Implementing air force policy favoring seps: Are they a nonstarter fiscally?

Abstract

AbstractIncreasingly, facilities that have been assesed a penalty for a violation of an environmental law have sought to reduce the amount of their penalty by agreeing to execute supplemental environmental project (SEPs). A SEP is defined by EPA as an “environmentally beneficial project which a defendant/respondent agrees to undertake in settlement of an enforcement action, but which the defendant/respondent is not otherwise legally required to perform.”1 SEPs are used by both the EPA and state regulatory authorities as an enforcement tool that provides affirmative environmental benefits beyond the deterrence and prevention that can be secured through the usual administrative and judicial mechanisms (e.g., penalties and injunctions).