United States Environmental Protection Agency Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance

1. United States Environmental Protection AgencyOffice of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Office of Civil Enforcement Apple Chapman Associate Director, Air Enforcement Division Chapman.Apple@epa.gov

2. EPA has 10 Regional offices that support and collaborate with all 50 states and 566 Tribes

3. Mission of the Office of Civil Enforcement • Our mission is to protect human health and the environment through enforcement of the nation’s environmental laws. • 145 Employees (attorneys, engineers, scientists, analysts)

4. What We Do • Develop and prosecute environmental enforcement cases. • Initiate and manage national, multi-regional and multi-media (air, water, waste, etc.) cases against large companies. • Provide legal and technical support and direction to the regions and states on cases and investigations (e.g., develop strategy, assist in penalty and pollution reduction calculations, provide input on installation of pollution controls).

5. What We Do (continued) • Set and manage national enforcement priorities. • Develop national enforcement policy and guidance. • Participate in drafting environmental standards to ensure that they are enforceable. • Monitoring (CEMS, other direct monitoring) • Record Keeping • Reporting (electronic reporting)

6. How We Accomplish Our Mission • Take enforcement actions to address the nation’s biggest environmental problems, leading to significant environmental benefits. • Deterrence • Enforcement Alerts • EPA’s enforcement actions over past 5 years: • Required companies to invest more than $44 billion in pollution control equipment. • Obtained estimated pollution reduction commitments of 7.8 billion pounds.

7. Office of Civil Enforcement:Challenges • Ensuring effective enforcement against the most significant environmental problems in the face of limited resources. • Maintaining a collaborative relationship with states and tribes while asserting an appropriate Federal role for enforcement. • Effectively measuring and communicating to the public the benefits of strong enforcement.

8. EPA’s Air Enforcement DivisionAddressing our Nation’s Biggest Environmental ProblemsPrimary Law Enforced – Clean Air Act • Releases of Air Pollutants

9. Several Clean Air Act Civil Enforcement Authorities Sections 113, 114, 303 and 167 are the main tools in our tool box

10. CAA Civil Enforcement Authorities • Notice of Violation • Civil Judicial Lawsuit • Fines up to $37,500 per day for each violation • Civil injunctive authority (pollution controls) to require compliance • Information gathering, inspection and entry • Stop Construction • Imminent and Substantial Endangerment

11. Who is a person subject to enforcement? • Any individual, corporation or other business entity such as a partnership, a state or local government, an agency or employee of the federal government. • Section 114 allows us to seek relevant information from anyone, even those who may not be sources of pollution, if they have information EPA needs.

12. Enforcement against Stationary Sources of Pollution • Two national priority areas • Largest Sources of Pollution (SO2, NOx, PM) • Power Plants • Acid Plants • Cement Plants • Glass Plants • Air Toxics (VOC, Hazardous Air Pollutants) • Focus on facilities that we expect to affect communities, particularly those communities that have endured cumulative environmental impacts from multiple facilities. • Leak Detection and Repair • Flaring from refineries • Excess Emissions

13. Mobile Source Enforcement • Vehicle and engine enforcement • Focus is often on the illegal importation of vehicles and engines that do not conform to U.S. standards • Other noncompliant engines • Fuels • Marine Vessles

14. Identifying and TargetingExample: Coal-Fired Electric Utilities

15. Finding the Bad Actors (companies that are violating the law):Main Targeting Criteria • Which facilities are the biggest polluters? • National Emissions Inventory (NEI) • Which facilities had significant increases in utilization and emissions? • Acid Rain Database (required by law) • DOE Energy Information Administration (EIA) Database (required by law, related to coal fired power plants operations)

16. Other Factors to Consider In Targeting Plants with the largest modeled impact on human health Plants that have a significant modeled or suspected impact on the following: nonattainment areas; watersheds of impaired waters; communities that may be disproportionally impacted by pollution; and/or ecologically sensitive areas, including visibility impacts. 16

17. Review of Readily-Available Information • On-line Resources • Company Annual Reports • Press Releases • Newspaper articles • Electronic Permits/Permit Applications • Continuous Emissions Monitoring Data (CEMS) • Citizen complaints • State/Tribal interest / concerns

18. Putting the Tools to Use:Case Investigation/Development • Inspection Authority • Information Request Authority • Document Review & Analysis • Experts • Notice of Violation • may be based on “any information available”

19. Two Paths to Resolve Enforcement • Settlement • Judicial Consent Decree (penalty & pollution controls) • Administrative Settlement • Expedited Settlement Agreements (best for small businesses, company opts-in to an agreement) • Litigation • District Court • Decisions Appealed to the Circuit Court of Appeals

20. Negotiated Settlement (administrative or judicial) • Saves resources • Result is often better than what could have been achieved through litigation • Public opportunity to comment on the settlement (judicial settlements) • Consent Decrees and Administrative Orders are enforceable documents (stipulated penalties) • Expedited Settlement Agreements – very small penalty, company can opt-in to an agreement

21. Litigation • Resource intensive • Costly • Document Discovery • Must prove the violation the law • Expert testimony, expert reports • Regulations are complicated • Sophisticated defense lawyers • Evidentiary issues

