VII.B. Comparison of Enforcement Activity Between Selected Industries

Exhibits 25 and 26 allow the compliance history of the petroleum refining sector to be compared to the other industries covered by the industry sector notebooks. Comparisons between Exhibits 25 and 26 permit the identification of trends in compliance and enforcement records of the industry by comparing data covering the last five years to that of the past year. Some points evident from the data are listed below.

Of those sectors listed, the petroleum refining industry has been the most frequently inspected industry over the past five years.

The industry has a relatively large proportion of facilities with violations and enforcement actions, in comparison to the other

sectors.

The rate of enforcement actions per inspection for the industry is relatively high, and has changed little over the past year.

Exhibits 27 and 28 provide a more in-depth comparison between petroleum refining industry and other sectors by breaking out the compliance and enforcement data by environmental statute. As in the previous Exhibits (Exhibits 25 and 26), the data cover the last five years (Exhibit 27) and the last one year (Exhibit 28) to facilitate the identification of recent trends. A few points evident from the data are listed below.

The number of inspections carried out under each environmental statute as a percent of the total has changed little between the average of the past five years and that of the past year. Inspections under CAA appear to be slightly more frequent while inspections under RCRA appear to be slightly less frequent.

The distribution of enforcement actions between statutes has also changed very little between the past five years and one year. Enforcement actions under RCRA decreased slightly while enforcement actions under CWA have increased slightly.