Cleanup Enforcement

EPA, with collaboration from its state partners, has developed a National Enforcement Strategy for RCRA Corrective Action (NESCA) to help achieve the 2020 RCRA Corrective Action Goal (final cleanup remedies at 95% of the 3,747 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) facilities currently believed to need corrective action by the year 2020).

NESCA identifies five components to help achieve EPA’s 2020 RCRA Corrective Action Goal:

• Follow a process, as set forth in the guidance, to strategically use enforcement to move facilities along the remediation process by prioritizing certain types of facilities for corrective action enforcement;
• Engage in robust communication and coordination with states;
• Provide ongoing support to Regions and states to address special considerations that arise in the enforcement context;
• Provide training and other desired support to regulators; and
• Develop improved ways to measure both Federal and state enforcement accomplishments in corrective action.

Implementing NESCA should help:

• Ensure facility accountability;
• Provide a level playing field among regulated facilities;
• Promote open and consistent communication among EPA, states, regulated facilities, the public, and other stakeholders;
• Promote better use of the range of enforcement and compliance tools available to EPA and authorized States to address enforcement and compliance issues;
• Provide opportunities for consistent and joint EPA/state enforcement activities incorporating shared approaches among the regulators in prioritizing and targeting for enforcement; and
• Provide opportunities for enforcement actions using authorities found in statutes other than RCRA or in combination with RCRA, such as joint RCRA/Superfund orders.

NESCA is a component of EPA’s Integrated Cleanup Initiative (ICI), a three-year strategy to identify and implement improvements to EPA’s land cleanup programs.

The National Enforcement Strategy for RCRA Corrective Action (NESCA): an Enforcement Framework to Help Achieve EPA’s 2020 RCRA Corrective Action Goal (PDF) (30pp, 434K, About PDF).

More information on the 2020 RCRA Corrective Action Goal and the 2020 corrective action universe of facilities is available on EPA's corrective action program goals and results webpage. At the date of NESCA 's issuance, April 2010, 33% of the corrective action universe (approximately 1,200 facilities) had reached remedy construction.

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