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Greening the Federal Government
The Environmental Protection Agency enforces environmental laws passed by Congress and Executive Orders issued by the President. This means that EPA must not only get others to abide by environmental laws, but also must itself follow these laws and regulations in day-to-day operations.There are a number of Presidential Executive Orders which direct federal agencies
to take actions to reduce energy and water use, conserve natural resources,
reduce air pollution, purchase recycled content and environmentally preferable
products, and manage their environmental programs more effectively. The text
of these Executive Orders, as well as a number of valuable implementation tools,
can be found on the website of the Office of the
Federal Environment Executive. 
EPA Region 8 works in two basic areas to advance these goals.
- Environmental
Management Systems: These systems provide a framework for organizations
and communities to more effectively manage their environmental obligations,
including those required to comply with applicable statutes and regulations.
In addition, these systems can be useful for moving beyond compliance, improving
overall environmental performance, and making greater use of pollution prevention
approaches.
- Federal Facilities Compliance program: The primary goal of this program is to ensure that all agencies reach a level of compliance with environmental requirements that equal or surpass the rest of the regulated community (e.g., business, industry). EPA uses a three-pronged approach: training and compliance assistance, compliance oversight and enforcement, and review of federal agency environmental plans and programs.
Federal partners
In Region 8, the Pollution Prevention (P2) team members work extensively with the following federal partners:- The National Park Service
- U.S. Department of Energy
- Other federal agencies (Federal Facilities Compliance
program) in the six-state region on pollution prevention projects
Additional resources and information
The following links provide information on programs and background documents to assist land management agencies implement environmental programs based on pollution prevention principles.
- Yellowstone National Park Cleaning project.
This report documents the process that the National Park Service and two consultants
used at Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks to introduce environmentally
preferable janitorial products.
- Chemical Clean Out Manual PDF (6 pp, 283K,
About PDF). This document
outlines a protocol developed by EPA Region 8 and the Intermountain Region
of the National Park Service to guide facilities in collecting, removing,
recycling and disposing of no longer needed chemical products in an environmentally
sound manner.
- Environmental Management System Policy Worksheets
PDF (7 pp, 130 K, About
PDF). These worksheets offer your facility an outline to use when developing
your environmental policy.
- Region
8 Environmental Champions Report PDF (7 pp, 1.55M, About
PDF). An environmental champion is a person who fights for a cause --
someone who goes beyond the call of duty helping their organization to be
environmentally proactive.
- Environmentally Preferred Purchasing
program. Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP) is a federal-wide
program that encourages and assists Executive agencies in the purchasing of
environmentally preferable products and services.
