
both manageable and provides useful information. Our goal is to have
the expansion to federal facilities completed later this year.
As SFIP expands, we will ensure that we maintain the public's
confidence in the integrity of the data. Once again Regions, States and
the affected facilities will be given the opportunity to review the
data and resolve any data quality issues through a coordinated EPA/
State effort prior to release.
Dated: May 17, 2000.
Mamie R. Miller,
Chief, Manufacturing Branch, Manufacturing, Energy & Transportation
Division, Office of Compliance.
[FR Doc. 00-13559 Filed 5-30-00; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6560-50-P