This Paper is one of several prepared as working drafts by the staff of the Advisory Committee on External Regulation of DOE Nuclear Safety to assist in the Committee's deliberations. These papers do not necessarily represent the views of the full Committee. During the June meeting of the Committee, several members expressed concern that enforcement against Federal agencies might not be as effective as enforcement against private entities. The Committee asked the staff to see what the experience of federal regulators has been in enforcing against federal agencies, and to suggest ways to assure that such enforcement is effective.
Federal agencies are subject to a number of federal statutes.
These statutes include enforcement mechanisms for federal and state regulators and citizens. Several of the agency people we talked to agreed that enforcement against federal agencies may not be as effective as enforcement against private entities. At this point, neither they nor we have suggestions for how to assure effective enforcement against federal agencies, but at the end of this paper we do try to put the problem in some perspective. At this point, the paper concentrates on the legal aspects of enforcement and does not discuss any of the political or budgetary implications of enforcing against other Federal agencies. All major environmental statutes contain provisions that require Federal agencies to comply with the requirements of Federal environmental regulations as well as all applicable state and local requirements in the same manner and to the same extent as any non-governmental entity.