Portable Sanitation Association International

Association Insight November 2 2016

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WEEKLY EDITION November 2, 2016 P ortable Sanitation and the EPA Part III The process of creating regulations. In the past two issues of Association Insight, we have covered how regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) impact your business. If you have read the articles, y ou know that EPA mainly affects portable sanitation companies by setting limits and requiring states to implement organizational infrastructure and retain staff for monitoring water quality. In fact, most of the actual regulatory and enforcement activity pertaining to the Clean Water Act takes place at the state and local levels. How this works is both simple and frustratingly complex – and it is not unique to environmental regulation. Most the laws and guidelines affecting your business have roots at the federal level, but decisions about how they are applied, monitored, and enforced are made much closer to home. The list in the blue box on Page 2 is not exhaustive, but it does provide perspective on the sorts of laws and regulations that affect your busin ess at each level. Over the next few months we will be breaking these law - making, interpreting and enforcing processes down for readers of Association Insight . We will also explain how the PSAI and its Members can take action at each level of the process. This week we will focus on the basics of the regulatory process at the federal level. The basics of the regulatory process. The EPA is responsible for overseeing the implementation and enforcement of key environmental regulatory statutes, such as the Cle an Water Act and the Clean Air Act. In this capacity, the EPA sometimes delegates aspects of implementation and enforcement to individual states and reviews the performance of state regulators. The Agency also circulates regulations and issues guidance doc uments to assist states and the regulated community, and brings its own enforcement litigation where necessary. EPA staff provide a mix of counseling and litigation, working closely with the Department of Justice (DOJ) in environmental litigation when othe r methods of enforcement are ineffective or inappropriate. Because of this delegation process, the day - to - day requirements your business must follow are very often decided closer to home than the seat of the federal government. To protect the environmen t, EPA uses a variety of tools and approaches, like partnerships, educational programs , and grants . One of its most well - known tools is writing regulations. Regulati ons are mandatory requirements that can apply to individuals, businesses, state or local governments, non - profit institutions, or others. Generally speaking, the federal regulations set parameters that states and local authorities must then decide how to i mplement in a manner that makes sense in their area. In fact, local rules and reporting guidelines can end up being more stringent than federal limits for a variety of reasons. We will examine some of those in a future segment on the state regulatory proce ss. Behind every set of regulations, there's a law and an agency. National lawmakers and employees working for federal agencies each have distinct roles in how the rules affecting your business are made, communicated, and enforced. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

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