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Strategic Objective
Launching A New Era of State, Tribal, Local, and International Partnerships
Strategic Objective
Overview
The practice of good government, as well as the reality of limited resources, means that EPA works in concert with our partners to improve coordination, promote innovation, and maximize efficiencies to ensure our continued success. As we work together, our relationships must continue to be based on integrity, trust, and shared accountability to make the most effective use of our respective bodies of knowledge, our existing authorities, our resources, and our talents.
Successful partnerships will be based on four working principles: consultation, collaboration, cooperation, and accountability. By consulting, we will engage our partners in a timely fashion as we consider approaches to our environmental work so that each partner can make an early and meaningful contribution toward the final result. By collaborating, we will not only share information, but we will actively work together with our partners to develop innovative approaches that use and leverage all available resources to achieve our environmental and human health goals. As our work progresses, we will cooperate, viewing each other with respect as allies who must work successfully together if our goals are to be achieved. Through shared accountability, we will ensure that environmental benefits are consistently delivered nationwide. In carrying out these responsibilities, EPA will ensure that state, tribal, and federal implementation of federal laws achieves a consistent level of protection for the environment and human health.
With States
Under our federal environmental laws, EPA and the states share responsibility for protecting human health and the environment. With this relationship as a key component of the nation's environmental protection system, EPA will:
- Improve implementation of national environmental programs through closer consultation and collaboration to seek the most efficient use of resources, streamline business processes and administrative requirements, develop and promote innovative solutions, and further our shared governance framework by revitalizing the National Environmental Performance Partnership System (NEPPS).[1] We will strengthen joint EPA-state priority setting by better aligning NEPPS with EPA’s national program manager guidances[2], focusing on flexible, innovative approaches to achieve results, and seek ways to leverage all available mutually beneficial opportunities to share work and expertise.
- Work collaboratively with state partners to develop innovative strategies and modernize our environmental programs through the E-Enterprise initiative[3], a 21st century approach that will support the nation’s environmental protection responsibilities through enhanced information sharing, increased transparency, and reduced regulatory burden, supported by advanced monitoring tools and information technologies.
- Consult with state governments early in the rule-making process to ensure that the development and implementation of rules is consistent with “EPA’s Action Development Process: Guidance on Executive Order 13132 (Federalism),” which recognizes the division of governmental responsibilities between the federal government and the states.
- Strengthen state-EPA shared accountability by focusing oversight on the most significant and pressing state program performance challenges, using data and analysis to accelerate program improvements.
- Ensure a level playing field across states to improve compliance and address the most serious violations.
- Collaborate with state research organizations to share information on EPA’s scientific and technical capabilities and solicit input to make our tools, models, and research useful and practical for the states in carrying out their environmental responsibilities.
With Tribes
The relationship between the United States government and federally-recognized tribes is unique—we work with tribes on a government-to-government basis on Agency decisions that may affect tribal interests. Our responsibility to consult with tribal governments is distinct from the general consultations we have with states and nations outside the U.S. border. As such, our consultations with tribes are governed by the EPA Policy for the Administration of Environmental Programs on Indian Reservations (November 8, 1984), Executive Order 13175 on Consultation and Coordination with Indian Tribal Governments, and the Agency’s Policy on Consultation and Coordination with Indian Tribes (May 4, 2011). In strengthening this relationship with tribes, EPA will:
- Focus on increasing tribal capacity to establish and implement environmental programs while ensuring that our national programs are as effective in Indian country as they are throughout the rest of the nation.[4]
- Enhance our effort to work with tribes on a government-to-government basis, based upon the Constitution, treaties, laws, executive orders, and a long history of Supreme Court rulings.
- Strengthen our cross-cultural sensitivity with tribes, recognizing that tribes have cultural, jurisdictional, and legal features that must be considered when coordinating and implementing environmental programs in Indian country.
With Local Partners:
EPA has a unique relationship with local governments given that local governments can be both co-implementers and regulated entities under national and state environmental laws. Recognizing that local governments vary considerably[5], are dealing with significant resource constraints as they work to build capacity (particularly in smaller communities), and often provide innovative leadership in environmental stewardship, EPA will:
- Maintain consistent and meaningful communications with local officials and optimize outreach efforts to improve environmental program implementation at the local level and receive recommendations on environmental issues that are important to local governments.
- Consult with local governments, as with states, early in the development of rules and policies that impact them, consistent with “EPA’s Action Development Process: Guidance on Executive Order 13132 (Federalism).”
- Promote and facilitate best practices among local officials to address pressing local environmental matters with flexible, innovative approaches that advance shared priorities.
