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New Guidance on Supplemental Environment Projects Issued by Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance
Release Date: 01/18/2004
Contact Information:
Suzanne Ackerman 202-564-7819 / ackerman.suzanne@epa.gov
(01/18/04) To encourage violators to undertake projects that will benefit the environment and public health, EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) has released new guidance on the Supplemental Environmental Projects (SEP) Policy. A SEP is an environmentally beneficial project that a violator voluntarily agrees to perform as part of an enforcement settlement. SEPs are projects or activities that go beyond what is required of a violator to return to compliance with environmental requirements and which the defendant/respondent is not otherwise legally required to perform. By agreeing to an SEP, violators bring direct benefit to the communities where violations occurred. OECA anticipates that this guidance will encourage the regulated community to propose environmentally beneficial projects that would otherwise not be implemented due to the long-term, speculative nature of the returns. The three guidance documents are: Guidance for Determining Whether a Project is Profitable, When to Accept Profitable Projects as Supplemental Environmental Projects, and How to Value Such Projects - provides a way to calculate if the environmental or public health benefits of a project are significant enough to outweigh profits that the violator might receive; Guidance Concerning the Use of Third Parties in the Performance of Supplemental Environmental Projects (SEPs) and the Aggregation of SEP Funds - answers frequently asked questions by enforcement personnel on the use of third parties in the development and/or implementation of a SEP and on the aggregation of SEPs; and Recommended Ideas for Supplemental Environmental Projects - examples of projects that offer great potential for significant and measurable environmental and/or public health benefits to the environment and the community affected by the violation. The full documents can be found on the EPA Web Site on Jan. 9th at: https://www.epa.gov/compliance/civil/programs/seps/index.html .
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