STATEMENT OF SENATOR BOB SMITH
RANKING REPUBLICAN
COMMITTEE ON
ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
ON THE
NOMINATION OF JOHN
P. SUAREZ
ASSISTANT
ADMINISTRATOR
OFFICE OF
ENFORCEMENT AND COMPLIANCE, U.S. EPA
May 7, 2002
Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this very
important nomination hearing on Mr. John Peter Suarez, whom the President has
nominated to the position of Assistant Administrator for the Office of
Enforcement and Compliance Assurance at EPA.
Mr. Suarez is a highly qualified attorney as
his extensive resume shows. Mr. Suarez
has held a number of outstanding State positions. He has systematically been promoted to positions that require a
greater level of skill - I believe that this speaks to his ability to grow into
new and more demanding positions.
While his resume documents his consistent
success in the jobs that he has held, I believe that it is also important to
make note of his numerous awards:
· N.J. Hispanic Bar
Association Honoree
· U.S. Attorney’s
Office Public Service Award Recipient
· N.J. State Bar
Association Professional Lawyer of the Year Award
· U.S. Attorney’s
Office Special Achievement Award
· U.S. Attorney
General Director’s Award
Mr. Suarez is also
involved in a number of legal societies where he has shown great leadership -
including being selected to the position of Supreme Court Committee Member for
the Hispanic National Bar Association.
As we are all
aware, the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance works very closely
with EPA Regional Offices, State Governments, and other Federal agencies, to
ensure compliance with the nation's environmental laws.
The Bush
Administration is justifiably proud of their environmental enforcement record,
as documented by the following accomplishments in FY 2001:
· On the theory that
compliance results in environmental protection, OECA provided compliance
assistance for more than one million individuals and businesses.
· The Administration
required violators to reduce an estimated 660 million pounds of pollutants and
treat and safely manage an estimated 1.84 billion pounds.
· As a result of
enforcement actions, violators will invest $4.3 billion in pollution control
and cleanup measures -- the highest-ever such investment.
· While environmental
quality is the most important yardstick to use in measuring success, the
Administration completed 222 civil judicial cases and issued 3,228
administrative orders and field citations.
· Criminal
prosecutions resulted in prison sentences totaling 256 years -- an increase of
more than 100 years over FY2000 -- along with nearly $95 million in fines and
restitution.
· Finally,
supplemental environmental projects -- actions a violator agrees to undertake
to protect the environment and human health -- totaled at $89 million -- up 60
percent from FY2000.
At this time I
would like to submit for inclusion in the record a fact sheet prepared by the
EPA office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance.
I look forward to
Mr. Suarez building on this record of success.
The Office of
Enforcement and Compliance is charged with developing an approach that
integrates compliance assistance, compliance incentives and innovative civil
and criminal enforcement, in order to maximize compliance and reduce threats to
public health and the environment.
From my meeting with Mr. Suarez, I am confident that his past legal and
management experience, energy, and intelligence will be an invaluable asset to
Gov. Whitman and President Bush in that effort.
Mr. Suarez’s
experience as a State official is also beneficial. The individual States have shown how effective our environmental
laws can be when compliance and enforcement occurs at the State level in
cooperation with EPA. This cooperation
is key to maintaining the strength of our environmental laws. I firmly believe that EPA is best suited to
a standard-setting and compliance assistance role, with the States handling the
bulk of enforcement actions. At the
same time, EPA should maintain the ability to aggressively enforce the law
itself when necessary.
A report compiled
by the Environmental Council of States (ECOS) documenting State enforcement and
compliance success makes an interesting point.
ECOS states that:
“...State enforcement actions are very
effective in returning violating facilities to compliance, and . . . their
effectiveness increases as the severity increases.”
The effective delegation of primary
compliance and enforcement duties by the EPA to State agencies has given our
environmental laws the strong foundation that they need. In fact, States conduct about 90 percent of
all enforcement actions.
To assist the
States in carrying out these duties, EPA must create and maintain a more
effective means of compiling a nationwide enforcement and compliance
database. We must not lose sight of the
“big picture” when it comes to the enforcement of our environmental laws. EPA oversight of these compliance and
enforcement programs is essential.
Mr. Suarez, I
appreciate the sacrifice you are making by continuing your career as a public
servant. I have no doubt that you are
up to the challenge and look forward to moving your nomination through the
Senate.
Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Enforcement Accomplishments FY 2001
Issue: Is EPA achieving its goals of requiring a
high level of compliance by the regulated community and of reducing the release
of pollutants into the environment?
Status/Next
Steps: EPA’s enforcement program achieved
tremendous success in fiscal year 2001, protecting human health and the
environment through record setting amounts in injunctive relief, significant
reductions in pollutant loadings and an estimated reduction of more than 660
million pounds of harmful pollutants and the treatment and safe management of
an estimated record 1.84 billion pounds of pollutants, in addition to a
significant increase in the commitment on the part of violators to spend on supplemental
environmental projects:
Amount spent by violators
and liable parties on pollution controls and cleanups nearly doubled – from
$2.6 billion in FY2000 to $4.4 billion in FY2001
Civil judicial penalties
assessed against environmental violators nearly doubled – from $55 million
in FY2000 to $102 million in FY2001; civil administrative penalties levied by
EPA were down a modest $1.5 million –
from about $25.5 million in FY2000 $24 million in FY2001. Overall, penalties were way up as our
strategy focused on large judicial cases.
