The Associated Press (AP) published a story today noting the decline in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) criminal enforcement of polluters. According to the article, "The number of the Environmental Protection Agency's criminal investigators has dropped this year to 174, below the 200-agent minimum required by Congress, even as the EPA's overall criminal enforcement budget rose nearly 25 percent over three years to $48 million, according to EPA records." Civil settlements, however, which require spending on pollution controls, are increasing.

The data cited in the article are from an Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) report issued in May. EIP's report looks at 10 years of EPA enforcement data which show that criminal fines were down 38 percent during the fiscal years 2002-2006 compared to 1996-2000. Criminal investigations were down 23 percent over the same period and reached an all time low in FY 2006 of 305.

An EPA official quoted in the AP story said the EPA's focus was on more "high-impact" polluters and that the reductions in the number of investigators stemmed from retirements and transfers.

Could there be another reason? According to the AP, "The EPA acknowledged that criminal investigators sometimes are pulled off cases to check routes and guard EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson when he travels, although an eight-person team separate from the criminal division is dedicated to his protective detail." This started after September 11, 2001.

At least the polluters aren't afraid.

You'd think that U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials would be willing to listen to their own employees as public confidence in the agency diminishes among a string of regulatory lapses and congressional investigations. However, a BNA report ($) suggests otherwise.

Last week, members from the House Energy and Commerce Committee met with a panel of FDA employees from several district offices to discuss the effectiveness of the agency in keeping Americans safe. At one point, the panel rated the effectiveness of the FDA between 2 to 5, on a scale of 1 to 10 (highest), though they refuted claims that FDA personnel in the field and in the offices were to blame and defended the agency's expertise.

In what is considered a retaliatory move, Assistant FDA Commissioner for Regulatory Affairs Margaret Glavin sent an officewide e-mail claiming that their peers had balked at the performance of FDA personnel. FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach defended FDA's food safety work but didn't condone Glavin's intimidation in an agency-wide e-mail the same day. According to the report's sources, however, it appears that Glavin grossly misrepresented the intentions of the panel.

Accountability seems to mean little to FDA officials these days. The lack of initiative by top agency officials to confront the issues that face the agency everyday shows a disregard for life-protecting regulation.

More disappointingly, von Eschenbach may have missed his golden opportunity to show true responsiveness to the concerns of his employees, and the welfare of the general public, by listening to the panel and using their testimonies constructively to help improve the agency's effectiveness and rebuild the FDA's tarnished image.

Residents of Mossville, LA, have three times the level of dioxin in their blood as the national average, and 90 percent of the residents have illnesses that are linked to dioxin exposure. These are conclusions drawn from government data, so the humane, responsible thing for government agencies to do is — nothing.

According to a BNA story ($), the data were collected by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality. ATSDR's investigation of the exposure has been underway since 1998. But according to a report, Industrial Sources of Dioxin Poisoning in Mossville, Louisiana: A Report Based on the Government's Own Data, just released by Advocates for Environmental Human Rights (AEHR), "However, the Exposure Investigation entirely fails to identify the sources of the dioxins harming the health and environment of residents."

Mossville, an African American community, is surrounded by 14 toxic industrial facilities including vinyl manufacturers, oil refineries, coal-based power plants and chemical plants. The report, authored by AEHR and others, identifies six facilities as the culprits. Yet no assistance to the residents or other remedial action by the responsible government agencies has taken place.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced recently that it planned to review eight Endangered Species Act (ESA) decisions ex-deputy assistant secretary Julie MacDonald influenced according to a BNA story (subscription) published yesterday. FWS has identified eight among hundreds its reviewed that MacDonald may have influenced for political considerations.

MacDonald is the Gale Norton appointee with no science background who reportedly bullied and intimidated agency employees, fed documents to industry friends, and changed supporting documents. She resigned in April after her exploits were brought to light by internal investigations.

In another ESA case, BNA reports today that a district court in Oregon overturned a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries' 2006 decision to delist coho salmon. NOAA Fisheries withdrew its analysis in favor of an Oregon state program. The problem, according to the court, was the Oregon plan wasn't based on the best available science as required by ESA. So the delisting decision was flawed.

And this on the heels of a western Washington court overturning last month another NOAA Fisheries decision downgrading the steelhead because — you guessed it — the decision wasn't based on best available science.

The White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) is sitting on a rule which would set speed limits for large shipping vessels traveling along the eastern seaboard during the migration season of the North Atlantic right whale. The standard would reduce the number of whales killed in collisions with ships.

Because the rule is considered "major," the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) submitted the rule to OIRA for the standard review period prescribed by Executive Order 12866.

OIRA received the rule on February 20, 2007. Under the E.O., OIRA is required to complete its review within 90 calendar days. In consultation with the issuing agency, OIRA may extend the review period once by up to 30 calendar days.

