This will not help enforcement of the Clean Water Act
Posted by Jane Clark
FEDERAL AGENCIES
Studies Decry EPA Enforcement Cuts
Proposed $25-million shift from agency to states would allow violations to
go undetected, one finds.
Los Angeles Times - 8/23/01
By Elizabeth Shogren, staff writer
WASHINGTON -- Violations of federal environmental laws would more likely go
undetected and unpunished under a Bush administration plan to shift money to
the states and reduce its own staff, according to two new government
reports.
A report by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of
Congress, concluded that the Bush administration cannot prove that the
states will make up for the loss of 8% of the EPA's enforcement staff.
"It cannot be demonstrated that it won't cause unwanted adverse effects,"
said Ed Kratzer, an author of the recently released GAO report, of the
proposed staff cuts. As part of its proposed 2002 budget, the Bush
administration asked Congress to shift $25 million from EPA enforcement
staffing to a grant program to help the states improve their enforcement of
federal environmental laws. EPA's own enforcement staff would be cut by 270
positions as a result. The House has embraced the administration's plan, but
the Senate rejected it.
House and Senate members will form a conference committee, probably next
month, to resolve their differences.
The studies--one requested by a Republican member of Congress, the other
conducted by the EPA's Inspector General's Office--are expected to feed the
ongoing debate over the shape of environmental policy between the
administration and industry, on one side, and environmentalists and some
lawmakers, mostly Democrats, on the other.
Even though the dollar amount is small, the agency's proposal has received a
great deal of attention from the administration and its critics because it
represents a significant shift in policy. It reflects the administration's
philosophy that urging compliance with the law is more effective than
cracking down on polluters and that states are better regulators than the
federal government.
"Our new $25-million grant program will allow the states to enhance their
enforcement efforts in ways that will increase accountability for results
and will provide flexibility to address unique needs," EPA Administrator
Christie Whitman said Wednesday in written answers to questions.
But environmentalists argue that companies will comply only if there are
aggressive inspections and stiff fines for violations.
The EPA report looked at state efforts to enforce one aspect of the federal
Clean Water Act: regulations designed to protect human health and the
environment by setting limits on pollutants that can be discharged into
rivers, streams and seas. It concluded that the three states it
studied--California, North Carolina and Utah--had many weaknesses in their
enforcement programs, including failing to report serious violations or
impose fines high enough to deter companies from polluting waterways.
The EPA report also considered recent audits of five other states and found
similar problems. The report used California to show how states should
better align their enforcement resources with their biggest pollution
problems. The state identified storm runoff as its most serious water
quality problem, but most of its enforcement resources were focused on large
plants that were complying with the laws.
The state last year more than doubled its staffing to focus on storm water
and is hoping the new team will "get up and running" and successfully
address that problem, said Robert Miller, spokesman for the California Water
Resources Control Board.
"The inspector general's report confirms that our concerns are valid and
why: The states are not doing their job, and what is needed is more
oversight by the EPA," said Daniel Rosenberg of the Natural Resources
Defense Council.
But EPA officials said shifting money to the states will result in better
enforcement and will help fix some of the problems identified in the
inspector general's report. The states already perform 95% of the
inspections and 90% of the enforcement actions for federal environmental
laws, they said.
In its report, the GAO said the EPA bases its enforcement staffing decisions
on "outdated and incomplete" information. It recommended that the agency
collect and update information on the demands facing its enforcement staff
before considering shrinking its size.
"Without accurate work force planning information . . . EPA cannot
demonstrate that the staff reductions will be absorbed without impairing its
effectiveness," the report states. "Furthermore, in some states,
particularly those states that may not receive additional grant funds, it is
possible that the level of enforcement activity may actually be reduced."
States typically have been more restrained than the federal government in
fining polluters, in part because the polluters often are businesses that
are key to the local economy.
An EPA analysis shows that in recent years states were responsible for a
relatively small percentage of the penalties assessed: 30% in 1998 and 15%
in 1999.
"There is no doubt that unless the penalties are sufficient to deter crime,
these companies are going to continue to break environmental laws," said
John Coequyt of the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based research
and advocacy group.
For their part, state regulators say the job of enforcing an ever-growing
list of EPA regulations is huge and that the states need more money to do it
well.
"You can't say those funds wouldn't be put to pretty good use; they would
be," said Linda Eichmiller of the Assn. of State and Interstate Water
Pollution Control Administrators.
"It costs a lot of money to maintain a program to the level that the
[inspector general] would like to see," she added.
Alan Levine
Coast Action Group
P.O. Box 215
Point Arena, CA 95468
(707) 882-2484
(707) 542-4408 - Weekdays
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