EPA official resigns saying Firms that pollute go unpunished

March 2, 2002

EPA official resigns, angry at Bush team

Firms that pollute go unpunished, he says

Los Angeles Times

Friday, March 1, 2002

Washington -- A top enforcement official with the Environmental Protection

Agency has resigned, saying in a two-page letter that the Bush

administration has not cracked down on companies that pour 7 million tons of

toxic substances into the air every year. Read letter

V. Schaeffer ended his 12-year EPA career Wednesday with a missive

accusing the administration of dragging its feet on lawsuits filed against

nine power companies he blamed for one-quarter of the nation's annual sulfur

dioxide pollution -- a gas known to cause haze, acid rain and lung ailments.

Schaeffer, the agency's director of regulatory enforcement and a decorated

civil servant, said he has been " fighting a White House that seems

determined to weaken the rules we are trying to enforce. "

Addressed to EPA Administrator Christie Whitman, the letter said the

administration's 90-day review of clean-air laws had stretched to nine

months, derailing negotiations with the nine power companies and weakening

attempts to regulate coal-fired smokestacks built without the updated

pollution controls required by law.

Two of those companies agreed more than a year ago to consent decrees that

would have decreased sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide pollution levels by

750, 000 tons. But those companies -- Cinergy and Vepco -- are now " hedging

their bets, " refusing to sign the decrees until they see where the White

House lands on reforming the Clean Air Act, Schaeffer said.

" Fifteen months ago, it looked as though our lawsuits were going to shrink

these dismal statistics. . . . Today, we seem about to snatch defeat from

the jaws of victory, " he wrote.

The EPA rejected Schaeffer's contentions, saying it " remains committed " to

enforcement and to reducing air pollution from power plants.

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