Gaming the System
From: The Washington Post “Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, an environmental advocacy group, is calling on the Government Accountability Office to probe whether the Interior Department’s move to recall furloughed staff to move forward with oil and gas leasing work ...
Government Shutdown Becomes a ‘Polluters Holiday’
From: Environment News Service “Federal biological, pollution, and food safety monitoring has been suspended as hundreds of thousands of federal workers are furloughed and forbidden from working due to the longest government shutdown in American history. These interruptions create risks ...
EPA should be making more criminal referrals for polluters
From: Kentucky Kernel “The story reported that EPA referrals resulted in 62 federal convictions in the year 2018, making it the fewest convictions since 1995. Under Bill Clinton’s presidency in 1998, 592 people were referred for criminal prosecution. The story quoted Jeff Ruch, ...
USDA Continues Controversial Call-Backs of Furloughed Employees
From: GovExec “In a sign that resistance to such early call-backs continues, the nonprofit advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility on Tuesday sent a complaint to Congress’s Government Accountability Office asking it to investigate the Interior Department’s ...
Group asks watchdog to investigate recall of furloughed Interior workers
From: The Hill “An environmental advocacy group formally asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Tuesday to investigate whether the Interior Department’s recall of furloughed employees during the government shutdown is legal. Representatives for Public Employees for ...
Environmental group demands GAO investigation of Interior permit work
From: PoliticoPro “Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, in a letter to GAO, requested the agency investigate whether acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt violated the Antideficiency Act, which stipulates that departments can’t spend money not allocated by ...
Meet 3 women who stood up to Trump to protect the American people — and lost their jobs
From: The Hill “Southerland resigned from EPA in early August 2017 and explained her decision in a farewell letter published by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a non-profit group for federal resource professionals. ” Read more . . . Read the PEER story ...
Editorial: Who’s Watching Out for Future Generations?
From: The Daily Nonpareil ““You don’t get closer to the core of EPA’s mission than enforcing the law,” Jeff Ruch, executive director of the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility advocacy groups, told The AP. “We’re reaching levels where the enforcement ...
How Long Can We Go without Prosecuting Polluters?
From: Sierra Club “According to numbers released on Tuesday by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a nonprofit that tracks environmental accountability in the public sector, the EPA has drastically reduced the number of referrals for criminal prosecution. Such ...
California Environmental Law & Policy Update: GAO Investigating EPA’s Low Enforcement Numbers
From: JD Supra “The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has launched an investigation into declining enforcement actions by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) against companies accused of violating EPA’s pollution standards during the Trump administration. A GAO ...
EPA Lax On Enforcement, Says Environmental Group
From: Boise State Public Radio “The critical analysis comes from the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. It shows the federal government referred significantly fewer cases to the Department of Justice than it has in years past. “Under the Trump ...
With the Government Shut Down, Is Your Water Safe?
From: The Nation “The shutdown adds more disorder to the government’s halting efforts to keep communities lead-free. As the top enforcer of the Safe Drinking Water Act and lead-safety protections in the “Lead and Copper” rule, the EPA sets regulatory standards and guidelines for ...
Firm at Center of Hunters Point Fraud Scandal Rewarded With More Government Work
From: Curbed SF “Tetra Tech, the engineering firm paid more than $250 million by the U.S. Navy to remove radioactive contamination from San Francisco’s Hunters Point has so far escaped any serious punishment, with a $7,000 fine from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission waived on ...
EPA Prosecutions Against Polluters Lowest in 30 Years
From: Fortune “Of the 166 cases referred last year for prosecution, just 62 federal convictions were secured, the lowest since 1995. Jeff Ruch, executive director of the organization Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, told Fortune in an email that the decline in criminal ...
EPA Prosecution of ‘Egregious’ Pollution Cases at a 30-Year Low
From: Courthouse News “According to Justice Department data gathered by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), the EPA opened 166 criminal cases against polluters in 2018 – 60 percent less than in 2011, and 72 percent less than 1988. When asked for comment, the EPA ...
Andrew Wheeler Returns to the Senate for EPA Administrator Confirmation Hearing
From: News Channel 5 “The day before the hearing, an environmental group released a new report claiming the EPA’s “criminal enforcement program was missing in action” last year. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility documented a decline in criminal referrals ...
GAO Investigating EPA’s Low Enforcement Numbers
From: The Hill “News of the probe comes as EPA’s Inspector General (IG) continues its own investigation into the agency’s enforcement figures and as the EPA is gearing up to release its 2018 enforcement numbers, which are expected to be even lower than the previous year. Data ...
CDA Press: EPA Criminal Action Against Polluters Hits 30-Year Low
From: Coeur d’Alene Press “But the 166 cases referred for prosecution in the last fiscal year is the lowest number since 1988, when Ronald Reagan was president and 151 cases were referred, according to Justice Department data obtained by the nonprofit Public Employees for ...
DeSantis Plan: Move Wildlife Cops to Agency Not Known for Enforcing Rules
From: Tampa Bay Times “Other environmental advocates speculated about what DeSantis had in mind. Manley Fuller, president of the Florida Wildlife Federation for more than 30 years, said, “It may be to shift environmental pollution enforcement to DEP and have fish and wildlife ...
Wheeler Faces the Senate
From: Politico “The Government Accountability Office already has an investigation underway into EPA’s enforcement numbers. A spokesman for GAO confirmed to ME the agency launched an investigation in October but added the “final scope of what we will cover and methodology to ...
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