{"id":2468,"date":"2016-10-19T10:17:02","date_gmt":"2016-10-19T14:17:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/?p=2468"},"modified":"2019-12-24T13:10:10","modified_gmt":"2019-12-24T18:10:10","slug":"sep-right-direction-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/sep-right-direction-part-1.html","title":{"rendered":"A &#8220;SEP&#8221; in the Right Direction, Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Why in the aftermath of a chemical accident does the government seek enormous cash penalties for accident prevention, when instead they could do more to reap the benefits of improving the environment and the communities surrounding an incident, and at the same time the government could be more proactive in avoiding future environmental problems?<\/p>\n<p>The EPA has provided the ideal vehicle to address the avoidance of environmental harm in the guise of Supplemental Environmental Projects (SEPs).\u00a0 A SEP is an environmentally beneficial project\u00a0or activity that is not required by law, but that a defendant agrees to undertake as part of the settlement of an enforcement action.\u00a0 A violator may pay a reduced cash penalty amount, but rather than simply writing a big check, they invest the would\u2013be penalty amount in the affected community.\u00a0 The SEP shifts the focus toward a model where the offender works to right the harm caused by their actions.\u00a0\u00a0 Environmental violators are encouraged to consider SEPs in communities where there are environmental justice (EJ) concerns.\u00a0 EJ is defined as the equitable distribution of environmental risks and benefits.\u00a0 EPA has always been keen to address harms done to communities disproportionally burdened by exposure to pollutants.<\/p>\n<p>After a chemical accident, it makes logical sense to seek to repair the harm done to the community and to obtain measurable benefits \u2015 by seeking to facilitate quicker and more efficient responses associated with emergency events; by seeking to provide technical support to the impacted community; by developing\u00a0plans to respond to releases associated with emergency events and by working to enhance local coordination with emergency responders.\u00a0 If using a SEP can be viewed as a vehicle designed to make an aggrieved community whole, and if a particular SEP can enable a community to feel better equipped to handle an impending disaster, then why shouldn\u2019t a SEP be the premier mitigation tool in the enforcement arsenal, and the preferred tool to a large cash penalty.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/sep-right-direction-part-1.html\"  title=\"Continue Reading A &#8220;SEP&#8221; in the Right Direction, Part 1\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why in the aftermath of a chemical accident does the government seek enormous cash penalties for accident prevention, when instead they could do more to reap the benefits of improving the environment and the communities surrounding an incident, and at the same time the government could be more proactive in avoiding future environmental problems? The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[399,65,89,249],"tags":[],"coauthors":[139],"class_list":["post-2468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-banking-financial-services-insights","category-insights","category-lindabury","category-real-estate-land-use-zoning-insights"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A &quot;SEP&quot; in the Right Direction, Part 1 &#8212; October 19, 2016 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Why in the aftermath of a chemical accident does the government seek enormous cash penalties for accident prevention, when instead they could do more to\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/sep-right-direction-part-1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A &quot;SEP&quot; in the Right Direction, Part 1 &#8212; October 19, 2016 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. 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