Dec. 8, 2000—EPA, states and other key stakeholders have jointly developed a National Compliance Assistance Clearinghouse to provide regulated industries essential compliance assistance information to meet environmental requirements.
The idea for the clearinghouse comes from stakeholder conferences co-chaired by the Vice President's National Partnership on Reinventing Government and EPA and was selected as a key initiative in the Administration's reinvention efforts.
The Agency announced the launching of the clearinghouse at the National Environmental Innovations Symposium in Kansas City, Mo. The agency had been asked by states and other compliance assistance providers to create a central national network to help them find information quickly and allow them to communicate with each other more effectively.
The clearinghouse web site, www.epa.gov/clearinghouse, provides a single repository of compliance assistance materials. It has unique features that solicit participation from the user community to quickly locate compliance assistance information that is housed on multiple web sites. It allows users to add links from their own web sites, select the information they need from the site and apply it to their own web sites, and tell EPA about their compliance needs.
Initially, the clearinghouse will focus on providing links to EPA and state web sites. EPA will continue to expand its content by adding information from industry sources, private organizations and other assistance providers after the opening.
Copies of the clearinghouse brochure will be available through the National Service Clearinghouse of Environmental Publications at 1-800-490-9198.
