As some of our clients know all too well, I am spending much
time these days defending citizen suits. As federal and state
agency budgets get slashed, we're only going to see more such
suits, unless a Tea Party-controlled Congress amends the relevant
statutes to cut back on citizen suit provisions.
In a move that will facilitate citizen enforcement, EPA announced last week that it has yet again
upgraded its Enforcement and Compliance History Online, or ECHO, data base. As Cynthia Giles, EPA's
Assistant Administrator for Enforcement said:
EPA is committed to providing the
public with easy to use tools that display facility compliance
information and the actions EPA and the states are taking to
address pollution problems in communities across the nation. EPA is
proud to announce our latest effort under the President's White
House Regulatory Compliance Transparency Initiative and we will
continue to take steps to make meaningful enforcement and
compliance data
