Why States Adopt ERP
Resource
constraints increasingly confronting most environmental agencies—often in core
regulatory programs—are driving states to seek more efficient and sustainable
approaches that integrate traditional tools and other strategies.
Available
evidence suggests that, for small-business sectors, ERP achieves performance on
par with traditional compliance assurance approaches, but can require a
substantially smaller commitment of state regulatory resources over the long
term. (We suspect that it will be an
efficient regulatory approach for large facilities as well.) In addition, states have found that ERP
provides:
-
Improved
facility accountability that may
reduce the need for resource-intensive enforcement actions over the long
term.
-
Better
information for the public and
other stakeholders on how well regulators are doing in fostering
environmental compliance and performance in target sectors.
-
Clearer
explanations for facilities
about
what they must do to comply with the law.
-
A level
playing field for all facilities
in the sector.
-
Measurable environmental improvements in
disadvantaged neighborhoods that face multiple environmental and public
health threats.
-
Data on individual facility and sector-wide
performance
that help states
target their resources in a cost-effective way.
EPA has provided
support to ERP states through technical assistance, $2.9 million in startup
grant funding, and in some cases, the flexibility to use resources that might
otherwise be dedicated to more traditional oversight programs.
EPA has actively supported the diffusion of ERP
across states since EPA’s Innovation Action Council (IAC) endorsed the approach
for “scale up” in 2000. In making its decision, the IAC considered at least
three factors: documented evidence of performance improvements in
Massachusetts’ first years of ERP; a favorable evaluation of the initiative by
the National
Academy of Public Administration; and the significant, cumulative environmental
threat that can be posed by large groups of small pollution sources, such as in
many of the sectors where ERP is now being applied.
For additional information, please consult: