California's Compliance Assistance Program was developed in 1988, before such programs had become popular nationwide. For technically knowledgeable managers, Cal/EPA offers a set of blue three-ring binders ("blue books") that contain complete compliance information for a given type of equipment or category of business. For line workers, the program offers nontechnical, comic-book-style information, which is sometimes published in Spanish or Korean as well as English, depending on the type of business involved.
The self-inspection handbook for the dry cleaning industry shows green drums labeled "Waste" with voice bubbles saying "Store and label properly." "And seal tight," proclaim large yellow block letters across the rest of the picture. The handbook includes sample checklists where workers can enter how many pounds of clothes were in each load and keep a service and repair log for the equipment. "Use these...to help prevent a notice of violation," a large talking iron says.
There's a Spanish-language version of the inspection manual for auto repair shops, which tells shop owners about all the different government agencies with the power to regulate them, from fire departments to OSHA to local pollution-control districts. While reminding them that "[exclamdown]Las violaciones son costosas!" (Violations are costly!), the manual shows pictures of unsealed solvent containers, open paint cans, and soiled rags exposed to the air, all of which result in the emission of volatile organic compounds, which contribute to smog.
Since Cal/EPA introduced training and literature for gas stations in the late 1980s, the compliance-assistance program has gradually expanded to cover other sources of emissions. From 1988 through early September 1997, the program distributed roughly 27,000 blue books and 584,000 comic books. The effort to make regulations understandable seems to be having an impact. In the early 1990s, Cal/EPA studies showed that about half of all businesses that use solvents failed to follow the applicable regulations (designed to limit the release of harmful chemicals into the environment). The agency found that the technical manuals and comic books cut noncompliance rates within each industry by 50 percent to 60 percent within a year of their introduction into that industry. By using vapor recovery handbooks, one major gasoline retailer reduced emission-related violations by more than 70 percent over an eight-month period.
Such figures do not tell us whether there were corresponding improvements in the environment and, if so, whether they were worth the cost involved. But regulators such as Morgester argue, reasonably enough, that it's not their job to judge the wisdom of the environmental goals set by policy makers.
There are other limits to compliance assistance. Because of the high turnover rate in industry, Cal/EPA's efforts must be on-going to be effective. New employees have to be trained, or the habits that foster compliance fall by the wayside. And traditional environmentalists argue, not without reason, that while a regime of strict punishment may seem unfair to small businesses that break the rules unintentionally, it deters sloppiness as well as deliberate violations. Business people who are scared of regulators may be scared enough to take extra precautions and avoid mistakes. It is possible to imagine an environmental agency that is too fixated on compliance assistance, to the point where it ignores important problems that require enforcement. And it is the threat of penalties that often drives businesses to the compliance-assistance program in the first place.
Morgester himself believes that the success of the compliance- assistance program depends on inspections, which encourage diligence. He stresses that too many people make a conceptual distinction between helping businesses understand the regulations and traditional enforcement efforts. "They go hand in hand," he says. The situation to avoid, says Morgester, is one where enforcement officers see their job as writing tickets and compliance-assistance people see their job as handing out blue books. Such programs foster tension between the two divisions, encouraging the belief that there are two competing and mutually exclusive philosophies at work within the agency.
"You have only one goal," Morgester says. "I want the emissions to the atmosphere to be reduced so that we get the benefit of the rules and regulations....And if I can get that by being kinder or gentler or nicer-smelling, by buying them lunch, if I had the resources, I would buy them lunch in a second. If I can get that by giving them a blue book, I would give them a blue book in a second. If I get that by giving them a notice of violation and threatening to put them in jail, I will do that in a second. But in the real world no one of those does the job."
While separation and conflict between enforcement and compliance assistance may be counterproductive, it is the approach that prevails at many environmental agencies, including the U.S. EPA. "You cannot and should not ever separate your compliance-assistance, warm-and-fuzzy people from your traditional law enforcement," says Morgester. "It's a big mistake. It does nothing but give you headaches, and you end up wasting resources."
Slippery Successes, Flexible Failures
The essence of innovations is that we don't know whether they will succeed. For a process of innovation to succeed, individual projects must be allowed to fail. And sometimes the definition of success is slippery. If regulatory goals are unreasonable (as they sometimes are), and an agency adopts more flexible ways of accomplishing those unreasonable goals, is that success? If one defines success as the best of all possible worlds, one is sure to be disappointed by both federal and state reforms.
But in the real world, where incrementalism is often the best we can get, even a more efficient way of accomplishing wrongheaded goals is an improvement. At any rate, if failure means environmental degradation--the infamous "race to the bottom"--the evidence suggests it's not likely. The experience with recent innovations in environmental policy indicates that the states are resilient enough to learn from their mistakes, bounce back from failures, and overcome the barriers that stand in the way of better environmental protection.
Many of these barriers are psychological: the attitude among local, state, or federal officials that "the way we've always done it" is the best or the only way. No one likes change, and people often have to be prodded in the right direction. That includes business people as well as regulators. "It's sort of funny," muses Mary Gade of the Illinois EPA. "It's not exactly as if people are flocking to our doors saying, `I can't wait to try something innovative.'" She recalls a senior executive from a company she regulated who said of a flexible compliance program, "I hate this! I want you to tell me what to do!"
Other barriers to innovation are technical, since some environmental variables are difficult or impossible to measure directly. One Nebraska regulator recalls the days of using "dust-ball buckets" to measure particulate matter. The agency would set out a bucket and, after 30 days, measure what was inside, amid the bugs and bird droppings. In an age of widespread, serious environmental problems, such inexactness was acceptable; everyone knew, broadly speaking, what the problems were, and the cost of refining environmental measures was high relative to the payoff. Nowadays, when many major problems have been solved and minor problems are harder to pinpoint, developing accurate performance measures is much more important.
But the barriers that loom largest in environmental policy are institutional, mainly growing out of the relationship between the states and the federal government. Ultimately, the devolution of environmental policy will require changes in federal law.
What functions should the U.S. EPA retain? In 1970, when the EPA was set up, one of the models suggested was the National Institutes of Health: a scientific agency in charge of setting standards, issuing bulletins, and conducting basic research, with the states actually running the programs. Instead, the EPA became a hands-on agency, running all the programs but delegating them under certain conditions to the states. Pennsylvania's Jim Seif believes a strong federal role was appropriate in the 1970s, when major environmental problems were just beginning to be addressed, but he says the time has come for a shift in authority to the states.
The U.S. EPA probably should continue to address environmental problems that affect several states, such as air pollution in the Midwest and Northeast or coordinating water-quality protection in the watersheds of rivers that border several states. It might also take on more of an international role, enter into more public-private partnerships, put more emphasis on scientific research, and encourage the development and transfer of pollution-reduction technology. "Those remain roles that would elude most states in terms of their focus and in terms of their budget," says Seif. "Issuing permits does not elude me. I do more of that than any EPA region....They don't need to occupy the field anymore."
Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason at any time.
nfl jerseys|11.15.10 @ 9:55PM|#
kyjdcg