Environmental Cops Eye Return to Obama-Level Criminal Case Rates

The Justice Department’s push to prioritize criminal prosecutions for environmental crimes seeks to return the agency to pre-Trump administration enforcement levels, but not to dramatically exceed them.

That clarification from Justice Department officials sheds light on recent public remarks by Todd Kim, assistant attorney general for Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD), who said his group “will prioritize prosecuting individuals who commit and profit from corporate malfeasance.”

Justice wants to reverse a sharp decline in criminal prosecutions during the Trump administration, a senior ENRD official who specializes in environmental crimes, and who spoke on condition of anonymity, ...