Regulacje i polityka gospodarcza · 31.12.2003

Preliminary Effluent Guidelines Program Plan for 2004/2005

Today's notice presents and invites comment on EPA's preliminary Effluent Guidelines Program Plan for 2004/2005. Under the Clean Water Act (CWA), EPA establishes technology-based national regulations, termed "effluent guidelines," to reduce pollutant discharges from industrial facilities to waters of the United States. Section 304(m) of the Clean Water Act (CWA) requires EPA to publish an Effluent Guidelines Program Plan every two years. Today's notice has three purposes. First, it presents the results of EPA's annual review of the effluent guidelines that EPA has promulgated under CWA section 304(b). Second, it solicits public comment on the preliminary Effluent Guidelines Program Plan. Third, it describes and solicits comment on the analytical framework that EPA has employed to date in performing the annual review for 2003 and in developing today's preliminary Effluent Guidelines Program Plan. EPA had articulated an early form of this evolving analytical framework in the draft Strategy for National Clean Water Industrial Regulations, which EPA hopes to finalize concurrently with the Effluent Guidelines Program Plan in 2004.