EPA Official Laments ‘Scarce Resources’ in Criminal Enforcement

The EPA and its state counterparts are too short-staffed to adequately police environmental crimes around the country, an agency official said.

Mike Fisher, director of the Legal Counsel Division in the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Criminal Enforcement, said most states don’t have officials dedicated to prosecuting pollution-control crimes, and the EPA often can’t fill the gap.

“We’re trying to make smart and maximally environmentally protection-oriented decisions about allocating our own scarce resources,” he said at a Nov. 12 American Bar Association conference, noting that he was giving his personal view.

The EPA’s team of criminal investigators has been declining ...