Abstract |
The New Jersey Chemical Industry Project (NJCIP) was one of a number of efforts initiated by EPA to reinvent how it does business. EPAs Industry Strategies Division, was working 1 cooperatively with industry to examine how the environmental protection infrastructure (the laws, regulations, and practices of agencies at the federal, state, and local levels) impacts industry and how strategies for environmental protection might be improved. EPA chose to focus this effort on the specialty batch chemical industry because the Chemical Operations Team of the Presidents Council on Sustainable Development noted that smaller batch processors often have more difficulty complying with environmental requirements. The Agency decided to focus in New Jersey because it is a major center of chemical manufacturing in the U.S. This report includes a brief discussion of the stages of the project, how EPA recruited Stakeholders and managed the Stakeholder process, the activities of Pilot projects implemented by the Stakeholders, and the observations from Stakeholders and other Pilot project participants on the policy implications of the project. EPA and the Stakeholders prepared this report to help others find better ways of running projects, better approaches to managing particular environmental issues, and most of all, to show that there are many ways we can improve how we protect the environment. |