Twenty-seven environmental organizations transmitted a July 12th letter to the Chair and Ranking Members of the relevant Senate and U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittees with jurisdiction over the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”).
The organizations executing the letter include:
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Air Alliance Houston
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Maryland League of Conservation Voters
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Center for Biological Diversity
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National Environmental Law Center
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Chesapeake Bay Foundation
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National Parks & Conservation Association
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Chesapeake Climate Action Network
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National Resources Defense Council
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Clean Air Council
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Ohio Environmental Council
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Clean Water Action
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Patuxent Riverkeeper
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Clean Wisconsin
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Prairie Rivers Network
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Conservation Law Foundation
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Sierra Club
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Earthjustice
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Southern Environmental Law Center
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Environment America
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Suncoast Waterkeeper
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Environmental Defense Fund
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Tampa Bay Waterkeeper
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Environmental Integrity Project
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Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment
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Environmental Law & Policy Center
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Western Organization of Resource Councils
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League of Conservation Voters
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The organizations request funding for EPA’s compliance monitoring and enforcement programs at levels that they indicate were proposed in the Biden Administration’s budget for the 2023 fiscal year.
They argue in support of the request that adjusted for inflation:
. . . EPA enforcement expenditures fell 10% between 2020 and 2022, and have fallen 23.6% since 2012.
This is argued to have resulted in the loss of 20% of EPA’s workforce. More than 600 scientists, engineers, attorneys, investigators, and support staff are stated to have been lost between 2012 and 2022.
The letter further argues that enforcement activity has “declined dramatically” in almost every category between the 2017 and 2021 fiscal years. It is further stated that in those four years:
. . . the number of inspections, criminal investigations, enforcement actions initiated or concluded, and criminal penalties fell at least 50% compared to the annual average between 2002 and 2016, while civil penalties declined 36%.
The organizations argue that the result of current enforcement leaves EPA less able to “protect communities of color and working-class neighborhoods already disproportionately harmed by pollution.”
A copy of the letter can be downloaded here.
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