However, having an EMS (even if certified) as part of a pilot project does not mean that the pilot will successfully meet the goals of better environmental performance. Other factors need to be considered as well. It is difficult to itemize what needs to be considered for each pilot because the pilots have different strengths and weaknesses. What may be useful is a set of guidelines which may be used in assessing a variety of different pilot projects. Mike McCloskey at the Sierra Club in Washington D.C. has written a set of guidelines which may be useful for helping to evaluate pilot projects as they are being developed and implemented across the United States. Mike's e-mail address is mike.mccloskey@sfsierra.sierraclub.org.
 
 
GUIDELINES FOR EVALUATING CHANGES IN CONVENTIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL AGENCY REGULATORY PROGRAMS TO CONTROL POLLUTION

Goals

• Programs must be driven by moving toward achieving environmental quality goals, such as more "fishable and swimmable waters" and toward continually shrinking numbers of people living in non-attainment areas.

Eligibility

• Solicitations to participate in alternative processes of treatment (providing dispensations) must be keyed to identifying applicants who would advance programs to meet priority needs (as identified in advance; i.e.,chlorine-free paper making).

Standards

• Programs must require that moves toward greater flexibility be tied to providing the public with Superior Environmental Benefits. these should be superior in an absolute sense as well as better (not equivalent) than would have been provided under the current approach.
  [Note: Where current standards are low, better results may still be too low. The benefits in that case should be much higher, or of a superior nature (i.e., high in an absolute sense, not just a relative sense).]

• Programs must move toward providing all citizens with levels of environmental quality meeting or exceeding standards, and treating all regulated entities consistently under comparable rules.

• Programs must work toward providing all citizens with levels of environmental quality meeting or exceeding standards, and treating all regulated entities consistently under comparable rules.

• Programs must not undermine ambient standards, nor cause exceedences of them; and where areas are out of compliance, the programs must lead toward getting them into compliance.

• Programs must reflect confident application of the Precautionary Principle (and not back away from protective action in the absence of absolute proof).
  [The precautionary principle provides that lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing action to prevent environmental degradation, particularly where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage.]

Trading

• Programs must, where possible, recognize that ambient air and water are public goods, and that those who would use them must pay an appropriate charge to the public. Existing emission levels must not be converted into quasi-property rights for polluters.

• Programs must require that credits obtained under trading arrangements not be used to increase discharges in communities or onto ecosystems so as to violate ambient standards or otherwise unfairly burden them; and in no case for toxic materials.

Flexibility

• Programs must require that dispensations from requirements in all cases be tied to monitoring actual performance, with calculations used to supplement, not replace, performance monitoring.

• Programs must require that dispensations not be provided solely on the basis of use of environmental management systems (EMS) (as they may not relate to actual performance) or adherence to a Code of Conduct.

• Programs must require that dispensations from procedural requirements not be provided on the basis of pledges alone, but must reflect actual "beyond compliance" performance.

• Programs must require that procedural dispensations granted for operating in a "cleaner" fashion be determined solely on the basis of reduced discharges of pollutants by the permittee, not by purchasing reductions elsewhere, nor on the basis of providing community benefits of a different character.

Procedures/Public Involvement

• The programs must increase the rationality, consistency, and clarity of the steps required in the compliance process, rather that blur them or lead to the conclusion that every regulated entity should attempt to negotiate their own arrangements. Consistency provides the underpinning for even-handed enforcement.

• The programs must not shift the burden of using expert knowledge to protect the public from government to lay people, nor should only the powerful get protected and those skilled in debate and negotiation.

• Programs must require that permits be revised periodically to make reasonable reductions in permitted discharges as to reflect advances in the state of control technology, as well as in understanding of control needs.

Privilege/Immunity

• Programs must require that firms not be able to gain amnesty, nor immunity form prosecution, nor be allowed to keep information from the public about their violations of environmental laws or regulations, by virtue of conducting an audit of their operations (either to ascertain compliance status or attainment of management aims).

Enforcement

• Obligations assumed under alternative programs must be as enforceable--both legally and as a practical matter--as those they would replace (which would be enforceable under the otherwise applicable regime). And they must be no less transparent and open to public notice and comment.