Disharmony in EPA's Overfiling Policy

mental regulations. The federal government, concerned with the irregularity with which state and local governments created and enforced environmental regulations, created broad federal regulatory programs to be enforced uniformly in all states. These federal environmental programs, including the Clean Water Act (CWA), the Clean Air Act (CAA), and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), incorporated strong federal oversight over programs delegated to the states. The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) oversight role has been clashing recently with Congress' explicit intent to vest primary enforcement authority in the states. It is the enforcement tension between federal oversight and states' delegated authority that has led to EPA's controversial enforcement tool of The term is used to describe the situation where: (1) a state commences an enforcement proceeding against an operator of an emission source alleging a violation of an environmental law; (2) after negotiations or a court or administrative hearing, a final settlement or verdict is reached; and (3) following this resolution, EPA files a complaint against the operator, alleging the same violations that were ostensibly resolved by the earlier state settlement or court order. EPA interprets virtually all major federal environmental statutes to allow federal overfiling. The practical effect of overfiling is that the offender can pay twice for the same violation. Few courts have addressed the issue of EPA's abili-