Water Pollution: EPA Has Improved Its Review of Effluent Guidelines but Could Benefit from More Information on Treatment Technologies
Released: 2012-10-10T00:00:00


Highlights: section_title: Why GAO Did This Study
paragraphs: Under the Clean Water Act, EPA has made significant progress in reducing wastewater pollution from industrial facilities. EPA currently regulates 58 industrial categories, such as petroleum refining, fertilizer manufacturing, and coal mining, with technology-based regulations called effluent guidelines. Such guidelines are applied in permits to limit the pollutants that facilities may discharge. The Clean Water Act also calls for EPA to revise the guidelines when appropriate. EPA has done so, for example, to reflect advances in treatment technology or changes in industries.

GAO was asked to examine (1) the process EPA follows to screen and review industrial categories potentially needing new or revised guidelines and the results of that process from 2003 through 2010; (2) limitations to this process, if any, that could hinder EPA’s effectiveness in advancing the goals of the Clean Water Act; and (3) EPA’s actions to address any such limitations.

GAO analyzed the results of EPA’s screening and review process from 2003 through 2010, surveyed state officials, and interviewed EPA officials and experts to obtain their views on EPA’s process and its results.

section_title: What GAO Found
paragraphs: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) uses a two-phase process to identify industrial categories potentially needing new or revised effluent guidelines to help reduce their pollutant discharges. EPA’s 2002 draft Strategy for National Clean Water Industrial Regulations was the foundation for EPA’s process. In the first, or “screening,” phase, EPA uses data from two EPA databases to rank industrial categories according to the total toxicity of their wastewater. Using this ranking, public comments, and other considerations, EPA has identified relatively few industrial categories posing the highest hazard for the next, or “further review,” phase. In this further review phase, EPA evaluates the categories to identify those that are appropriate for new or revised guidelines because treatment technologies are available to reduce pollutant discharges. Since 2003, EPA has regularly screened the 58 categories for which it has issued effluent guidelines, as well as some potential new industrial categories, and it has identified 12 categories for its further review phase. Of these 12 categories, EPA selected 3 for updated or new effluent guidelines. EPA chose not to set new guidelines for the others.

Limitations in EPA’s screening phase may have led it to overlook some industrial categories that warrant further review for new or revised effluent guidelines. Specifically, EPA has relied on limited hazard data that may have affected its ranking of industrial categories. Further, during its screening phase, EPA has not considered the availability of advanced treatment technologies for most industrial categories. Although its 2002 draft strategy recognized the importance of technology data, EPA has stated that such data were too difficult to obtain during the screening phase and, instead, considers them for the few categories that reach further review. Officials responsible for state water quality programs and experts on industrial discharges, however, identified categories they believe EPA should examine for new or updated guidelines to reflect changes in their industrial processes and treatment technology capabilities. According to some experts, consideration of treatment technologies is especially important for older effluent guidelines because changes are more likely to have occurred in either the industrial categories or the treatment technologies, making it possible that new, more advanced treatment technologies are available.

Recognizing the limitations of its hazard data and overall screening approach, EPA has begun revising its process but has not assessed other possible sources of information it could use to improve the screening phase. In 2012, EPA supplemented the hazard data used in screening with four new data sources. EPA is also developing a regulation that, through electronic reporting, will increase the completeness and accuracy of its hazard data. In 2011, EPA also began to obtain recent treatment technology literature. According to EPA, the agency will expand on this work in 2013. Nonetheless, EPA has not thoroughly examined other usable sources of information on treatment technology, nor has it reassessed the role such information should take in its screening process. Without a more thorough and integrated screening approach that both uses improved hazard data and considers information on treatment technology, EPA cannot be certain that the effluent guidelines program reflects advances in the treatment technologies used to reduce pollutants in wastewater.

section_title: What GAO Recommends
paragraphs: GAO is making recommendations to improve the effectiveness of EPA’s effluent guidelines program by expanding its screening phase to better assess hazards and advances in treatment technology. EPA agreed with two recommendations in principle and said it is making progress on them, but said that one is not workable given current agency resources. GAO believes improvements can be made.

section_title: Letter
paragraphs: Forty years after the Clean Water Act set a national goal of eliminating  the discharge of pollutants into navigable U.S. waters, the Environmental  Protection Agency (EPA) has made significant progress in reducing  pollution from industrial facilities; nevertheless, pollution from these   EPA’s actions to reduce this  facilities continues to cause concern.pollution have included establishing national technology-based  regulations—or effluent guidelines—for separate industrial categories,  such as petroleum refining, fertilizer manufacturing, coal mining, and  metal finishing. EPA issued the vast majority of these regulations in the  1970s and 1980s and has revised most of them; revisions may range  from changes in testing methods to establishment of more stringent  standards. Relatively few effluent guidelines have been revised or created  in recent years, however, and environmental advocacy groups continue to  raise concerns because industrial facilities annually discharge hundreds  of billions, and perhaps trillions of pounds of pollutants to U.S. waters.  According to EPA, industrial pollutants may contribute, in part, to impaired  water quality; harm aquatic life; and limit the ways in which people can  safely use the nation’s waters.

One of EPA’s main responsibilities under the act is to regulate “point  source” pollution—that is, pollution such as effluent or wastewater coming  from a discrete point, such as a pipe from an industrial facility. The Clean  Water Act directed EPA to establish effluent guidelines to achieve  pollutant reductions using specific treatment technologies or changes in a  facility’s production processes. In establishing and revising effluent  guidelines, EPA is to assess (1) the performance and availability of the  best pollution control technologies or pollution prevention practices for an  industrial category; (2) the economic achievability of those technologies;  (3) non-water-quality environmental impacts, such as the energy required  to reduce pollutants; and (4) other factors that the EPA Administrator  deems appropriate, such as the risk posed by discharges. The legislative  history of relevant provisions in the Clean Water Act suggests that  effluent guidelines were expected to be revised and made more stringent  over time to reflect technological advances.

To carry out its effluent guidelines program, EPA develops regulations  setting national effluent guidelines, and states generally implement the  program by applying limits in permits that they issue to specific facilities.  Under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES)  program, all facilities that discharge pollutants from any point source into  U.S. waters are required to obtain a permit, typically from their state or  EPA region. Under the Clean Water Act, EPA has authorized 46 states to  issue NPDES permits and retains the authority to issue permits for the  remaining 4 states: Idaho, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New  Mexico.

A Senate committee report explaining the addition of this provision to the Water Quality  Act of 1987, noted in part, “uidelines are required for any category of sources  discharging significant amounts of toxic pollutants. In this use, ‘significant amounts’ does  not require the Administrator to make any determination of environmental harm; any non- trivial discharges from sources in a category must lead to effluent guidelines.” S. Rep. 99- 50 at 24-25 (1985). See also 69 Fed. Reg. 53,707 (Sept. 2, 2004). years and final plans for effluent guidelines in even years. If EPA decides  that an industrial category requires new or revised effluent guidelines, it  generally establishes them through a regulatory process that involves  proposing new effluent guidelines, obtaining public comment, making  revisions, and publishing a final regulation.

Throughout much of the effluent guidelines program’s history, EPA’s  schedule for issuing effluent guidelines has been driven by litigation and  resulting consent decrees. In 2002, following extensive consultation with  an advisory task force formed in response to a 1992 consent decree, EPA  issued a draft Strategy for National Clean Water Industrial Regulations,  outlining a new process by which it planned to meet the requirement to  review industries in the future to determine whether new or revised  effluent guidelines were appropriate. The draft strategy calls for EPA to  conduct an annual screening of industrial categories to consider (1) the  risks the industrial categories pose to human health or the environment;  (2) the availability of treatment technology or other approaches to reduce  the risk; (3) the cost, performance, and affordability of the technology; and  (4) implementation and efficiency considerations. EPA derived these  screening factors in part from the statutory requirements for developing or  revising effluent guidelines. Following screening with available  information, the draft strategy calls for EPA to conduct a further review of  selected categories. The further reviews may take 1 or more years to  complete. EPA has not finalized or formally updated its draft strategy,  although according to EPA officials, the draft has served in part as the  basis for the agency’s annual reviews of industrial categories after 2002.

As EPA’s regulatory efforts have reduced pollutants from industrial point  sources over the past several decades, the agency has placed greater  emphasis on what is now the primary reason for impairment of the  nation’s waters, namely diffuse or nonpoint pollution, such as some  agricultural runoff. In light of that change in emphasis and soon after  issuing the draft strategy, EPA reduced staffing levels for the effluent  guidelines program by about 40 percent, according to program officials.  EPA issued its most recent effluent guidelines—for airport deicing, a  previously unregulated industry—in May 2012. Before that, EPA’s most  recent revisions of existing effluent guidelines were for concentrated  animal feeding operations in 2008 and construction and development in  2009. Most effluent guidelines have not been revised since the 1980s or  1990s.

In this context, you asked us to review EPA’s effluent guidelines program.  This report examines (1) the process EPA follows to screen and review  industrial categories potentially in need of new or revised effluent  limitation guidelines and the results of that process from 2003 through  2010; (2) limitations to this screening and review process, if any, that  could hinder the effectiveness of the effluent guidelines program in  advancing the goals of the Clean Water Act; and (3) what actions EPA  has taken or could take to address limitations, if any, that exist.

