Regulatory Development Process

Section 325 of the Fiscal Year 1996 National Defense Authorization Act amended Section 312 of the Clean Water Act to provide the DOD and the EPA authority to jointly establish UNDS for incidental liquid discharges from vessels of the Armed Forces. The regulatory development process is organized into three phases:

Phase I

Phase I of the UNDS rulemaking process, completed on May 10, 1999, identified all discharges incidental to the normal operation of Armed Forces vessels and characterized each discharge as requiring or not requiring control, based on the potential to have an adverse environmental impact.

Phase II

In Phase II, the EPA and DoD, in consultation with the USCG, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Commerce, other interested Federal agencies, and interested States, are developing MPCD performance standards for each discharge determined to require control in Phase I. The Navy and EPA recently agreed to modify the approach to the rulemaking by establishing performance standards in batches, rather than for all 25 discharges at one time, referred to as a batch rulemaking.

Phase III

In Phase III, the DoD, in consultation with the EPA and USCG will promulgate regulations governing the design, construction, installation, and use of MPCDs on board vessels of the Armed Forces to meet the performance standards promulgated in Phase II.