RCRA to be streamlined Eleven regulatory topics are being singled out by EPA in a proposal to streamline the Resource Conserva­tion and Recovery Act (RCRA). Agency recommendations will be forwarded to Congress by July 15, following public hearings in Chicago, IL, Houston, TX, and Washington, DC, the Agency said.

In announcing the proposal April 27, EPA Administrator Carol Browner coupled the effort with others inside the Agency to simplify and consoli­date regulations. She said the Agency would refocus RCRA on high-risk wastes; provide states with flexibility to design ways of manag­ing low-level, high-volume wastes generated in environmental clean­ups; and develop a "commonsense" RCRA definition of solid waste to simplify industrial compliance.

The 11 areas under consideration by EPA are RCRA permit require­ments for low-level waste manage­ment facilities, waste management requirements, waste listing determi­nations, general prescriptive require­ments, untreated waste disposal for low-risk wastes, Indian tribal author­ities, land disposal restrictions, treat­ment requirements, hazardous waste recycling, corrective action cleanups, and the hazardous waste manifest reporting system.

ORD reorganization completes first phase Phase one of the reorganization of the Office of Research and Develop­ment (ORD) is complete, according to ORD head Robert Huggett, and on April 30 formally went into effect. The structure divides ORD into na­tional research laboratories centered on risk management, exposure re­search, and health and environmen­tal effects as well as national centers for environmental assessment, extra­mural research, and quality assur­ance, coupled with a headquarters office.

Huggett said that the next phase "addresses numerous staffing issues"

and will be the most challenging part of the reorganization. The staff­ing issues include new positions opened through the reorganization, new work descriptions, and posi­tions left vacant during restructur­ing. By June, ORD expects to com­plete negotiations about new positions with unions that represent federal employees and to begin ad­vertising these openings. ORD staff will be given first opportunity to fill the positions. Huggett expects full implementation of the ORD restruc­turing by this fall. However, he ex­pects few rewards from Congress for ORD's reorganization and warned at a risk assessment forum in May, "I see little hope that our budget will increase."

In a related development, EPA Deputy Administrator Fred Hansen announced in March that Huggett was now EPA's chief scientific and technical officer. This new responsi­bility came in response to a recom­mendation in a recent National Re­search Council report [ES&T, May 1995, p. 206A). William Raub, who was the EPA administrator's chief science adviser, now heads ORD's national center for extramural re­search and quality assurance.

According to Hansen, Huggett will be responsible for strategic plan­ning of scientific and technical activ­ities across EPA and will prepare rec­ommendations for the senior leadership of the Agency as part of the budget planning process. At the May forum, Huggett hinted that he may push for major changes, saying, "We will look at expanding risk-based research throughout the Agency."

EPA sets new guidelines for environmental projects EPA released new guidelines May 4 for using supplemental environmen­tal projects (SEPs) in enforcement agreements, which the Agency says will make the system more predict­able and will put the program on a firmer legal footing. In an enforce­

ment agreement, SEPs allow a viola­tor of environmental law to volun­tarily conduct an activity that remedies the situation or prevents further violations. In return, the vio­lator receives a penalty reduction.

According to David Hinden of the EPA Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, the new pol­icy is comparable to a "how-to man­ual" that details measures such as determining the amount of penalty reduction, establishing the "ger­maneness" of a project to the envi­ronmental violation, and stating what kind of projects are allowable under a SEP. "It gives a [violator] an idea of what to expect from an en­forcement agreement," he says.

Setting out what projects are ger­mane to the violation is the new policy's major innovation, Hinden says. According to the new guid­ance, such a link exists "only if the project remediates or reduces the probable overall environmental or public health impacts or risks to which the violation at issue contrib­utes." Over the years, EPA has faced congressional criticism concerning SEPs that did not appear to relate directly to a violation, especially SEPs negotiated for motor vehicle-related environmental violations.

In addition to the "nexus" re­quirement, SEP projects also must advance a declared objective of the violated statute. The project is laid out as part of a judicial settlement; EPA has no role in managing or controlling the SEP and the funds set aside for it. The SEP cannot re­quire the violator to perform any EPA task.

In the original guidance pub­lished in 1992, EPA established five categories: pollution prevention, pol­lution reduction, ecological (now environmental) restoration and pro­tection, assessment and audits, and environmental compliance. The new guidance adds two categories, public health and emergency response, Hinden said. The new guidance cov­ers any SEP initiated after May 8 or any agreement not signed by then.

3 0 0 A • VOL. 29, NO. 7, 1995 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 0013-936X/95/0929-300AS09.00/0© 1995 American Chemical Society

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