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Enforcement of Environmental Laws a Victim of Obama’s Budget Proposal

EPA’s budget is in free-fall.  Members of Congress brag that they have slashed it 20 percent since 2010.  President Obama’s proposed budget for 2015, released on Tuesday, continues the downward trend.  The budget proposal would provide $7.9 billion for EPA, about $300 million, or 3.7 percent, less than the $8.2 billion enacted in fiscal year 2014.

To cope with these cuts, the agency plans to fundamentally change the way it enforces environmental laws.  A draft five-year plan released in November signals that the agency is retreating from traditional enforcement measures, such as inspections, in favor of self-monitoring by regulated industries.  Specifically, the agency aims to conduct 30 percent fewer inspections and file 40 percent fewer civil cases over the next five years as compared to the last five.

Even before releasing the draft plan, the agency had already begun cutting down on enforcement.  In February, the agency reported a decrease in the number of in-person inspections and investigations in 2013 compared to the previous year.  According to the EPA’s own report, enforcement actions in 2013 resulted in the reduction of 1.3 billion pounds of pollution, down from a high of more than 2 billion pounds in 2012.  EPA conducted 2,000 fewer inspections and evaluations and initiated about 2,400 civil cases last year, continuing a downward trend since fiscal 2009 when the agency opened about 3,700.

Sequestration is to blame for some of the reductions seen in 2013.  The sequester forced EPA to reduce hiring and furloughing staff, which resulted in 1,000 fewer annual inspections (out of about 20,000) conducted by EPA’s compliance enforcement staff, according to a GAO report released late last week.

EPA has no choice but to respond to these crippling budget cuts.  It should be strategic about it, however, and traditional enforcement is the most cost-effective weapon to prevent backsliding on the progress the nation has made in reducing pollution.  The coal ash spill in North Carolina and the chemical leak in West Virginia provide just two examples of what can happen when industry is given free rein to police itself.  Cutting enforcement invites noncompliance on industry’s part and sends the message to state agencies—which do the lion’s share of enforcement work—that they too can cut back.

And, in fact, the proposed budget does provide states with less money for enforcement.  The State and Tribal Assistance Grant (STAG) program in part helps states enforce the nation’s environmental laws.  The Obama budget proposes cuts to both the clean air-climate change program and the clean water program.   

Maddeningly, agency officials have not put up a fight about the cuts, instead pretending they can do more with less.  Increased self-monitoring is given a modern-sounding buzzword, NextGen, and touted as embracing “innovative” ways to increase compliance and reduce pollution.  The press release announcing the agency’s decreased enforcement in 2013 downplayed the fact that fewer pounds of pollution were reduced and instead bragged about its settlement with Transocean over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.   

This budget is mostly focused on allowing EPA to develop rules to reduce carbon emissions that cause climate change.  But EPA has umpteen other responsibilities.  By sugarcoating the effects of budget cuts, Administrator Gina McCarthy and other political appointees are providing cover for a president who does not understand that developing new rules is less than half the battle. 

The agency should take a page from the Food and Drug Administration’s Michael Taylor.  When testifying before the House Energy and Commerce Committee last month, the deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine was open and honest about the effect of budget cuts.  “We cannot achieve FDA’s vision of a modern food safety system and a safer food supply without a significant increase in resources,” he testified. 

EPA will not achieve its mission of protecting human health and the environment if Congress and the president continue to slash its budget.  By taking the budget cuts as a given and responding with untried or inferior solutions, EPA conveys the message that it can accomplish all of its complex responsibilities with ever-shrinking resources.  If legislators and the president believe that budget cuts do not have adverse consequences for the agency’s fundamental mission, they are likely to have no qualms about making even further, devastating cuts. 

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Anne Havemann | March 10, 2014

Enforcement of Environmental Laws a Victim of Obama’s Budget Proposal

EPA’s budget is in free-fall.  Members of Congress brag that they have slashed it 20 percent since 2010.  President Obama’s proposed budget for 2015, released on Tuesday, continues the downward trend.  The budget proposal would provide $7.9 billion for EPA, about $300 million, or 3.7 percent, less than the $8.2 billion enacted in fiscal year […]

David Driesen | March 7, 2014

The Keystone EIS’ Grudging Acknowledgment of Environmental Impact

The media has reported, erroneously, that the Obama Administration’s environmental impact statement concluded that the Keystone Pipeline would have no impact on global climate disruption. The facts are a bit more complicated, and much more interesting. Basically, the final EIS concedes that Keystone would increase greenhouse gas emissions, but it uses a silent political judgment […]

Daniel Farber | March 5, 2014

The Lost World of Administrative Law

The regulatory process has become more opaque and less accountable. We need to fix that. Every year, thousands of law students take a course in administrative law.  It’s a great course, and we wish even more students took it.  But there’s a risk that students may come away with a vision of the regulatory process […]

Catherine O'Neill | March 4, 2014

Washington State’s Weakened Water Quality Standards Will Keep Fish Off the Table, Undermine Tribal Health

In recent weeks, celebrations throughout the Pacific Northwest marked the 40th anniversary of the “Boldt decision” – the landmark decision in the tribal treaty rights case, U.S. v. Washington.  This decision upheld tribes’ right to take fish and prohibited the state of Washington from thwarting tribal harvest.  Judge Boldt’s 1974 decision was intended to close […]

Erin Kesler | February 27, 2014

CPR’s Michael Patoka Testifies in Support of Maryland Responsible Contracting Bill for Worker Health and Safety

Today, Center for Progressive Reform analyst Michael Patoka testified at a Maryland Senate Finance Committee Hearing in support of SB 774, which would require construction companies contracting with the state to be prequalified based on their worker health and safety performance measures. The widely supported legislation would ensure unscrupulous employers do not receive contracts funded by taxpayer dollars.  In his […]

Frank Ackerman | February 27, 2014

Your Iphone Causes China’s Pollution

It sounds like a rare piece of good news about climate change: emissions of carbon dioxide, the principal cause of global warming, grew at a slower rate after 2000 in the United States, and have actually dropped since 2007. In Europe the story sounds even better, as overall emissions dropped from 1990 to 2008, often […]

James Goodwin | February 24, 2014

The Regulatory Accountability Act: Or How to Defeat the Public Interest in Just 65 Easy Steps

Cue the majestic fanfare, for this week marks House Republicans’ so-called “Stop Government Abuse Week”—you know they mean business, because they have a clever Twitter hashtag and everything.   So how does one celebrate such an auspicious occasion?  Apparently, by wasting precious House floor time with a series of votes on several extreme anti-regulatory bills that, […]

Rena Steinzor | February 20, 2014

North Carolina’s Coal Ash Spills: A Glimpse of the Future under OIRA’s Weak Option

Yesterday, we wrote about OIRA’s role in delaying and diluting the EPA’s long-awaited coal ash rule, in part by introducing and promoting a weak option that would rely on voluntary state implementation and citizen suits, instead of nationwide requirements and federal oversight, to protect the public from dangerous leaks and spills. Anyone who thinks the […]

Sandra Zellmer | February 20, 2014

A Win for Nebraska: Lancaster District Court Struck Down Governor’s Approval of Keystone Pipeline

A Lancaster County District Court has struck down the governor’s decision to approve Keystone XL’s pipeline route through the state in Thompson v. Heineman, CI 12-2060 (Feb. 19, 2014).  As described in a previous blog, LB 1161 was passed in 2012 to give Governor Dave Heineman the authority to approve the route rather than having […]