Prosecution of environmental crimes in the United States has sharply fallen during the Clinton Administration, according to a compilation of court records released in November by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a Boston Globe report and an Assistant United States Attorney who has suffered retaliation for pursuing pollution prosecutions under the Clinton Administration.

Comparing statistics from a three-year period in the Bush Administration (1989-91) with a similar period in the Clinton Administration (1996-98), the PEER review shows dramatic declines in criminal referrals, prosecutions and convictions:

• more than a one-quarter (27 percent) decrease in prosecutions;

• a greater than one-third (38 percent) drop in convictions; and

• a nearly 10 percent decline in the conviction rate.

Even though the Justice Department is pursuing fewer cases, it is also declining more cases (26 percent more) brought by referring agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). While overall numbers for the second half of the Clinton Administration show some improvement, a key measure of enforcement -- the number of defendants sentenced to prison -- is down by one fourth in the last two years.

"The criminal environmental enforcement record of the previous incumbent was clearly better by virtually every measure of prosecutorial effort," comments PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, a former state prosecutor. "Maybe George Bush really was the Environmental President."

Bad for Business

In November, the Boston Globe reported another indicator that environmental criminal prosecution is on the wane. The paper reported on one of the country's largest environmental consulting companies, the International Technology Corporation of Pennsylvania, which said lax government enforcement of environmental laws is responsible for a downturn in its business.

"Demand for the company's services is heavily influenced by the level of enforcement of environmental laws and regulations," according to the company's 1997 annual report. "During the 1990s, spending by commercial clients has slowed primarily due to reduced implementation and enforcement activities by governmental regulatory authorities."

"In its 1998 annual report," the Globe reported, "the company again cited weakening enforcement by federal, state and local regulators. Environmental decisions by private industry in the United States, the company said, are now driven by economic concerns, and not regulatory and legal ones."

Harassing Prosecutors

An on-the-ground perspective on weak environmental criminal enforcement is provided by Gregory Sasse, a decade-and-a-half Assistant United States Attorney in Cleveland, who says he has suffered retaliation for pursuing pollution prosecutions under the Clinton Administration.

In a complaint filed in 1996, Sasse says that his superiors within the Department punished him for prosecuting polluters.

Justice Department spokesperson John Russell says that "when it comes to personnel matters, our official response is, ‘No comment.'"

Sasse says his supervisors liked his first case, "because it hit the press in a big way and they wanted it done well."

But he encountered a different response to his second prosecution, relating to discharged waste that blew out a water treatment plant -- with the result that raw sewage passed into a river that provided municipal drinking water.

"My boss was screaming at me," he says. "His point was, 'This is no big deal. Who cares?' He is extremely determined on the subject of not believing in the enforcement of pollution laws."

"It is quite odd: He's a Democrat and I'm a Reagan Republican," Sasse says, "but he is very much against criminally enforcing environmental laws."

Sasse says he had continuing run-ins with his supervisor over environmental prosecutions until, at the end of the Bush administration, he complained to the U.S. Attorney Joyce George. Then, he reports, his supervisor backed down.

But after Bill Clinton was elected president, Emily Sweeny was appointed U.S. Attorney for Cleveland.

"Once Sweeny got in," Sasse says, "my boss started a different form of harassment and retaliation against me. It was aimed at pretextual problems and trying to generate problems with my cases."

In 1995, Sasse began a long process of internal complaints, and eventually filed a complaint with the Department of Labor.

He received a favorable notice from the Labor Department in July 1998, ordering an end to retaliation for his environmental enforcement activity. A Justice Department appeal is pending in the case.

Sasse emphasizes that his situation is not unique and does not revolve around personality conflicts.

"The Clinton administration has gutted environmental enforcement," he says.

"Many people who prosecute these cases are being pressured into doing large numbers of other cases and not so many environmental cases. People who do environmental compliance at federal facilities complain about being brutally harassed by supervisors into falsely declaring that areas are not contaminated when in fact they are. And when they refuse, they are being retaliated against further."

— Russell Mokhiber