UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
ENFORCEMENT ALERT NEWSLETTER PROGRAM
LUBIENIECKI, GENE
United States Environmental Protection Agency (retired), 10445 West Iliff Ave, Lakewood,
Colorado, USA, glubie@rocketmail.com
SUMMARY
In 1998, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began publishing a
series of newsletters, referred to as Enforcement Alert Newsletters, which contain information
thought to be especially important and timely to the regulated community. Topics selected for
these newsletters include important environmental enforcement issues, recent trends and
strategies in enforcement and compliance, and significant recent enforcement actions. The
information contained in the newsletters is expected to ultimately help the regulated community
comply with environmental laws and applicable regulations and inform the public about
important enforcement and compliance issues.
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DISCUSSION
The EPA is constantly working on new and innovative ways to help ensure long term
compliance with the regulated community. Many tools have been developed and used, from
compliance assistance (where EPA, through education, communication and cooperation assist
the regulated community to understand regulatory requirements and come into compliance) to
coordinated national and/or corporate-wide enforcement initiatives (where an industrial sector or
corporation is targeted for in-depth or focused compliance monitoring investigations).
In 1998, the United States Environmental Protection Agency began what is essentially a
compliance assistance program to focus on and educate the regulated community, the public and
other environmental investigators on selected regulatory topics. This program involves
developing and publishing Enforcement Alert Newsletters, which contain information thought to
be especially important and timely to the regulated community and the public. Information
contained in the newsletters helps inform the regulated community of their environmental
protection responsibilities so that they can come into full and long term compliance with
applicable requirements to better protect the environment and avoid violations of federal law and
possible enforcement action. Additionally, the newsletters inform the public of these important
environmental enforcement and compliance issues, and help ensure that environmental
enforcement investigators throughout the EPA and the states are aware of these important issues.
Topics selected for these newsletters include important environmental enforcement issues
(such as new regulatory requirements), recent trends and strategies in enforcement and
compliance activity (including identifying national or regional enforcement priorities), patterns
of noncompliance found in the regulated community, and significant recent enforcement actions.
While there does not appear to be any specific criteria for topic selection, the topics and issues
chosen for the newsletters relate to significant environmental issues, have a relatively broad
audience in the regulated community and are applicable to large geographic areas.
Each newsletter generally provides: 1) background information on the topic issue, 2)
applicable regulatory citations, and/or regulatory interpretations, 3) information regarding
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associated EPA and/or State investigation and enforcement activity, 4) available compliance
assistance resources, and 5) any other information thought necessary to help the regulated
community reach and maintain full compliance. The newsletter also provides links to relevant
EPA websites and other resources useful to better understand the topic laws and regulations and
how to comply with them.
Dissemination of each newsletter is somewhat customized to achieve maximum exposure
to the target regulated community and other interested parties. For example, several thousand
copies of a newsletter focused on new regulations and certification requirements for lead-based
paint remediation were printed because the universe of impacted businesses (many relatively
small building/remodeling contractors) was very large. The newsletters were sent out to
individual small businesses, provided during trade association meetings and incorporated as part
of the instructional packages for the new certification. Newsletters on subjects that impact
fewer regulated entities are printed and circulated in lower numbers.
In virtually all cases, copies of the newsletters are provided to state environmental
regulatory organizations, many compliance monitoring inspectors, a standard list of nongovernment organizations and impacted trade associations. All newsletters are posted on the
EPA website and hard copies are made available from the EPA’s National Service Center for
Environmental Publications. Other methods of newsletter dissemination, such as providing
copies during public meetings, are determined on a case-by-case basis.
Since 1998, EPA has published over 50 of these newsletters. Recent topics included:
“Compliance with New Federal Lead-Based Paint Requirements“, “EPA Targets Clean Water
Act Violations at Livestock Feeding Operations”, and “EPA Addresses Pollutants in Storm
Water Through Systematic Enforcement Strategy”.
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CONCLUSION
This author could find no objective analyses of the impact of these Enforcement Alert
Newsletters on industry compliance levels. However, anecdotal information obtained from field
investigators indicates that these newsletters have helped educate the regulated community and
assisted that community in achieving better environmental compliance. Additionally, experience
has shown that compliance assistance information, such as that contained in these newsletters,
has resulted in a more educated regulatory community and ultimately enhanced compliance.
Several examples of complete EPA Enforcement Alert Newsletters are provided in the
following pages. Copies of all of the newsletters are posted at the EPA webpage
(http://www.EPA.gov) and hard copies are available from the EPA’s National Service Center for
Environmental Publications (www.epa.gov/nscep).
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