To address our objectives, we reviewed the Clean Water Act and relevant  regulations, EPA’s 2002 draft strategy, effluent guidelines program plans,  and associated supporting documents. We also reviewed EPA’s  screening decisions for all industrial categories and its further reviews for  the 12 industrial categories selected through screening from 2003 through   Our purpose was to identify those industries that EPA had only  2010.initially screened and those that received a further review, including an  examination of available treatment technologies. We also documented  the status of regulatory actions and other steps that EPA took for  industries that it reviewed further. In addition, we interviewed officials in  EPA’s Engineering and Analysis Division to learn about the process the  agency follows to screen and review industries potentially in need of new  or revised effluent limitation guidelines. We then compared the steps  specified in the draft strategy with the agency’s current process for  screening and reviewing industries for possible revised guidelines. To  better understand the steps in the current process as they apply to  specific industrial categories, we conducted detailed interviews with EPA  staff regarding 7 of the 12 industrial categories that EPA selected from  2003 onward for possible new or revised effluent guidelines. We chose  2003 because it was the year when EPA issued its first preliminary  effluent guidelines plan after developing its 2002 draft strategy for  screening and reviewing industries. We also conducted 17 interviews with  22 experts from academia, industry, nonprofit organizations, and state  and local water quality agencies for their perspectives on EPA’s effluent  guidelines program. We selected these experts from a list of  approximately 50 individuals identified from a variety of sources, including  referrals from EPA, the Association of Clean Water Agencies, the  National Association of Clean Water Agencies, and other experts;  relevant academic literature; and litigation documents. Because we used  a nonprobability sampling method to select experts, the results of our  interviews with them cannot be generalized to all experts on the program,  but the information derived from interviewing these experts provided  illustrative observations and examples. We also surveyed the directors for  water quality permits in the 46 states authorized to issue NPDES permits  about the adequacy of current effluent guidelines; the results of our  analysis are not generalizable to all industrial categories in all states.  Using the results of the survey, we selected an industrial category that  state officials said warranted revised effluent guidelines and interviewed  state officials to learn more about the reasons for their views. We also  interviewed EPA officials about their plans, if any, related to those  industries. Appendixes I and II present a more detailed description of our  scope and methodology.

We conducted this performance audit from September 2011 to  September 2012, in accordance with generally accepted government  auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the  audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable  basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We  believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our  findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.
subsections: section_title: Background
paragraphs: Tens of thousands of industrial facilities directly discharge wastewater  into the waters of the United States and are subject to permit limits on  their discharges, which for certain industries are determined by effluent  guidelines set by EPA under the Clean Water Act. For certain industries,  EPA issues a similar type of regulation—pretreatment standards— applicable to facilities that are indirect dischargers; that is, their effluent  goes to wastewater treatment plants, which then discharge the collected  and treated wastewater into a water body. To establish pollutant control  limits for different pollutants in these guidelines or standards, EPA groups  industrial facilities into categories that have similar products or services.  To date, EPA has issued effluent guidelines or pretreatment standards for  58 industrial categories. EPA has issued effluent guidelines for 57 of the  58 categories and pretreatment standards for 35 of the 58 categories.Table 1 lists industrial categories that are regulated by effluent guidelines  and pretreatment standards. According to EPA, there are approximately  35,000 to 45,000 direct dischargers covered by effluent guidelines and  about 10,000 facilities that discharge indirectly to wastewater treatment  plants.

Before an industrial facility discharges pollutants, it must receive a permit  that is to, at a minimum, incorporate any relevant pollutant limits from  EPA’s effluent guidelines. Where needed to protect water quality as  determined by standards set by individual states, NPDES permits may  include limits more stringent than the limits in the guidelines. NPDES  permits for direct dischargers are issued by 1 of the 46 states authorized  by EPA to issue them and by EPA elsewhere. Unlike direct dischargers,  indirect dischargers, which do not discharge to surface waters, do not  require an NPDES permit. Instead, an indirect discharger must meet  EPA’s national pretreatment standards and may have to meet additional  pretreatment conditions imposed by its local wastewater treatment plant.Under the national pretreatment standards and conditions, an indirect  discharger is required to remove pollutants that may harm wastewater  treatment plant operations or workers or, after treatment and discharge,  cause violations of the wastewater treatment plant’s permit. Figure 1  illustrates both types of facilities subject to regulation.

To get an NPDES permit, industrial facilities’ owners—like any source  discharging pollutants as a point source—must first submit an application  that, among other things, provides information on their proposed  discharges. Water quality officials in authorized states and EPA regional  offices responsible for the NPDES program in the four nonauthorized  states review these applications and determine the appropriate limits for  the permits. Those limits may be technology-based effluent limits, water  quality-based effluent limits, or a combination of both. Technology-based  limits must stem from either effluent limitation guidelines, when  applicable, or from the permit writer’s best professional judgment when no  applicable effluent limitation guidelines are available. Using best  professional judgment, permit writers are to develop technology-based  permit conditions on a case-by-case basis, considering all reasonably  available and relevant information, as well as factors similar to those EPA  uses in developing guidelines for national effluent limitations. A permit  writer should also set water quality-based limits more stringent than  technology-based limits if necessary to control pollutants that could cause  or contribute to violation of a state’s water quality standards. To support  each permit, permit writers are supposed to develop a fact sheet, or  similar documentation, briefly summarizing the key facts and significant  factual, legal, methodological, and policy questions considered. The fact  sheet and supporting documentation also serve to explain to the facility,  the public, and other interested parties the rationale and assumptions  used in deriving the limitations in the permit.

Facilities with NPDES permits are required to monitor their discharges for  the pollutants listed in their permits and to provide monitoring reports with  their results to their permitting authority (the relevant state, tribal, or  territorial agency authorized to issue NPDES permits or, in nonauthorized  locations, EPA). For facilities designated by EPA regional administrators  and the permitting authorities as major facilities, the permitting authorities  are in turn required to transfer the monitoring report data to EPA  headquarters. These reports, known as discharge monitoring reports, are  transmitted electronically and stored in an electronic database or reported  in documents and manually entered into the electronic database for use  by EPA in reviewing permit compliance. required to report the discharge monitoring results from all remaining  facilities, known as minor facilities, to EPA but may do so. According to  EPA, there are about 6,700 major and 40,500 minor facilities covered by  NPDES permits.

EPA and the states are making a transition from one national database, known as the  Permit Compliance System, to another known as the Integrated Compliance Information  System: NPDES. The states are divided in their use of the two databases. Consequently,  two databases contain discharge-monitoring reports. In our report, however, we refer to  them collectively as “the database.”

Facilities may also be required to report data to EPA’s Toxics Release  Inventory on their estimated wastewater discharges. This inventory  contains annual estimates of facilities’ discharges of more than 650 toxic  chemicals to the environment. One of the inventory’s primary purposes is  to inform communities about toxic chemical releases to the environment,  showing data from a wide range of mining, utility, manufacturing, and  other industries subject to the reporting requirements. As such, although  the inventory is unrelated to the NPDES program, the Toxics Release  Inventory contains estimated discharges of toxic pollutants for many  NPDES-permitted facilities. Not all industrial categories covered by  effluent guidelines—the oil and gas industrial category, for example—are  necessarily required to report to the inventory.
subsections: section_title: Effluent Guidelines Program
paragraphs: Under the Clean Water Act, EPA must establish effluent guidelines for  three categories of pollutants—conventional, toxic, and nonconventional  pollutants—and several levels of treatment technology. As defined in  EPA’s regulations, conventional pollutants include biological oxygen  demand, total suspended solids, fecal coliform bacteria, oil and  grease, and pH.

The Clean Water Act designates toxic pollutants as  those chemicals listed in a key congressional committee report, which  contains 65 entries, including, arsenic, carbon tetrachloride, and mercury,  as well as groups of pollutants, such as halomethanes. Nonconventional  pollutants are any pollutants not designated as a conventional or toxic  pollutant; for example, EPA has developed limitations for such  nonconventional pollutants as chemical oxygen demand,carbon, and the nutrients nitrogen and phosphorus.

The act authorizes EPA to establish effluent limits for these three  pollutant categories according to several standards; the standards  generally reflect increasing levels of treatment technologies. A treatment  technology is any process or mechanism that helps remove pollutants  from wastewater and can include filters or other separators, biological or  bacteria-based removal, and chemical neutralization. Legislative history  of the Clean Water Act describes the expectation of attaining higher  levels of treatment through research and development of new production  processes, modifications, replacement of obsolete plans and processes,  and other improvements in technology, taking into account the cost of  treatment. Under the act, the effluent limits do not specify a particular technology to be used but instead set a performance level based on one  or more particular existing treatment technologies. Individual facilities  then have to meet the performance level set but can choose which  technology they use to meet it.

Under the act, EPA was to issue initial guidelines for existing facilities on  the basis of the “best practicable control technology currently available”  for conventional, toxic, and nonconventional pollutants—guidelines to be  achieved by 1977—followed by guidelines set on the basis of “best  available technology economically achievable” for toxic and  nonconventional pollutants and “best conventional pollutant control  technology” for conventional pollutants. The act also called for guidelines  known as “new source performance standards,” which would apply to  new facilities starting operations after such standards were proposed.  When permitting authorities develop a permit, they apply standards most  appropriate to a given facility: For example, a new facility would receive a  permit with limits reflecting the new source performance standards.  Existing facilities would generally receive permits with limits reflecting the  best conventional technology and best available technology, but where  those standards have not been issued, permit limits would reflect best  practical treatment. Table 2 shows the different levels of treatment  established in the act and the category of pollutant to which they apply.

The Clean Water Act requires EPA to annually review all existing effluent  guidelines and revise them if appropriate, and also to review existing  effluent limitations at least every 5 years and revise them if appropriate.  The Water Quality Act of 1987 added two related requirements to EPA’s  reviews. First, EPA is to identify, every 2 years, potential candidates for  new effluent guidelines, namely, industries that are discharging  significant, or nontrivial, amounts of toxic or nonconventional pollutants  that are not currently subject to effluent guidelines. Second, every 2 years  beginning in 1988, EPA is required to publish a plan establishing a  schedule for the annual review and revision of the effluent guidelines it  has previously promulgated. In response to these two requirements, EPA  published its first effluent guidelines program plan in 1990, which  contained schedules for developing new and revised effluent guidelines  for several industrial categories.

From the start of the effluent guidelines program in the early 1970s, EPA  has faced considerable litigation, with industry challenging most of the  industry-specific effluent guidelines. As the agency implemented the  program, EPA also faced challenges from environmental groups over its  failure to issue guidelines and the process EPA used to screen and  review industrial categories. For example, the Natural Resources Defense  Council, an environmental organization, brought two suits, each seeking  to compel EPA to meet its duties to promulgate effluent limitations for  listed toxic pollutants, among other actions. As a result, EPA operated  under two key consent decrees establishing court-approved schedules for  it to develop and issue effluent guidelines regulations. In addition, under  one of the consent decrees, EPA established a task force that operated  from 1992 through 2000 and advised the agency on various aspects of  the effluent guidelines program. In particular, the task force issued  several reports advising EPA on changes to its screening and review  process for the effluent guidelines program and recommended that EPA  hold a workshop to discuss improvements to the process.

