Energy and Environment MonitorThe US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its Draft FY 2011-2015 Strategic Plan for public review on June 18, 2010 (Docket ID: EPA-HQ-OA-2010-0486). The comment period ended July 30, and the Agency plans to transmit the final FY 2011-2015 Strategic Plan to Congress by September 30, 2010.
EPA’s Strategic Plan sets forth the Agency’s long-term vision, strategic goals and objectives, and strategies to achieve them. Several specifics of the Draft Plan will directly affect many industrial and energy company, and indirectly affect everyone in the nation.
Strategic Plan Overview
Five strategic goals are identified in this Draft Plan:
1. Taking Action on Climate Change and Improving Air Quality
2. Protecting America’s Waters
3. Cleaning up our Communities
4. Ensuring the Safety of Chemicals and Preventing Pollution
5. Enforcing Environmental Laws
The Draft Plan also introduces five EPA strategies which “set explicit expectations for changing the way EPA does business in achieving its mission results”:
· Expanding the Conversation on Environmentalism
· Working for Environmental Justice and Children’s Health
· Advancing Science, Research, and Technological Innovation
· Strengthening State, Tribal, and International Partnerships
· Strengthening EPA’s Workforce and Capabilities
Significant Impacts to Industry and Energy Companies
The Draft Plan contains several potentially significant impacts:
1. Within the area of Taking Action on Climate Change, a planned EPA strategy has far-reaching and costly implications:
“Establishing permitting requirements for facilities that emit large amounts of GHGs to encourage design and construction of more efficient and advanced processes that will contribute to a clean energy economy.”
2. Under Goal# 5, Enforcing Environmental Laws, EPA plans several new or more aggressive enforcement initiatives, including the following:
“Vigorous civil and criminal enforcement plays a central role in achieving the bold goals below that the Administrator has set for EPA.”
“EPA will take effective actions to reduce air pollution from the largest sources, including coal-fired power plants and the cement, acid, and glass sectors, to improve air quality”.
“Enforcement to cut toxic air pollution in communities improves the health of communities, particularly low income, minority, and tribal communities that are disproportionately impacted by pollution.”
“Enforcement supports reductions in greenhouse gases (GHG) through enforcement settlements that encourage GHG emission reductions.”
“Increase pollutant reducing enforcement actions in waters that don’t meet water quality standards, and post results and analysis on the web.”
3. During the next two years, EPA will initiate at least four drinking water standard reviews to strengthen public health protection.
4. By June 15, 2011, EPA will make publically available 100 percent of facility-level GHG emissions data submitted to EPA in accordance with the GHG Reporting Rule, compliant with policies protecting Confidential Business Information (CBI).
5. All Chesapeake Bay watershed States (including the District of Columbia) will develop and submit approvable Phase I watershed implementation plans by the end of CY 2010 and Phase II plans by the end of CY 2011 in support of EPA’s final Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL).
For further details on EPA’s Draft FY 2011-2015 Strategic Plan, including a link to download a pdf version of the Plan, see the following web site:
Draft FY 2011-2015 EPA Strategic Plan
http://www.epa.gov/ocfo/plan/plan.htm
Any questions regarding the Plan may be emailed to EPA at Strategic_Plan@epa.gov.
This article was partially excerpted from publically available information, and was authored by Rick Wilson, Acacia Environmental Group LLC. Any opinions expressed in this article are those solely of the author, and are not intended as legal or professional guidance to any specific readers. For more information on the author see here.
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