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Environment

EPA revises penalty calculations

September 5, 2005 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 83, Issue 36

After nine years of study, EPA has updated its methods for calculating penalties for certain environmental violations. The agency uses its BEN model--the name is derived from economic benefit--to help set the fines it seeks from companies wanting to settle noncriminal enforcement charges (C&EN, Feb. 26, 2001, page 32). EPA's fines are aimed at recouping both the economic benefit a company gets from violating environmental standards as well as the cost of any ecological harm that results. The highly technical changes that EPA made to the 1984 BEN model include adjusting for inflation based on historical, month-to-month data rather than using an average rate of inflation. In revising the BEN model, EPA did not include a controversial element that it had proposed adding--one that would set fines to offset what the agency calls "illegal competitive advantage." The agency's Science Advisory Board is finalizing a draft report criticizing the concept of illegal competitive advantage as "unhelpful." Links to the BEN model and to the board's draft report are available at www.epa.gov/compliance/civil/econmodels/index.html.

 

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