Despite diminishing enforcement budgets for state and federal agencies, a combination of technological and regulatory developments could significantly increase risk of enforcement activity in coming months and years. In particular, EPA is actively pursuing three key enforcement initiatives that will boost the likelihood that companies will face enforcement actions under the Clean Air Act. We believe that those in the regulated community should become familiar with these initiatives and consider taking steps to ameliorate and address their impacts.

These initiatives, discussed in more detail below, are: (1) advances in monitoring technologies (heavily driven by EPA); (2) adoption or modification of standards to allow for greater use of more widely available and less expensive monitoring technologies for enforcement purposes; and (3) elimination of defenses based on increased emissions that result from often uncontrollable events.

To read the full alert, click on the PDF linked below.

Recent-Developments-in-Clean-Air-Act-Enforcement.pdf

For more information, please contact: