Prosecutions Of Environmental Crimes Under Shitstain Admnistration Collapsed In 2017 and 2018
Prosecutions of environmental crimes have “plummeted” during the Trump administration, according to a new report. The first two years of the Trump administration had a 70 percent decrease in criminal prosecutions under the Clean Water Act and a decrease of more than 50 percent under the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Crimes Project at the University of Michigan law school found.
The research examined cases brought between 2005 and 2018, and the two-year period starting in 2017 had “the worst pollution prosecution numbers in the 14 years covered by our study,” said David M. Uhlmann the author of the study. He presented the paper at the American Bar Association fall environmental conference; it will be published in the Michigan Journal of Environmental and Administrative law. Mr. Uhlmann, the director of the environmental law and policy program at the University of Michigan law school, worked for 17 years in the Department of Justice, during the presidential administrations of both Bushes and Bill Clinton, and was the top prosecutor of environmental crimes at the Department of Justice from 2000 to 2007.
Civil prosecutions have also dropped significantly during the Trump years, and the administration has abandoned the longstanding practice of using settlements of environmental cases to require polluters to address past and future pollution issues with what are known as supplemental environmental projects.
The drop in prosecutions occurs within the larger context of President Trump’s hostility toward government regulation in general and environmental regulation in particular. During the 2016 campaign, he promised to reduce the E.P.A. to “little tidbits.” Since his election, the administration has tried to roll back 100 environmental regulations, though many of these initiatives have not fared well in the courts.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/climate/pollution-lawsuits-trump-environment.html