In 2002, after considering the recommendations made by both the task  force and the workshop, EPA developed an approach to guide its post- consent decree screening and review, issued in a document called A  Strategy for National Clean Water Industrial Regulations. Under this draft  strategy, EPA was to evaluate readily available data and stakeholder  input to create an initial list of categories warranting further examination  for potential effluent guidelines. The strategy identified the following four  key factors for EPA to consider in deciding whether to revise existing  effluent guidelines or to develop new ones:  the extent to which pollutants remaining in an industrial category’s  discharge pose a substantial risk to human health or the environment; the availability of a treatment technology, process change, or pollution  prevention alternative that can effectively reduce the pollutants and  risk; the cost, performance, and affordability of the technology, process  change, or pollution prevention measures relative to their benefits;  and the extent to which existing effluent guidelines could be revised, for  example, to eliminate inefficiencies or impediments to technological  innovation or to promote innovative approaches.

The draft strategy also indicated that EPA would apply nearly identical  factors to help determine whether it should issue effluent guidelines for  industrial categories for which it had not yet done so. The document  noted that EPA intended to revise and issue the strategy in early 2003,  but EPA has chosen not to finalize it.agency made this choice because its implementation of the process was  likely to evolve over time.

EPA officials stated that the  Since EPA issued its draft strategy, the agency has faced litigation  challenging the use of technology in its screening process. In 2004, EPA  was sued by Our Children’s Earth, a nonprofit environmental  organization, which alleged that EPA failed to consider technology-based  factors during its annual review of industrial categories. On appeal, the  Ninth Circuit Court decided in 2008 that the statute did not establish a  mandatory duty for EPA to consider such factors. The court found that the  statute’s use of the phrase “if appropriate” indicated that decisions on  whether to revise guidelines are discretionary but are also constrained by  the statute’s mandate as to what effluent guidelines regulations are to  accomplish. Further, the court stated that the overall structure of the  Clean Water Act strongly suggests that any review to determine whether  revision of effluent guidelines is appropriate should contemplate  technology-based factors.

section_title: EPA’s Two-Phase Screening and Review Process Has Identified Few Industrial Categories for New or Revised Effluent Guidelines
paragraphs: EPA uses a two-phase process to review industrial categories potentially  in need of new or revised effluent guidelines; from 2003 through 2010, the  agency identified few such categories. Since 2003, EPA has annually  screened all industrial categories subject to effluent guidelines, as well as  other industrial categories that could be subject to new guidelines; it has  identified 12 categories for further review and selected 3 categories to  update or to receive new effluent guidelines.
subsections: section_title: EPA’s Screening Phase Results in a Subset of Industrial Categories for Further Review
paragraphs: EPA’s screening phase starts with a review of industrial categories  already subject to effluent guidelines—as well as industrial categories that  are not—to identify and rank those whose pollutant discharges pose a  substantial hazard to human health and the environment.and ranks industrial categories using pollutant data from facilities in  similar industrial classifications. Before it ranks industrial categories in this  screening phase, EPA excludes from consideration any industrial  categories where guidelines are already undergoing revision or have  been revised or developed in the previous 7 years. For example, EPA   EPA analyzes  announced in its 2010 final effluent guideline program plan that it  excluded the steam electric power-generating category from the  screening phase because the agency had already begun revising effluent  guidelines for this industry. Also in 2010 EPA excluded the concentrated  aquatic animal production category (e.g., fish farming) from screening  because the agency issued effluent guidelines in 2004.

In ranking industrial categories during the screening phase, EPA  considers the extent to which discharged pollutants threaten human  health and the environment—the first factor identified in EPA’s 2002 draft  strategy. EPA compiles information from two EPA sources on the facilities  within these industrial categories that discharge wastewater, the  pollutants they discharge, and the amount of their discharge: (1) the  discharge monitoring report database and (2) the Toxics Release  Inventory. relative toxicity of pollutant discharges from screened industrial  categories, converts these estimates into a single “score” of relative  toxicity for each industrial category, and uses this score to rank the  industrial categories according to the reported hazard they pose. To  determine the relative toxicity of a given pollutant, EPA multiplies the  amount (in pounds) of that pollutant by a pollutant-specific weighting  factor to derive a “toxic weighted pound equivalent.” EPA’s ranking of one  industrial category relative to other categories can vary depending on the  amount of the pollutants it discharges or the toxicity of those pollutants.  For example, an industrial category, such as pesticide chemicals, may  discharge fewer pounds of pollutants than another category, such as  canned and preserved seafood processing, but have a higher hazard  ranking because of the relative toxicity of the pollutant chemicals it  discharges.

As explained above, an industrial direct discharger is required to have an NPDES permit  regardless of whether there are effluent guidelines for the industry. NPDES permits  require monitoring for specific pollutants to determine compliance with permit limits. Some  industries may also be subject to requirements under another EPA program to report toxic  releases to the Toxics Release Inventory. These requirements are independent of whether  an industry is regulated by effluent guidelines.

After ranking industrial categories, EPA identifies those responsible for  the top 95 percent of the total reported hazard, which is the total of all  industrial categories’ hazard scores. EPA assigns these industrial  categories a high priority for further review in the second phase of its  review process. As the relative amounts of their discharges change, the  number of industrial categories making up this 95 percent can vary each  year with each screening EPA performs. From 2003 through 2009, for  example, 10 to 13 industrial categories composed the top 95 percent of  reported hazard, whereas in 2010, 21 categories made up the top  95 percent. Figure 2 shows the number of industrial categories that EPA  considered for possible further review on the basis of its hazard  screening.

After it identifies the industrial categories contributing to 95 percent of  reported hazard, EPA takes additional steps to exclude industrial  categories before beginning the further review phase. Specifically, the  agency may exclude industrial categories on the basis of three criteria:

Data used in the ranking process contained errors. After completing  its ranking, EPA verifies the pollutant discharge data from the  discharge monitoring reports and Toxics Release Inventory and  corrects any errors. For example, according to EPA, the agency has  found that facilities have reported the wrong unit of measurement in  their discharge monitoring reports, or states have transferred data into  the EPA database incorrectly. In such cases, a pollutant discharge  may, for example, be reported at a concentration of 10 milligrams per  liter but in fact be present at a concentration of 10 micrograms per  liter—a thousand-fold lower discharge.

Very few facilities account for the relative toxicity of an industrial  category. EPA typically does not consider for further review industries  where only a few facilities account for the vast majority of pollutant  discharges and the discharges are not representative of the category  as a whole. In such cases, EPA states in its effluent guideline  program plans that revising individual NPDES permits may be more  effective than a nationwide regulation to address the discharge. For  example, in 2004, EPA determined that one facility was responsible  for the vast majority of discharges of dioxin associated with the  inorganic chemicals industrial category. In its effluent guideline  program plan for that year, EPA indicated that it would work through  the facility’s NPDES permit to reduce these discharges as  appropriate.

Other factors. EPA considers other factors in addition to those  described above to determine if an industrial category warrants further  review. According to EPA, one such factor is inadequate data from  which to make a clear determination. For example, in its 2010  screening phase, EPA excluded several industrial categories from the  further review phase because it did not have conclusive data but said  that it would “continue to review” the categories’ discharges to  determine if they were properly controlled. These industries included  pulp, paper, and paperboard; plastic molding and forming; and waste  combustors.

Figure 3 illustrates the exclusion process EPA applies in its initial  screening phase.

During the screening phase, EPA uses existing industry classifications as  the basis for identifying industrial categories. EPA groups these industry  classifications, which are identified by one of two standardized coding  schemes, into industrial categories that it then considers for effluent  guidelines. If EPA identifies an industrial category that does not have  effluent guidelines but has discharges that present a potential hazard, it  decides whether the category produces a product or performs a service  similar to one subject to existing effluent guidelines. If so, EPA generally  considers the former category to be a subcategory of the latter.  Conversely, if the products or services differ from categories subject to  existing guidelines, EPA considers the category as a potential new  category. In either case, EPA may decide that the industrial category  warrants further review and, possibly, new effluent guidelines.

Throughout the screening phase, EPA also obtains stakeholder and  public input, which may identify industrial categories warranting new or  revised effluent guidelines that were not identified by their hazard ranking.  Stakeholder and public input comes from EPA’s solicitation of comments  on its biennial preliminary and final effluent guidelines program plans. For  example, in 2004 stakeholders raised concerns about discharges from  dental facilities of mercury used in dental fillings; in response, EPA later  identified the dental category for further review. On completing the  screening phase, the agency lists in its preliminary or final effluent  guidelines program plans the industrial categories it has identified for  further review. Alternatively, EPA may decide on the basis of its screening  criteria that no industrial categories warrant further review.

section_title: EPA’s Further Review Phase Results in Few Industrial Categories to Consider for Potential New or Revised Effluent Guidelines
paragraphs: In its further review phase, EPA conducts detailed studies of any  industrial categories identified in its screening phase, using the four  factors listed in its November 2002 draft strategy to determine whether  the categories need new or revised effluent guidelines. Since issuing its  draft strategy, EPA has selected 12 industrial categories to move beyond  the screening phase to the further review phase. Seven of the  categories—for example, the pulp, paper, and paperboard category and  the petroleum refining category—were identified for further review on the  basis of the risk or toxicity of the pollutants they discharge, and 5 were  identified for review on the basis of stakeholder concerns. If the  categories are already subject to effluent guidelines that EPA set, the  agency studies the need to revise effluent limits in the existing guidelines;  if the categories are not subject to existing guidelines, EPA studies the  need to develop effluent limits and apply them for the first time. Of the 12  categories selected for further review, 8 were already subject to existing  effluent guidelines, and 4 were not.

During its further review phase, according to EPA documents, EPA  gathers and analyzes more information on the factors identified in its draft  strategy. During this phase, EPA typically analyzes information on the  hazards posed by discharged pollutants, which corresponds to the first  factor in its draft strategy. The data on hazards that EPA obtains and  analyzes include: (1) characteristics of wastewater and of facilities; (2) the  pollutants responsible for the industrial category’s relative toxicity ranking;  (3) geographic distribution of facilities in the industry; (4) trends in  discharges within the industry, and (5) any relevant economic factors  related to the industry.

