Report: States Vary Sharply in their Commitment to Environmental Enforcement

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Mar 23, 2021, 08:46 ET

WASHINGTON, March 23, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- There are striking differences in the way state regulatory agencies enforce environmental protection laws, according to a new report based on a compilation of data from 104 government bodies.

Some states have carried out thousands of enforcement actions over the past two decades, while others have done fewer than 100. Texas, which has a reputation for being anti-regulation, had the largest caseload, followed by Pennsylvania, California and New Jersey. The states with the smallest number of cases include Arkansas, Kansas, Nevada and Oklahoma.

The compilation found that since 2000 state agencies and attorneys general across the country have brought a total of 52,000 environmental enforcement actions and collected $21 billion in fines and settlements in cases with penalties of $5,000 or more.

These findings are contained in The Other Environmental Regulators: How States Unevenly Enforce Pollution Laws, a new report from the Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First based on data collected through website scraping and 90 open records requests. The information has also been incorporated into Violation Tracker, a wide-ranging database on corporate misconduct. The report and a link to the free database are at https://www.goodjobsfirst.org/otherregulators

"Some states exhibit little interest in enforcement efforts, while others pile on penalties," said Good Jobs First Research Director Philip Mattera, who leads the work on Violation Tracker and is the primary author of the report.

Mattera added: "The disparities go beyond what would be expected from differences in relative levels of business activity. This is problematic given that states are delegated authority by the U.S. EPA to share in the enforcement of federal laws such as the Clean Air Act."

Other findings:

Mississippi ranks first in total penalties at $1.5 billion, mainly because of a single settlement with BP stemming from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster. It is followed by California ($1.1 billion), New Jersey ($993 million), and North Carolina ($959 million).

The oil and gas industry accounts for far more in penalties that any other sector, with $8.2 billion in fines and settlements since 2000. Utilities rank second with a total of $6 billion.

The most penalized company is BP at $6.6 billion, followed by American Electric Power ($4.7 billion). The worst repeat offender is Exxon Mobil, with 272 cases.

Good Jobs First is a non-profit, non-partisan resource center promoting corporate and government accountability.

Arlene Martinez: 202-232-4257 [email protected]

SOURCE Good Jobs First