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Loosening
the Choke Hold
Virginia’s environmental regulators are giving businesses more flexibility.
Will the idea work, or will it be doomed to
total-quality, cheese-moving, big-fish-eating
history?
What
do a retail grocery chain, an automobile parts
manufacturer, a chemical company and a state agency
have in common? Each is voluntarily poring over its
operations with a magnifying glass seeking ways to
lessen environmental impact while boosting quality
and productivity.
Safeway
stores in
Northern
Virginia
are aggressively seeking lower energy consumption.
Federal Mogul in
Hampton
has eliminated the need for chemical adhesives in
its auto parts assembly. NOVA Chemicals in Chesapeake
has reduced its number of environmental spills and
cut its volume of hazardous waste. The Virginia
Department of Education is getting mercury out of
high school laboratories.
“Command
and control” has characterized environmental
regulation in the United
States
since the enactment of the major environmental laws
in the early 1970s. Now,
the trend is toward a more flexible management
system that integrates pollution prevention into
business operations. Here in Virginia,
the Department of Environmental Quality is
championing the goal of environmental improvement
with less Big-Brother finger wagging.
Here’s
how Command and Control works. Step One: Government
identifies an environmental problem. Step Two:
Government promulgates regulations to prohibit or
limit the activity causing the problem. Step Three:
When the regulation is violated, the violator stops
or slows production to comply, pays thousands of
dollars in penalties, or goes to jail.
Command
and control works. The specter of paying fines or
going to jail focuses managers’ attention on
compliance. Banning harmful substances, restricting
air emissions and controlling water discharges were
good moves. It is difficult to imagine that any less
aggressive action could have corrected the filthy
rivers, open dumps and haze of uncontrolled stack
emissions characteristic of the mid-20th
century.
But detractors say command and control, has outlived its usefulness
because it requires slavish devotion to regulations
that frequently are technologically outdated, fail
to take into account total environmental impact and
do not allow operating flexibility. Worse, they say, some requirements actually discourage
technological advances that would be environmentally
advantageous.
Command
and control is a primitive means of affecting
behavior. It works best when the person being
controlled doesn’t understand or appreciate the
goal: “Don’t
touch the stove.”
“Eat your vegetables.”
“Because I said so.” To reach the
next level of environmental benefit, attention must
turn to reduction of the net environmental impact.
In environmental jargon -- “sustainability.”
Environmental
achievements today are driven less by fear of
punishment and more by considerations of cost,
customers, competition, and public image. Raw
materials cost money. Pollution control equipment
costs money. Disposal of wastes costs money and
creates long-term liabilities. Customers demand
compliance and environmentally friendly products.
American products compete in the global marketplace
with other nations, some of which have tougher
environmental requirements.
Business
recognition of such non-regulatory reasons to cut
pollution hit home in the late 1980s when the
federal government required, for the first time,
companies to calculate and report total emissions
— lawful
emissions — into the environment.
Many businesses were stunned to find
themselves not on a most-admired list but on a
top-emitter list, the
Toxics Release Inventory. Manufacturers got
religion on pollution prevention — the elimination
or reduction in the use, generation, or release of
environmental wastes. Since the first reports,
plants have worked to reduce emissions.
But
preventing pollution is only part of the story.
Virginia regulators are betting that a greener
environment and business efficiency can co-exist by
implementing an environmental management system
(EMS). As defined by Virginia DEQ, an EMS “is a
cohesive, comprehensive set of written environmental
policies and procedures” that identify how an
organization will achieve and maintain identified
environmental goals and objectives.
To
develop an EMS, an enterprise must look at each
component of each business process. A disciplined,
comprehensive approach is called for, looking at
everything from light bulbs to pumps to pressure
vessels. You find the dust bunnies because you look
under the sofa. Another advantage is continuity. In
a labor market where employees jump ship faster than
a .350 hitter, handing over a notebook of procedures
beats pointing to the file cabinet on the way out.
There
are negatives also. An environmental management
system is not cheap. The startup and implementation
costs may be steep for a complex manufacturing
facility. Paperwork
requirements may rival anything the government, even
the EPA, can conjure up. An EMS also requires
constant upkeep, and it may require outside
consultants.
Virginia’s
Environmental Excellence Program was created in the
Gilmore administration and enjoys the full support
of the Warner administration. Harry Gregori, DEQ’s
Director of Pollution Prevention and Compliance
Assistance, is leading the effort. Long an advocate
of pollution prevention, Gregori sees the effort as
a win-win-win proposition: “Business avoids being
regulated and reduces costs. The public is exposed
to fewer environmental contaminants. And there is a
positive impact on the environment.”
Participants
in Virginia’s Environmental Excellence program may
receive “regulatory flexibility” in the form of
reduced numbers of inspections, reduced monitoring
requirements, and expedited permit renewals or
amendments.
The
“regulatory flexibility” piece rightly causes
anxiety among many in the environmental community,
some regulators, and probably competitors who
aren’t getting the relief. Another worry is that,
like any new idea, the program so far lacks hard
numbers over a sustained period of time that can
document reduced emissions or lowered environmental
impact. We probably won’t know for years whether
such systems have a beneficial impact on the
environment or whether they’re just a return to
the hands-off approach that characterized
pre-command and control legislation.
Compliance
is won and maintained by a top-down commitment by
managers and by constant communication between
production and environmental staff. Sometimes
environmental excellence requires increases in
capital or operating expenses.
Pretty notebooks full of policies and
procedures do not guarantee compliance.
Implemented
properly with adequate oversight, a new regulatory
relationship could reduce the resources required by
budget-stressed agencies, allow sound and quicker
business expansion, advance environmental
technologies, and improve industry’s image in the
public eye. The rub, of course, is proper
implementation and adequate oversight. After all,
until recently, most Americans had confidence in a
system that relied upon companies and outside
auditors to comply with securities regulations and
accounting standards with only modest regulatory
scrutiny.
-- Sept. 3, 2002
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