Environmental Penalties Down Under President Trump

This isn't surprising to me, with Scott Pruitt as EPA Director. Eric Schaeffer, Executive Director of the Environmental Integrity Project and former Director of Civil Enforcement at EPA, assessed the situation well, "President Trump campaigned on a promise of 'law and order,' but apparently law enforcement for big polluters is not what he had in mind..."

http://www.npr.org/2017/08/10/542603483/environmental-penalties-are-down-under-president-trump

Since President Trump took office in January, enforcement of environmental laws has dropped dramatically, compared with past administrations. A study released by the Environmental Integrity Project finds that $12 million in civil penalties have been collected from violators in 26 cases between January and the end of July.

That's significantly less than the number of cases prosecuted and the penalties collected under the same six month period by the Obama, Bush and Clinton administrations. Under Barack Obama, the Justice Department prosecuted 34 cases, collecting $36 million in the time period. Under George W. Bush, 31 cases were lodged, bringing in $30 million in penalties. Under Bill Clinton, there were 45 cases filed, with penalties totaling $25 million.

So far, penalties collected by Trump's EPA are 60 percent lower than the average of the three previous administrations.

 

So this tells me

1. Trump is not using the EPA as a cash cow like past president's, especially the former Messiah who used the EPA like a back water Barney Fife speed trap....



2. Trump is being a pro business president, like he promised.


3. Thank you Trump


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This might be your view, but I don't think most Americans want our Air and Water trashed by this president.

 

Probably because dems call CO2 a pollutant and the new admit calls it an integral part of life on this planet.

 

I don't believe the article is talking about CO2. It mentions the pollutant Sulfur Dioxide, in relation to avoided deaths.

In some cases involving violations of the Clear Air Act, the EPA tallies how much pollution is likely to be reduced under a consent decree. Many of those cases involve particulates, substances like sulfur dioxide which can cause asthma and heart disease and lead to premature deaths. By tracking how must pollution will be reduced, the EPA estimates how many premature deaths were avoided by the enforcement action. Using that yardstick, in the first six months of the Bush administration, at least 549 premature deaths were avoided. Under Obama, at least 184 premature deaths were avoided. For the Trump administration, that figure is much lower. At least seven premature deaths were avoided.

 

Why does the American public don't think Trump breathes the same air or drink the same water...



Stop the propaganda, you guys played it for 8 years with bush Jr on the environment...


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You know if you start letting the polluters get away with it, they'll keep doing it. It's the EPA's job to enforce the Clean Water Act and Clear Air Act. If Pruitt doesn't want to do it - well - Trump knows how to fire people.

 

Trump got rid of Obama's EO , didn't you get the message?

 

I've gotten a lot of messages from Trump. All in the interest of the 1%ers, blatant disregard for the environment.

 

Blatant my butt , in the adult life we call it fiscal responsibility and not knee jerk reactions to junk science and please post where Trump is taking care of the 1% .

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So what do you think Pruitt is doing? Is he enforcing the environmental laws of the land? Is he letting some polluters off, while enforcing the laws for others? Why have the numbers changed so drastically, from the three previous presidents?

As we speak, Carl Icahn is special financial advisor to Trump Admin, schmoozing policies in favor of the 1%ers. Who pays? Everybody else.

 

Those original mandates of the EPA have long been taken care of. Trump overturned Obama's overreaching additions.

 

We're not talking about revised legistlation. We're talking about enforcing existing legislation.

 

Obama revised the regulations trying to make a backyard drainage a 'waterway' or increasing job killing regulations beyond original intent.

 

The amount of fines does not reflect the enforcement rather the degree of violation and I am willing to guess that many of those cases started under Obama and were well down the pipeline by the time Trump took over.

 

You raise a point that is discussed at the end of the link. NPR usually covers both sides of a story, and they gave the EPA Deputy the final say:

Responding to the study, Patrick Traylor, EPA deputy assistant administrator said, "As the report admits, '[t]he data for the Trump Administration's record so far is just a snapshot and trends vary over time.'" Traylor says the study's "assertions say much more about enforcement actions commenced in the later years of the Obama Administration than it does about actions taken in the beginning of the Trump Administration. Despite this unfair report, EPA is committed to enforcing environmental laws to correct noncompliance and promote cleanup of contaminated sites."

