Two years ago, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency began an investigation of the Ohio EPA based on a series of complaints filed by interest groups, and in the process, may have scuttled a presidential nomination.
The complaints filed by Ohio Citizen Action, the Ohio Public Interest Research Group, Rivers Unlimited and the Sierra Club asked the U.S. EPA to take a closer look at how the Ohio EPA is implementing federally mandated programs. These groups called on the U.S. EPA to take away Ohio’s delegated authority on the Clean Air Act.
The U.S. EPA delegates the authority to states like Ohio to maintain Federal laws like the Clean Water Act. The states act as the first line of defense and the U.S. EPA is the ultimate line of defense.
Laws passed by Congress go to the U.S. EPA, which works under the executive branch for implementation in the states. The state EPAs work on proposing regulations which need to be approved by the U.S. EPA.
When states apply for a new program, it takes a while for them to get delegated authority for the programs. The states pay a fee to regulate these programs and are responsible for supplying manpower to maintain them.
“The state never really funded the agency like they agreed to do,” said environmental law professor emeritus Earl Finbar Murphy.
Over the past few years funding has improved, but it still wasn’t enough to repair the damage already done.
The preliminary report, issued by the agency’s region five office in Chicago at the beginning of September, set off a chain reaction of events. Rumblings of the report reached Washington D.C., where Donald Schregardus, the former director of the Ohio EPA, was being nominated by President Bush for a national position in the EPA.
As support for his nomination waned and threats of a more in-depth investigation by Congress grew, Schregardus withdrew his nomination.
The report states the Ohio EPA is lacking in its air quality measures. This means the U.S. EPA can possibly take back delegated authority, but most likely will not. When taking back delegated authority, the U.S. EPA typically does not take back a whole program, just individual initiatives.
Within the next month, the Ohio EPA will have a response and a public meeting will be held with the U.S. EPA to explain the final report, said Carol Hester, Chief of Public Interest Center for the Ohio EPA.
In a positive light, Ohio’s criminal environmental enforcement program is noted to be one of the best in the country, Hester said.
The Ohio EPA maintains understaffing is a major problem they are facing when trying to implement the programs. Due to the downturn of the economy and other budget cuts, the agency is not able to maintain a staff to monitor all the risky businesses in Ohio.
With the final report due out in a few months, the U.S. EPA will most likely set a timetable up for the Ohio EPA to improve their shortcomings.
When asked about the report, the governor’s office said that they’ll stand behind the director of the Ohio EPA on any course of action the agency decides to take.
“Ohio EPA will issue their statements on the report to the U.S. EPA and hope that the information provided will be included in the final report,” Hester said.
