FY 07 Big Case Outcome and Referral Projections with Comparisons to Prior Years David Hindin, Director Enforcement Targeting and Data Division, OC OECA, US EPA Senior Enforcement Managers Meeting Washington, DC March 27, 2007
Produced by OECA/OC/ETDD/RAB Background At our Senior Enforcement Managers’ video-conference discussion on January 18, 2007, we began discussing the outlook for enforcement and compliance assurance results in FY07. This was a continued discussion from the Denver October 2006 SEM Meeting. The purpose of this exercise is to assess whether we are on a trajectory to achieve our expected year-end goals, at an early enough point in the year that we can still make management adjustments, if needed, to give us our best shot at achieving our national goals. This is a new exercise so we may learn both substantively about what it tells us, and how, and if, we do it again. Produced by OECA/OC/ETDD/RAB
Definition of Big Cases Why Try to Predict Big Cases: Most of our pounds of pollutants and injunctive/SEP dollars come from the big cases. For example, in FY2006, we had 65 civil cases (mostly judicial) which had more than one million pounds of pollutant reductions. These 65 cases accounted for 92% of the total 890 million pounds from both civil and criminal cases we announced in the press release. Yet these 65 top cases were only 1% of our universe of concluded cases. Big civil (non-Superfund) cases (judicial and administrative) are defined based on three criteria: Injunctive relief and SEP combined, estimated amount of more than $5 million; or Pounds of pollutants reduced, estimated amount greater than 1 million pounds; or Civil penalty amount of greater than $1 million. Big Superfund civil cases (judicial and administrative) are defined based on three criteria: Cost recovery of at least $5 million; or PRP clean up commitment of at least $5million; or Volume of contaminated soil or water/aquifer clean-up commitment of at least 1 million cubic yards. A big case is considered in the pipeline for FY2007 results if the case team believes there is approximately a 50% chance or better that the case will be concluded in FY2007. Produced by OECA/OC/ETDD/RAB
Produced by OECA/OC/ETDD/RAB Cautions Unlike the actual EOY figures for prior FYs, the FY 07 projections consist of only big cases, not all cases. Big case predictions are predictions because: Some of these cases may not conclude in FY2007. A few big cases not on the list may conclude in FY2007. Outcome numbers are rough projections, so these may change. Non-big cases probably add about 5 to 10% to the totals. We have never done this before, but our history of accurately projecting referrals is weak. For example, at the end of July 2006 we projected 229 referrals. The actual EOY total was 286. Produced by OECA/OC/ETDD/RAB
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Produced by OECA/OC/ETDD/RAB NOTE: Default judgment cases accounted for a significant percentage of the total penalties assessed nationally in each of FY 04, FY 05 and FY 06. In FY 04 Palmetto = $92M (62% of the national total); In FY 05 Russell Oil Co. = $81M (53% of the national total); In FY 06 United Organics Co. = $33M (27% of the national total). Produced by OECA/OC/ETDD/RAB
Produced by OECA/OC/ETDD/RAB NOTE: The default judgment cases that accounted for a significant percentage of the total penalties assessed nationally in each of FY 04, FY 05 and FY 06 have been removed from totals. In FY 04 Palmetto = $92M (62% of the national total); In FY 05 Russell Oil Co. = $81M (53% of the national total); In FY 06 United Organics Co. = $33M (27% of the national total). Produced by OECA/OC/ETDD/RAB
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Was this a useful exercise? Benefits Enabled us to have a national management discussion of where we are going. Was this valuable? What actions do we expect to take as a result of this discussion? Some advance work on EOY data quality on the big cases, which should help ease the burden in October and November somewhat. Costs ETDD spent 250 to 300 hours on this. If we did this again, time would probably be less, about 200 hours. OCE and OSRE spent about 10 hours on this total. Region 2 spent about 30 hours on this, so assume total Regional time of 300 hours; some of this was probably part of normal judicial docket reviews. Produced by OECA/OC/ETDD/RAB
Produced by OECA/OC/ETDD/RAB Acknowledgements Thanks to these people who juggled their work to do this in ETDD: Dan Palmer Dan Holic Marissa Lynch John Hovell Thanks to the Regions for compiling the information. Produced by OECA/OC/ETDD/RAB