Stahl, Michael M. --- "Doing What’s Important: Setting Priorities for Environmental Compliance and Enforcement Programs" [2011] ELECD 310; in Paddock, Lee; Qun, Du; Kotzé, J. Louis; Markell, L. David; Markowitz, J. Kenneth; Zaelke, Durwood (eds), "Compliance and Enforcement in Environmental Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Compliance and Enforcement in Environmental Law

Editor(s): Paddock, Lee; Qun, Du; Kotzé, J. Louis; Markell, L. David; Markowitz, J. Kenneth; Zaelke, Durwood

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848448315

Section: Chapter 6

Section Title: Doing What’s Important: Setting Priorities for Environmental Compliance and Enforcement Programs

Author(s): Stahl, Michael M.

Number of pages: 10

Extract:

6. Doing What's Important: Setting
Priorities for Environmental Compliance
and Enforcement Programs
Michael M. Stahl*

1. INTRODUCTION

Environmental compliance and enforcement (ECE) programs in the United States
and in most other countries are confronted with an enormous challenge. On one
hand, they are responsible for maximizing compliance with a web of legal
requirements designed to control multiple forms of pollution. These requirements
apply in numerous configurations to a vast number of facilities in a varied
universe of industrial and social sectors. On the other hand, ECE programs will
never have the resources to ensure compliance of all regulated entities with all
legal requirements, no matter how many tools (such as assistance, incentives,
monitoring and enforcement) they possess nor how skillfully they deploy them.
This chapter focuses on this central dilemma of ECE programs and offers a
framework these programs can use to identify the most important problems
(defined here as environmental risks and noncompliance patterns) and address
them in a thoughtful and effective manner. The chapter draws on the lessons
learned by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) through
its efforts to select and manage national compliance and enforcement priorities.


2. WHAT IS A PRIORITY?

As with most endeavors in which there are a multitude of tasks in need of
attention, ECE programs need a way to distinguish important tasks that demand
immediate and thorough attention from those that are less critical and can be
addressed later, less comprehensively, or not at all. Like medical professionals
using a ...