Mr. Horne was asked to address the following questions in his remarks:
|
At EPA we have been looking at the whole phenomenon of Environmental Management Systems for a number of years. In fact, we've discussed them in terms of strategies and policies. It is now a matter of EPA policy to strategically support the adoption of EMSs in particular sectors of the economy. I've been at this for the last several years, beginning with initial attempts to work with the establishment of the ISO 14001 standard. That was a consensus process heavily driven by a multi-national industry, though certainly with some limited input from regulatory agencies, and even more limited input, unfortunately, from environmental groups. But what emerged is what Gary described, an international standard forming the basic framework for environmental management systems, this plan-do-check-act framework, which makes a lot of sense. This framework is being used in a lot of different areas.
EPA as a whole is becoming more and more heavily invested in this whole EMS phenomenon, as I call it, each month. We've seen, I think, some of the potential value of this approach, based on a lot of the benefits that Gary identified. We're at the point now where I think for the most part the agency is convinced that if implemented the right way, EMSs are a very powerful tool. They can provide a lot of benefits certainly to what we call the regulated community, but also, hopefully, over time, to regulatory agencies. Quite frankly, I don't think we need to be applying the same degree of oversight or scrutiny, if you will, to organizations that have established management systems that have certain key characteristics and can provide certain kinds of information. But I think that's a slowly emerging understanding, and there's still some discussion that needs to take place. The point I'm making here is that EPA is invested and we think this tool is powerful.
My office has been sponsoring a number of projects for the last several years. In the area of research, EPA and states are working with the University of North Carolina to examine and document how EMSs are implemented both in industry and in the public sector. My office has been working for the last four years to help local governments develop EMSs because we always felt it was a misunderstanding that EMS is just for private industry, which it's certainly not. So we work with public agencies ranging from 10 employees to 10,000 employees, and those organizations have almost all, across the board, realized benefits from implementing EMSs, including cost savings, and better understanding of regulatory requirements. You would think that people would generally understand what they needed to do to comply with all requirements. Well, that's not the case, as many of you probably know. We have people that have participated and put these systems in place, and have identified cost savings opportunities even while they were in the process of implementing EMS well before all of the pieces were in place. These were changes in production, changes in processes that were saving them money. When we got into this we weren't sure what the benefits would be, but the evidence began to be clearer and clearer that it does provide some significant benefit, if you can go through it diligently.
This type of forum [the Stakeholders Roundtable] fits right into our desire to be a little more strategic in how we encourage the adoption of EMSs. Clearly in the agriculture sector as it relates to livestock operations, I think there's a great opportunity for a couple of reasons. Number one, the environmental impacts from these types of operations can obviously be quite severe, not just on water quality, but on other things as well. But the other thing is that environmental management systems do not exist solely to put people in compliance. That certainly is a goal and you need to be moving in that direction, if you're not already there, but they're really designed to be much broader. They really ask organizations to inquire: "What is the range of environmental impacts that my operation has? And what allows me to begin prioritizing?" It does not say that just looking at regulatory impacts is all you need to do. To me, that's the value-added potential of all of this. In the livestock sector a lot of the impacts that potentially can take place on the farm are not regulated and maybe they won't be regulated. One of my colleagues from the states once drew an infamous diagram. He basically drew it in the shape of a pizza, and he said, "Well, 80% of the environmental impacts out there are probably not regulated. We've got this little slice that we cover with our laws and regulations." Whether that slice gets bigger I guess is open to question. But the fact remains that the vast majority of environmental impacts, especially those that often affect relations with communities, are not regulated. They probably are not amenable in many cases, at least to the type of regulations that we've had in the United States for the last 25 years or so. So this is a great opportunity. Livestock agriculture is a sector that I think could benefit from this more systematic approach. The real key is how to design it and how to make it usable for producers and produce the kind of benefits that I think people in the industry will want to see out of it.
