Center for Progressive Reform Member Scholar Joel Mintz submitted written testimony to the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial, and Antitrust Law ahead of its hearing this morning on yet another ill-advised bill, the misleadingly named "Stop Settlement Funds Slush Funds Act of 2016." The bill would place arbitrary limits on how the federal government can use funds it obtains through settlement agreements that arise from enforcement actions brought against companies that have violated federal laws and the regulations that implement them.
Mintz's testimony focuses on one particularly harmful effect this bill would have: its restrictions on the ability of agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to include Supplemental Environmental Programs (SEPs) as part of the settlement agreements it reaches for violations of environmental laws like the Clean Water Act or the Clean Air Act. As he explains, the EPA's SEPs are "an immensely valuable environmental and public health protection program" and are used to "advance worthy and important goals, including (among others) protecting children's health, preventing pollution, securing the development of innovative pollution control technologies, and ensuring environmental justice."
Mintz's testimony directly challenges the premise of the House Judiciary bill, which is that programs like SEPs are being abused. As he explains, the EPA has a rigorous process in place for implementing SEPs that prevents the imagined abuses dreamed up by the bill's sponsors. Because of this rigorous process, the EPA's SEPs have continued to "create 'win-win' scenarios for all parties involved, including regulators, regulated companies, and local communities." For example, SEPs have been included as part of settlement agreements arising from the BP oil spill, and the EPA will likely include them as part of its enforcement action against Volkswagen in response to the automaker's use of emissions "cheat" technology.
Mintz's testimony describes some of the beneficial SEPs that would likely be blocked if the House Judiciary bill were to become law. These include "Pollution prevention projects that improve plant procedures and technologies, and/or operation and maintenance practices, that will prevent additional pollution at its source" and "Environmental restoration projects including activities that protect local ecosystems from actual or potential harm resulting from the violation."
Mintz concludes his testimony by discussing how the House Judiciary bill improperly intrudes upon the federal government's ability to exercise its discretion to enforce the law "in a fair and effective manner."
You can read Mintz's full testimony here.
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James Goodwin | April 28, 2016
Center for Progressive Reform Member Scholar Joel Mintz submitted written testimony to the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial, and Antitrust Law ahead of its hearing this morning on yet another ill-advised bill, the misleadingly named “Stop Settlement Funds Slush Funds Act of 2016.” The bill would place arbitrary limits on how the […]
Matt Shudtz | April 28, 2016
Today, a lot of numbers will be thrown around – the staggering number of workers who died gruesome deaths on the job last year, the paltry fines that employers responsible for those deaths paid, the months and years we’ve waited for Congress to revisit the Occupational Safety and Health Act to make it more relevant […]
Mollie Rosenzweig | April 22, 2016
Just as we predicted back in December, foods created with CRISPR technology (short for clustered regularly-interspaced short palindromic repeats) are entering the food supply beyond the reach of federal regulators. Last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that it would not regulate white button mushrooms that scientists altered to stop them from browning. […]
Brian Gumm | April 21, 2016
Lisa Heinzerling, a Center for Progressive Reform Member Scholar and Georgetown University Professor of Law, published a piece this week on The Conversation that explores the ongoing political debate over environmental regulations. In particular, Heinzerling calls out the often misleading claims about the costs of safeguards that protect our air, water, health, and wild places: […]
Robert L. Glicksman | April 21, 2016
Yesterday, I joined four other witnesses in testifying about the Endangered Species Act (ESA) at a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee hearing. Most of the witnesses and House members who attended focused on a variety of complaints about the ESA’s provisions governing listing and delisting of species and called for changes to the law […]
Matthew Freeman | April 20, 2016
Center for Progressive Reform Member Scholar (and board member) Rob Glicksman is on Capitol Hill testifying before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s subcommittee on the Interior this afternoon at 2 pm ET. The hearing will focus on “barriers to delisting” of species under the Endangered Species Act. He’ll cover four major points in his testimony, which he […]
James Goodwin | April 19, 2016
Several weeks ago, Sen. Elizabeth Warren delivered perhaps the most important speech on the U.S. regulatory system in recent memory at a forum on regulatory capture organized by the Administrative Conference of the United States. In it, she described how the regulatory system was not working for the people as it should be – or […]
Evan Isaacson | April 19, 2016
Yesterday, the Chesapeake Bay Program released its latest estimate of nutrient and sediment pollution in the Bay watershed. The annual model run of the program's Watershed Model shows that the estimated nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment loads decreased by three percent, three percent, and four percent, respectively, compared to 2014 levels. These are important improvements, but […]
Eric Panicco | April 18, 2016
Eric Panicco, a candidate for Master of Arts in Sustainability at Wake Forest University, is undertaking an independent study for CPR Member Scholar Sidney Shapiro. On August 3 of last year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the Clean Power Plan. It was a historic moment for President Obama, one he commemorated by observing, “We’re […]