Compliance FY 2023 Annual Results

EPA promotes the use of the full range of compliance and enforcement tools to advance compliance goals: 

Inspections  

Inspections are critical to uncovering violations of environmental laws, and they are also an important means for EPA to establish a visible presence among regulated entities that operate in, or impact overburdened or vulnerable communities. Increasing federal inspections of facilities that affect communities with potential environmental justice (EJ) concerns is a cornerstone of the  Progress Report on Incorporating Environmental Justice into Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Work (pdf) (230.07 KB)

EPA set a fiscal year (FY) 2022 national goal to increase the number of inspections in overburdened communities to 45% of the total number of inspections. In FY 2023, the Agency performed over 7,700 inspections, with over 4,600 inspections, or 60%, in communities with potential EJ concern, which is up from 57% in FY 2022. 

Smart Mobile Tools for Field Inspectors (Smart Tools)

EPA continued to expand its electronic inspection software, or the Smart Tools application, to increase the efficiency of compliance monitoring activities in the field. Smart Tools is now used with Resource Conservation and Recovery Act Hazardous Waste and Underground Storage Tank inspections, Clean Water Act/National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System inspections, and Federal Insecticide Fungicide Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) Good Laboratory Practice data audits and inspections. Smart Tools is being developed for the 112(r) Accidental Release Prevention/Risk Management Plan program and Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Lead-based Paint program and are planned to be implemented in FY 2024. 

Compliance Advisors for Sustainable Water Systems

Compliance Advisors assisted and trained approximately 195 drinking water systems and 51 wastewater treatment facilities, 84% of which were in communities with potential EJ concern. Advisors are now supporting approximately 293 systems in total – 61 of which are wastewater systems and 232 of which are drinking water systems. Approximately 84% of systems are in overburdened or underserved communities. Since the start of the project, more than 1,000 technical assistance products such as standard operating procedures, manuals, plans, and other tools have been provided to systems to help them return to compliance. Compliance Advisors have completed work at 24 wastewater systems and 130 drinking water systems. 

Compliance Assistance Polychlorinated Biphenyl (PCB) Safe Handling (CAPSH) Program

Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) are regulated under TSCA § 6(e) and related regulations found at 40 CFR Part 761. In 1979, PCBs were banned from manufacture in the United States. However, some products and equipment that used PCBs were allowed to continue to use them, such as electrical transformers, coatings and pigments. EPA’s CAPSH program helps fortify the PCB inspection capacity and address serious PCB compliance issues. The advisors provide technical assistance to PCB treatment, storage, and disposal facilities located across the US with little or no existing PCB compliance monitoring.  

In 2023, the CAPSH compliance advisors visited 11 sites, most of which had not been visited in over 10 years. The program is designed to help individual facilities confirm compliance or come into compliance, if needed; identify trends that may warrant coordinated outreach to the industry sector; improve national consistency; and inform EPA’s enforcement and compliance PCB coordinators of important issues related to approvals, akin to permits, of application conditions.  

Evidence-Based Compliance Assurance

EPA continues to build a foundation for a national evidence-based enforcement and compliance assurance program designed to strengthen the Agency’s enforcement programs.  The foundation is made up of three elements that together will provide the framework for a state/tribal/EPA partnership to support the evolution of an innovative and effective compliance assurance program.   

The three areas are:  

  • Customer-focused, evidence-based inspection and enforcement targeting.  

  • EPA’s implementation of the Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018 (Evidence Act) via the Drinking Water Systems Out of Compliance priority area of the EPA Learning Agenda.; and  

  • The Compliance Learning Agenda – identifying the most pressing programmatic questions and establishing an evaluation plan, partnering with states, Tribes, and academics on a series of evidence-building research projects designed to answer those questions. The first two priority areas identified are Offsite Compliance Monitoring and Root Causes of Municipal Noncompliance.  

Training Today for a Better Tomorrow-FY 2023 Accomplishments 

In FY23, EPA’s enforcement and compliance program offices continued to invest in training and successfully delivered over 200 trainings, reaching close to 22,500 EPA staff and external environmental professionals such as state co-regulators. Training events included: 

  • Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) Analytic Tool webinars,  
  • Technical assistance webinars aimed at improving surface water quality and reducing potential impacts on drinking water by assuring Clean Water Act National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permittees are complying with their wastewater discharge permits.  
  • Benzene Fenceline Monitoring Dashboard tutorials.  
  • Week-long CAA, CWA, and FIFRA hands-on inspector training. 
  • Financial and penalty training. 
  • National symposium on Improving Small Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plant Compliance. 
  • Cleanup enforcement trainings included the Superfund new attorney training, owner/operator liability, and RCRA cleanup enforcement resources.  

These in-person, hybrid, and virtual events strengthened the workforce by providing information and building capacity to support Agency staff and external partners as they protect communities and advance environmental protection.  

Compliance Advisories and Enforcement Alerts

EPA uses a variety of methods to engage and communicate information with stakeholders. This includes compliance assistance tools to provide information needed by regulated entities and stakeholders that helps explain the steps they needed to take to comply with and understand environmental regulations related to their sector or industry. Compliance assistance is provided through both Compliance Advisories and Enforcement Alerts that address select provisions of EPA’s regulatory requirements using plain language. 

In FY 2023, EPA’s enforcement compliance programs issued six advisory or alert documents addressing noncompliance concerns with Clean Water Act discharge permits, pesticides devices, and federal facilities. Access to final compliance advisories and alerts are available on the Agency’s website.  

Compliance Assistance Centers

EPA compliance program continues to manage 17 sector-specific, web-based Compliance Assistance Centers (Centers) that help businesses, local governments, and federal facilities understand their sector-specific and multi-media environmental obligations and save money through suggested pollution prevention techniques.  

The Centers help the regulated community find compliance information that relates directly to the operations of their business or agency. The Centers also link to state-specific resource locators and offer one-on-one technical assistance to help organizations address environmental compliance issues by answering inquiries by email and phone. As of September 2023, the Centers have supported approximately 2.5 million user sessions this year. As part of the Centers’ broad portfolio, EPA also works with organizations such as the Environmental Law Institute on webinars and podcasts to the Local Government Environmental Assistance Network (LGEAN). Recent examples include: 

  • Sensing a Change in the Air: How Local Governments Can Respond and Adapt to Shifts in air Quality Monitoring Technology 
  • Defending our Water Infrastructure: Creating a Cybersecurity Culture in Small Community Water and Wastewater Systems 
  • Toxics in the Community: Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) for Local and Tribal Governments 
  • Youth Climate Action: How Local Governments Can Learn from Generation Z (Webinar) 
  • Climate and the Community: Centering Equity in Vulnerability Assessments  
  • Meeting Stormwater Compliance Objectives with Green Infrastructure 

Voluntary Disclosures

The EPA Audit Policy, formally titled “Incentives for Self- Policing: Discovery, Disclosure, Correction and Prevention of Violations,” safeguards human health and the environment by providing incentives for regulated entities to voluntarily discover, fix, and disclose violations of federal environmental laws and regulations.  In FY23, EPA’s enforcement and compliance program received 599 voluntary self-disclosures and/or new owner audit agreements covering 878 facilities. 

Enforcement

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Last updated on December 18, 2023