Last year, EPA Region III trumpeted enforcement success stories, including an administrative compliance order issued under the Clean Air Act to the owners of a Philadelphia building who were improperly and unsafely demolishing asbestos-containing materials, and a settlement with a Virginia chemical manufacturer who agreed to pay a penalty and make significant safety upgrades at the facility to settle alleged violations for, among other things, failure to submit documentation to state, county and local officials about the facility’s numerous hazardous chemicals. These actions were made possible by the efforts of the Clean Air Act asbestos emissions and the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) enforcement programs. Next year, however, these programs are not likely to repeat similar successes, as the EPA has determined that they, along with numerous other enforcement programs, will be significantly reduced or eliminated in 2013.
The EPA’s budget for fiscal year 2013 is not yet finalized, but the agency is already making plans for what will surely be a reduced sum from last year. On Feb. 10, the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) released its Draft National Program Manager Guidance, in which it sets out priority enforcement areas for the following year, as well as areas in which the agency plans to reduce the amount of resources spent. For these areas of reduction, the guidance uses the terms “reduced emphasis” or “disinvestment.” A March 16 memo by an OECA deputy assistant administrator referred to “areas of proposed budget adjustment.” Whatever the term used to describe these cutbacks, the outcome means less federal enforcement in many areas in which the EPA has long had a significant presence. Such cutbacks will have an impact not just on the EPA, but on states, local governments, regulated industries and the public.
