EPA Announces Time Frame for FY 13 National Program Manager Guidance Documents

EPA’s National Program Manager (NPM) Guidance Documents are the yearly “blueprints” of what the Agency plans to accomplish each year – in concert with its state partners. These guidances are developed for each of EPA’s media programs. The National Water Program Guidance will contain the drinking water-related activities and targets. These guidances, once finalized in Spring of each year, become the basis for state-EPA Regional workload negotiations in the Summer relative to activities planned for the upcoming fiscal year. EPA has announced the following key dates related to the release of the draft and final FY13 NPM guidance documents:

February 17: Draft FY13 NPM documents posted for review and comment
Feb. 17-March 19: Comment period open
March 19: Comment period closes
April 27: Final FY13 NPM guidance documents posted

Concurrent with the release of the draft FY13 documents on February 17th, EPA will separately prepare for states and share a chart highlighting what major additions, deletions, and changes that impact states are proposed in the FY13 draft guidance documents compared with the final FY12 guidance documents. Stay tuned for future updates on this subject.