Environmental Protection Agency January 13, 2020 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is planning to submit a request to renew an existing information collection request (ICR), ``Clean Water State Revolving Fund Program'' (EPA ICR No. 1391.11, OMB Control No. 2040-0118) to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and approval in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA). Before doing so, the EPA is soliciting public comments on specific aspects of the proposed information collection as described below. This is a proposed extension of the ICR, which is currently approved through September 30, 2020. An Agency may not conduct or sponsor and a person is not required to respond to a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is promulgating this final rule to adjust the level of the maximum (and minimum) statutory civil monetary penalty amounts under the statutes the EPA administers. This action is mandated by the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990, as amended through the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015 (``the 2015 Act''). The 2015 Act prescribes a formula for annually adjusting the statutory maximum (and minimum) amount of civil penalties to reflect inflation, maintain the deterrent effect of statutory civil penalties, and promote compliance with the law. The rule does not necessarily revise the penalty amounts that the EPA chooses to seek pursuant to its civil penalty policies in a particular case. The EPA's civil penalty policies, which guide enforcement personnel on how to exercise the EPA's statutory penalty authorities, take into account a number of fact-specific considerations, e.g., the seriousness of the violation, the violator's good faith efforts to comply, any economic benefit gained by the violator as a result of its noncompliance, and a violator's ability to pay.