During the further review phase, EPA also begins to gather and analyze  information on the availability of pollution prevention and treatment  technology for the industrial categories reviewed, which corresponds to  the second factor identified in its draft 2002 strategy. Through this  analysis, EPA identifies current technologies that industry is using to  reduce pollutants, potential new technologies that could be used to  reduce pollutants, or both. Table 3 summarizes EPA’s consideration of  treatment technologies for the 12 industrial categories that proceeded to  the further review phase. For example, EPA studied one technology used  by the ore mining and dressing industrial category and several current  technologies for the coalbed methane category.

During its further review phase, EPA also obtains and analyzes  information related to the cost, affordability, and performance of  technologies, the third factor in its strategy. To do so, EPA examines the  cost and performance of applicable technologies, changes in production  processes, or prevention alternatives that may reduce pollutants in the  industrial category’s discharge. As part of its cost analysis, the agency  considers the affordability or economic achievability of any identified  technologies, production processes, or prevention alternatives. To assess  the performance of technologies, EPA considers the results of the  treatment technologies used in tests or actual operations—information the  agency obtains from published research papers and internal and external  sources, including site visits and surveys of industrial facilities.its further review of the steam electricity power-generating industry, for  example, EPA sampled wastewater directly at power plants, surveyed  plant operators about which technologies they were using to minimize  pollutant discharges and at what cost, and sought information on other  potential treatment technologies.

At the conclusion of its further review of an industrial category, EPA  decides whether it is feasible and appropriate to revise or develop effluent  guidelines for the category, a decision that includes gathering information  on whether an effluent guideline is the most efficient and effective  approach to manage the discharges, the fourth factor in EPA’s draft  strategy. As shown in table 3, for example, EPA decided that the drinking  water treatment industrial category did not require effluent guidelines but  that the agency’s study could act as a resource for state permit writers as  they issue permits for drinking water facilities. Or, as also shown in table  3 for coalbed methane, EPA decided to develop guidelines that it plans to  propose in 2013. Some of the information EPA can consider during this  decision making, and some of the information related to the fourth factor  in its strategy, is the extent to which existing effluent guidelines could be  revised to eliminate inefficiencies or impediments to technological  innovation or to promote innovative approaches. Specifically, EPA  considers whether another way exists—either regulatory or voluntary—to  decrease pollutant discharges. For example, after the further review of  the dental facility category in 2008, EPA decided not to develop effluent  guidelines but to instead work with the American Dental Association and  state water agencies on a voluntary reduction program to reduce pollutant  discharges from dental facilities. It later changed its decision because the  voluntary effort was shown to be ineffective, and the agency plans to  issue effluent guidelines in 2012.

It takes EPA, on average, 3 to 4 years to complete the further review  phase for an industrial category. As of July 2012, EPA had identified three  industrial categories for which it had decided to revise effluent  guidelines—steam electric power generating—or to develop new effluent  guidelines—coalbed methane extraction and dental facilities. According  to agency documents and officials, EPA has chosen to take no action on  the other 9 of the 12 categories it has further reviewed since 2002.

section_title: Focus on Limited Hazard Data to the Exclusion of Technology Information May Have Led EPA to Overlook Industrial Categories for Pollution Reduction
paragraphs: Limitations in the screening phase of EPA’s review process may have  caused the agency to overlook some industrial categories that warrant  new or revised effluent guidelines and thus hinder the effectiveness of the  effluent guidelines program in advancing the goals of the Clean Water  Act. First, the data EPA uses in the screening phase has limitations that  may cause the agency to omit industrial categories from further review or  regulation. Second, EPA has chosen to focus its screening phase on the  hazards associated with industrial categories, without considering the  availability of treatment technologies or production changes that could  reduce those hazards. The screening phase of the process may thus  exclude some industrial categories for which treatment technologies or  production changes may be available to serve as the basis for new or  revised effluent guidelines.
subsections: section_title: Limitations in Hazard Data May Have Caused EPA to Overlook Industrial Categories
paragraphs: The two sources EPA relies on during its initial screening process— discharge monitoring reports and the Toxic Release Inventory—have  limitations that may affect the agency’s ability to accurately rank industrial  categories for further review on the basis of the human health and  environmental hazards associated with those categories. Data from  industrial facilities’ discharge monitoring reports have the benefit of being  national in scope, according to EPA documents, but according to agency  officials and some experts we spoke with, these data have several  limitations that could lead the agency to underestimate the hazard caused  by particular industries. Specifically:

The reports contain data only for those pollutants that facilities’  permits require them to monitor. Under NPDES, states and EPA  offices issue permits containing limits for pollutant discharges, but  those permits may not include limits for all the pollutants that may be  discharged, as for example, if those pollutants are not included in the  relevant effluent guidelines or need not be limited for the facility to  meet state water quality standards. If a pollutant is not identified in a  permit, and hence not reported on discharge monitoring reports, it  would not be part of EPA’s calculation of hazard and would not count  toward the ranking of industrial categories.

The reports do not include data from all permitted facilities.

Specifically, EPA does not require the states to report monitoring  results from direct dischargers classified as minor. According to EPA,  the agency in 2010 analyzed data for approximately 15,000 minor  facilities, or about 37 percent of the 40,500 minor facilities covered by  NPDES permits. As a result, the pollutants discharged by the  remaining 25,500 minor dischargers would not be counted as part of  the relative toxicity rating and could contribute to undercounting of  pollutants from those industrial categories. For example, most coal  mining companies in Pennsylvania and West Virginia are considered  minor dischargers whose pollutants would not count toward the  ranking of that industrial category.

The reports include very limited data characterizing indirect  discharges from industrial facilities to wastewater treatment plants,  according to EPA documents. Thus, the data do not fully document  pollutants that, if not removed by a wastewater treatment plant, are  discharged. These data are not incorporated into EPA’s calculations  of hazard for each industrial category, and thus result in  underestimated hazards.

EPA documents and some experts we contacted also stated that data  collected in the Toxics Release Inventory are useful to identify toxic  discharges. Nevertheless, according to the agency and experts, these  inventory data have limitations that may cause EPA to either overestimate  or underestimate the relative toxicity of particular industrial categories.  The limitations they identified include the following:

The data reported are sometimes estimates and not actual monitored  data. In some cases, the use of an estimate may overreport actual  pollutant discharges. For example, some industry experts said that to  be conservative and avoid possible liability, some facilities engaging  in processes that produce particularly toxic pollutants, such as dioxin,  may report the discharge of a small amount on the basis of an EPA- prescribed method for estimating such discharges even if the pollutant  had not been actually monitored.

Not all facilities are required to report to the inventory, which may lead  to undercounting the discharges for the industrial categories of which  the facilities are a part. Facilities with fewer than 10 employees are  not required to report to the inventory, and neither are facilities that do  not manufacture, import, process, or use more than a threshold  amount of listed chemicals. For example, facilities that manufacture or  process lead or dioxin do not need to report to the inventory unless  the amount of chemical manufactured or processed reaches  10 pounds for lead or 0.1 grams for dioxin.

Despite the limitations of these data sources, EPA officials said that  discharge monitoring reports and the Toxic Inventory Release are the  best available data on a national level. Experts we interviewed also  generally supported the continued use of these data sources despite their  limitations. An EPA official responsible for the screening and review  process said that EPA could not quantify the effect of the missing data on  its ranking and setting of priorities for industries without time-consuming  and expensive collecting of data directly from industrial facilities. Still,  agency officials agreed that the data limitations can lead to under- or  overestimating the hazard of discharges from industrial categories, which  could in turn affect the rankings of these categories and potentially result  in different categories advancing for further review and potential  regulation.

section_title: EPA’s Screening Phase Does Not Consider Treatment Technologies, Omitting Some Industrial Categories from Further Review
paragraphs: EPA’s primary focus during its screening phase is the relative hazard  posed by industrial categories, without consideration of available  treatment technologies that could be used as the basis for revised effluent  guidelines to help reduce pollutant discharges. Because EPA sets the  cutoff point in its screening process as industrial categories contributing to  95 percent of total reported hazard, the agency does not consider for  further review the categories contributing to 5 percent of the total reported  hazard. Although this percentage is low, the categories involved  constitute the majority of all industrial categories with effluent guidelines.  EPA does not conduct a further review for these and other industrial  categories that it has excluded for other reasons, meaning that EPA does  not examine them for the availability of more-effective treatment  technologies. As previously noted, the Ninth Circuit Court held in 2008  that EPA does not have a mandatory duty to consider technology in its  screening process but stated that the act strongly suggests that any  review to determine whether revision of effluent guidelines is appropriate  should contemplate technology-based factors. Regardless of whether  EPA is required to do so, the agency is not considering technology for  these industrial categories, and hence EPA cannot ensure that the  facilities in these categories are using the best available treatment  technology.

section_title: EPA Is Adding Hazard Data Sources but Is Not Fully Using Potential Sources of Information on Treatment Technologies
paragraphs: EPA has begun to take actions to improve the hazard data it uses in its  screening of industrial categories, but it is not fully using potential sources  of information on treatment technologies for consideration in this  screening. According to program officials, EPA has recognized that its  screening phase has resulted in the same industries rising repeatedly to  the top of its hazard rankings. Program officials said that they are  considering changes to their screening approach to identify additional  industrial categories for further review. The primary change, the officials  told us, would be to rank categories according to toxicity every 2 years,  rather than annually, and to supplement that ranking with a targeted  analysis of additional sources of data. To develop such revisions, officials  from EPA’s effluent guidelines program engaged in an informal  “brainstorming” exercise within the agency and identified several sources  of data on new and emerging pollutants, sources that officials think could  help target industrial categories for further review. EPA officials said they  will propose revisions to the review process in the 2012 preliminary  effluent guidelines program plan they expect to issue late in 2012.

