Cal/EPA Receives Hammer Award for Six-State Technology Effort

For Immediate Release (C-32-96)
Contact: Communications Office (916) 324-9670
September 25, 1996

555 Capitol Mall, Suite 525
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 324-9670
FAX (916) 445-5563

West Conshohocken, Penn.-The California Environmental Protection Agency (Cal/EPA) and five other state's today received the federal government's "Hammer Award" for their leadership and contribution in the development of an interstate partnership that advances the development, acceptance, and use of environmental technologies.

The award was presented to Cal/EPA Deputy Secretary for Technology Ann Heywood and   U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) Deputy Assistant Secretary Clyde Frank by National Performance Review Chief Robert Stone standing in for Vice President Al Gore.

The award acknowledges innovative efforts to break barriers in government.

"This Hammer Award is further confirmation of California's leadership role on environmental protection issues. Outstanding federal officials like Al Alm and Clyde Frank are helping spread the benefits of our innovative technology certification program to other states," California Secretary for Environmental Protection James M. Strock said.

Accepting the award on behalf of Cal/EPA, Deputy Heywood said "Our six-state agreement demonstrates leadership by the states in advancing the nation's environmental technology future.

It is quite satisfying to receive federal recognition of our efforts."

The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between California and the states of Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania created a unique state-led partnership for the cooperative evaluation and acceptance of environmental technologies.

The innovative arrangements contained in the six-state MOU greatly expand each partner state's own efforts to make new, less costly technology available to achieve environmental and economic goals.

Cal/EPA's Environmental Technology Certification Program the first of its kind in the nation addresses barriers in the evaluation, commercialization, and promotion of environmental technologies.  Deputy Secretary Heywood added, "Today, environmental and economic progress must go hand in hand.

California and its MOU partners have taken the next step in advancing the best technology to meet our environmental challenges.

The Six-State MOU has become a vehicle for the increased acceptance of environmental technologies, including those evaluated and certified in California, as well as a means of decreasing  regulatory constraints to the transference of these technologies between states.  As of August 1996, thirty-eight technologies have been certified under the Cal/EPA program.

Additional technologies are currently under review.

Cal/EPA and its MOU partners seek to streamline the interstate evaluation of technologies, to foster acceptance by regulators and customers for new and innovative technologies, and to increase national use of both emerging and mature technologies.

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