Leader of ‘panel’ talks of need for bold action

EPA enforcement drops

WASHINGTON, Feb 10, (AP): It does not have office space, staff or even Republican members, but Florida Rep Kathy Castor is confident that a special House committee on climate change will play a leading role on one of the most daunting challenges facing the planet.

Castor, the new panel’s chair, says early obstacles can be overcome as lawmakers move to reduce carbon pollution and create clean-energy jobs.

Castor, in her seventh term representing the Tampa Bay area, says Congress has a “moral obligation” to protect future generations from the costly effects of climate change, including more severe hurricanes, hotter wildfires and a rising sea level.

The climate panel is separate from an effort by Democrats to launch a Green New Deal to transform the US economy and create thousands of jobs in renewable energy.

Civil and criminal crackdowns on polluters dropped sharply in the second year of the Trump administration, according to 2018 enforcement figures released Friday by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Trump administration EPA says the agency is taking a new tack with polluters, giving states more of a role in regulation and enforcement and stressing education and voluntary compliance with offenders as well as fines and criminal prosecution.

“In fiscal year 2018, we continued our focus on expediting site cleanup, deterring noncompliance, and returning facilities to compliance with the law,” Susan Bodine, acting head of EPA enforcement, said in a statement.

The EPA has been one of the most active agencies overall in carrying out the deregulatory goals of President Donald Trump. Environmental and public-health groups say the business-friendly rollbacks place public health and the environment at greater risk.

Jeff Ruch of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility said the newly released 2018 totals show environmental enforcement “entering a near dark age.”

Declines include civil investigations carried out by the agency, which fell to 22 last year, down from 40 in 2017 and 125 in 2016, the last year of the Obama administration.

Criminal fines and restitution tumbled, from $207 million in 2016, $3 billion in 2017 – including a $2.8 billion fine against Volkswagen over emissions-rigging, a case initiated under the Obama administration – to $86 million last year.

Federal environmental regulators opened 129 criminal cases in 2018. That was down from 170 under the last year of the Obama administration, although up slightly from 115 criminal cases opened the first year under Trump.

Numbers show overall criminal and civil enforcement to protect the environment and public health on a general downward trend for many years, but the decline has sharpened under the Trump administration. That includes a 30-year low in referrals for criminal prosecution in 2018.

Civil penalties last year were the lowest since the EPA’s enforcement office was created in 1994, said Cynthia Giles, assistant administrator of that office through the Obama administration.

“Not only are the Trump EPA’s enforcement numbers at historic lows, they are on track to get worse,” Giles said.

Castor