To mitigate the limitations with hazard data that EPA currently  experiences, the agency has taken several steps to obtain new sources  of information and to improve existing sources. Using additional sources  of data is consistent with suggestions made to us by several academic  and governmental experts we interviewed that other sources of hazard  data may be useful to the agency, including additional monitoring data  and data on the quality of water bodies receiving wastewater  discharges. The new data sources would broaden the hazard data  considered in the screening phase. Among the sources EPA intends to  pursue for future use are the following: a 2009 EPA survey of sludge produced by wastewater treatment  plants to identify pollutants entering these plants, indicating that they  are not being treated by an industrial facility and might need  regulation; a review of action plans prepared under EPA’s Office of Pollution  Prevention and Toxic Substances for specific chemicals of emerging  concern to identify pollutants that are likely to be discharged to waters  by industrial point sources; a review of all EPA air pollution regulations issued within the last 10  to15 years to identify new treatment processes that could add to or  change the pollutants in wastewater streams; and a review of data and information available concerning industries that  EPA is considering for a proposed expansion of required reporting for  the Toxics Release Inventory.

EPA is also drafting a rule that would increase the information EPA  receives electronically from discharge monitoring reports from NPDES  permittees and permitting authorities. According to officials with the  effluent guidelines program, increased electronic reporting would result in  a more complete and accurate database and improve their access to the  hazard data from facilities’ discharge monitoring reports, thereby  improving the screening of industrial categories. For example, according  to EPA officials, data on minor facilities that are not currently reported into  the discharge monitoring database used in the screening process would  be reported under the electronic reporting rule, as sent to the Office of  Management and Budget for review.

EPA recognizes the need to use information on treatment technologies in  the screening phase to improve its process and has taken some initial  steps to develop a database of such information, but it has not made full  use of potential data sources. EPA started to gather information on  treatment technology in 2011, contracting with consultants to obtain  relevant literature for the database. In its comments on a draft of this  report, the agency said that it will expand on this work in 2013 and 2014  once new fiscal year operating plans are in place. According to agency  officials, a thorough analysis of the literature would give the program an  updated technology database, which would help in identifying advances  in technologies in use or with potential use in industrial categories, which,  on the basis of these advances, may in turn warrant further review. They  noted that in the 1980s and 1990s, the program used such information  from an agency database but that the database had become outdated.

In more than half of our interviews (10 of 17), experts told us that EPA  should consider technology in its screening phase, and some of them  suggested the following two approaches for obtaining this information:

Stakeholder outreach. Experts suggested that key stakeholders could  provide information on technology earlier in the screening process.  Currently, EPA solicits views and information from stakeholders  during public comment periods following issuance of preliminary and  final effluent guidelines plans. According to experts, EPA could obtain  up-to-date information and data from stakeholders beyond these  formal comment periods. For example, EPA officials could (1) attend  annual workshops and conferences hosted by industries and  associations, such as engineering associations, or host their own  expert panels to learn about new treatment technologies and (2) work  with industrial research and development institutes to learn about  efforts to reduce wastewater pollution through production changes or  treatment technologies.

NPDES permits and related documentation. Experts suggested that to  find more information on treatment technologies available for specific  pollutants, EPA could make better use of information in NPDES  permit documentation. For example, when applying for NPDES  permits, facilities must describe which pollutants they will be  discharging and what treatment processes they will use to mitigate  these discharges. Such information could help EPA officials  administering the effluent guidelines program as they seek  technologies to reduce pollutants in similar wastewater streams from  similar industrial processes. Similarly, information from issued NPDES  permits containing the more stringent water quality-based limits— which may lead a facility to apply more advanced treatment  technologies—could suggest the potential for improved reductions.  Further, information in fact sheets prepared by the permitting authority  could also furnish information on pollutants or technologies that could  help EPA identify new technologies for use in effluent guidelines.

According to EPA officials, these two sources of information have not  been extensively used. They said that they would like to obtain more  stakeholder input during screening and review, but they have limited time,  resources, and ability to work with stakeholders. They noted that the  effluent guidelines program does assign staff members responsibility for  keeping up with technologies and developments in specific industrial  categories. They also said that the NPDES information suggested by  experts is not current or readily available for use by the program.

Our analysis of NPDES information, however, showed that EPA has not  taken steps to make the information available for use by the effluent  guidelines program. For example, the standard list of treatment processes  on the NPDES application form has not been updated since 1980, and  EPA officials said it was out of date. Yet EPA has not updated this  information or provided it to the effluent guidelines program for use in  screening available technologies. EPA could have done so through a  second rulemaking effort under way to improve NPDES data—in which  EPA is updating NPDES application forms to make them more consistent  with NPDES regulations and current program practices—but chose not to.  Agency documents about this rulemaking described it as modifying or  repealing reporting requirements that have become obsolete or outdated  over the past 20 years and modifying permit documentation procedures to  improve the quality and transparency of permit development.  Nonetheless, effluent guidelines program officials said that they did not  request potential NPDES permit updates relevant to their program  because the scope of this rulemaking was too narrow. EPA’s Office of  Wastewater Management, which is responsible for the rulemaking,  confirmed that the scope of the proposed rule is to be narrow and not call  for states or permittees to provide new information.

Further, fact sheets or similar documentation that NPDES permit writers  develop describing the basis for permit conditions are not stored in EPA’s  electronic NPDES database and are therefore difficult to obtain and  analyze, according to program officials. Instead, these NPDES  documents are now maintained by the authorized states or EPA regions  and are not readily accessible to the effluent guidelines program.

Program officials said that electronic transmission of fact sheets or  information about the basis for permit limits could be useful in identifying  treatment technologies, although the scope of the electronic reporting  rulemaking did not include such documents or information. Officials from  the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, the office  responsible for this rulemaking, told us that they discovered such wide  variability among the states’ practices for gathering and managing  NPDES information like fact sheets or the basis for permit limits that it  would be difficult to call for electronic reporting of such information.

section_title: Conclusions
paragraphs: EPA and the nation have made great strides in reducing the pollutants in  wastewater discharged from point sources, such as industrial facilities,  since the Clean Water Act was passed. EPA’s effluent guidelines  program has been key in contributing to these results by establishing  national uniform limits on pollutant discharges for various industrial  categories. Progress within the program has slowed, however, and  numerous effluent guidelines for particular industrial categories have not  been revised for 2 or 3 decades, although the act calls for EPA to  routinely review its effluent guidelines and update or add to them as  appropriate. EPA’s approach for screening and further reviewing  industrial categories, as currently implemented, has not identified many  categories for the agency to consider for new or revised guidelines, and  the screening process has identified many of the same industrial  categories year after year. EPA’s approach focuses its resources on the  most hazardous sources of pollution, but its reliance on incomplete  hazard data during the screening phase has limited the results of the  approach, as has EPA’s inability to thoroughly collect treatment  technology data within its resource constraints. Under EPA’s current  approach, most industrial categories have not received a detailed further  review examining the availability of more-effective treatment technologies.  According to some experts, consideration of treatment technologies is  especially important for older effluent guidelines because changes in  either the industrial categories or the treatment technologies are more  likely to have occurred, making it possible that new, more advanced and  cost-effective treatment technologies have become available. EPA has  recently taken steps to obtain more information on treatment technologies  for use in its screening phase—which could help make up for limitations  in the hazard data it currently uses—but it has not taken steps to improve  and gain access to technology information from the NPDES program.  Further, EPA is reconsidering its approach to its screening and review  process—initially documented in its draft strategy that was never  finalized—but has not analyzed a range of possible sources of data to  improve the program, including taking full advantage of the NPDES  database, obtaining relevant stakeholder input, and reviewing older  effluent guidelines for changes in either the industry or available  treatment technologies. Without evaluating a range of new sources of  relevant information, officials with the effluent guidelines program cannot  ensure that the reconsidered approach can be implemented or that it  optimizes the agency’s ability to consider technology in the screening  process. Most important, without a more thorough and integrated  screening approach that both improves hazard information and considers  treatment technology data, EPA cannot be certain that the effluent  guidelines program is reflecting advances in the treatment technologies  used to reduce pollutants in wastewater.

section_title: Recommendations for Executive Action
paragraphs: To improve the effectiveness of EPA’s efforts to update or develop new  effluent guidelines, we recommend that the Administrator of EPA direct  the effluent guidelines program to take the following three actions, as it  considers revisions to its screening and review process:  Identify and evaluate additional sources of data on the hazards posed  by the discharges from industrial categories.

Identify and evaluate sources of information to improve the agency’s  assessment in the screening phase of treatment technologies that are  in use or available for use by industrial categories, including better  use of NPDES data.

Modify the screening phase of its review process to include thorough  consideration of information on the treatment technologies available to  industrial categories.

section_title: Agency Comments and Our Evaluation
paragraphs: We provided a draft of this report to EPA for review and comment. In its  written comments, which are reproduced in appendix IV, EPA said that  our report adequately describes the agency’s effluent guidelines program  and agreed in principle with two of the report’s recommendations but  disagreed with the third recommendation. EPA also provided several  technical comments, which we have incorporated as appropriate.

Regarding our first recommendation, that EPA identify and evaluate  additional sources of data on the hazards posed by industrial discharges  and factor these into its annual reviews, EPA agreed that additional  sources of such data are valuable. For this reason, EPA said, it began  collecting new sources of hazard information in 2011, which the agency is  using in its 2012 annual review. EPA also said that its preliminary 2012  effluent guideline program plan will solicit additional ideas for new hazard  data sources from the public and industry stakeholders. We described  EPA’s ongoing and planned efforts in our report, but because the agency  has not yet published its preliminary 2012 effluent guideline program plan,  we cannot determine the extent to which these efforts address the  limitations we identified in its hazard data. Likewise, we are not able at  this time to confirm that EPA will solicit additional sources of such data  from stakeholders. We support EPA’s stated intent to identify and  evaluate additional sources of hazard data and retain our  recommendation, reinforcing the need for the agency to continue the  efforts it has begun.

Regarding our second recommendation, that EPA should identify and  evaluate additional sources of information to improve its assessment of  treatment technologies for industrial dischargers, EPA agreed that  treatment technology information is useful to its program. The agency  added that, given the importance of new treatment technology  information, in 2011 it initiated efforts to gather more treatment  information across all industry categories and will be expanding on this  work in 2013 and 2014, once new fiscal year operating plans are in place.  We described EPA’s initiative to obtain and review technical literature on  treatment technology in our report. We nevertheless believe that EPA  could use other sources of information on treatment technology, including  information associated with NPDES permits, as described in the report.  We continue to believe that EPA should identify and evaluate these and  other sources of information on treatment technologies, with the goal of  ensuring that the agency’s effluent guidelines reflect the best available  treatment technologies that are economically achievable.

