Licensed Site Professional Programs: Need for Uniformity among States

Abstract

Licensed site professional (LSP) programs are growing in popularity among states as a means of privatizing certain regulatory functions associated with contaminated site cleanups and allowing for quicker, less expensive cleanups. These programs offer a number of benefits, including: (1) reducing a state's administrative costs in overseeing cleanups: (2) expediting cleanups; (3) providing parties conducting cleanups with greater certainty about the qualifications and competence of environmental professionals retained by them; (4) assisting academic institutions in the development of educational programs; and (5) serving to exclude unqualified individuals from promoting themselves as being qualified. However, as currently being developed in a number of states, LSP programs could potentially serve to discourage participation by qualified hazardous waste professionals in site cleanups and ultimately undermine the quality of these cleanups. To avoid this outcome, LSP programs should be based on nationwide, uniform professional standards that are narrowly tailored to particular disciplines—such as hydrogeology, chemistry, and toxicology. In addition, it is appropriate for LSPs and the firms that employ them to have reasonable protection from the inherent liabilities that exist in cleanups at hazardous waste. With a uniform system of discipline-based professional standards and responsible protection from liability included in LSPs programs, more firms will be likely to compete for work in the respective states with these programs, thereby ensuring that cleanups are accomplished quickly, less expensively, and in a manner that is fully protective of public health.