Proof of Concept Demonstration for Electronic Reporting of Clean Water Act Compliance Monitoring Data: Announcement of Meeting and Demonstration

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will conduct a public webinar in order to inform interested parties about an opportunity to participate in a technical proof of concept demonstration for electronic reporting of Clean Water Act (CWA) National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Discharge Monitoring Report (DMR) compliance monitoring data. This webinar will be held on Wednesday, July 13, 2011, from 10:30 a.m.-12 p.m. EDT. EPA announced on July 6, 2009, that it would develop a Clean Water Action Plan \1\ to enhance public transparency regarding clean water enforcement performance at Federal and state levels, to strengthen that performance, and to transform EPA's water quality and compliance information systems. A consensus suggestion across co-regulators and stakeholder groups was to implement electronic reporting from facilities that are required to submit reports to a regulatory agency. To fully realize the transformation of reporting and data management into the 21st century, OECA is developing a rule to require NPDES permittees to provide a variety of environmental information electronically. EPA is exploring different electronic reporting options to enable NPDES regulated facilities to electronically submit their compliance monitoring data. EPA will conduct a technical proof of concept to demonstrate the electronic reporting of NPDES compliance monitoring data from regulated facilities via an `open platform e-file' electronic reporting option. The `open platform e-file' proof of concept demonstration will focus the electronic transmission of NPDES DMRs from a third-party commercial software provider ("provider") to EPA. If EPA were to fully implement this option, any provider that meets the Agency's data exchange standards, protocols, and specifications would be able to offer electronic reporting services to the regulated community for the NPDES program (e.g., NPDES permitted facilities). This open platform model would likely be similar to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) model for electronic reporting, which uses third-party software providers for tax data collection and transmission (e.g., TurboTax, TaxACT, or others [no endorsement intended or implied]) from private citizens and businesses. The Agency does not intend to purchase services from any provider. All financial transactions would be between the providers and members of the regulated community. EPA will conduct a public webinar to provide an overview of the "open platform e-file option" and to identify person(s) interested in participating in a proof of concept demonstration of the technical feasibility of this "open platform e- file option" and to identify the specific system and process information necessary for this proof of concept demonstration. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------