I'm not buying Traylor's statement though. Throughout this thread, Conservatives are arguing that Obama overextended the EPA standards. If that was the case, I would think the levied fines would be greater or equal, not substantially lesser.

 

Well thank you for including the quote though I find it odd that you discount the Deputy Assistant Administrator's veracity based on random commenters at a thread on PF. These type stories are good for clickbait but like many things when it comes to changes in power, most of them suffer from a solid case of post hoc, ergo propter hoc syndrome in the same way the conservator commentators here ignore most of the good economy has these days has nothing to do with anything Trump has done at all.

 

Excellent, too much BS like the following occurring on Obama's watch.

"An Idaho couple facing ruinous fines for attempting to build a home on private property that the federal government considered protected wetlands may challenge an order from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday in a unanimous decision.

The case was considered the most significant property rights case on the high court’s docket this year, with the potential to change the balance of power between landowners and the EPA in disputes over land use, development and the enforcement of environmental regulations.

Critics called the EPA action a clear example of overreach, as the property in question was a small vacant lot in the middle of an established residential subdivision in the Idaho Panhandle. The government argued that allowing EPA compliance orders to be challenged in court could severely delay actions needed to prevent imminent ecological disasters.

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the court, said that Michael and Chantell Sackett are entitled to appeal the EPA order, rejecting the agency’s argument that allowing landowners timely challenges to its decisions would undermine its ability to protect sensitive wetlands."

The case stemmed from the couple’s purchase of a 0.63-acre lot for $23,000 near Priest Lake, Idaho, in 2005. The Sacketts had begun to lay gravel on the land, located in a residential neighborhood, when they were hit by an EPA compliance order informing them that the property had been designated a wetland under the Clean Water Act.

The Sacketts were ordered to stop grading their property and were told that they would face fines of up to $75,000 per day if they did not return the parcel to its original state. When the Sacketts attempted to contest the order, the agency denied their request for a hearing.

Justice Scalia noted that the Sacketts’ property bore little resemblance to any popular conception of a wetland, protected or not.

Reading a summary of his opinion in court, he noted that the Sacketts have never “seen a ship or other vessel cross their yard.”

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which rejected the couple’s appeal in September, said the Sacketts had other avenues of relief, such as undergoing a wetlands permitting process — the cost of which would be as much as 12 times the value of the land.

The government also argued that couple had the option of engaging in “informal discussion of the terms and requirements” of the EPA order, including “any allegations — believe[d] to be inaccurate.”

Such an option hardly constitutes adequate recourse, Justice Scalia wrote.

“The mere possibility that an agency might reconsider in light of ‘informal discussion’ and invited contentions of inaccuracy does not suffice to make an otherwise final agency action nonfinal,” he wrote in his 16-page opinion"
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/mar/21/court-backs-idaho-couple-battle-epa/

 

Leave it to the Washington Times to cite some fairly uneventful lawsuit on the other side of the continent. My response - so what? Even if the couple was wronged, it will sort itself out, and they have recourses. I'll bet this was all over FOX News as well, sensationalizing the story as some massive failure of the Obama Administration.

 

And another 8 ramming asshat policies on the matter up our collective asses, under Obummer.

 

"So what"? Typical leftist response to citizens being run roughshod over by government.

 

How exactly is Trump trashing our air and water ??

 

Read the linked article...

 

Do you know how much we heard the same ol.propaganda during the 8 years of bush Jr?


All the time to the point if a space alien listened to the left you could swear Crawford Texas had its own water and air supply trucked in ..


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Bush Senior actually stated that his greatest accomplishment was his contributions to the Clean Water Act. I don't fault GW for going against Dad. I fault him for all his war-mongering, especially the $6 Trillion Iraqi Oil War.