Probably the best place to start to look for small business resources through the Environmental Protection Agency is the Small Business Gateway. The Gateway includes general environmental information, environmental laws and regulations, suggestions for finding government funding, and access to environmental experts, if you're so inclined.
The Gateway, however, provides so much information that sorting through it can be daunting. For example, the laws and regulations section includes link after link to various laws and regulations, but it lacks summaries or other more cogent explanations of what you need to know. Few small business owners will have the time or the inclination to read through countless laws and regulations in their raw form to extract the information they might need.
So let's see if we can save you some time by culling through what they provide so that we can point you to those resources in the Gateway that might be the most useful.
ENERGY STAR
One potentially useful resource is the EPA's ENERGY STAR program for small businesses. It provides information and technical support for reducing energy waste and costs.
For free technical support, more information, a free hard copy of "Putting Energy into Profits," or to join the ENERGY STAR program, see the EPA's online sign-up page. The ENERGY STAR program has a component that recognizes small businesses that have shown what the EPA calls "great examples of financial and environmental stewardship." Here's a list of recent winners, including a discussion of what they did to earn their ENERGY STAR.
Laws and Regulations
As for the actual laws and regulations, the EPA does have a couple of areas buried within its website that might useful for the small business owner who is disinclined to read through all the laws and regulations. The starting point is the EPA's online summary of the laws and regulations that they administer, and how to get access relevant information. On that page, you'll find three links that might be of particular use: Regulatory Information by Environmental Topic, Regulatory Information by Business Sector, and State-Specific Regulatory Information, which provides access to state and local regulatory information. If you have some environmental concerns, you should be able to find out more information from one of those sources.
Compliance and Enforcement
The EPA has in place a policy to encourage small businesses to discover and correct environmental problems. If a small business owner voluntarily discovers a violation of environmental law and promptly reports it, the EPA will eliminate or significantly reduce penalties. For more information, see the EPA's discussion of small business compliance and enforcement, where you can obtain a free copy of the policy as well as additional compliance information.
Ombudsman
One good contact to remember is the EPA's Small Business Ombudsman. It's one thing to know an environmental law or regulation; it might be quite another to apply it in the real world. Should you ever have any questions about whether an environmental law or regulation applies to you, the Ombudsman is one good resource to keep in mind (of course, your lawyer would be another).
Grants and Other Federal Assistance
As for finding government resources, much of the information in the Gateway applies to relatively few small businesses. For example, grants and other federal assistance are available, but generally only to high-tech businesses that are developing cutting-edge green technologies. Some financing may be available, but those tend to be the programs already available through the Small Business Administration and are not green-specific.
For additional federal government resources, see: