VII. COMPLIANCE AND ENFORCEMENT HISTORY Background To date, EPA has focused much of its attention on measuring compliance with specific environmental statutes. This approach allows the Agency to track compliance with the Clean Air Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Clean Water Act, and other environmental statutes. Within the last several years, the Agency has begun to supplement singlemedia compliance indicators with facility-specific, multimedia indicators of compliance. In doing so, EPA is in a better position to track compliance with all statutes at the facility level, and within specific industrial sectors. A major step in building the capacity to compile multimedia data for industrial sectors was the creation of EPA's Integrated Data for Enforcement Analysis (IDEA) system. IDEA has the capacity to "read into" the Agency's single-media databases, extract compliance records, and match the records to individual facilities. The IDEA system can match Air, Water, Waste, Toxics/Pesticides/EPCRA, TRI, and Enforcement Docket records for a given facility, and generate a list of historical permit, inspection, and enforcement activity. IDEA also has the capability to analyze data by geographic area and corporate holder. As the capacity to generate multimedia compliance data improves, EPA will make available more in-depth compliance and enforcement information. Additionally, sector-specific measures of success for compliance assistance efforts are under development. Compliance and Enforcement Profile Description Using inspection, violation and enforcement data from the IDEA system, this section provides information regarding the historical compliance and enforcement activity of this sector. In order to mirror the facility universe reported in the Toxic Chemical Profile, the data reported within this section consists of records only from the TRI reporting universe. With this decision, the selection criteria are consistent across sectors with certain exceptions. For the sectors that do not normally report to the TRI program, data have been provided from EPA's Facility Indexing System (FINDS) which tracks facilities in all media databases. Please note, in this section, EPA does not attempt to define the actual number of facilities that fall within each sector. Instead, the section portrays the records of a subset of facilities within the sector that are well defined within EPA databases. As a check on the relative size of the full sector universe, most notebooks contain an estimated number of facilities within the sector according to the Bureau of Census (See Section II). With sectors dominated by small businesses, such as metal finishers and printers, the reporting universe within the EPA databases may be small in comparison to Census data. However, the group selected for inclusion in this data analysis section should be consistent with this sector's general make-up. Following this introduction is a list defining each data column presented within this section. These values represent a retrospective summary of inspections or enforcement actions, and solely reflect EPA, state and local compliance assurance activity that have been entered into EPA databases. To identify any changes in trends, the EPA ran two data queries, one for the past five calendar years (August 10, 1990 to August 9, 1995) and the other for the most recent twelve-month period (August 10, 1994 to August 9, 1995). The five-year analysis gives an average level of activity for that period for comparison to the more recent activity. Because most inspections focus on single-media requirements, the data queries presented in this section are taken from single media databases. These databases do not provide data on whether inspections are state/local or EPA-led. However, the table breaking down the universe of violations does give the reader a crude measurement of the EPA's and states' efforts within each media program. The presented data illustrate the variations across regions for certain sectors. This variation may be attributable to state/local data entry variations, specific geographic concentrations, proximity to population centers, sensitive ecosystems, highly toxic chemicals used in production, or historical noncompliance. Hence, the exhibited data do not rank regional performance or necessarily reflect which regions may have the most compliance problems. Compliance and Enforcement Data Definitions General Definitions Facility Indexing System (FINDS) -- this system assigns a common facility number to EPA single-media permit records. The FINDS identification number allows EPA to compile and review all permit, compliance, enforcement and pollutant release data for any given regulated facility. Integrated Data for Enforcement Analysis (IDEA) -- is a data integration system that can retrieve information from the major EPA program office databases. IDEA uses the FINDS identification number to "glue together" * EPA Regions include the following states: I (CT, MA, ME, RI, NH, VT); II (NJ, NY, PR, VI); III (DC, DE, MD, PA, VA, WV); IV (AL, FL, GA, KY, MS, NC, SC, TN); V (IL, IN, MI, MN, OH, WI); VI (AR, LA, NM, OK, TX); VII (IA, KS, MO, NE); VIII (CO, MT, ND, SD, UT, WY); IX (AZ, CA, HI, NV, Pacific Trust Territories); X (AK, ID, OR, WA). separate data records from EPA's databases. This is done to create a "master list" of data records for any given facility. Some of the data systems accessible through IDEA are: AIRS (Air Facility Indexing and Retrieval System, Office of Air and Radiation), PCS (Permit Compliance System, Office of Water), RCRIS (Resource Conservation and Recovery Information System, Office of Solid Waste), NCDB (National Compliance Data Base, Office of Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances), CERCLIS (Comprehensive Environmental and Liability Information System, Superfund), and TRIS (Toxic Release Inventory System). IDEA also contains