Knight Ridder Washington Bureau
November 5, 2002, Tuesday
HEADLINE: Polluters Pay Less under Bush Administration, Records Show
BYLINE: By Seth Borenstein

WASHINGTON -- Polluters have paid 64 percent less in fines for breaking
federal environmental rules under the Bush administration than they did in
the final two years of the Clinton administration, according to federal
records analyzed by Knight Ridder.

The Bush administration is forcing fewer polluters to pay fines, and the
penalties are much smaller than they were under Clinton, according to
records obtained by a former top environmental-enforcement official under
President Bush.

"There's a tremendous problem with environmental policy in general and
enforcement in particular in this administration," said Sylvia Lowrance, who
was the Environmental Protection Agency's acting assistant administrator in
charge of enforcement from January 20, 2001, to May 2002. A 28-year civil
servant, she retired in August. "The data don't lie." Lowrance's deputy, EPA
civil-enforcement chief Eric Schaeffer, who resigned last February to
protest what he charged was weak enforcement, compiled four years' worth of
EPA non-Superfund civil-enforcement settlements through Oct. 1, all
published in the Federal Register. A Knight Ridder analysis found that
during the first 20 months of the Bush administration, civil penalties
averaged $ 3.8 million per month. During the last 28 months of the Clinton
administration, civil penalties for the same types of violations averaged $
10.6 million a month.

In addition, Bush's EPA is requiring violators to pay much less for
environmental projects, such as restoring wetlands, that they are ordered to
undertake as part of their settlements. The value of such extra projects
plummeted 77 percent during the first 20 months of the Bush administration.
Their value averaged $ 2.6 million per month, vs. $ 11.6 million per month
during the last 28 months of the Clinton administration.

During its last 28 months the Clinton administration collected $ 296.1
million in civil penalties from polluters and $ 324.4 million in additional
environmental projects. During its first 20 months, the Bush administration
collected $ 76.3 million in fines and $ 52.7 million for additional
projects.

The Clinton administration averaged 7.75 civil-penalty settlements a month.
The Bush administration averages 6.3 per month, a drop of 19 percent.

During the Clinton administration the average civil penalty was $ 1.36
million, vs. $ 605,455 under the Bush administration, a drop of nearly 56
percent.

The EPA says it does not have figures for 2002, but spokesman Joe Martyak
said polluter penalties in fiscal 2001 totaled nearly twice as much as those
paid in 2000 under Clinton. Schaeffer's accounting showed that
three-quarters of the 2001 settlement fines were agreed upon before Bush
took office, but Martyak said polluter penalties were rising under Bush.

The EPA's current enforcement chief, John Suarez, vows to be vigilant.

"I feel the pressure is out there for us to go do good enforcement cases,"
enforcement chief Suarez said in an interview. "We will continue to enforce.
We must continue to enforce."

Current EPA officials said it was unfair to compare the first months of an
administration to Clinton's second-term EPA, which had many years of
experience. Because Bush's first choice as EPA enforcement chief had to
withdraw under pressure on Capitol Hill, Suarez did not take over until
August. Before that he was New Jersey's gambling-enforcement chief.

During her confirmation hearings in January 2001, EPA Administrator Christie
Whitman promised an EPA that collaborates more with business, but added: "We
will work to promote effective compliance with environmental standards
without weakening our vigorous enforcement of tough laws and regulations."

Former EPA enforcer Schaeffer, now director of the Rockefeller Family Fund's
Environmental Integrity Project, said, "They've obviously taken the pressure
off (polluters), especially on the clean-air cases."

Pro-business interests defend Bush's record.

Those numbers could reflect "more reason in the Bush administration than in
the Clinton administration," said Bill Kovacs, vice president for
environmental affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He said the Clinton
administration was overly litigious and got higher -- and often unfair --
settlement figures because it threatened prolonged legal action. The Bush
administration, he said, "could just be coming in with more reasonable
offers."

But Lowrance charged that the drop in settlements reflects a lack of support
from the White House for strong enforcement of environmental laws.

"The administration literally walked in the door, the first action they took
on EPA's budget was to announce that they were cutting back on civil
enforcement," said Lowrance, who ran that office under Bush.

Last year Bush proposed to cut $ 25 million and 270 EPA enforcement jobs,
but Congress spared most of that. In his current budget proposal, which is
still pending on Capitol Hill, the president asked to eliminate 112
enforcement positions to save $ 10 million. He also asked to send $ 15
million to states to strengthen their enforcement of pollution laws, but the
EPA's reports say states do that poorly.

The enforcement issue coincides with the administration's plan to loosen an
environmental rule that prohibits older utilities from expanding unless they
add new air-pollution controls. The Clinton administration sued several
utilities under this rule, which businesses said was unfair.

The administration's proposed changes in the utilities rule mean that "no
one has the incentive to do anything" to settle existing cases, said an
attorney who represents sued companies and asked not to be identified. On
the other hand, some of the falloff in prosecutions reflects a normal
up-and-down cycle of suits and settlements, the attorney said.

Sen. James Jeffords, a Vermont independent who is chairman of the Senate
Environment and Public Works Committee, is planning to subpoena EPA
enforcement documents on the utility issue, the first congressional subpoena
of the EPA since the Reagan administration.

"This administration is sending a message to polluters that if you break our
environmental laws you'll get a slap on the wrist rather than the full force
of the law," Jeffords said. "Our laws are meaningless if they are not
enforced."

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