Common use of Compliance Assurance Clause in Contracts

Compliance Assurance. Despite many years of budget reductions, MassDEP continues to place priority on maintaining compliance and enforcement activities. Ultimately, the credibility and effectiveness of any environmental program depends upon our success in ensuring compliance with our protective environmental standards. MassDEP employs a comprehensive Compliance Assurance Strategy that promotes environmental compliance through compliance assessment activities, enforcement, technical assistance, and public education. We are proud that Massachusetts’ regulated community generally has high rates of compliance. However, to ensure that we maintain and improve compliance rates and environmental performance, we must strategically utilize and integrate all these compliance assurance tools. In FFY18, MassDEP will strive to: • Set priorities for our limited resources based on relative risk, requiring increased reliance on assessment of environmental monitoring and performance data for particular sectors. This includes working with EPA to implement the Alternative Compliance Monitoring Strategies for the Air Pollution and RCRA Hazardous Waste programs whereby inspections of the large sources covered by the Compliance Monitoring Strategies are reduced in exchange for additional inspections of carefully targeted smaller sources. • Establish performance measures linked to environmental objectives and compliance rates. These are an integral component of initiatives’ design, operation and evaluation—we cannot rely solely on traditional enforcement output measures. • Design strategies that streamline the compliance assurance process by placing increased responsibility on the regulated community to self-identify and correct violations, and promote environmental stewardship and sustainable practices. • Provide technical assistance, outreach and education to targeted segments of the regulated community, with continued focus on providing assistance to our municipalities. • Enhance our information management systems and better utilize technology to make our compliance and enforcement efforts more efficient and effective. For example: o Use remote sensing, aerial surveillance and digital mapping and other innovative non-compliance detection strategies and equipment; o Link inspectors in the field with centralized facility databases and digital maps; and o Automate the reporting analysis of facility discharge and environmental monitoring data and the generation of compliance and enforcement documents. • When violations are discovered, take consistent, appropriate and timely enforcement action to: o Deter non-compliance and ensure a level playing field by making non-compliance substantially more costly than compliance; o Require violators to cease actions impacting the environment or public health, and to restore impacted environmental resources; and o Capitalize on opportunities to induce the regulated community to permanently reduce pollution and adopt environmental management systems, and establish best management practices.

Compliance Assurance. Despite many years more than a decade of budget reductions, MassDEP continues to place priority on maintaining compliance and enforcement activities. Ultimately, the credibility and effectiveness of any environmental program depends upon our success in ensuring compliance with our protective environmental standards. MassDEP employs a comprehensive Compliance Assurance Strategy compliance assurance strategy that promotes environmental compliance through compliance assessment activities, enforcement, technical assistance, and public education. We are proud that Massachusetts’ regulated community generally has high rates of compliance. However, to ensure that we maintain and improve compliance rates and environmental performance, we must strategically utilize and integrate all these compliance assurance tools. In FFY18FY14, MassDEP will strive to: •  Set priorities for our limited resources based on relative risk, requiring increased reliance on assessment of environmental monitoring and performance data for particular sectors. This includes working And, in cooperation with EPA to implement the Alternative Compliance Monitoring Strategies for the Air Pollution and RCRA Hazardous Waste programs whereby Region 1, increase inspections of “minor” facilities and reduce the large sources covered by the Compliance Monitoring Strategies are reduced in exchange for additional inspections of carefully targeted smaller sourcesmajor facilities whose environmental compliance record is proven and strong. •  Establish performance measures linked to environmental objectives and compliance rates. These are an integral component of initiatives’ design, operation and evaluation—we cannot rely solely on traditional enforcement output measures. •  Design strategies that streamline the compliance assurance process by placing increased responsibility on the regulated community to self-identify and correct violations, and promote environmental stewardship and sustainable practices. •  Provide technical assistance, outreach and education to targeted segments of the regulated community, with continued focus on providing assistance to our municipalities. •  Enhance our information management systems and better utilize technology to make our compliance and enforcement efforts more efficient and effective. For example: o Use remote sensing, aerial surveillance and digital mapping and other innovative non-compliance detection strategies and equipment; o Link inspectors in the field with centralized facility databases and digital maps; and o Automate the reporting analysis of facility discharge and environmental monitoring data and the generation of compliance and enforcement documents. •  When violations are discovered, take consistent, appropriate and timely enforcement action to: o Deter non-compliance and ensure a level playing field by making non-compliance substantially more costly than compliance; o Require violators to cease actions impacting the environment or public health, and to restore impacted environmental resources; and o Capitalize on opportunities