The rapid growth of the Internet and electronic-commerce (e-commerce) now provides a solution – an Internet-based voluntary International Environmental Information Exchange Network (Network) for local, state and tribal agencies. A Network based on standardized Internet language will allow individual agencies to invest in internal data storage systems of their choice at a pace they can afford, while also supporting easy exchange of environmental data between agencies.  Although the drivers and capability to create such a Network are already in place, its development will require deliberate and collaborative design and work. These areas are the focus of this document. 

In overview, the Network facilitates information exchanges between “nodes” maintained individually by participating partners (initially envisioned as state environmental agencies and NGOs).  These nodes use the Internet to exchange information via standardized data exchange templates (DETs), using common (Internet-based) protocols. Exchange of data is governed by trading partner agreements (TPAs) between the partners.  TPAs document the agreed upon data, exchange format, frequency of exchange and related issues.  For example, a state agency and its Region negotiate a Performance Partnership Agreement (PPA) that includes a TPA for the exchange of permitting, enforcement and compliance data for the International Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) program. This TPA explicitly defines the quality, timeliness and format of the data, binding the state agency and Region in a "data-centered" agreement.

Held together by such agreements, the Network will bring clear and measurable benefits:

• A common approach to environmental information exchange that is manageable by an agency as an agency, and not a collection of stove-piped systems, loyalties and approaches.
• A transition from traditional information exchange approaches, which are rife with management and data quality problems, to a data-centric approach focused on data and data quality.
• Enhanced potential for data integration.
• Lower cost to exchange data.
• More agency control over its own data, especially in light of public and legislative trends driving all public data onto the Internet.

The Network approach also explicitly recognizes the ownership and responsibility of agencies for their data; and the responsibilities of participants who aggregate that data. By moving pro-actively to create this Network, participants can establish their nodes as the sources of record rather than have piecemeal or prescriptive approaches legislated or otherwise mandated. Although not a panacea for all existing problems, the Network allows more focus on interpretation of the data and, in turn, enables better environmental decision-making.

Initially, the scope of the Network will be limited to information that partners are already exchanging on a formal basis (e.g., states with NGOs); vastly more agency data may be available on public access websites, state clearinghouses, and other informal arrangements than on this Network.  As indicated above, flows of environmental information involve an ever-increasing number of governmental agencies (local and international).

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