Bush Plan for EPA:

Divide and Conquer

Federal EPA Would Have Reduced Role

Eric Pianin / Washington Post 22jul01

Washington -- The Bush administration is advancing a plan to cut federal environmental enforcement operations and to shift resources to the states, despite mounting evidence that many states are unable or unwilling to enforce federal environmental laws vigorously.

President Bush has proposed reducing the Environmental Protection Agency's enforcement staff in Washington and regional offices by 8 percent, or 270 positions, while providing $25 million in new grants to the states for enforcement activities.

Bush took office promising to provide states and local government with an enhanced role in managing and regulating natural resources. Rather than seeking to perpetuate the EPA's aggressive enforcement policies under President Bill Clinton's administration, Bush and his EPA administrator, Christie Todd Whitman, have called for reduced federal oversight and intervention and have expanded cooperation between state environmental protection agencies and industry.

In a speech last month to the National Association of Manufacturers, Whitman said states are better equipped than the EPA to deal with the problems of environmental degradation -- in "partnership" with industry.

"Threats to our water no longer come from one big pipe pumping out thousands of gallons of waste every day into a local river, (but from) numerous much smaller practices, such as oil runoff from parking lots and fertilizer runoff from our lawns," she said. "Threats like these will not be solved through massive (federal) efforts at regulation and enforcement."

Some states, including Arizona, Delaware and Missouri, have aggressive -- and successful -- environmental enforcement programs. But the EPA's inspector general and analyses of EPA data by the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization, have documented widespread lapses by many other states' enforcement of federal clean water and clean air laws.

Environmentalists, Democrats in Congress and federal regulators are citing the conclusions to question the Bush administration's plans to shift responsibilities to the states.

VIOLATIONS UNREPORTED

The EPA's inspector general said in a September 1998 audit that six states failed to report numerous serious violations of the Clean Air Act, as they are required to do. While performing more than 3,300 inspections, Arkansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Washington state reported only 18 significant violations. While reviewing a small portion of those 3,300 inspections, the EPA turned up an additional 103 serious violations.

Other states have failed to report serious violations of federal pollution laws, allowed major industrial polluters to operate without proper permits and failed to conduct basic emissions tests of industry smokestacks, according to the studies.

The EPA and the Justice Department can step in if they conclude a state isn't doing an adequate job. But with only 3,537 lawyers, investigators and staff involved in enforcement and oversight activities nationwide, the EPA is stretched thin.

"The president's cuts take the environmental cop off the beat, and it creates a devastating blow to EPA's ability to enforce clean air, clean water and hazardous waste laws," said Rep. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., one of several dozen Democrats in the House of Representatives who are battling the cuts as Congress considers the EPA's budget for the coming year.

Last week, the House Appropriations Committee approved funding for the EPA next year that includes the Bush administration's proposed cuts in enforcement.

The Senate Appropriations Committee subsequently voted to restore the funding,

and the dispute will have to be worked out this year by Senate and House negotiators.

INDUSTRY-FRIENDLY OHIO

Nowhere are the problems cited by the EPA studies of state enforcement performance more evident than in Ohio. The Republican administrations of Gov. Bob Taft and former Gov. George Voinovich have promoted an industry-friendly policy of voluntary environmental compliance.

After widespread complaints from four environmental groups, the EPA last year launched an unprecedented review of virtually every aspect of the state's enforcement operations, involving more than 30 EPA lawyers and staff.

The environmental groups -- Ohio Citizen Action, the Ohio Public Interest Research Group, Rivers Unlimited and the Sierra Club -- have asked the EPA to revoke Ohio's authority to enforce federal laws governing air, water and hazardous waste and to bring in federal regulators. EPA officials say they hope to issue a preliminary report late this year.

During the past two years, 72 percent of Ohio plants and refineries surveyed had violations of the Clean Water Act and 33 percent were in violation of the Clean Air Act. More than one-third of major factories were found to be operating with expired permits required under the Clean Water Act.

According to the 1998 EPA inspector general audit, Ohio, with more than 1, 700 major industrial plants, reported four serious violations of environmental law during a recent two-year period -- a figure that state officials acknowledged was unusually low.

Ohio environmental activists say they are dismayed that Donald Schregardus, who headed the Ohio EPA during the Voinovich administration, was recently tapped by Bush to be assistant EPA administrator for enforcement and compliance assurance.

Christopher Jones, the Ohio EPA director for the past two years, said the state has made important strides recently in cleaning up the environment and eliminating a large backlog of inspections and expired permits.

Jones dismissed many of the complaints by environmentalists as unfounded and said the Environmental Working Group and other environmental groups have distorted EPA data. The Ohio EPA has assessed $67 million in penalties against industrial polluters during the past 10 years, he noted, a tougher record than those of Kentucky, Indiana and other neighboring states.

"When you get beyond the rhetoric of the critics, we have a strong record over 10 years," Jones said. "The notion that it's somehow wrong if you're helping a business comply with regulations -- I can't agree with that."

SHIFT IN BURDEN OF PROOF

But environmentalists and many residents have complained for years that Ohio's state government has altered the environmental enforcement process by shifting the burden to residents to prove there is a problem.

Many cite the case of one Cincinnati neighborhood to make their point.

For nearly three years, Karen Arnett complained to state environmental protection authorities about noxious fumes from a foundry in her northern Cincinnati community that left her eyes burning and her throat sore.

The company, Willard Industries Inc., had been operating without a proper permit since 1990 and was secretly emitting styrene -- a hazardous gas that is harmful to the respiratory and nervous systems.

An agent for the state environmental protection agency responded to Arnett's complaints and eventually ordered Willard to conduct two tests of its smokestack. But Arnett said she had to prod officials to do their work, and that she was the one who first discovered that styrene gas was coming out of the stack.