information from outside sources such as Dun and Bradstreet and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Most data queries displayed in notebook sections IV and VII were conducted using IDEA. Data Table Column Heading Definitions Facilities in Search -- are based on the universe of TRI reporters within the listed SIC code range. For industries not covered under TRI reporting requirements, the notebook uses the FINDS universe for executing data .queries. The SIC code range selected for each search is defined by each notebook's selected SIC code coverage described in Section II. Facilities Inspected -- indicates the level of EPA and state agency facility inspections for the facilities in this data search. These values show what percentage of the facility universe is inspected in a 12 or 60 month period. This column does not count non-inspectional compliance activities such as the review of facility-reported discharge reports. - Number of Inspections measures the total number of inspections conducted in this sector. An inspection event is counted each time it is entered into a single media database. Average Time Between Inspections -- provides an average length of time, expressed in months, that a compliance inspection occurs at a facility within the defined universe. Facilities with One or More Enforcement Actions -- expresses the number of facilities that were party to at least one enforcement action within the defined time period. This category is broken down further into federal and state actions. Data are obtained for administrative, civil/judicial, and criminal enforcement actions. Administrative actions include Notices of Violation (NOVs). A facility with multiple enforcement actions is only counted once in this column (facility with three enforcement actions counts as one). All percentages that appear are referenced to the number of facilities inspected. Total Enforcement Actions -- describes the total number of enforcement actions identified for an industrial sector across all environmental statutes. A facility with multiple enforcement actions is counted multiple times (a facility with three enforcement actions counts as three). State Lead Actions shows what percentage of the total enforcement actions are taken by state and local environmental agencies. Varying levels of use by states of EPA data systems may limit the volume of actions accorded state enforcement activity. Some states extensively report enforcement activities into EPA data systems, while other states may use their own data systems. - Federal Lead Actions shows what percentage of the total enforcement actions are taken by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. This value includes referrals from state agencies. Many of these actions result from coordinated or joint state/federal efforts. - Enforcement to Inspection Rate expresses how often enforcement actions result from inspections. This value is a ratio of enforcement actions to inspections and is presented for comparative purposes only. This measure is a rough indicator of the relationship between inspections and enforcement. This measure simply indicates historically how many enforcement actions can be attributed to inspection activity. Reported inspections and enforcement actions under the Clean Water Act (PCS), the Clean Air Act (AFS) and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) are included in this ratio. Inspections and and actions from the TSCA/FIFRA/EPCRA database are not factored into this ratio because most of the actions taken under these programs are not the result of facility inspections. This ratio does not account for enforcement actions arising from non-inspection compliance monitoring activities (e.g., self-reported water discharges) that can result in enforcement action within the CAA, CWA and RCRA. Facilities with One or More Violations Identified -- indicates the number and percentage of inspected facilities having a violation identified in one of the following data categories: In Violation or Significant Violation Status (CAA); Reportable Noncompliance, Current Year Noncompliance, Significant Noncompliance (CWA); Noncompliance and Significant Noncompliance (FIFRA, TSCA, and EPCRA); Unresolved Violation and Unresolved High Priority Violation (RCRA). The values presented for this column reflect the extent of noncompliance within the measured time frame, but do not distinguish between the severity of the noncompliance. Percentages within this column can exceed 100 percent because facilities can be in violation status without being inspected. Violation status may be a precursor to an enforcement action, but does not necessarily indicate that an enforcement action will occur. four Media Breakdown of Enforcement Actions and Inspections columns identify the proportion of total inspections and enforcement actions within EPA Air, Water, Waste, and TSCA/FIFRA/EPCRA databases. Each column is a percentage of either the "Total Inspections," or the "Total Actions" column. VII.A. Petroleum Refining Compliance History Exhibit 24 provides an overview of the reported compliance and enforcement data for the refining industry over the past five years (August 1990 to August 1995). These data are also broken out by EPA Region thereby permitting geographical comparisons. A few points evident from the data are listed below. Almost all of the facilities identified in the database search were inspected in the past five years. These facilities were inspected on average every three months. The ratio of enforcement actions to inspections varied widely between Regions over the past five years with little or no direct correlation to the number of facilities in the Region or the proportion of state lead versus federal lead actions. Those facilities with one or more enforcement actions had, on average, over the five year period, almost eight enforcement actions brought against them. |