EPA Failed To Pursue Wetlands Cases
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration did not pursue hundreds of potential water pollution cases after a 2006 Supreme Court decision that restricted the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate seasonal streams and wetlands.
From July 2006 through December 2007 there were 304 instances where the EPA found what would have been violations of the Clean Water Act before the court’s ruling, according to a memo by the agency’s enforcement chief.
Officials “chose not to pursue formal enforcement based on the uncertainty about EPA’s jurisdiction,” according to the memo, which was released yesterday by two Democratic House committee chairmen.
