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PA EPA/STATE AGREEMENT ON INNOVATION
Release Date: 05/01/98
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FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, MAY 1, 1998
EPA/STATE AGREEMENT ON INNOVATION
EPA Administrator Carol M. Browner, Deputy Administrator Fred Hansen, and senior State environmental officials have formally approved a “Joint EPA/State Agreement to Pursue Regulatory Innovation,” establishing guiding principles for the development, testing, and implementation of regulatory innovations proposed by states. The agreement allows States to take reform actions that promise better environmental results at less cost. In addition, by guiding states’ development of experimental approaches, the agreement is intended to encourage successful innovations that may lead to national system-wide improvements in environmental protection. The EPA/State agreement emphasizes seven principles that will guide how regulatory innovation is managed by EPA and the States: a willingness to experiment, improved environmental performance, smarter approaches to solving environmental problems, stakeholder involvement during design and evaluation, measuring and verifying results against agreed-upon goals and objectives, ensuring appropriate accountability/enforcement, and promoting State-EPA partnerships. At a March 25 meeting of the Environmental Council of States (ECOS), State representatives present voted unanimously to adopt the innovations agreement. The agreement builds on the many reinvention efforts already under way between EPA and individual states. Some of these efforts are highlighted in a recently published joint EPA/ECOS report, “Finding New Ways of Doing Business: How the States and EPA are Working Together to Improve Environmental Protection” (available online at: https://www.epa.gov/reinvent). The agreement will be published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, May 5.
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