Attorney General Jeff Sessions bans funding for environmental cleanups

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a decision that will reduce funding for environmental cleanups, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has banned all future settlements of pollution violation cases that include money for cleanup efforts managed by third-party organizations.

Under both Republican and Democratic administrations over the last four decades, prosecutors have negotiated settlement agreements with polluters that pay for projects, often managed by community groups or nonprofit organizations, that help compensate for illegal pollution by restoring wetlands and streams, protecting critical habitat, monitoring air pollution, treating asthma victims and other efforts.

All such future projects are prohibited under a memo issued by Sessions on Monday.

“The Attorney General’s action will deprive poor and under-represented communities of environmental improvements paid for by polluters who violate our laws,” said Eric Schaeffer, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project and former Director of Civil Enforcement at EPA.

The new ban also apparently targets the kind of investments in “zero emission” vehicles and other clean transportation projects that Volkswagen agreed to fund at a cost of $4.7 billion last year to settle charges that it manipulated pollution controls on nearly 600,000 diesel vehicles.

On May 23, the federal government sued Fiat Chrysler for similar violations while other auto companies are under investigation for the same kind of cheating.   A Seattle-based law firm filing a class action lawsuit against GM on May 25, claiming that the company installed software to cheat on emissions tests for about 705,000 of its diesel trucks from 2011 to 2016.

“Attorney General Sessions apparently wants to make sure that unlike Volkswagen, these other violators won’t be required to support development of low emission vehicles to compensate for illegal pollution from the dirty engines they designed,” Schaeffer said.

The move by the Trump Administration comes after the U.S. House Judiciary Committee approved legislation called HR 732 (the misleadingly-labelled “Stop Settlements Slush Fund Act of 2017”) that would achieve similar ends and prohibit environmental projects funded by settlements.  There is no evidence that such funds have ever been used or improper purposes or anything other than environmental improvements.  (See attached report on the legislation by the Environmental Integrity Project, “House Bill Bans VW-Style Settlements.”)

“The Attorney General’s letter mimics language in a House bill that is enthusiastically supported by Freedom Works, Heritage Foundation, the Chamber of Commerce and other groups that are quick to defend the rights of large corporations caught violating our laws,” Schaeffer said.  “It’s disheartening to see the Justice Department reading from their playbook.  Whose government is this anyway?”

Nonprofit and community organizations for decades have received settlement funds from pollution lawsuits that have helped the environment.  For example, in 1977, after the disastrous spill of the pesticide Kepone into the James River at Hopewell, Virginia, Allied Chemical agreed to pay $8 million of a $13.2 million fine to fund a nonprofit organization, the Virginia Environmental Endowment. Over the 40 years since then, the endowment has paid for Chesapeake Bay cleanup efforts, land conservation, and environmental education, among other projects.

Under the administration of President George W. Bush, the Department of Justice and EPA  in 2005 entered into a settlement with Cargill for air pollution violations, which included $1.6 million in penalties and $3.5 million for supplemental environmental projects, including for wetlands restoration projects in Iowa and Nebraska.

Also in 2005, Bush Department of Justice and signed a settlement agreement with the Dupont chemical company over release of a chemical called PFOA that includes $10 million in penalties and $6 million “supplemental environmental projects,” which include $1 million for a local education program in Wood County, West Virginia, to “foster science laboratory curriculum changes to reduce risks posed by chemicals in schools.”

Such efforts, funded by settlements, would be halted in the future under the Attorney General’s order.

For a copy of the memo, visit: http://www.environmentalintegrity.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Sessions-memo.png

For a copy of EIP’s report, “House Bill Bans VW-Style Settlements,” visit: http://www.environmentalintegrity.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Environmental-Settlements-Report.pdf

This article is a reprint of a press release from the Environmental Integrity Project, which is a 15-year-old nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, based in Washington D.C., dedicated to enforcing environmental laws and holding polluters and governments accountable to protect public health.