To find out who is obeying and who is violating the law, the EPA generally performs one of the following:
Self-monitoring: most U.S. environmental laws require the regulated facilities to keep track of their own compliance status and report all or part of the resulting data to the responsible agency. This not only gives the agency data it needs, but also helps the company’s senior management to obey the law. Fraudulent reporting is a serious offense.
Inspections: this is the backbone of the EPA’s compliance monitoring program. They are the government’s main tool for officially assessing compliance. An inspection is an examination into the environmental affairs of a single regulated facility, to see whether it is in compliance with environmental requirements.
Area monitoring: used less often, area monitoring looks at environmental conditions in the vicinity of a facility, or over a larger area. Methods used for area monitoring include ambient monitoring, remote sensing, and overflights.
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