The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has relaunched its online guidance portal which features information on procedures across the agency’s environmental programs.
The EPA’s Guidance Portal was initially launched during President Donald Trump’s first administration to “promote transparency,” according to EPA officials.
The website aims to “serve as a resource for all guidance documents,” and act as a “one-stop shop to help users and small businesses easily and quickly locate and follow EPA’s active guidance documents,” the agency said.
“This guidance portal will ensure that we reduce bureaucratic hurdles and increase transparency for everyone seeking information about EPA’s programs by providing centralized access to guidance documents,” said EPA Deputy Administrator David Fotouhi in a statement.
“This will bring much-needed clarity to small business owners, farmers, and everyday Americans, and it reinforces our commitment to following the law and upholding fundamental fairness,” he added.
The guidance documents cover air quality, water protection, hazardous waste management, and other topics of interest.
The documents aim to “inform the public how the agency interprets an underlying statute and its regulations,” while taking “the form of memoranda, policy statements, handbooks, manuals and other documents formally titled as guidance,” the agency said.
EPA said that the move was prompted by agency-wide reviews to reduce “unnecessary regulatory burdens.”