Legal actions against polluters have declined sharply during Bush administration, Post reports

The day before President Bush was re-elected, high-ranking Environmental Protection Agency official Stephen L. Johnson, right, told a group of farmers in Georgia, "The days of the guns and badges are over." Johnson is now the administrator of EPA, and his line has proved accurate. EPA prosecutions, new investigations and total convictions of polluters are all down by more than a third, write John Solomon and Juliet Eilperin in The Washington Post.

"The number of civil lawsuits filed against defendants who refuse to settle environmental cases was down nearly 70 percent between fiscal years 2002 and 2006, compared with a four-year period in the late 1990s," the Post reports. "The EPA now employs 172 investigators in its Criminal Investigation Division, below the minimum of 200 agents required by the 1990 Pollution Prosecution Act," and the number available at any particular time is even less "agents said, because they sometimes are diverted to other duties, such as Johnson's security staff of eight.

"Administration officials said they are not ignoring the environment but are focusing on major cases that secure more convictions against bigger players," but "acknowledge taking a new approach to environmental enforcement by seeking more settlements and plea bargains that require pollution reductions through new equipment purchases or participation in EPA compliance programs," the Post reports.