The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection is responsible for implementing environmental policy and administering a regulatory structure in accordance with federal and state statutes. The Department's quality assurance program provides a mechanism which enables the Department to administer programs based on reliable monitoring and analytical data. The QA program uses several elements to control QA activities in administering the federal/state NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System), Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), and RCRA (Resource Conservation and Recovery Act) programs. These elements include the use of a state laboratory certification program, specialized QA permit requirements, use of QA project plans, use of laboratory and field audits, and performance evaluation (PE) samples.