to induce the regulated community to permanently reduce pollution and adopt environmental management systems, and establish best management practices. MassDEP’s 3-Year Strategic Priorities For information on MassDEP’s 3-Year Strategic Priorities (FFY2013- 2015), please refer to the FFY13-2015 MassDEP Program Plan/Performance Partnership Agreement Work Plan at xxxx://xxx.xxxx.xxx/eea/agencies/massdep/about/programs/agency-wide- program-plans-and-reports.html FFY14 Priorities for MassDEP from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs In addition to the strategic priorities set by MassDEP for the upcoming year, the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) also establishes and/or endorses cross-cutting priorities for MassDEP and the other EEA agencies. The Executive Office’s priorities for MassDEP in FFY2014 include:  Major Information Technology (IT) Redesign & Upgrade: Secure from the Commonwealth’s Information Technology Division capital funding for the multi-year IT redesign (called the “Energy & Environmental Information and Public Access System” [EIPAS]), and then begin system design once funding is in place.  Regulatory Reform: Finalize and implement regulatory and outlined in MassDEP’s 2012 Action Plan for Regulatory Reform. These reforms include expanded utilization of regulatory tools like general permits and self-certifications. XxxxXXX’s changes satisfy the regulatory reform mandate required of all state agencies under the Economic Development Reorganization Act of 2010 and they will substantially streamline processes, enhance efficiency, and align workload with resources.  Clean Energy and Climate Protection: Continue Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA) implementation, continue progress on the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), and continue implementation of the Clean Energy Results Program (CERP) to encourage and facilitate clean energy (including siting of pilot anaerobic digester facilities on state lands; expanding energy management programs for wastewater and drinking water treatment plants; and re-evaluating air guidelines for noise from wind turbines).  Solid Waste: Finalize regulations that will ban commercial organics from disposal in order to divert those materials from the disposal stream in order to save landfill capacity and put this material to beneficial uses such as harvesting beneficial energy via anaerobic digestion, and then launch implementation of associated programs.  Clean Air: Continue to focus on priority air pollution issues, including striving to meet the national standard for ozone, as well as focus on regional haze and fine particulate matter.  Water Resources: Using the completed Water Management Act municipal pilot projects, implement the Safe Yield and Streamflow Criteria framework through regulatory changes consistent with the Commonwealth’s Sustainable Water Management Initiative;  Brownfields: Continued implementation of the Commonwealth’s multi-agency “Brownfields Support Teams (BST),” including continued progress on the latest round of BST sites that were announced in the fall of 2012.

Compliance Assurance. Despite many years of budget reductions, MassDEP continues to place priority on maintaining compliance and enforcement activities. Ultimately, the credibility and effectiveness of any environmental program depends upon our success in ensuring compliance with our protective environmental standards. MassDEP employs a comprehensive Compliance Assurance Strategy that promotes environmental compliance through compliance assessment activities, enforcement, technical assistance, and public education. We are proud that Massachusetts’ regulated community generally has high rates of compliance. However, to ensure that we maintain and improve compliance rates and environmental performance, we must strategically utilize and integrate all these compliance assurance tools. In FFY18, MassDEP will strive to: •  Set priorities for our limited resources based on relative risk, requiring increased reliance on assessment of environmental monitoring and performance data for particular sectors. This includes working with EPA to implement the Alternative Compliance Monitoring Strategies for the Air Pollution and RCRA Hazardous Waste programs whereby inspections of the large sources covered by the Compliance Monitoring Strategies are reduced in exchange for additional inspections of carefully targeted smaller sources. •  Establish performance measures linked to environmental objectives and compliance rates. These are an integral component of initiatives’ design, operation and evaluation—we cannot rely solely on traditional enforcement output measures. •  Design strategies that streamline the compliance assurance process by placing increased responsibility on the regulated community to self-identify and correct violations, and promote environmental stewardship and sustainable practices. •  Provide technical assistance, outreach and education to targeted segments of the regulated community, with continued focus on providing assistance to our municipalities. •  Enhance our information management systems and better utilize technology to make our compliance and enforcement efforts more efficient and effective. For example: o Use remote sensing, aerial surveillance and digital mapping and other innovative non-compliance detection strategies and equipment; o Link inspectors in the field with centralized facility databases and digital maps; and o Automate the reporting analysis of facility discharge and environmental monitoring data and the generation of compliance and enforcement documents. •  When violations are discovered, take consistent, appropriate and timely enforcement action to: o Deter non-compliance and ensure a level playing field by making non-compliance substantially more costly than compliance; o Require violators to cease actions impacting the environment or public health, and to restore impacted environmental resources; and o Capitalize on opportunities to induce the regulated community to permanently reduce pollution and adopt environmental management systems, and establish best management practices.

