Abstract
The use of environmental management systems (EMS) has risen dramatically in the U.S. over the past few years. Contributing to that rise is EPA's and other state environmental regulatory authorities' increasing acceptance and use of EMSs. The initial focus on EMSs by the EPA was in consent decrees and settlement agreements between the agency and private firms. It is an important new enforcement strategy and signals a change in how EPA views application and use of EMSs and the ISO 14001 standard. This trend has spread to state regulatory authorities with no abatement in sight. EMSs in settlement actions represent an exciting and new βwinβwinβ strategy for both the regulators and the firms subject to the enforcement action.
This paper addresses the brief history of these strategies, and the importance of this new enforcement strategy, and cites three important case studies where EMSs were an important part in resolving enforcement actions. The first is the ASARCO case, where an EMS was first used in a settlement agreement. The second is the Firewall Forward, Inc., case, the first EMS as a supplemental environmental project (SEP) in a settlement action, and the third was AAA Plating, in which several EMS implementation innovations were applied within the settlement. The paper concludes with a discussion of predicted trends regarding the use of EMSs/ISO 14001 standard by EPA and other enforcement authorities based on emerging practices in private industry.