NPDES Electronic Reporting Rule

This regulation would identify the essential information that EPA needs to receive electronically, primarily from NPDES permittees with some data required from NPDES agencies (NPDES-authorized states, territories and tribes) to manage the national NPDES permitting and enforcement program. Through this regulation, EPA seeks to ensure that such facility-specific information would be readily available, accurate, timely and nationally consistent on the facilities that are regulated by the NPDES program. In the past, EPA primarily obtained this information from the Permit Compliance System (PCS). However, the evolution of the NPDES program since the inception of PCS has created an increasing need to better reflect a more complete picture of the NPDES program and the diverse universe of regulated sources. In addition, information technology has advanced significantly so that PCS no longer meets EPA's national needs to manage the full scope of the NPDES program or the needs of individual states that use PCS to implement and enforce the NPDES program.