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 1996-03-20 monographic deposited born digital 27 p. GA 1.13:RCED-96-23 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-RCED-96-23 P0b002ee180383f4d f:rc96023 DGPO 2010-08-12 2011-03-24 GAOREPORTS-RCED-96-23 machine generated eng fdlp REPORT GAOREPORTS-RCED-96-23 RCED-96-23 Fines (penalties) Noncompliance Environmental monitoring Water pollution control Wastewater treatment Industrial wastes Environmental policies Licenses Law enforcement Federal/state relations EPA Permit Compliance System EPA National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System NPDES New Hampshire New Mexico Oklahoma Texas Letter Report RCED

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) progress in ensuring that facilities comply with federal pollutant discharge requirements, focusing on: (1) the frequency of facilities' violations; (2) the limitations of EPA systems and the effects of these limitations; and (3) EPA plans to correct these facilities.<p/>GAO found that EPA: (1) compliance data for FY 1994 show that 1 in 6 of the nation's 7,053 major regulated facilities have significantly violated the discharge limits in their permits; (2) considers facilities to be in significant noncompliance of their discharge levels when discharged pollutants exceed permit limits by 20 percent or more in a 2-to-6 month period; (3) is unable to identify all of the facilities that violate their discharge limits because the criteria it uses to screen facilities have not remained consistent with the types of discharge limits used in permits; (4) has expanded its criteria for identifying cases of significant noncompliance and assigning priorities of enforcement action in order to identify major facilities that have violated discharge levels in the past; and (5) assessed penalties of about $25 million in 323 cases of Clean Water Act violations in 1994, and its studies indicate that very few penalties are assessed for significant violations of daily maximum discharge limits. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-RCED-96-23/html/GAOREPORTS-RCED-96-23.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-RCED-96-23/pdf/GAOREPORTS-RCED-96-23.pdf GAO/RCED-96-23 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-RCED-96-23 Letter Report GAO/RCED-96-23; Water Pollution: Many Violations Have Not Received Appropriate Enforcement Attention; Fines (penalties) Noncompliance Environmental monitoring Water pollution control Wastewater treatment Industrial wastes Environmental policies Licenses Law enforcement Federal/state relations EPA Permit Compliance System EPA National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System NPDES New Hampshire New Mexico Oklahoma Texas Title 33 Section 1251-1387 33 U.S.C. 1251-1387