EPA Website: Facilities and Enforcement Activities Related to the Clean Air Act Stationary Source Program
This post on the EPA Website offers an overview of Clean Air Act (CAA) Stationary Source Program, Data Collection, and Information Sources. In addition, it provides 15 answers to frequently asked questions about finding CAA Program Enforcement Data.
This page provides information about federal, state and local enforcement of Clean Air Act (CAA) emissions control requirements for industrial facilities (also known as stationary source standards). The CAA allows EPA to authorize or delegate the implementation of most CAA provisions to state, local or tribal governments, enabling them to perform many of the permitting, planning, administrative, compliance monitoring and enforcement aspects of the CAA Programs. However, EPA oversees this implementation process and maintains dual authority for enforcement of all CAA requirements.
For compliance and enforcement purposes, the CAA Stationary source program falls into three main categories of regulated facilities based primarily on annual potential emissions:
Major – facilities that have potential emissions above CAA program thresholds, (i.e., 10, 25, 100 tons per yr, etc.)
Synthetic Minor or SM – facilities that would be major but have enforceable permit limits to restrict them below major thresholds,
Minor or Area sources – facilities that physically cannot emit above major program thresholds.
EPA has emission control, data reporting requirements that apply to each of these categories of sources. EPA places greater priority on major facilities. See report on the types of CAA Regulated Facility Universe Counts (PDF). The compliance and enforcement related information is stored in the national database called the Air Facility System (AFS) and can be searched on the Enforcement & Compliance Online (ECHO) Web site. Other key CAA program databases include those tracking CAA emissions, acid rain and operating permits. Data entry and minimum reporting requirements for compliance and enforcement programs are summarized here (EPA ECHO Data Entry Requirements).EPA collects key information including:
- the universe, size and CAA subprograms of facilities regulated,
- noncompliance (determined by agency evaluations or review of facility reports or self-disclosures),
- the severity of certain violations (High Priority Violation(s) or HPV),
whether informal or formal enforcement actions were taken, and whether penalties were assessed.
Category: Resources
