United States Government Publishing Office publisher pbl distributor dst United States Government Accountability Office Resources, Community, and Economic Development Division author aut Government Organization text government publication eng GAOREPORTS Legislative Agency Publications gao legislative 2010-08-12 U.S. Government Printing Office 2000-08-31 monographic deposited born digital 32 p. GA 1.13:RCED-00-224 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-RCED-00-224 P0b002ee180393e89 f:rc00224 DGPO 2010-08-12 2011-03-24 GAOREPORTS-RCED-00-224 machine generated eng fdlp REPORT GAOREPORTS-RCED-00-224 RCED-00-224 Environmental law Waste management Environmental policies Industrial wastes Pollution control Federal/state relations Hazardous substances Waste disposal EPA RCRA Corrective Action Program Superfund Program Other Written Product RCED Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) efforts to remove barriers to hazardous waste cleanup, focusing on: (1) cleanups of remediation waste at sites subject to the three Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) requirements; and (2) the management factors that had slowed the pace of cleanups under the corrective action program in particular.<p/>GAO noted that: (1) several actions EPA has taken to revise its regulatory requirements for handling remediation waste have removed some barriers to cleanups; (2) in response to GAO's 1997 recommendation that EPA better inform cleanup managers of the existing options that could exempt remediation waste from the RCRA requirements, EPA, in October 1998, issued a memorandum on these options; (3) state cleanup program managers reported that their staff are now using these options to accomplish more site cleanups; (4) EPA issued new regulations governing the management of remediation waste that provided some relief from the barriers the three RCRA requirements posed, especially more flexible treatment requirements for soil; (5) the state and industry cleanup program managers believed that some portions of the new rules would help promote cleanups; (6) in February 2000, EPA settled a lawsuit in which groups had charged that a proposed 1993 rule providing flexibility under the RCRA requirements for certain on-site storage and disposal units for remediation waste did not sufficiently protect human health; (7) EPA agreed to amend the 1993 rule so that certain wastes would still be subject to somewhat more stringent requirements; (8) according to state and industry officials, EPA's agreement will reduce the flexibility that the 1993 rule allowed for cost-effective cleanups and will thus deter some cleanups; (9) on the other hand, EPA officials believe that these cleanups may increase now that the legal uncertainty surrounding on-site storage units has been removed; (10) the state, industry, and environmental officials differed as to whether any legislative changes were necessary to address any remaining cleanup barriers that EPA was unable to address through its regulatory actions; (11) EPA does not have a position on whether legislative changes are warranted; (12) in 1999, EPA implemented a set of administrative reforms that address several of the management factors GAO previously identified as slowing the pace of corrective action cleanups; and (13) the reforms include: (a) issuing new guidance on a more flexible process for selecting and implementing cleanup method and providing cleanup managers training on this guidance, an action GAO had recommended in GAO's 1997 report; and (b) establishing new goals under the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 to control human exposure to contamination and the migration of contaminated groundwater at "high-priority" facilities by 2005. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-RCED-00-224/html/GAOREPORTS-RCED-00-224.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-RCED-00-224/pdf/GAOREPORTS-RCED-00-224.pdf GAO/RCED-00-224 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-RCED-00-224 Other Written Product GAO/RCED-00-224; Hazardous Waste: EPA Has Removed Some Barriers to Cleanups; Environmental law Waste management Environmental policies Industrial wastes Pollution control Federal/state relations Hazardous substances Waste disposal EPA RCRA Corrective Action Program Superfund Program