Regarding our third recommendation, that EPA modify the screening  phase of its review process to include a thorough consideration of  information on the treatment technologies available to industrial  categories, EPA agreed that factoring treatment technology information  into its reviews is valuable. The agency said, however, that the  recommendation was not workable in the context of the agency’s current  screening phase, noting that such an effort would be very resource  intensive. Our concern is that EPA’s current screening phase, while  targeted toward high-risk industries, does not ensure that effluent  guidelines incorporate the best available treatment technologies that are  economically achievable. We acknowledge that evaluating technologies  for all existing industrial categories could be difficult for EPA to  accomplish on an annual basis under its current approach. Our  recommendation, however, did not specify that such an evaluation be  done every year. For example, EPA could commit to a detailed study of  the technologies in use and available to an industrial category on a  periodic basis (i.e., every 5-10 years). As noted in our report, EPA’s 2002  draft strategy recognized the importance of evaluating treatment  technologies in its screening phase, and the Court of Appeals for the  Ninth Circuit held that, while not mandatory, the Clean Water Act strongly  suggests that in determining whether the revision of effluent guidelines is  appropriate—which begins with the screening phase—the agency should  contemplate technology-based factors. However, we are not aware of any  detailed EPA evaluation of options for considering technology during the  screening phase since the agency announced in 2003 that performing a  meaningful screening-level analysis of the availability of treatment  technologies as planned in the draft strategy was “much more difficult  than anticipated.” We believe that, nearly a decade later, EPA should,  within the constraints of available resources, evaluate current options to  consider such technologies in its screening phase. Furthermore, given its  efforts to develop and update its technology information, we believe that  EPA should clarify how it plans to incorporate this information in its  screening phase.

As agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce the contents of  this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days from the  report date. At that time, we will send copies to the Administrator of EPA,  the appropriate congressional committees, and other interested parties. In  addition, the report will be available at no charge on the GAO website at  http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff members have any questions about this report, please  contact me at (202) 512-3841 or trimbled@gao.gov. Contact points for  our Office of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on  the last page of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions to  this report are listed in appendix V.

section_title: Appendix I: Scope and Methodology
paragraphs: To examine the process the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)  follows to screen and review industrial categories and the results of that  process, we reviewed the Clean Water Act and relevant court decisions  and agency documents, interviewed agency officials and experts, and  documented the steps EPA has taken to screen particular industrial  categories for possible new or revised effluent guidelines. Specifically, we  reviewed relevant portions of the Clean Water Act to determine EPA’s  responsibilities regarding the effluent guidelines and pretreatment  programs. We analyzed several court decisions that ruled on challenges  to EPA’s effluent guidelines program to determine what, if any, impact  they had on the agency’s screening and review process. Further, we  interviewed officials in EPA’s Engineering and Analysis Division to learn  how the agency has used the process to screen and review industries.  We focused our review on the results of the process EPA used from 2003  through 2010 in order to examine the approach it developed after the  publication in November 2002 of its draft Strategy for National Clean  Water Industrial Regulations: Effluent Limitation Guidelines, Pretreatment  Standards, and New Source Performance Standards. By the end of our  review, EPA had not yet published a preliminary or final effluent guideline  program plan for the 2011-2012 planning cycle.

To document the results of EPA’s process, we examined the agency’s  screening decisions for all industrial categories from 2003 through 2010.  Specifically, we examined EPA’s final effluent guideline plans and  technical support documents for 2004, 2006, 2008, and 2010 and the  agency’s website to identify screening decisions and subsequent studies  associated with particular industries. We examined these studies to  identify those industries that EPA subjected to further review, which  included an examination of available treatment technologies. Specifically,  we examined preliminary and detailed studies for the 12 industries that  EPA advanced beyond the screening phase into further review and  selected 7 of them for more robust analysis to document how EPA had  applied the process to those industries. The 7 industries were ore mining  and dressing, coalbed methane extraction, steam electric power  generation, chlorine and chlorinated hydrocarbon, drinking water  treatment, pharmaceuticals management, and dental facilities. That  analysis included in-depth interviews with EPA staff assigned to those  industrial categories. These 7 industrial categories met our selection  criteria that they be active or recently active, that is, that EPA was  reviewing them or had made a decision to proceed or not to proceed with  a rulemaking as recently as 2011 or 2012. We also documented the  current status of any regulatory actions or other steps that EPA had taken  with the other 5 industries that received a further review. We also  examined the planning documents for 2 industrial categories—airport  deicing and construction and development—that did not go through  EPA’s 2003-2010 screening and review process but were the subject of  regulatory activity during our study period.

To examine limitations to EPA’s screening and review process, if any,  that could hinder the effectiveness of the effluent guidelines program in  advancing the goals of the Clean Water Act, we pursued three separate  methodologies: we (1) interviewed a cross section of experts on EPA’s  effluent guidelines program, (2) surveyed the water quality permit  directors of the 46 states that are authorized to issue permits for the  National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES), and (3)  analyzed information about the hazard data sources EPA uses in its  screening process.

We identified individuals for possible “expert” interviews by compiling a  list of approximately 50 people from a variety of sources relevant to the  effluent guideline program, including referrals from EPA, the Association  of Clean Water Agencies, and the National Association of Clean Water  Agencies and by consulting other knowledgeable individuals, relevant  academic literature, and litigation documents. We classified the  individuals by their affiliation with a particular stakeholder category  (academia, industry, nongovernmental organization, or state and local  water quality agencies). We then excluded from consideration 13  individuals for whom we could not obtain contact information. We called  or sent an electronic message to those individuals for whom we had  contact information to ask if they were familiar with EPA’s current effluent  guidelines screening and review process. We excluded from  consideration those individuals who told us that they were not familiar  with these processes, those who could not speak with us during the time  frame of our review, and those who said they were not interested in  contributing to our review. From our larger list of approximately 50  experts, we selected 22 individuals to interview whom we determined to  be experts on the basis of their familiarity with the program and their  affiliation with a particular stakeholder category. We conducted  17 interviews including these 22 individuals from February 2012 to April  2012. Six of these interviews were with officials from industry, 4 from  academia, 4 from state and local government, and 3 from  nongovernmental organizations. In 4 cases, more than one expert  participated in an interview. We prepared and asked a standard set of  questions about the overall effectiveness of the effluent guidelines  program and EPA’s use of hazard data, stakeholder input, and  information on treatment technology in the screening process. We then  reviewed their responses to identify common themes. The sample of  experts is a nonprobability sample, and we therefore cannot generalize  their opinions across all experts on the effluent guideline program.

To assess the extent to which effluent guidelines might need to be  revised, we conducted a web-based survey of state water quality  directors, and we statistically analyzed the data. Appendix II presents a  complete description of our survey and our data analysis.

To obtain information about an industry that EPA had not analyzed in a  further review phase, we selected one of the nine industries that states in  our survey said presented a risk to human health or the environment, had  treatment technology available to reduce that risk, and warranted  revision. We asked officials from the five states whose responses for the  metal finishing industry met all three of the above criteria a standard set  of questions about the risk the metal finishing industrial category posed,  the technology available to mitigate this risk, and the likely effect of a  revised effluent guideline.

We further interviewed experts about their views on the adequacy of the  hazard data that EPA uses in its screening process—discharge  monitoring reports and the Toxics Release Inventory—and whether the  experts had suggestions for alternative data sources. We also reviewed  EPA’s own examinations of the benefits and limitations associated with  the two data sources. EPA reports on these examinations of data quality  in the technical support documents that accompany its effluent guideline  program plans. In addition, we interviewed officials from EPA’s Office of  Enforcement and Compliance Assurance to learn about the management  of the databases that store discharge monitoring data. We also  interviewed officials from the Engineering and Analysis Division in EPA’s  Office of Water about possible effects that incomplete or inaccurate data  could have on the screening process. We did not perform an independent  assessment of data quality, although we concluded from the information  we gathered that the data do have limitations that could affect EPA’s  screening process.

To examine the actions EPA has taken to address any limitations in its  screening and review process, we interviewed effluent guideline program  officials from the Engineering and Analysis Division about their plans to  modify the biennial screening and review process. We also reviewed  papers prepared for the division by a contractor, which describe new  sources of data that the division could use to identify industrial categories  potentially posing environmental hazards and warranting further review  for possible new or revised effluent guidelines. In addition, we interviewed  officials from the Engineering and Analysis Division, the Office of  Wastewater Management, and the Office of Enforcement and  Compliance Assurance about agency efforts to revise the NPDES  permitting process and the database that contains NPDES permit  information. We conducted these interviews to determine what steps EPA  has taken or could take to use these activities to improve the hazard and  treatment technology data available for the screening process.

We conducted this performance audit from September 2011 to  September 2012, in accordance with generally accepted government  auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the  audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable  basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We  believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our  findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.

section_title: Appendix II: Survey of State Water Quality Permit Writers and Analysis of Views about Whether EPA Should Revise Effluent Guidelines
paragraphs: To assess the extent to which effluent guidelines might need to be  revised, and to better understand the reasons for any such revisions, we  conducted a web-based survey of state water quality officials, and we  statistically analyzed patterns in the survey data. Our analysis identified  numerous industries in numerous states for which state officials think that  EPA should revise its guidelines. Furthermore, our analysis suggests that  a few key factors—particularly, the significance of risk posed by effluent  and the availability of pollution control technology—largely influence these  officials’ views about whether guidelines should be revised. Details about  our survey and our data analysis follow.
subsections: section_title: Questionnaire Design
paragraphs: We designed our survey to ask respondents both (1) whether they  thought EPA should revise effluent guidelines for certain industrial  categories and (2) whether they thought the major factors that EPA  considers when revising effluent guidelines were present for these  industrial categories in their state. We reviewed EPA’s 2002 draft  Strategy for National Clean Water Industrial Regulations and identified  the four key factors that the agency uses to determine whether effluent  guidelines should be revised. These factors include (1) whether the  effluent from a particular industrial category poses a significant risk to  human health or the environment; (2) whether technology is available to  substantially reduce the risk; (3) whether industry could adopt the  technology without experiencing financial difficulty; and (4) whether other  factors are present, such as whether current effluent guidelines for that  industrial category are difficult to administer and whether revised  guidelines could promote innovative regulatory approaches. We  summarized these factors, using the exact language from EPA’s  guidance wherever possible, and wrote survey questions that were simple  enough to yield valid responses. We determined that the fourth factor was  too complicated to be expressed as a single survey question, and we  divided it into two simpler questions. By designing the questionnaire in  this way, we sought to increase the reliability of our survey data in two  ways: First, asking respondents to assess each of the factors that EPA  considers for revision before providing their views about whether EPA  should revise effluent guidelines focused their attention on providing an  informed opinion. Second, by obtaining data on both the decision-making  factors and the need for effluent guideline revisions, we were able to  conduct a statistical analysis to identify how these factors appear to  influence states’ views about the need for guideline revisions.

