Comparative Report             1992-97

Supplemental Environmental Projects (SEPs) and Injunctive Relief

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This analysis serves as a supplement to the more complete Comparative Report for FY1992-96. As such, it does not examine trends from FY92 to FY97, except in cases where doing so sets apart or highlights certain FY97 figures. Rather, this supplement emphasizes and examines differences between FY96 and FY97.

Generally speaking, between FY92 and FY97 the total number of SEPS has varied too much to exhibit a general trend. FY97 did see a substantial increase over FY96 (58 SEPs in FY97 compared to 31 in FY96), and more closely matched the numbers of past years.

While the number of SEPs increased in FY97, the value of those SEPs did not. In fact, the trend whereby the total value of SEPs consistently increased from one year to the next ended in FY96; FY97's value is only 67% of FY96's. This lower total value drove down the average value of a SEP in FY97 to a figure close to that of FY94.

Over this time period there is no general trend concerning SEPs which cost more than $100,000.

The same is true for SEPs which cost more than $1 million, for the number of SEPs involving pollution prevention, and for the total value of penalties collected in cases in which SEPs were negotiated.

The number of SEPs associated with any geographic initiative increased in FY97 from the previous year (a general trend in this six-year period). Nearly eighty percent of cases fell into this category, and seventy-one percent of cases were located within the Great Lakes Basin (GLB) Initiative (see note #8 on the attached chart). Other initiatives involved a substantial, but not unusually high, number of cases. A new initiative, similar to the GLB initiative, was added in FY97: the Upper Mississippi (UM) Initiative; 19 of 58 cases fell into this category in FY97.

Once again, we see that the number of cases involving injunctive relief increased significantly in FY97, and more generally, between FY92 and FY97. The number of injunctive relief cases in FY97 was higher than in any other year (28% higher than in FY96).

The trend for the total value of injunctive relief cases, however, appears to be the exact inverse. FY97's total value is the lowest in this six-year period (36% lower than FY96's value), and the average value of an injunctive relief case is 50% lower than the average value of an FY96 case.

The number of injunctive relief cases which are associated with any geographic initiative increased significantly from FY96 to FY97, in terms of both actual numbers and as percentages of the total numbers of geographic initiative cases. The number of GLB cases remained constant from FY96 to FY97, but that number represented as a percentage of the total decreased significantly. In fact, the percentage of GLB cases in FY97 is the second-lowest in this six-year period, in obvious contrast with the increasing percentage of GLB-related SEPs. The number of cases in other initiatives, however, is significantly higher in FY97 than in previous years, suggesting either a more even distribution of geographic initiative cases in Region 5 or an increase in the number of cases which are associated with more than one initiative. The new geographic initiative, UM, had 63 injunctive relief cases in FY97.

Maintained by: Interim Developer, Office of Regional Counsel
Date of last update: 07/08/99
URL: http://www.epa.gov/glnpo/orc/reports/irsep_9297_written.htm