US environmental agency defends reputation

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued a response to claims by government regulators that it overstated the amount of penalties it imposed on businesses that contravened environmental laws.

In a report released this week, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) claimed that the EPA needs to improve the transparency of its reporting on the effectiveness of its enforcement programmes. According to the GAO, the total penalties imposed by the EPA, when adjusted for inflation, fell from $240.6m (£147m) in 1998 to $137.7m in 2007.

Some critics have claimed that the drop in enforcement activity by the EPA is a direct result of the Bush administration's poor record on the environment generally and its link to big oil.

But responding to the claims, the EPA said that it "vigorously" enforces environmental laws and is continuing to break its own records in terms of fines levied against polluters.

"Last year alone, EPA concluded enforcement actions requiring polluters to spend an estimated $11bn, which is an agency record on pollution controls, clean-up and environmental projects," the organisation said in a statement. " After all these activities are completed, EPA estimates that more than three billion pounds of pollution will be annually reduced or removed from the environment, the highest amount since 1999."

The environmental enforcement body also claims that it "assessed" an estimated $125m in civil penalties in 2008 – the highest amount in the past two years. "Penalties play an important role in deterring polluters from violating environmental laws and regulations," the agency claimed.

One of the criticisms leveled buy the GAO is that the EPA continues to count penalties in terms of the amount it has assessed a company should pay, rather than what the US Treasury actually receives – which can be very different amounts, depending on the co-operation of the company concerned, the judicial system and the accuracy of the assessment.

But the EPA maintains that it has continued to impose increasing levels of penalties over the past five years. "The strength of EPA's enforcement programme is illustrated by an
unprecedented run of record results over the past five years. These results directly benefit the American public," the agency said.