E-Manifest: Tapping into America’s Expertise to Build a National System

By Mathy Stanislaus

Last year, I wrote about the progress we’re making on creating an electronic system for tracking hazardous waste shipments. It’s the system that will modernize the nation’s cradle to grave hazardous waste tracking process while saving valuable time, resources, and dollars for industry and states. The e-Manifest program is the vanguard of the Agency-wide e-Enterprise initiative to develop new tools to reduce the reporting burden on regulated entities and provide the Agency, states and the public with easier access to environmental data.

Today I’m pleased to announce another important step toward this goal, the selection of members for our E-Manifest Advisory Board. We chose experts with diverse backgrounds to help ensure that perspectives from manifest users across the country will be incorporated into the recommendations for improving effectiveness of the e-Manifest system.

We followed a robust process to select the Advisory Board members. First, we solicited nominations through a variety of outlets, including the Federal Register, various professional associations, our e-Manifest ListServ, and the Office of Small Business Programs. We received an enthusiastic response from candidates with expertise in information technology and from stakeholders in the sectors affected by the future e-Manifest system, including state governments, transportation, and hazardous waste management. From this excellent slate of nominations, we selected eight members who we believe reflect a wide array of valuable expertise, including:

Decades of experience managing hazardous waste at generator, transporter, and hazardous waste management facilities;
Vast systems development knowledge, including one contributer to the OnStar Automotive assistive technology; and
Hands-on, in-depth experience managing state hazardous waste programs in the states of Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Washington.

As required by the e-Manifest Act, the Advisory Board will be composed of nine members consisting of the EPA Administrator (or her designee), two members from the information technology sector, three members from state agencies and three members from the regulated community. We are excited to start working with the Advisory Board to gather their thoughts on several complex issues surrounding the development of the e-manifest system, including effectiveness and performance, user fees and processes, regulations and guidance, and outreach to our stakeholders. We will convene the Advisory Board periodically beginning in 2016, and we intend to deploy the e-Manifest system in the spring of 2018.

For those stakeholders who are not part of the Advisory Board, there are several ways you can provide your input and expertise to the e-Manifest system project. Our system development work is focused on ensuring that user requirements are met from day one of national system deployment. To accomplish this, we are conducting user-centered design and development and are utilizing agile software development methodologies. This approach embodies continuous improvement through pilots and testing, using iterative processes, and continued regular engagement with users and stakeholders throughout the process to provide on-going opportunities for input.

I encourage you to follow progress on the development of the e-Manifest system on our website. There, you may also subscribe to the e-Manifest ListServ to receive project updates in real time and information about opportunities to provide feedback. You may also submit your ideas and questions to eManifest@epa.gov. And finally, once we publish our proposed fee methodology this spring, I encourage you to submit comments on the proposed rule through regulations.gov.

from Planet GS via John Jason Fallows on Inoreader http://ift.tt/1WtTzRx
Mathy Stanislaus