Justice Dept. Said to Stymie EPA in Pollution Fight

WASHINGTON — The chairman of a House panel charged Thursday that the Department of Justice has systematically stifled efforts by the Environmental Protection Agency to obtain tough criminal sanctions against polluters.

Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) promised a series of hearings which he said would expose “a pattern of bizarre and misguided decisions by supervisory personnel in the Environmental Crimes Section at the Department of Justice.”

Dingell brought several witnesses before his Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Emission to describe how the Justice Department settled a pollution case against an agricultural chemicals company for a misdemeanor plea and a $15,000 fine, even though the company had already agreed to plead guilty to felony charges and pay a much larger penalty.

The case, involving PureGro Co. Inc. of Sacramento, was cited by Rep. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) as “a textbook case of how not to be serious about environmental crime.”

In a lengthy statement, the Justice Department defended its performance as one of aggressive enforcement of criminal environmental laws. Over the last 10 years, it said, the department has brought criminal charges against 957 corporate and individual defendants, obtained 711 convictions, and has gotten more than $230 million in criminal assessments.

In 1991, the statement said, the department obtained a $1.25-billion settlement against Exxon for the 1989 Alaska oil spill and $18.5 million in criminal fines against Rockwell International Corp. for pollution at the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons complex in Colorado.