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PA EFFORTS EXPANDED TO DEVELOP INNOVATIVE APPROACHES TO ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
Release Date: 07/10/98
Contact Information:
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JULY 10, 1998
EFFORTS EXPANDED TO DEVELOP INNOVATIVE APPROACHES
TO ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
TO ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
EPA recently expanded its efforts to find innovative ways to improve protection of public health and the environment. In a June 23 Federal Register (FR) notice, EPA made specific suggestions and called for more companies, industrial sectors, communities, federal facilities, states and other potential sponsors to propose projects under its Project XL program. This pilot program was created by President Clinton and stands for “eXcellence and Leadership.” Under Project XL, EPA offers flexibility in its regulations, policies, procedures, and guidance as well as other benefits to encourage development and testing of “cleaner, cheaper, and smarter” ways to protect public health and the environment. Two key conditions for such pilot projects are 1) that they produce better environmental results and 2) that they involve representatives of the public in the project. While the FR notice provides a number of ideas for possible XL projects, the suggested themes in no way preclude any other ideas to be tested. The themes in the notice include testing new strategies, tools, and technologies in areas such as waste reduction, Superfund cleanup, air and water pollution control, multi-media pollution prevention and ecosystem protection. Currently, seven pilot projects are being implemented and twenty more are in development. The current projects demonstrate that alternative regulatory strategies can greatly increase environmental protection while producing substantial cost savings, greater operational flexibility, better stakeholder relationships, and the ability to adapt processes and products more quickly to changes in consumer demand. In a complementary FR notice, also published on June 23, EPA issued a specific and very detailed request for Project XL proposals from publicly-owned-treatment works (POTW). Proposals should explain how a POTW would change implementation of its local pretreatment program if it were to focus more on environmental performance measures rather than current programmatic measures of performance. Both of these FR notices and other materials are available on the Internet at: https://www.epa.gov/ProjectXL and through fax-on-demand at 202-260-8590. In a related action aimed at supporting stakeholder involvement under Project XL, the Institute for Conservation Leadership (ICL) recently announced that it can now accept applications for technical assistance to stakeholder groups involved in XL project negotiations, implementation or evaluations. Technical assistance worth up to $25,000 per project is available to help meet very specific technical assistance needs of the entire group. ICL is providing this assistance under a cooperative agreement with EPA. For more information, contact Peter Lane at ICL, 301-270-2900.
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