Compliance Assurance. Despite many years more than a decade of budget reductions, MassDEP continues to place priority on maintaining compliance and enforcement activities. Ultimately, the credibility and effectiveness of any environmental program depends upon our success in ensuring compliance with our protective environmental standards. MassDEP employs a comprehensive Compliance Assurance Strategy compliance assurance strategy that promotes environmental compliance through compliance assessment activities, enforcement, technical assistance, and public education. We are proud that Massachusetts’ regulated community generally has high rates of compliance. However, to ensure that we maintain and improve compliance rates and environmental performance, we must strategically utilize and integrate all these compliance assurance tools. In FFY18FY14, MassDEP will strive to: • Set priorities for our limited resources based on relative risk, requiring increased reliance on assessment of environmental monitoring and performance data for particular sectors. This includes working And, in cooperation with EPA to implement the Alternative Compliance Monitoring Strategies for the Air Pollution and RCRA Hazardous Waste programs whereby Region 1, increase inspections of “minor” facilities and reduce the large sources covered by the Compliance Monitoring Strategies are reduced in exchange for additional inspections of carefully targeted smaller sourcesmajor facilities whose environmental compliance record is proven and strong. • Establish performance measures linked to environmental objectives and compliance rates. These are an integral component of initiatives’ design, operation and evaluation—we cannot rely solely on traditional enforcement output measures. • Design strategies that streamline the compliance assurance process by placing increased responsibility on the regulated community to self-identify and correct violations, and promote environmental stewardship and sustainable practices. • Provide technical assistance, outreach and education to targeted segments of the regulated community, with continued focus on providing assistance to our municipalities. • Enhance our information management systems and better utilize technology to make our compliance and enforcement efforts more efficient and effective. For example: o Use remote sensing, aerial surveillance and digital mapping and other innovative non-compliance detection strategies and equipment; o Link inspectors in the field with centralized facility databases and digital maps; and o Automate the reporting analysis of facility discharge and environmental monitoring data and the generation of compliance and enforcement documents. • When violations are discovered, take consistent, appropriate and timely enforcement action to: o Deter non-compliance and ensure a level playing field by making non-compliance substantially more costly than compliance; o Require violators to cease actions impacting the environment or public health, and to restore impacted environmental resources; and o Capitalize on opportunities to induce the regulated community to permanently reduce pollution and adopt environmental management systems, and establish best management practices. MassDEP’s 3-Year Strategic Priorities For information on MassDEP’s 3-Year Strategic Priorities (FFY2013- 2015), please refer to the FFY13-2015 MassDEP Program Plan/Performance Partnership Agreement Work Plan at xxxx://xxx.xxxx.xxx/eea/agencies/massdep/about/programs/agency-wide- program-plans-and-reports.html FFY14 Priorities for MassDEP from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs In addition to the strategic priorities set by MassDEP for the upcoming year, the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) also establishes and/or endorses cross-cutting priorities for MassDEP and the other EEA agencies. The Executive Office’s priorities for MassDEP in FFY2014 include: • Major Information Technology (IT) Redesign & Upgrade: Secure from the Commonwealth’s Information Technology Division capital funding for the multi-year IT redesign (called the “Energy & Environmental Information and Public Access System” [EIPAS]), and then begin system design once funding is in place. • Regulatory Reform: Finalize and implement regulatory and outlined in MassDEP’s 2012 Action Plan for Regulatory Reform. These reforms include expanded utilization of regulatory tools like general permits and self-certifications. XxxxXXX’s changes satisfy the regulatory reform mandate required of all state agencies under the Economic Development Reorganization Act of 2010 and they will substantially streamline processes, enhance efficiency, and align workload with resources. • Clean Energy and Climate Protection: Continue Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA) implementation, continue progress on the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), and continue implementation of the Clean Energy Results Program (CERP) to encourage and facilitate clean energy (including siting of pilot anaerobic digester facilities on state lands; expanding energy management programs for wastewater and drinking water treatment plants; and re-evaluating air guidelines for noise from wind turbines). • Solid Waste: Finalize regulations that will ban commercial organics from disposal in order to divert those materials from the disposal stream in order to save landfill capacity and put this material to beneficial uses such as harvesting beneficial energy via anaerobic digestion, and then launch implementation of associated programs. • Clean Air: Continue to focus on priority air pollution issues, including striving to meet the national standard for ozone, as well as focus on regional haze and fine particulate matter. • Water Resources: Using the completed Water Management Act municipal pilot projects, implement the Safe Yield and Streamflow Criteria framework through regulatory changes consistent with the Commonwealth’s Sustainable Water Management Initiative; • Brownfields: Continued implementation of the Commonwealth’s multi-agency “Brownfields Support Teams (BST),” including continued progress on the latest round of BST sites that were announced in the fall of 2012.