The Environmental Protection Agency was unusually lax in 2018 . During the last fiscal year , which end in October , the agency saw few pursuance referrals against defiler than at any other point in the past 30 twelvemonth . And the Government Accountability Office ( GAO ) is investigate why .
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility ( PEER ) , an administration that rallies anonymous government employees to discuss environmental concerns in their work , publishedthe new determination on criminal enforcement at the EPA on Tuesday . Overall , the EPA under President Donald Trump made only 166 criminal referrals in the 2018 financial year , a 60 percent decrease from 2011 . The horizontal surface of criminal enforcement has n’t been this grim since the day of Ronald Reagan , per PEER ’s analysis .
When expect at convictions ( aka the defiler that are really held accountable ) , the EPA close out the last financial yr with a measly 62 . retiring financial year under Obamaregularly sawthe number of conviction rise above 100 . And things are n’t looking much brighter as we begin the 2019 financial year , which has realise only 24 referral so far . PEER anticipates this year will be “ another all - time enforcement low mark,”per its insistency dismission .
The GAO launched its investigation into all this back in October , a fact which itdisclosedto The Hill on Tuesday . Its query stems from 2017 information , which also showed a descent in enforcement . The office has n’t finalized a write up but should by the fall , according to The Hill . The EPA ’s own Inspector General Office is looking into the matter , too .
In reply to the identification number in the young PEER report , the EPA guide Earther toa recent news releasewhich includes background on its enforcement policy and hails the 2018 financial year as a year of “ enforcement accomplishments . ” While the agency did n’t see a large numeral of enforcement cases , it claims that “ large case ” ( like the one detailed in the release involving Fiat Chrysler ) really show off the authority ’s ability to dwell down the natural law .
But PEER ’s reporting suggests the agency may not be maintaining the staffing levels demand to aggressively chase down polluter . According to its analysis , the agency only has about 130 criminal investigator today , whilefederal lawrequires a lower limit of 200 agents . The EPA told Earther it ’s charter more agents in its Criminal Investigation Division but did n’t expound on when or how many . It also did n’t corroborate whether it , in fact , has only 130 agents as PEER claim . Spokesperson John Konkus did mention , however , that “ the previous administration was responsible for decreasing the number of agents by over 20 percent . ”
An optimistic read on the raw PEER account is that the numbers game are low because there ’s less environmental crime happening . The finish , of form , is to have industriousness meeting state and Union standards so that the EPA does n’t have to strong - gird them . However , that seems improbable given the Trump administration ’s track record . As the New York Times discoveredin 2017 , Trump ’s EPA has worked to place limitations on enforcement officers ’ abilities to request info from industry that would help them assess befoulment stratum and make prosecution referrals .
“ few referral send a signaling to industriousness that you do n’t call for to abide by with the law because they ’re not go to be prosecuting very aggressively if at all , ” Dan Reich , who serve as an assistant to counsel for EPA ’s Region 9 until 2017 , secernate Earther .
This , in turn , create motivator to relegate the jurisprudence . Why expend supererogatory money working to lessen emissions or befoulment levels if no one ’s holding you accountable ? Or as Reich put it , “ If you stop doing referral , you ’ve stopped protecting the masses . ”
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