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Multimedia Enforcement Division
Offices
- Administration and Policy (OAP)
- Civil Enforcement (OCE)
- Air Enforcement (AED)
- Special Litigation & Projects (SLPD)
- Waste & Chemical Enforcement (WCED)
- Water Enforcement (WED)
- Criminal Enforcement, Forensics and Training (OCEFT)
- Compliance (OC)
- Environmental Justice (OEJ)
- Federal Activities (OFA)
- Federal Facilities Enforcement (FFEO)
- Site Remediation Enforcement (OSRE)
| Director: | Robert Kaplan (Acting) |
|---|---|
| Associate Director: | Susan O'Keefe (Acting) |
| Phone Number: | (202) 564-2230 |
| FAX | (202) 564-0010 |
The Multimedia Enforcement Division directs EPA's national multimedia enforcement programs and promotes these programs at the Regional and State level. The Division is staffed to provide both legal and technical support for enforcement activities, develop and prosecute enforcement actions, resolve multimedia/multi-facility disclosures of violations, and serves as an information clearinghouse on multimedia enforcement issues. The Division also develops and implements guidance documents on multimedia issues, such as the Supplemental Environmental Projects (SEP) Policy and the BEN model.
The multimedia or comprehensive approach to case development can be employed in the context of three basic types of enforcement actions:
- Against single facilities, where entire industrial processes at a facility may be examined as a whole to determine compliance with all environmental statutes;
- Against entire companies, where violations of different statutes occur at various facilities indicating ineffectual corporate-wide management of environmental compliance; and
- Geographically based enforcement efforts arising from a comprehensive multimedia analysis of the environmental problem(s) in a given area.
Environmental contamination is, by nature, unconstrained by statutory boundaries. Removal of artificial and occasional bureaucratic boundaries can result in:
- Improved detection and resolution of environmental compliance problems. Cross- statutory targeting, inspections, and analysis of violations afford the most effective method of identifying the extent of environmental problems. This leads to comprehensive enforcement activities.
- Achievement of optimal enforcement results. Multimedia enforcement actions raise the possibility of significantly broader environmental benefits as a part of settlement. This is in addition to penalties which more accurately reflect the full extent of the gravity of harm and economic benefit gained by noncompliance. Increasing the penalty amount available for offsetting and widening the scope of violations resolved also provide an increased opportunity for Supplemental Environmental Project (SEP) proposals.
- More effective enforcement. Targeting facilities or companies with significant, pervasive violations can eliminate the root cause of an environmental problem. This may not be possible through an enforcement action brought pursuant to one statutory authority.
- More efficient use of resources. Multimedia actions reduce and streamline the resource burden otherwise required by the numerous single-statute cases brought to resolve a complex environmental problem.
- Fundamentally change the regulated community's perceptions and behavior regarding environmental compliance. Broad-based actions and subsequent results can only assist the regulated community's meaningful implementation of environmental management systems. Furthermore, publicity of far-reaching multimedia cases can only assist in general deterrence.
Multimedia Enforcement Division works closely with other Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) offices, EPA's Office of General Counsel (OGC), and the U.S. Department of Justice's Environment and Natural Resources Division
on multimedia enforcement matters. MED also represents OECA on enforcement issues with federal agencies and to external groups.
The Multimedia Enforcement Division's offices are located in the Ariel Rios Building, near 12th and Pennsylvania Streets adjacent to the Federal Triangle MetroRail stop, in downtown Washington, DC. Our mailing address is U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Multimedia Enforcement Division (2248A), Washington, D.C.