Our survey was divided into three sections. In the first section, we asked  states to respond to a series of questions about each of the five industrial  categories that release the greatest amount of toxic effluent in their state.  We originally considered surveying states about each of the 58 industrial  categories regulated by effluent limitation guidelines. During initial  interviews with state officials, however, we determined that this approach  would be burdensome and impractical. Therefore, we used data on  pollutant discharges from EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory and discharge  monitoring reports to select the five industries that discharged the  greatest amount of toxic effluent in each state in 2010. For each of these  five industrial categories, we asked states six questions, the first five of  which pertain to EPA’s decision-making factors and the last of which  pertains to the need for revised effluent guidelines. The six questions we  asked about each industry are as follows:1.  Are the existing effluent guidelines for this industry  sufficient on their  own—that is, without additional water quality-based effluent limits—to  protect your state from significant risks to human health or the  environment? 2.  Is there a technology, process change, or pollution prevention action  that is available to this industry that would substantially reduce any  risks that remain after the state applies existing effluent limits?

In the online version of the questionnaire, we customized the survey questions by  inserting the name of each of the specific industries for each state.

3.  Do you think this industry can afford to implement this risk-reducing  technology, process change, or pollution prevention action without  experiencing financial difficulty? 4.  Are the current effluent guidelines for this industry difficult to  understand, implement, monitor, or enforce? 5.  Do you think the current effluent guidelines for this industry could be  revised to promote innovative approaches, such as water quality  trading or multimedia benefits?  6.  Given your responses to the previous questions, do you think EPA  should revise the current effluent guidelines for this industry?

In addition to asking about the top five industrial categories in each state,  we asked states about two other sets of industrial categories. First, we  asked state officials to list up to three other categories that were not  among the top five in their state but for which they thought the effluent  guidelines should be revised. Second, we asked these officials to list up  to three categories that are not regulated by effluent guidelines but for  which they think EPA should consider developing guidelines. To be  confident that our questions would yield reliable data, we conducted four  pretests with state officials. During these pretests, we sought to determine  whether the questions were clear, could be reliably answered, and  imposed a reasonable burden on respondents.

section_title: Survey Respondents
paragraphs: We administered our survey to the directors of the water quality programs  in the 46 states that are authorized to implement NPDES. These state  officials are largely responsible for issuing permits to industrial facilities  and for incorporating effluent guidelines into those permits. They have  regular, firsthand experience with the guidelines, and their experience  may supplement EPA’s information on effluent. We determined that these  officials were therefore sufficiently knowledgeable to answer our survey  questions. We obtained a list of these officials and their contact  information from EPA and verified this list through Internet searches and  phone calls with state officials. We identified the primary contact for each  state but asked these individuals to consult with others in their office to  determine the most accurate answer for each survey question.

section_title: Survey Administration
paragraphs: We implemented our survey as a web-based questionnaire. We notified  the state water quality permit directors in February 2012 of our intent to  conduct the survey and requested their participation. We instructed the  states on how to access the web-based survey on March 2, 2012. We  sent three e-mail reminders and telephoned states that had not  responded before we closed the survey in April. We received responses  from 31 of the 46 states, for an overall response rate of 67 percent of  states. The survey data are based on responses from 42 individuals in  these 31 states. Because we surveyed state officials only about the  industrial categories that discharge the greatest amount of toxic effluent in  their state, and because several states did not respond to our survey, the  results of our analysis are not generalizable to all industrial categories in  all states.

section_title: Summary of Survey Responses
paragraphs: To determine the extent to which state officials think that effluent  guidelines should be revised, we analyzed the univariate frequencies of  responses to our six primary survey questions. We aggregated the survey  responses to create industry-by-state cases, such that each case  represented the views of a particular state about the guidelines for a  particular industrial category in that state. The completed survey  questionnaires from 31 states led to 155 possible state-by-industry cases.  Because not all states responded to all of the survey questions, however,  we had at most 123 valid cases for analysis, depending upon the survey  question. A summary of the responses to these questions appears in  table 5.

These tabulations indicate that a substantial number of cases exist for  which states thought that EPA should revise effluent guidelines and also  for which they perceived that one or more of EPA’s decision-making  factors were present. In 51 percent (63 of 123 cases), state officials said  that EPA should revise the effluent guidelines for the corresponding  industry. With regard to whether the key decision-making factors were  present, state officials reported that effluent posed a significant risk in  57 percent of cases, that technology was available in 31 percent of cases,  that the guidelines were difficult to administer in 24 percent of cases, and  that revised guidelines could promote innovative approaches in  36 percent of cases. We had far fewer responses to our question about  whether industry could adopt technology without experiencing financial  difficulty because that question was applicable only if the respondent said  such technology was available. Among these cases, state officials  reported that the technology would not cause financial hardship to the  industry in 82 percent of cases (31 of 38 cases).

We repeated this analysis after removing the 29 cases representing the  three industrial categories whose effluent guidelines are in revision,  leaving at most 96 cases for analysis, depending upon the question. Of  the remaining cases, state officials said that EPA should revise the  effluent guidelines for a substantial percentage of them; they also said  that key decision-making factors were present in a substantial percentage  of cases. For example, in 46 percent of these cases, state officials said  that EPA should revise the effluent guidelines for the corresponding  industry.

section_title: Relationships between Key Decision-Making Factors and States’ Views about Whether EPA Should Revise Effluent Guidelines
paragraphs: We compared state officials’ views about whether effluent guidelines  should be revised with their views of each of the factors that EPA uses  when considering guideline revisions. For three of the four factors, our  results show that when state officials perceived the factor to be present,  they were significantly more likely to think that EPA should revise the  effluent guidelines for the corresponding industrial category. (We had too  few cases with valid responses to the survey question about cost to  determine whether that factor was significantly associated with views  about guideline revisions.) The risk posed by effluent and the availability  of technology were the strongest predictors of states’ views about the  need for guideline revisions. In particular, we found the following:

When state officials perceived effluent from a particular industrial  category to pose a significant risk, they were 3.8 times more likely to  think that EPA should revise the guidelines for that category than  when they did not perceive the effluent to pose a significant risk.  Specifically, among the cases in which state officials perceived  effluent to pose a significant risk, they thought the effluent guidelines  should be revised 75 percent of the time (52 of 69 cases), compared  with 20 percent of the time (10 of 51 cases) when they thought the  effluent did not pose a significant risk.

When state officials perceived technology to be available to  substantially reduce the risk for a particular industrial category, they  were 4.3 times more likely to think that EPA should revise the  guidelines for that category than when they did not perceive  technology to be available. Specifically, among the cases in which  these officials perceived technology to be available, they thought EPA  should revise the effluent guidelines 84 percent of the time (32 of  38 cases), compared with 20 percent (10 of 51 cases) when they  thought that technology was not available.

When state officials thought that other factors were present for a  particular industrial category, they were 2.3 times more likely to think  that EPA should revise the guidelines than when they did not think  these factors were present. “Other factors” refers to either that the  current guidelines were difficult to understand, implement, monitor, or  enforce or that revised guidelines could promote innovative  approaches. Specifically, when state officials thought that such other  factors were present, they thought that EPA should revise its effluent  guidelines 70 percent of the time (43 of 61 cases), compared with  30 percent of the time (18 of 60 cases) when they thought these  factors were not present.

Table 6 presents the complete results of these bivariate comparisons. We  excluded one of the factors from the discussion above—namely, whether  the industry could afford to implement the technology, process change, or  pollution prevention action—because the responses to this question  applied only to the subset of cases for which such a technology, change,  or action was available, only 33 of which provided a yes or no response.  In 87 percent of those cases in which the technology was perceived to be  affordable (27 of 31 cases), state officials said that EPA should revise its  guidelines for the corresponding industry. We repeated this analysis after  removing the 29 cases representing the two industrial categories whose  effluent guidelines EPA is already revising. We found that, even after  removing these cases, the same three factors retained a significant  relationship with state officials’ views about whether effluent guidelines  should be revised. This result indicates that these key decision-making  factors appear to influence state officials’ views even for industrial  categories whose guidelines EPA is not already revising.

To understand how the various decision-making factors interact to  influence states’ views about the need for revised effluent guidelines, we  used the data from our survey to conduct decision-tree analysis. We  developed the decision tree by splitting the data into smaller and smaller  subgroups according to whether state officials perceived each of the  factors to be present for a particular industrial category. Beginning with  the first factor, risk, we divided the cases into subgroups, depending upon  whether state officials perceived the effluent from the particular industry to  pose a significant risk to human health or the environment. For each of  these subgroups, we tabulated the number of cases in which state  officials said the effluent guidelines should be revised, compared with the  number of cases in which they said the guidelines should not be revised.  We then split these subgroups again, according to whether state officials  thought that technology was available to substantially reduce the risk.  This split resulted in further subgroups. We continued splitting the data  into smaller and smaller subgroups by next assessing state official’s  views of the cost of technology and finally assessing their views on the  presence of other factors. At each step, we stopped splitting the data if  (1) the original group had fewer than 10 cases, (2) the resulting  subgroups did not differ significantly in terms of the percentages of  respondents who said that EPA should revise the guidelines; or (3) the  resulting subgroups tended to support the same conclusion as to whether  EPA should revise the guidelines. We examined the cases terminating in  each of the branches and found that the overall decision tree was based  on a broad variety of industries and states. The resulting decision tree,  which is shown in figure 5, has four splits and six branches.

