Getting in Our Own Way

Rampant environmental noncompliance is harder to fix because of inaccurate compliance assumptions baked into EPA’s written policy and practice. EPA’s Action Development Process Guidance allows rule writers to ignore compliance holes until it is too late to fix them. EPA’s Economic Analysis Guidelines for conducting benefit-cost analysis encourage rule writers to assume 100 percent compliance as if it happens by magic. These seemingly arcane agency policies and practices are almost never discussed in the fierce policy debates about EPA rules, although they have a powerful, and sometimes determinative, impact on the ultimate effectiveness of EPA rules. The chapter explores HFC phasedown, lead paint, and lead in drinking water rules as illustrations. And it references violations in programs run by FDA, IRS, HHS and FAA as evidence that pervasive violations aren’t just an EPA problem. This chapter explains how internal guidance goes awry, and what needs to change to turn it around.