EPA considers revised permitting process

The Environmental Protection Agency should adopt a flexible, performancebased, one-stop approach toward controlling pollutants emanating from industrial, commercial, academic, and municipal facilities. And it should consider issuing one permit—including limits on air, water, and waste disposal— per facility. These are hardly startling recommendations. But their source is surprising. They are the conclusions of EPA's Permits Improvement Team, published in the May 10 Federal Register. The team was formed in July 1994 in response to public demand for more environmental protection at less cost. It consists of representatives from EPA headquarters and regional offices and from state, tribal, and local permitting agencies—groups to whom EPA has delegated most of its authority to issue permits. In its draft final report—now undergoing a brief final review by federal advisory committees—the team proposes that EPA rely on an approach called public performance-based permitting, or P3. This approach, it notes, is or...