In the United States, the implementation of pollution-control laws (which is managed at the federal level by the US Environmental Protection Agency, or USEPA) has been greatly facilitated because these laws extensively require that businesses and other regulated entities self-monitor, keep records, and report problems and violations to the Government. Policy reasons for requiring such self-monitoring include:
- Government resources for official inspections are scarce. Without self-monitoring, inspectors alone would catch only a small percentage of violators, and ignorance and non-compliance could be the norm.
- The legal duty to self-monitor creates self-knowledge from which come both the ability and a strong incentive to achieve compliance “voluntarily.” Widespread compliance becomes the social norm, because the people closest to and in direct charge of their own pollution know soonest their problem and often best how to control it at the source.
- Self-monitoring means less government bureaucracy (including less official control and scrutiny). Wide-spread self-control of behavior brings more freedom from stressful entanglements with Government. This result is less costly to society and may be popular. Because usually there is no violation to be reported, the regulated entities may see their duty of self-monitoring as a modest burden at worst and perhaps even helpful.
When self-monitoring does indicate a non-compliance event of significance that must be reported, USEPA enforcement-response policies elaborate what is the proportionate, consistent, and fair government response across the range of possible violations. (Internal USEPA documents have highly elaborated enforcement response policies (ERPs) not only for self-monitoring, but also more generally.)
For example, self-reporting of a routine exceedance (or spill) is handled administratively (non-criminally) and does not necessarily mean a penalty. The enforcement response may be only compliance assistance (no penalty) when one or more mitigating factors are present. Such mitigating factors can include the fact that the violator is a small business or small community, the exceedance occurs while facing new and complex requirements, and the facility is making its best (open and immediate) efforts yet still experiencing small or inadvertent violations. On the other hand, serious penalties may be appropriate when aggravating factors are present, such as when a large and sophisticated enterprise, while facing long-established and easily feasible requirements, does not make best efforts (there is evasion or delay), causes toxic, large, or easily avoidable exceedances, causes identifiable environmental damage, or has repeated offenses.
USEPA seeks to ensure a “level playing ground” to assure fair economic competition among all competitors in the sector facing the same pollution-control challenges. It also seeks to guarantee the integrity of government data, and economize scarce government resources so that they are applied only where needed. When self-monitoring and reporting is legally required by not conducted honestly, USEPA is very strict. Intentional tampering with a monitoring device, falsification, or failure to report are defined by law as offenses and are likely to be prosecuted criminally.
The above policy approaches apply only to legally required – but not voluntary – self-monitoring. Different government approaches, policy considerations, and incentives apply to encourage voluntary self-auditing and environmental management systems (EMS) that entail self-monitoring that exceeds (is beyond, broader, or deeper) than what is legally required. For the U.S. experiences in this respect, see “Environmental Self-Auditing in the United States,” following Guideline 41(h)
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For more information on self-monitoring and on enforcement response policies, see http://www.epa.gov/compliance/
resources/policies/index.html