Throwing money at the EPA won’t fix it

Environmental groups recently complained about a lack of public funds available to the EPA. As a citizen who is paying for these federal programs, I researched where these public dollars are actually spent.

In Colorado, money from EPA grants is apparently not going toward enforcement. A recent report found that 241 Clean Water Act violations in Colorado went largely unenforced. In fact, this appears to be true across the country under President Obama’s administration. Between 2011 and 2017, less than half of all polluting facilities in our nation were subject to EPA or state enforcement action. Environmental groups have crowed in the past that the EPA has always had a poor track record of Clean Water Act enforcement and their recent shift to blame a lack of enforcement on the Trump Administration is disingenuous.

We have seen this same argument before, and it always goes something like this: a government program is not working so we need to spend more public funding on it. For anyone outside of government, that sentence is backwards. If millions of dollars are spent on a government program that produces very little public benefit or results, we need that funding to be spent in an effective manner.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDHPE) receives $28 million of federal funding each year from the EPA. This makes up a third of the state health department’s annual budget. The explicit purpose of these federal grant funds is to ensure the state complies with federal environmental safety programs, like the Clean Water Act. Despite this large grant, there were only 18 Clean Water Act enforcement actions taken by CDPHE in 2017. Meaning we the taxpayers are paying almost $2 million just to fine each violation.

Environmental groups are demanding additional funding to increase enforcement without any evidence that increased federal funding would mean increased enforcement. Where is the accountability here?

We all should demand clean water and we all agree Clean Water Act violations need to be aggressively enforced. However, in the real-world public money should only be spent to fix real and identified problems and not spent liberally until we stumble upon something that works. The EPA should be commended for narrowing public funding to enforcement areas where compliance issues have been identified and can be resolved through grant funding.

Bob Beauprez is a former U.S. congressman, Colorado GOP chairman and now serves as a director with The Western Way, a non-profit creating conservative, marketbased solutions to U.S. environment and conservation challenges.