[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]


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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.

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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