Justice Department Memo Targets Environmental Mitigation (1)

The Trump administration is limiting the inclusion of certain mitigation requirements in environmental enforcement cases, building on other Justice Department moves to set constraints on settlements.

Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Bossert Clark issued a memo Tuesday, requiring lawyers in the Environment and Natural Resources Division to include “equitable mitigation” relief in settlements only after considering a set of precautions “to ensure that our civil enforcement actions do not overstep the bounds set by Congress.”

Equitable mitigation refers to Justice Department lawyers’ practice of asking courts to force companies to remedy alleged violations by offsetting related environmental harms. It’s a form ...