• When the federal government brings its toughest environmental enforcement actions against polluters, they tend to be in communities of greater wealth, not the most polluted places. • That’s the takeaway from a new paper co-authored by a Washington State University researcher that examined criminal prosecutions by the U.S. • Environmental Protection Agency from 2011 to 2020 in every U.S. • The findings are published in the journal Nature Sustainability.
Article Summaries:
- A new study published in Nature Sustainability shows that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s most severe criminal prosecutions from 2011‑2020 were disproportionately directed at counties with higher wealth rather than those with the highest pollution levels. Washington State University researchers analyzed every U.S. county’s EPA criminal actions and found a strong correlation between county income and enforcement activity, while pollution metrics did not predict sanction frequency. The findings suggest that environmental justice concerns may not align with current federal enforcement priorities, raising questions about the equity of EPA’s criminal enforcement strategy.
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