Now, in a couple of the questions that Elizabeth gave me, the term endorse was included in a couple of places. I want to set that aside for a minute. I don't know if our role is to endorse things. We encourage, we provide people with our perspective, and we provide people with our knowledge that we have gained over a number of years, in how these things work, and under what conditions they might work best. So, to me, the key characteristics, the basic plan-do-check-act framework of the environmental management system is a no-brainer. You know, it's pretty hard to disagree with a systematic approach to understanding your environmental impacts, your compliance requirements, and putting in place a system to allow you to meet those obligations, whether they be regulatory or non-regulatory. What becomes most important in my view are some of the other attributes of an environmental management systems program that can be implemented at a particular facility. Those are the things that tend to get people a little excited, but also, ultimately, in the final analysis, give this whole thing the kind of credibility that I think it needs with a wide variety of stakeholders. Things like making sure that in fact organizations that implement these things are looking at a wide range of impacts. Making sure that they're focusing on pollution prevention, wherever those opportunities arise. Making sure that there are systems within the system, if you will, to help assure regulatory compliance. Now, you notice that I didn't say, "To have an effective EMS, you have to be in compliance from day 1." You don't have to be. You do have to have a system, you do have to have procedures that allow you to understand what you need to be in compliance with, and take steps to address what will probably be the inevitable instances of noncompliance. And hopefully help make sure those don't recur. That's a compliance management system, and you need to be moving towards full compliance if you're not there already. But again, this whole notion of looking more broadly at your environmental impacts and setting up a system to address those as well, is really critical, in my mind.
Another piece that I think is really important, and I think this will be described a little bit more when Dave Staples talks about the United Egg Producers agreement. There needs to be more communication, especially between the community and a facility that's going to implement a system like this. I believe communities, especially local communities, need to have the opportunity to provide input to say, in this case to a producer, "What are the concerns that I have? What are the concerns that I think you ought to be addressing as you implement your management systems?" That kind of communication is critical. That doesn't mean that there's an implied contract, that any time anybody from the community expresses a concern or a preference, no matter what, that you as a producer, or a facility, have to say, absolutely, I'm going to do that. But there does need to be that communication. There needs to be that constant communication, and that's really critical
The other piece that I would say, from my perspective, that's very important as a component of an EMS program, whether you do it for dairy, whether you do it for pork, whether you do it for chickens, I don't care, is some sort of independent verification. We built that into the XL agreement with the United Egg Producers. I think that's one of the strongest features. There needs to be an independent look from time to time through an audit, about how the management system is working, to make sure the organization is continuing to do what it committed to do, and is trying to move in that direction of continual improvement and achieve the objectives that the environmental management system asks you to set forth for your organization. That's really critical, and it's not critical just from the perspective of making US-EPA or community groups or other people happy. What we're finding is that kind of independent verification helps organizations to implement systems. People that come in and objectively look at your system and say, "Here are areas that are strong, and here are areas that can be improved," provide a real benefit. They provide an economic benefit. They help make you smarter. So we see real value in the audit, and we would encourage any kind of initiative to try to build in that type of component. Now I'm not saying you have to adopt the ISO 14001 approach; there are lots of different ways to do this. There are lots of different organizations out there that can help you do that. But that kind of independent look, with some sharing of information, is really critical, for me, to build credibility in the long-term. So those are really important components as you go forward to develop something broader than what's out there right now.
Now as a number of you know, the EMS approach is not something that is widespread in agriculture, but a few things are happening in the ag sector now. We've got the agreement with the United Egg Producers, and there'll be some more discussion about that later. We are working with the state of North Carolina who, along with North Carolina State University, is working with pork producers in that state to help educate them in ways to implement EMSs. EPA's policy office is also working to help meat packing facilities adopt EMSs. So this is not an unknown phenomenon. But it is taking place in kind of a spotty fashion, if you will.
I think more needs to occur in agriculture - and I think we're beginning to see some greater interest from at least certain sectors of the livestock industry. I hope more continues, because I think, again, it's a great opportunity. How will that affect national regulations? It's difficult to say at this point. I think that within the agency, we are certainly looking for opportunities to use EMSs, to enhance the value of our regulatory programs - you notice I didn't say replace them or throw out the Clean Water Act or anything like that. But there are clearly ways in which regulations are implemented in terms of monitoring requirements and various things that could be looked at very carefully, if an organization has got an EMS in place that is basically set up the right way and is producing information that's useful. That's something we need to look at more closely, not just at the federal level but at the state level as well, and more and more agencies are beginning to do that. There's some real value in doing that, I think, over time.
