Compliance & Enforcement at Federal Facilities

Federal facilities, like all other regulated facilities, are responsible for complying with environmental requirements. EPA issues reports such as the Federal Facilities Accomplishments Report and the State of Federal Facilities that provide information on compliance by federal agencies with environmental requirements and on EPA's program accomplishments.

Federal Facilities Accomplishments Reports
In the past, EPA published an annual Federal Facilities Enforcement & Compliance Accomplishments Report that discussed the goals and accomplishments of EPA's compliance and enforcement program for federal facilities. In recent years, this information is contained in EPA's State of Federal Facilities Reports (see below).

State of Federal Facilities
The State of Federal Facilities Report gives an overview of compliance indicators for federal facilities and the various compliance and enforcement issues and problems facing federal facilities. The report helps EPA and other federal agencies better understand which areas to focus on to improve compliance with environmental laws and regulations.

Online Compliance Information
Compliance and enforcement histories on thousands of federal facilities is available online. Federal agency employees can use EPA's Online Tracking Information System (OTIS) to get up to five years of compliance and enforcement information on federal facilities. Federal agency employees can use OTIS to check the compliance status of specific facilities, track facilities by agency, and compare their facilities against other agency facilities. Federal agency environmental compliance officers and auditors can use OTIS to help plan their future compliance and auditing work. Registration for federal employees to use OTIS can be done by going to http://www.epa.gov/idea/otis/register.

Top of page

Inspections
EPA and its regulatory partners conduct inspections under the majority of statutory and regulatory programs.

Inspections are visits to a facility or site (e.g., a military base, a federal laboratory or a national park) for the purpose of gathering information to determine whether it is in compliance with environmental laws and regulations. Inspections generally include pre-inspection activities such as obtaining general site information before entering the facility or site. Other activities that may be conducted during the on-site visit include:

• Interviewing facility or site representatives
• Reviewing records and reports
• Taking photographs
• Collecting samples
• Observing facility or site operations

Inspections can be conducted on a single-media program such as the Clean Water Act, or can be conducted for more than one media program. Inspections also can be conducted to address a specific environmental problem (e.g., water quality in a river), a facility or industry sector (e.g., chemical plants), or a geographic (e.g., a region or locality) or an ecosystem (e.g., air or watershed). Inspections are commonly conducted by EPA and state employees. However, properly trained and authorized contract inspectors (PDF) (160K, 3 pp, about PDF) can also conduct inspections.

As required by Executive Order 13148, federal agencies should have environmental management systems at appropriate facilities. EPA policy (PDF) (207K, 6 pp, about PDF) encourages EPA inspectors to give EMS assistance to federal agencies during inspections.

For general information on EPA's compliance monitoring and inspection programs go to the Inspections and Evaluations page.

For more information on monitoring activities of various federal agencies go to FedCenter, an interagency environmental compliance and assistance web site.