The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), under the leadership of the Bush administration, has misrepresented its record of criminal enforcement and overstated its successes in cracking down on polluters, according to an investigative report by the Sacramento Bee. Specifically, the agency has:

• Inflated its count of criminal investigations initiated. The agency included 190 counterterrorism-related investigations in a count of criminal investigations. One-time phone conversations between EPA and FBI agents were considered criminal investigations for reporting purposes as well. Agency officials claimed that there is no other way to record agents’ time, but staff counter that time sheets have pay codes for work unrelated to pollution investigations. Not only is the number of criminal investigations being misreported by EPA officials, but agency sources also allege that there is pressure for agents to open cases that have little or no chance of prosecution instead of pursuing the most egregious violations.
• Distorted its record of referring cases to federal prosecutors. EPA, in its annual performance report, claims the agency referred 506 criminal cases to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for prosecution in FY 2001 and 2002 combined, and compared that with 477 referrals that took place in the last two years of the Clinton administration. In fact, only 396 of the reported 506 cases were actually sent to DOJ, with the other 110 referred to state prosecutors. The number of referrals to DOJ is considered a good indicator of the agency’s enforcement efforts.
• Exaggerated the length of prison terms imposed on environmental criminals. EPA has boasted that offenders of environmental crimes were sentenced to 471 prison years in 2001 and 2002 combined. In fact, as the Bee reports, these numbers are “seriously misleading” in that they include sentences stemming from other agencies’ narcotics cases, where hazardous waste charges were brought against methamphetamine lab operators. An EPA staff attorney pointed this out in an e-mail to top enforcement officials, who defended the practice of taking credit for such figures.

These findings follow reports earlier this year that criminal agents were being diverted to then-Administrator Christie Whitman’s "personal security detail."