EPA Issues New Policy to Sync Up Civil, Criminal Enforcement

The EPA has issued a new internal policy that could have a dramatic effect on whether enforcement cases are pursued as civil or criminal matters, and how easily that decision can change in midstream.

The policy, dated Wednesday, lays out a set of requirements to ensure the Environmental Protection Agency’s civil and criminal enforcement teams work together and apply their discretion fairly and consistently.

The EPA has already been moving in that direction recently, having “grown beyond a bifurcated approach, where its civil and criminal enforcement programs were only loosely connected,” David Uhlmann, head of the EPA’s enforcement squad, ...