The other issue that I was asked to address, and maybe I did a little bit indirectly, was what are the roles of citizens groups in livestock EMS development and implementation? Well, role number one is to be at the table during the design phase. Those groups have got things to offer, have got perspectives that the industry and regulatory agencies need to hear, and need to hear in a setting that hopefully is constructive, designed to build something that everybody can ultimately be satisfied with. That doesn't mean that everybody is going to get what they want, but they need to be there at the beginning. I think environmental groups provide a unique and incredibly powerful perspective. Now, the question as it was addressed to me said community groups. I think community groups could mean almost anything. I think community members are important as well. We built in to the agreement with the United Egg Producers a requirement that people in the community be consulted and be given the opportunity to provide input. That's very important. They know things that you think you know, and maybe you don't know. They provide that kind of constant communication, it seems to me, that's really important for the long-term credibility. Now, I know that scares a lot of people and I can understand why. They say, "well is this just basically a set-up for a citizens' suit?" or something else. But I think a little bit of a leap of faith is needed. We're finding more and more, as those relationships with the community are built and strengthened you begin to get more credibility, you begin to build more confidence where maybe it didn't exist as much as you would have liked. So that perspective needs to be built in from day one. And for meetings like this, which are really designed to come to some agreement on what Gary described as assessment tools, it's very important to have those groups at the table. It's not easy to do, but very important to have people there.
So, in summary, I think this is a great opportunity. We have begun to sort of dip our toes into the field of EMS and agriculture. It's really something that's more and more on the Agency's mind. Our new Administrator has basically said a lot of EPA's innovative approaches need to be targeted more to sectors with particular environmental problems. I think this type of approach meets those criteria very well. We're happy to be here. We've already basically endorsed one particular kind of approach through our work with the egg producers. A lot of work is going on in pork. I'd like to see some of the other livestock sectors step forward and hopefully reach some agreement on what the framework or shape or key components of the EMS program might be. I will offer one quick note of caution, again, to Gary and the other folks. There are a lot of assessment tools out there and more and more assessment tools probably being developed as we speak that we don't even know about. Assessment tools are great. I would just urge this group or whoever follows up on this to really take a real hard look at what's out there now. We don't want to confuse people. We don't want to tailor it too much. We want to give people some basic tools, hopefully building on a lot of the good work that's already out there being done. And let them use that as one way to begin to develop a management system. So, I would just encourage you to really look closely. A lot of money is being spent, a lot of good effort is being spent, and we don't want to duplicate that. So I just offer that brief note of caution as we go forward, and again, thank you for being here.
Question from a participant: When you say the public needs to be at the table in developing an EMS, do you mean at a state level, or at a design level, or do you mean actually at the farm level?
Jim Horne: I try to draw the distinction between an EMS program and an individual management system at a facility. I think it's most important to have people at the table as you're designing an EMS program, something that has broad applicability to a large number of facilities, which can then be implemented in more detail on site. I think that type of agreement, that type of general consensus on what the major design features are is most important.
Question from a participant: I find that kind of an interesting answer given that over and over we hear that farm planning, conservation plans, and nutrient management plans, etc. are very site-specific. And I think a lot of these problems are really problems where you need input from the local community, if somebody says they're planning on doing something, and other people know where the waters are and how the wind blows. So I'm not even sure if you should put the public in at the general level. But when you really get to the ground, I don't want to have what we've seen all along which is local governments having their powers disappear under state laws in terms of planning and siting where you get that kind of local planning input.
Jim Horne: Well, I wasn't trying to draw a bright line in the sand. When you're at the design phase of implementing something that's broadly applicable to a lot of facilities, you do need that input. I think, and we built this into the XL agreement, there should be that opportunity for people within the community to express their views and concerns that they think need to be addressed by the facility. So it could work both ways. My concern has been that a lot of the "consensus building" that then is taken out and broadly applied, has not had enough consensus, if you will, on what the key features of a program will be. Without that, doing something at the local level in many cases is not going to help that much. I think it can be done both ways. But I've seen a lot of mistakes made by not getting that consensus built in, as long as those at the table are committed to building something that will work, something that is implementable and will work on the ground.
Return to previous page