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Monday, October 01, 2007

Prosecutions of Polluters Dropping under Bush

Reg•Watch usually discusses federal policy and its implications. But even the best policies are useless if they are not properly enforced. In the case of environmental regulation, polluters may often have a financial incentive to avoid complying with federal regulations. The Environmental Protection Agency and the Justice Department both play a role in finding and penalizing those who do not comply.

However, according to The Washington Post, prosecutions of environmental ne'er-do-wells during the Bush administration are way down:

The number of environmental prosecutions plummeted from 919 in 2001 to 584 last year, a 36 percent decline, according to Justice Department statistics collected by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. Those same Justice Department data also show that the number of people convicted for environmental crimes dropped from 738 in 2001 to 470 last year.

The article mentions the lack of a political will to prosecute polluters as a reason for the decline. Resources are also a problem:

The slower pace of enforcement mirrors a decline in resources for pursuing environmental wrongdoing. The EPA now employs 172 investigators in its Criminal Investigation Division, below the minimum of 200 agents required by the 1990 Pollution Prosecution Act, signed by President George H.W. Bush.

The actual number of investigators available at any time is even smaller, agents said, because they sometimes are diverted to other duties, such as service on EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson's eight-person security detail.

Reg•Watch update: "EPA Official Defends Drop in Environmental Prosecutions"