The Trump administration's Environmental Protection Agency boasted Thursday that it assessed nearly $3 billion in fines against polluters in 2017, and imposed 150 years in jail time.
“A strong enforcement program is essential to achieving positive health and environmental outcomes,” said Susan Bodine, the recently confirmed assistant administrator for EPA's enforcement office, as she issued report.
“In fiscal year 2017, we focused on expediting site cleanup, deterring noncompliance, and returning facilities to compliance with the law, while respecting the cooperative federalism structure of our nation’s environmental laws,” Bodine said.
The EPA enforcement report came out as the agency is defending against Democratic critics who say Trump's EPA is out to reward polluters by looking the other way. Bodine received a lashing from Democrats before being confirmed by the Senate in December.
One of her more noteworthy critics, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., was busy on the Senate floor Thursday morning calling her boss, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, one of the "Three Stooges" for the fossil fuel industry, along with Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.
However, Bodine's report showed significant enforcement actions, although some extended from proceedings started in the previous administration. It reported an increase in the total amount of criminal fines to $2.98 billion, which also included restitution and mitigation activities by companies for violations.
"EPA is increasing the deterrent effect of EPA’s enforcement program through criminal enforcement actions to address the most egregious cases," the report read. In addition to the near $3 billion in fines and restitution, jail time was also made a priority in those actions.
Most of the fines stemmed from enforcement and criminal cases that originated in the Obama administration's EPA, according to the report. "These include a $2.8 billion criminal fine paid by Volkswagen to settle allegations that it used illegal software to cheat emissions tests and avoid Clean Air Act compliance, and a $2 million criminal fine (and two years of probation) resulting from Tyson Poultry Inc.’s September 2017 guilty plea to two criminal charges of violating the Clean Water Act," the report said.
But the Trump EPA is continuing to pursue violations of the Clean Air Act first uncovered by the Obama administration as it was transitioning to a new government.
"EPA is continuing to address mobile source Clean Air Act violations," the report stated. In May of last year, the EPA followed up with a complaint filed against Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, which alleged emissions cheating violations similar to those committed by Volkswagen, and affecting almost 104,000 light-duty diesel vehicles.
The Trump EPA likes to point out that environmental prosecutions under the Obama administration actually fell, while the previous administration also reduced a big chunk of its enforcement agents.
The report also underscored one of Pruitt's top priorities deal with the waste clean up at Superfund sites around the country. The report highlighted the EPA's July action at the Middlefield-Ellis-Whisman Superfund study area in Mountain View, California, so that the land there can meet clean-up standards and be allowed to begin residential redevelopment.