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Compliance and Enforcement Annual Results:
Report a Violation
FY2006 Annual Results Topics
EPA uses many approaches to identify potential violations. One approach is to enlist the public in identifying potential civil and criminal violations by asking them to provide information about potentially harmful environmental activities in their communities and in their workplaces. This has led to state and federal enforcement cases and has ultimately served environmental protection well.
One of the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance's ( OECA) priorities is to make the EPA website a more effective tool in securing tips and complaints from the public about possible civil and criminal violations of environmental law. In January, 2006, OECA unveiled a new Web-based tool (www.epa.gov/tips) for the public to greatly expand the scope and quality of leads about possible environmental infractions. A new badge button on EPA's Homepage invites the public to report possible environmental violations or crimes. More than a million people a month who visit the Agency's home page (www.epa.gov) have the opportunity to help OECA protect human health and the environment by sharing any problems they see in their communities.
Between January 1, 2006 and September 30, 2006, submissions more than doubled (from 1,485 to 3,274). Almost 2,800 tips referred were referred to civil enforcement and almost 480 tips were referred to criminal agents. During that time period, seven tips resulted in either the initiation of a criminal case or the possibility of additional charges in existing criminal cases because the tips received related to already opened, ongoing investigations and provided even more useful information and witnesses.
OECA's Office of Criminal Enforcement, Forensics and Training (OCEFT) has the primary responsibility for evaluating and routing these leads as they come in. The system sorts tips based on their potential under criminal, civil or state jurisdiction. Here is a brief overview of how the process works:
- A member of the public completes form
- If the violation is described as being intentional, it goes to the criminal enforcement office for review by criminal investigation division desk officers
- If the violation is described as being "accidental," it is automatically sent to EPA Regional offices for review as a civil case.
- "Criminal tips" reviewed by desk officer are either:
- Closed without further action if information submitted indicates that further investigation is not warranted
- Sent to Criminal Program field offices for further review and potential criminal investigation
- Sent to Regional offices if deemed potentially worthwhile for civil investigation but not criminal investigation
- Tips that result in further enforcement response are tracked through the normal civil and criminal enforcement procedures.
Tips that will not result in further federal response may be referred to the states . States' responses to tips referred from EPA are managed within each State as a regulatory or law enforcement issue. EPA's goal with regard to referrals to states is to provide tips of the highest quality (containing as much useful information as possible) for review.
EPA's National Report a Violation Web site is still a work in progress. The continued implementation of the website will allow a more organized and coordinated effort between EPA's criminal and civil enforcement offices; more timely EPA responses to public reports of potential environmental violations; referral of complaint information to EPA's state and local counterparts; accurate internal EPA tracking of complaint information; and tracking of national trends in environmental law violations.
Annual Results by Fiscal Year:
FY2008 | FY2007 | FY2006 | FY2005 | FY2004 | FY2003 | FY2002 | FY2001 | FY2000 | FY1999