22. Current Challenges for EPA • Noncompliance among largest sources • Major air sources like power plants & refineries • Water discharge facilities • Mineral processing • New environmental challenges – dispersed sources • Budgets declining

23. New Approach: Next Generation Compliance U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

24. Next Generation Compliance- Five Components GMAP (geospatial measurement of air pollution) tool can be used to estimate amount and location of methane and VOC emissions. Includes IR camera, sampling ports, GPS, methane meter. • More effective rules • Electronic reporting • Advanced monitoring technology • Increased transparency • Innovative enforcement

25. #1: More effective rules • Structure rules to promote compliance • Keep it simple • Make compliance easier than non-compliance

26. #2: Electronic reporting • Increase accuracy, fewer data entry errors • Easy to identify the biggest problems • Improve government and industry performance, expand transparency

27. #3 - Advanced monitoring technologies offer new solutions EPA monitoring showed that a coke plant – claiming it was a minor source of air pollution -- was actually a substantial source of benzene • Real-time monitoring – knowing about pollution as it’s happening • Facility feedback loops – preventing pollution before it happens • Fence line monitoring • Community monitoring • Remote sensing

28. Making the “invisible” visible

29. Real-time monitoring provides more accurate information on emissions • By failing to monitor, industry significantly underestimated VOC emissions from flares

30. #4 – Increased transparency Noncompliance rates for NPDES non-major facilities 2008-2010 • After EPA expanded public access to a set of water pollution discharge data in 2008 (brown line), the compliance rate steadily improved • Public accountability drives better performance Noncompliance rates

31. Transparency:The Power of Information + Technology

32. Transparency Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) Consumer Confidence Reports • SDWA requires drinking water suppliers to mail annual reports to consumers • Study showed - directly providing the information (vs posting in newspaper) had a strong effect on increasing compliance • Total violations reduced by 30%-44%

33. #5 - Innovative enforcement • Targeted outreach on specific problems • Advanced monitoring and fence line monitoring required in settlements • Transparency - - getting government out of the middle

34. Elements of Next Generation Compliance work together • Better rule design • Monitoring – facility knows • E-reporting – government knows • Transparency – public knows

35. Moving forward with Next Generation:Focusing on Air Toxics

36. Air Toxics: Main Areas of Focus • Leak Detection and Repair • Flaring devices • Excess Emissions

37. Air Toxics and Next Generation Compliance: The Instrumented Inspector • Finding emissions of toxic air pollutants requires the ability to “see” them using gas detection and gas imaging devices • EPA inspectors find air toxics emissions using field gas sensing instruments such as photo-ionization detectors and FLIR gas-imaging cameras

38. Photoionization Detectors:An Essential Tool for Inspectors • Handheld • Sensitive to 1 ppb • “Real-time” measurements • Detects most VOCs and some inorganic gases • Can detect process equipment leaks tens of feet away • Used for screening storage tanks, wastewater treatment, and other sources for enforcement

39. FLIR (forward-looking infrared) Gas Imaging Cameras • EPA inspectors can “see” VOC emissions using FLIR cameras • Often used together with PIDs, FLIR cameras have transformed the way EPA conducts inspections

40. EPA Inspectors and Leak Detection Monitoring

41. Focus Area:Leak Detection and Repair • Widespread noncompliance and potential for significant emission reductions • Leaking equipment is one of the largest sources of emissions of hazardous air pollutants from refineries and chemical manufacturers • EPA inspections have shown that actual numbers of leaks are often 3-5 times greater than reported by facilities 41

42. Leak Detection and Repair Example:Bad Vapor Recovery Hoses

43. Focus Area:Emissions from Flaring Devices • Incomplete combustion can lead to excess emissions of hazardous air pollutants • Smoke indicates that hydrocarbons are not being completely destroyed through burning • Efficient combustion, together with limiting the amount of waste gas sent to flares, is better for the environment. • Also saves money for industry through reduced steam usage U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

44. Focus Area:Emissions from Flaring Devices • EPA inspectors use FLIR gas-imaging cameras to target poorly-combusting flares such as this flare at a marine vessel loading facility • Fixes include better flare operation and flare gas recovery

45. Focus Area:Excess Emissions • Excess emissions are those that are not authorized by permit or rule • EPA targets any source of excess emissions for potential enforcement action • EPA inspectors find such sources using PIDs and FLIR cameras

46. Benefits of Next Generation Compliance – can be used in conjunction with traditional enforcement mechanisms • Design clearer regulations  higher compliance and improved environmental outcomes • Ease of compliance levels the playing field • Require e-reporting  accurate/complete information • Fewer data errors, allows targeting of violators • Use advanced pollutant detection technology  detect pollution problems in real time • Early identification of leaks, capture lost product • Expand transparency  information is more accessible • Opportunity” for better community relations • Use innovative enforcement approaches • Faster assistance; efficiencies

47. The Path Forward with Next Gen • Improved compliance and environmental protection • Reduced burden and potential cost savings for regulated community • Better information for communities on pollution that affects them

48. Thank You • Comments ? • Questions ?