Three related requirements
ISO 14001 imposes three related requirements:
1. An organization must identify all of its environmental legal obligations and be familiar with all applicable environmental laws and regulations. Additionally, the organization must have some mechanism for ensuring that new legal obligations are identified in a timely fashion.
2. The environmental policy must contain a commitment to understand and comply with all applicable environmental laws and regulations. Words on paper aren't sufficient; an organization must make every effort to fulfill its commitment to do what it says it is going to do.
3. Compliance with identified legal requirements must be evaluated on some self-defined periodic basis. Whether an organization engages in a comprehensive compliance audit or employs a variety of monitoring activities, it must know whether all identified legal requirements are being met. In the event a regulatory noncompliance is identified, the organization must take action to correct the noncompliance and prevent it from recurring.
These requirements do not impose specific performance standards on organizations. The international scope of ISO 14001, coupled with differing national laws and enforcement policies, makes it impossible to establish acceptable parameters for air emissions, water discharges and other similar environmental impacts. Instead, individual organizations must approach these requirements within the context imposed by national, state or provincial, and local laws.
U.S. regulatory agencies and registrars have somewhat different expectations about the ways in which a company addresses these three requirements.
http://asq.org/quality-progress/2001/02/standards-outlook/iso-14001-and-regulatory-compliance.html
