Posted on 12/15/2003 6:11:24 PM PST by Holly_P
How do environmentalists measure success? By how much cleaner the air and water have become? How recycling has become a way of life? How government and industry are working together on renewable energy and a raft of other initiatives that aim to make the planet more livable for generations to come?
Sadly, environmentalists have an entirely different yardstick, as shown in a recent analysis by Knight Ridder Newspapers. Relying heavily on the opinions of former Environmental Protection Agency bureaucrats, Knight Ridder concluded the Bush administration is falling down on the environmental-protection job: enforcement of pollution laws has declined in the last 15 years.
The monthly average of violation notices issued to polluters has dropped since 1988 and has declined dramatically, by 58 percent, since President Bush took office in January 2001. Likewise, when adjusted for inflation, administrative fines are off 28 percent and civil penalties 6 percent, while the number of cases referred to the Justice Department for prosecution is down 5 percent.
It's all pretty damning until one realizes what a hatchet job this "investigation" was. Why did Knight Ridder chose 1988 as the starting point? Why not 10 years ago or 20? 1988 was the year federal environmental prosecutions peaked, so any comparison would make it appear the Bush administration's record has been abysmal.
As much as the declining numbers are better explained by Bush administration policies that seek to work with companies to correct violations rather than punishing them first and asking questions later, Knight Ridder instead tried to paint a picture of a politicized agency under orders from the White House to let industries pollute at will. In quoting former EPA bureaucrats, some anonymously, Knight Ridder hoped its readers wouldn't know how the EPA attracts zealots eager to wield the regulatory hammer.
Indeed, their own actions and words betray their fanaticism. Among those quoted by Knight Ridder was Eric Schaeffer, who was civil enforcement chief before quitting to form his own radical environmental-enforcement group. William K. Reilly, the EPA administrator in the early 1990s, said he used to tell his enforcers that "under no circumstances do I want the numbers to drop. It's your job to bring in these cases." (our emphasis) Other former EPA officials told Knight Ridder that's "the standard way the EPA measured enforcement progress."
To environmentalists, then, the role of EPA regulators is not to ensure compliance, but to meet arbitrary, ever-larger quotas — scalps under their belts, notches in their gun handles and industrial heads crushed by the hammer of governmental regulation and litigation — that justify the agency's existence and budget, and keep the Justice Department busy persecuting businesses, often over minuscule infractions.
It would seem that rather than ruining the planet, the Bush administration has brought balance to environmental protection and has adopted a more sensible approach that relegates litigation to its proper place as the last resort.
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