With International Partners
To achieve our domestic environmental and human health goals, international partnerships, including those with the business community and entrepreneurs, are essential. Pollution is often carried by winds and water across national boundaries, posing risks to human health and ecosystems many hundreds and thousands of miles away. Many concerns, like climate change, are global and, to address these and other environmental challenges in the international arena, EPA will:
- Enhance sustainability principles through expanded partnership efforts in multilateral forums and in key bilateral relationships.
- Strengthen existing and build new international partnerships to encourage increased international commitment to sustainability goals and to promote a new era of global environmental stewardship based on common interests, shared values, and mutual respect.
End Notes:
- NEPPS is an environmental performance system established in 1995 and designed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of state environmental programs and EPA-state partnerships. It is a system of principles and tools to drive performance, efficiency, and flexibility in the EPA-state relationship. It enables EPA and states to leverage their collective resources most efficiently and effectively by taking full advantage of the unique capacities and capabilities of each partner to achieve the maximum environmental and human health protection. The primary tools for establishing priorities and deploying resources are Performance Partnership Agreements (PPAs) and Performance Partnership Grants (PPGs). PPGs allow states and tribes to combine categorical grants for greater spending flexibility on state and tribal priorities. PPAs are strategic negotiated plans that articulate joint goals and priorities, key activities, and roles and responsibilities.
- EPA’s national program manager (NPM) guidances translate the Agency’s budget decisions into operational program priorities, strategies, and performance measures. Issued by the five major environmental programs (air, water, waste, chemical safety and pollution prevention, and enforcement and compliance assurance), the NPM guidances inform the development of EPA work plans and grant agreements with states and tribes, including Performance Partnership Agreements, Performance Partnership Grants, and/or programmatic grants.
- EPA has developed an FY 2014-2015 Agency Priority Goal for E-Enterprise: Improve environmental outcomes and enhance service to the regulated community and the public. By September 30, 2015, reduce reporting burdens to EPA by one million hours through streamlined regulations, provide real-time environmental data to at least two communities, and establish a new portal to service the regulated community and public. More information on Agency Priority Goals is available at http://goals.performance.gov/agency/epa.
- EPA recently issued new guidance for the Indian Environmental General Assistance Program, “Guidance on the Award and Management of General Assistance Agreements for Tribes and Intertribal Consortia,” May 15, 2013. The General Assistance Program (GAP) Guidance is designed to enhance the EPA-tribal partnership by establishing a framework for joint strategic planning, identification of mutual responsibilities, and targeting resources to build tribal environmental program capacities. Additionally, it augments existing GAP Guidance with a guidebook of program development indicators, providing “pathways” for capacity building and ways to measure development of programs over time.
- Local governments may include counties, cities, water districts, air districts, ports, municipal waste management associations, economic development councils, metropolitan councils of government, and other entities.
Progress Update
Working with states, tribes, local governments, and the international community, EPA completed a suite of activities to:
- Ensure frequent and meaningful consultations with intergovernmental partners on key regulations and policies through Federalism consultations with the “Big 10” intergovernmental associations required by Executive Order 13132, as well as through additional EPA outreach initiatives to reach intergovernmental partners for rules and policies not triggered by the Federalism executive order.
- Revitalize the National Environmental Performance Partnership System, the cornerstone of EPA’s working relationship with states and many tribes.
- Improve the effectiveness and efficiency of state-federal interactions in overseeing state-delegated programs.
- Facilitate dialogue between members of the National Tribal Caucus and Environmental Council of the States (ECOS) executives regarding ECOS’ relationship with tribal governments.
- Improve the coordination and implementation of the Agency’s Tribal Consultation Policy.
- Support U.S. efforts to become first country to join the Minamata Convention treaty to protect human health and the environment from the adverse effects of mercury.
- Implement priority actions to support the agreements reached at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in 2012.
EPA’s FY 2015 partnership goals and activities:
- Continue consultation and outreach to state and local partners on regulations for the New Source Performance Standards for Greenhouse Gases, Waters of the U.S., and chemical facility safety; and improve the implementation of the Agency’s tribal consultation policy through enhanced communication tools, training, and outreach.
- Implement additional improvements and recognize the 20th anniversary of the National Environmental Performance Partnership System and its role as a platform to revitalize EPA’s working relationship with states.
- Advance E-Enterprise by taking steps to embed E-Enterprise principles in EPA-state work processes.
- Implement EPA’s tribal identification data standard to help ensure the quality and consistency of EPA data and enhance our ability to exchange tribal information across the federal government.
- Strengthen EPA partnerships with the Canadian and Mexican governments to improve policies and implement cooperative projects that address climate change.