Number of facilities
voluntarily auditing and disclosing violations under EPA’s audit policy more
than tripled -- from 437 in FY2000
to 1,754 in FY2001
Spending by violators on
Supplemental Environmental Projects was up 60% – from $56 million in FY2000
to $89 million in FY2001
Total years for criminal
sentences for environmental violations rose from 146 years in FY2001 to
256 years in FY2001 as a result of EPA’s strategy to, as a priority, seek
jail time for significant criminal cases.
Criminal fines fell from
$122 million in FY2000 to $95 million in FY2001 – again, our
strategy was to go for jail time
Rationale: By
focusing on environmental results or outcomes, such as the reductions in
pollution, and by using all of the tools available, such as compliance
assistance, incentives, and enforcement, EPA can address the most serious
environmental problems and achieve unprecedented results.
It
is significant, for example, that the regulated community achieved an estimated
660 million pound reduction of harmful pollutants that otherwise would have
been released to the environment and safely managed an estimated 1.84 billion
pounds of pollutants. These results
reflects EPA’s shift from routine cases to the reduction, through a variety of
incentives, of the most significant environmental risks and significant
patterns of noncompliance.
Snapshot:
End of Year Results FY1999 to 2001 (as of 2-12-02)
Activity |
FY 1999 |
FY 2000 |
FY 2001 |
Audit
Policy Settlements |
106 companies 624 facilities |
217 companies 437 facilities |
304 companies 1754 facilities |
Value
of Injunctive Relief |
$3.4 billion |
$2.6 billion |
$4.3 billion |
Civil
Judicial Penalties |
$141 million |
$55 million |
$102 million |
Civil
Administrative Penalties |
$25.5 million |
$25.5 million |
$24 million |
SEPs |
$237 million |
$56 million |
$89 million |
Inspections |
22,000 |
20,000 |
18,000 (est.) |
Administrative
Actions |
3500 |
5300 |
3200 |
Civil
Referrals |
403 |
368 |
327 |
Criminal
Referrals |
241 |
236 |
256 |
Criminal
Sentences |
208 years |
146 years |
256 years |
Criminal
Fines |
$62 million |
$122 million |
$95 million |
Enforcement Program – Current Activities
EPA’s enforcement
program remains as strong as ever.
Since January 2001, we have filed and concluded major enforcement and
compliance actions to reduce and eliminate harmful pollution:
•
EPA showed record results in FY 2001
from our enforcement activities – nearly doubling the amount spent by violators
and liable parties on pollution controls and cleanups; more than tripling the
number of facilities voluntarily auditing and disclosing violations under EPA’s
audit policy; almost doubling the civil judicial penalties assessed against
environmental violators; and increasing the spending by violators on
Supplemental Environmental Projects by 60%
•
EPA’s enforcement activities under the
Clean Air Act to address New Source Review (NSR) violations continue to be
vigorous. Beginning with
investigations, of which we have over 100 under way, and concluding with a
filed case or settlement, EPA aims to reduce harmful air pollution caused by
refineries, power plants and other industrial processes, such as paper mills.1 Our current data shows that – between
January 2001 and March 2002 – EPA made 115 information requests; issued 23 Notices
of Violation; filed and settled 15 cases, concluding 7 of them (i.e., they were
entered by the appropriate court); and engaged in numerous other enforcement
activities such as depositions, motion practice and on-going settlement
discussions -- all to enforce the Clean Air Act’s NSR requirements.
•
Our NSR enforcement included a major
case against a power plant, PSEG, which alone will reduce the company's
emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) by 90 percent and its emissions of nitrogen
oxides (NOx) by more than 80 percent. These decreases represent 32 percent of
all the SO2 and 20 percent of all the NOx emitted from stationary sources in
New Jersey, and 19 percent of all the SO2 and 5 percent of all the NOx from all
sources in the state, including cars and trucks
•
We issued many imminent hazard orders
to address immediate threats to human health an the environment. For example, EPA issued two imminent hazard
orders under RCRA to Magnesium Corporation to address dangerous dioxin levels
at the facility and the threat to workers’ health from extremely high levels of
hexachlorobenzene in anode dust. EPA
also issued two imminent hazard orders against Seaboard Farms under the Clean
Water Act and RCRA to address contaminated drinking water resulting from hog
farm waste.
•
We also issued an Administrative order
(made final on appeal in April 2001) under RCRA to address imminent threats
from the improper storage and disposal of large volumes of munitions and
unexploded ordnance that had been buried at the Massachusetts Military
Reservation (MMR) on Cape Cod. The
emergency order required the National Guard Bureau to detonate the munitions in
a special “controlled demolition chamber” that was present at MMR, except for
those munitions and ordnance that were unsafe to move (and which could be blown
in place).
In
other words, EPA has, under Administrator Whitman’s watch, successfully
addressed environmental violations using the various tools available, ranging
from voluntary incentives to imminent hazard orders. Concluding cases is no small feat, and we are proud of the
accomplishments achieved since January 2001 and will continue to pursue
enforcement in order to achieve similar results in the future.
1
These activities reflect EPA’s approach to enforcement generally, which
includes the following steps:
•
Investigate possible violations by gathering
information, e.g., through information requests, citizen complaints,
inspections or other reports;
•
Review collected information to
determine compliance
•
Issue “Notices of Violation” or other
formal notification to the violator to alert them to the violations detected
and give them an opportunity to correct those violations
•
Enter into negotiations with the
violator in an attempt to reach an agreed upon settlement to resolve the
violations
•
Proceed with formal enforcement by
filing a case for litigation if no resolution of the violations could be
achieved.