The New York Times has found that under new Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt, the federal government has been sharply curtailing anti-pollution efforts.
The Times built a database of civil cases filed at the E.P.A. during the Trump, Obama and Bush administrations. During the first nine months under Mr. Pruitt’s leadership, the E.P.A. started about 1,900 cases, about one-third fewer than the number under President Barack Obama’s first E.P.A. director and about one-quarter fewer than under President George W. Bush’s over the same time period.
In addition, the agency sought civil penalties of about $50.4 million from polluters for cases initiated under Mr. Trump. Adjusted for inflation, that is about 39 percent of what the Obama administration sought and about 70 percent of what the Bush administration sought over the same time period.
The E.P.A., turning to one of its most powerful enforcement tools, also can force companies to retrofit their factories to cut pollution. Under Mr. Trump, those demands have dropped sharply. The agency has demanded about $1.2 billion worth of such fixes, known as injunctive relief, in cases initiated during the nine-month period, which, adjusted for inflation, is about 12 percent of what was sought under Mr. Obama and 48 percent under Mr. Bush.
You can debate why these statistics might come to pass, but you do not need to.
Confidential internal E.P.A. documents show that the enforcement slowdown coincides with major policy changes ordered by Mr. Pruitt’s team after pleas from oil and gas industry executives.
The victims here are communities seeking redress for (often intentional) pollution violations by companies that have endangered their residents’ air or water. Industry is making the case to Scott Pruitt that it is harmful to their businesses to hold them to account for such things, and so the communities will be getting the short end of the stick.
This is intentional on the part of Republican leadership. It is due to Republican policies. There may also be some underlying crookedness here on the part of Pruitt, who got his current job due in large part to his willingness to cut and paste industry-written defenses onto his own letterhead, but no voter can argue they didn't know what they were getting into. This is exactly what the party promised it would do.