The decision tree illustrates how the key decision-making factors  collectively predict states’ views about whether EPA should revise effluent  guidelines, and it corroborates the reliability of our survey data. Overall,  when the risk of effluent was perceived to be significant and technology  was perceived to be available, state officials overwhelmingly thought the  corresponding effluent guidelines should be revised. Even when  technology was not perceived to be available, many states still thought  the guidelines should be revised if they thought that other factors were  present. In particular, in three scenarios, corresponding to three branches  of the decision tree, state officials generally said that effluent guidelines  should be revised:

When state officials thought that effluent from an industrial category  poses a significant risk to human health or the environment and when  they thought technology was available to substantially reduce that  risk, they generally said that EPA should revise the effluent  guidelines. In such instances, they thought that EPA should revise the  effluent guidelines 83 percent of the time (in 30 of 36 cases). This  scenario is illustrated by the far left branch of the decision tree.

When state officials thought that effluent from an industrial category  poses a significant risk, they generally thought that EPA should revise  the effluent guidelines even when they perceived that technology was  not available—as long as they perceived other factors to be present.  In such instances, they thought that EPA should revise its effluent  guidelines 83 percent of the time (5 of 6 cases). This scenario is  illustrated by the second-to-left branch of the decision tree.

When state officials thought that effluent from an industrial category  poses a significant risk, they generally thought that EPA should revise  the effluent guidelines even when they did not know if technology was  available—as long as they perceived other factors to be present. In  such instances, these officials thought EPA should revise its effluent  guidelines 100 percent of the time (11 of 11 cases). This scenario is  illustrated by the branch of the decision tree in the third column from  the right.

By contrast, in two scenarios, state officials thought EPA should not  revise the guidelines. In the primary scenario, officials did not perceive  the effluent to pose a significant risk, although officials also thought that  guidelines should not be revised when the risk was significant but neither  technology nor other factors were present. In particular, our decision tree  identified the following two scenarios:

When state officials did not think the effluent from a particular  industrial category posed a significant risk to human health or the  environment, they generally thought that EPA should not revise the  corresponding effluent guidelines. In these instances, state officials  thought that EPA should not revise the guidelines 80 percent of the  time (41 of 51 cases). This scenario is illustrated by the branch of the  decision tree on the far right.

When state officials thought the effluent from a particular industrial  category posed a significant risk but that technology was not available  and other factors were not present, they generally said that EPA  should not revise the effluent guidelines for that industry. In such  instances, state officials thought that EPA should not revise the  guidelines 100 percent of the time (5 of 5 cases). This scenario is  illustrated by the branch of the decision tree in the third column from  the left.

section_title: Industrial Categories for Which States Thought Effluent Guidelines Should Be Revised
paragraphs: Corresponding to this decision tree, we further examined the data to  identify specific industrial categories that presented the strongest  evidence for needing to be revised. Because the significance of risk and  the presence of technology are the two primary decision-making factors,  we selected the 30 cases for which states said these two factors were  present and for which they said effluent guidelines should be revised.  These cases fall into the far left branch of the decision tree in figure 5.  These 30 cases represent 14 industrial categories: canned and preserved  seafood processing; cement manufacturing; coal mining; fertilizer  manufacturing; meat and poultry products; metal finishing; metal molding  and casting; oil and gas extraction; ore mining and dressing; petroleum  refining; pulp, paper, and paperboard; steam electric power generation;  sugar processing; and timber products processing. We added industries  that state officials cited in the second section of our survey, in which we  asked them to identify industries that were not among the top five  dischargers in their state. This addition lengthened the list by 22 cases,  representing 7 additional industrial categories: centralized waste  treatment, dairy products processing, electrical and electronic  components, electroplating, grain mills manufacturing, landfills, and  pharmaceutical manufacturing. In total, therefore, we identified 52 cases  representing 21 industrial categories for which state officials thought  effluent guidelines should be revised. Of these 52 cases, 39 represent  industrial categories whose guidelines EPA is not already revising.

section_title: Appendix III: Additional Details on Industrial Categories with Effluent Guidelines
paragraphs: EPA has promulgated effluent guidelines for 58 industrial categories  beginning in the mid-1970s. EPA has also revised the guidelines for most  of those industries, although many have not been revised in recent years.  As described elsewhere in this report, EPA uses a screening process to  determine which categories may warrant further review and possible  revision. According to our analysis, since EPA began using its current  screening process in 2003, more than half the industrial categories with  effluent guidelines did not advance beyond the screening phase in any  year from 2003 to 2010 because, during a given 2-year screening cycle,  the relative toxicity of their pollutant discharges did not put them among  the top 95 percent of discharge hazard. Table 7 provides further  information on the industrial categories, including the year their effluent  guidelines were first promulgated, the year the guidelines were most  recently revised, and the year(s) in 2004 through 2010 when their hazard  ranking scores came within the top 95 percent.

section_title: Appendix IV: Comments from the Environmental Protection Agency

section_title: Appendix V: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments
subsections: section_title: GAO Contact

section_title: Staff Acknowledgments
paragraphs: In addition to the individual named above, Susan Iott (Assistant Director),  Elizabeth Beardsley, Mark Braza, Ross Campbell, Ellen W. Chu, Heather  Dowey, Catherine M. Hurley, Paul Kazemersky, Kelly Rubin, Carol  Hernstadt Shulman, and Kiki Theodoropoulos made significant  contributions to this report. Wyatt R. Hundrup, Michael L. Krafve, Armetha  Liles, and Jeffrey R. Rueckhaus also made important contributions to this  report.


Question-summary annotations: questions: question: How does the EPA identify industrial categories in need of new or revised guidelines?
answer: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) uses a two-phase process to identify industrial categories potentially needing new or revised effluent guidelines to help reduce their pollutant discharges.
child_questions: question: What is the basis for the EPA's two-step process?
answer: EPA’s 2002 draft Strategy for National Clean Water Industrial Regulations was the foundation for EPA’s process.

question: What happens in the process' first phase?
answer: In the first, or “screening,” phase, EPA uses data from two EPA databases to rank industrial categories according to the total toxicity of their wastewater.
child_questions: question: How does the first phase transition into the second phase?
answer: Using this ranking, public comments, and other considerations, EPA has identified relatively few industrial categories posing the highest hazard for the next, or “further review,” phase.

question: What happens in the process' second phase?
answer: In this further review phase, EPA evaluates the categories to identify those that are appropriate for new or revised guidelines because treatment technologies are available to reduce pollutant discharges.

question: How has EPA screened categories since 2003?
answer: Since 2003, EPA has regularly screened the 58 categories for which it has issued effluent guidelines, as well as some potential new industrial categories, and it has identified 12 categories for its further review phase.
child_questions: question: How did EPA address these 12 categories selected for further review?
answer: Of these 12 categories, EPA selected 3 for updated or new effluent guidelines. EPA chose not to set new guidelines for the others.

questions: question: Why did EPA overlook some categories that warrant further review?
answer: Limitations in EPA’s screening phase may have led it to overlook some industrial categories that warrant further review for new or revised effluent guidelines. Specifically, EPA has relied on limited hazard data that may have affected its ranking of industrial categories. Further, during its screening phase, EPA has not considered the availability of advanced treatment technologies for most industrial categories.
child_questions: question: How has technology impacted EPA's screening phase?
answer: Further, during its screening phase, EPA has not considered the availability of advanced treatment technologies for most industrial categories. Although its 2002 draft strategy recognized the importance of technology data, EPA has stated that such data were too difficult to obtain during the screening phase and, instead, considers them for the few categories that reach further review.

question: Why did officials identify certain categories as needing new guidelines?
answer: Officials responsible for state water quality programs and experts on industrial discharges, however, identified categories they believe EPA should examine for new or updated guidelines to reflect changes in their industrial processes and treatment technology capabilities.
child_questions: question: Why is consideration of treatment technologies important?
answer: According to some experts, consideration of treatment technologies is especially important for older effluent guidelines because changes are more likely to have occurred in either the industrial categories or the treatment technologies, making it possible that new, more advanced treatment technologies are available.

questions: question: Why has EPA begun revising its process?
answer: Recognizing the limitations of its hazard data and overall screening approach, EPA has begun revising its process but has not assessed other possible sources of information it could use to improve the screening phase.
child_questions: question: How did EPA supplement hazard data in 2012?
answer: In 2012, EPA supplemented the hazard data used in screening with four new data sources.

question: Why is EPA developing a new regulation?
answer: EPA is also developing a regulation that, through electronic reporting, will increase the completeness and accuracy of its hazard data.

question: How is EPA addressing the issue of treatment technology?
answer: In 2011, EPA also began to obtain recent treatment technology literature. According to EPA, the agency will expand on this work in 2013. Nonetheless, EPA has not thoroughly examined other usable sources of information on treatment technology, nor has it reassessed the role such information should take in its screening process.
child_questions: question: Why is it important that EPA develop a more thorough screening approach using this information?
answer: Without a more thorough and integrated screening approach that both uses improved hazard data and considers information on treatment technology, EPA cannot be certain that the effluent guidelines program reflects advances in the treatment technologies used to reduce pollutants in wastewater.

questions: question: How has the Clean Water Act affected EPA?
answer: Under the Clean Water Act, EPA has made significant progress in reducing wastewater pollution from industrial facilities.
child_questions: question: How does EPA use effluent guidelines?
answer: EPA currently regulates 58 industrial categories, such as petroleum refining, fertilizer manufacturing, and coal mining, with technology-based regulations called effluent guidelines.
child_questions: question: How does the Clean Water Act address the revision of these guidelines?
answer: The Clean Water Act also calls for EPA to revise the guidelines when appropriate.
child_questions: question: Why is it sometimes appropriate for EPA to revise guidelines?
answer: EPA has done so, for example, to reflect advances in treatment technology or changes in industries.