RegInfo.gov, the federal government's regulatory review database, acknowledges the review period for this rule has been extended. However, even with an extension, the review of the rule should have been completed by June 20.

In 2006, OIRA performed a similar review before NOAA published its proposal. This begs the question: If OIRA has already reviewed and edited this rule, why is it continuing to delay finalization? The answer: Delaying the publication of this rule benefits industry.

As the public interest group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility points out, the shipping industry has been lobbying vigorously against this rule. Unfortunately for industry lobbyists, NOAA has been working on the rule for years and has built a rock solid case in support of it. Since this White House has such a penchant for catering to big business, the only option for OIRA and its new administrator, Susan Dudley, is to endlessly delay finalization of the rule — even if it is in violation of White House policy (the executive order).

Read more from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility

In December 2005, California petitioned EPA to allow the state to develop its own vehicle emissions regulations. Since then, EPA has obstinately refused to decide either way. Only recently did Administrator Stephen Johnson set a timetable, promising action by the end of the year.

In April, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger wrote to Johnson threatening to sue EPA if a decision was not made by October. But California Senator Barbara Boxer is attempting to force the issue even sooner. A bill proposed by Boxer would require EPA to decide on the petition within 30 days of the bill being signed into law.

Boxer's bill would also prevent delay from occurring in the future. The bill would give EPA a 180 day window to decide on future requests.

Six months still seems like a long time, but when compared to the two-year saga California's current request has been subject to, it's pretty good policy.

Today, a subcommittee of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is holding a hearing on EPA's recent proposal to revise the national ozone standard. EPA has proposed tightening the standard, but not to the extent recommended by its own staff scientists and advisors.

As Reg•Watch has pointed out, the White House has its fingerprints on this weak proposal. The White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) held three meetings on the rule, two of which were packed with industry reps. The first meeting also featured a representative from Vice President Cheney's office. An official from the VP's office has been present in only five of the last 482 regulatory review meetings.

Something else was peculiar about that first meeting: there was no representative from EPA. Executive Order 12866, which governs the regulatory review process, requires an official from the relevant agency be invited to each meeting. OIRA is supposed to disclose why that official did not or could not attend. In this case, OIRA hasn't.

Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) questioned EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson on this peculiarity. Johnson said, "I don't know why we were or were not invited," and, "I don't recall being aware of that particular meeting." He also did not recall being briefed on the substance of the meeting afterwards.

Boxer pressed Johnson and asked him to provide answers as to whether EPA has any knowledge of this meeting. Johnson said he would "to the extent possible" and then alluded to invoking executive privilege (the excuse du jour in the administration.)

Executive privilege does not apply to communications between offices like EPA and OIRA. Boxer's questioning raises excellent points about an issue which receives little attention. Reg•Watch hopes Boxer continues to press Johnson in order to shed light on this dark spot in the rulemaking process.

EPA is putting the brakes on an important recycling rule, according to BNA news service (subscription). The rule has been in the works for well over a year, and EPA recently indicated it would announce a proposed rule this fall. Now, EPA says it will issue only an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, a sort of baby step in the regulatory process.

EPA is using dubious claims to justify its decision to delay the rule which would establish a national program for recycling plastic pesticide containers. EPA claims it has neither enough information nor the legal authority to pursue a rulemaking.

Those arguments are hollow, especially when considering EPA has included the rule in its last three Unified Agendas. (The Unified Agenda is a semi-annual listing of regulations each federal agency is working on.) In the latest Agenda, readers can find this:

2910. PESTICIDE AGRICULTURAL CONTAINER RECYCLING PROGRAM
Priority: Other Significant
Legal Authority: 7 USC 136 to 136y

7 USC 136 is part of the United States Code on pesticide control. By its own admission, EPA has the legal authority to pursue this rule. Why is the agency changing its tune now?

Interestingly, EPA senior official Brian Mannix (who is also the husband of newly minted regulatory czar Susan Dudley) has indicated the rule would not fare well during the White House review process led by Dudley, according to the BNA article. It is not clear what the White House's concerns would be, but it does raise concerns over political pressures which are clearly being exerted in the prerulemaking stage.

Scientific advisory committees provide important, impartial advice on a wide range of issues. A committee's recommendations provide a strong analytical and scientific basis for agency rulemaking activity. EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) is one of the federal government's most important.

As we've seen with EPA's ozone standard, when an advisory committee calls for a tighter standard, environmentalists and public health advocates are given a valuable piece of evidence in advocating for more protective regulation. That's a pesky problem for an administration which prefers environmental rollbacks to progressive protections.

One way to solve the problem is to stack scientific advisory committees with industry allies. EPA is considering for CASAC's particulate matter unit a number of scientists who have been vocal in doubting the relationship between particulate matter exposure and adverse health effects. Not surprisingly, those scientists have also taken money from the energy industry.

GoozNews has more on this issue and descriptions of two nominees with dubious records.