DOJ Highlights Environmental Success, Recognizes Earth Day
In honor of Earth Day, April 22, the Department of Justice (DOJ) Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD) released the divisions’ Accomplishments Report for Fiscal Year (FY) 2022.
ENRD worked on roughly 4,000 matters, obtained over $820 million in civil and criminal fines, penalties, and costs recovered, and secured federal injunctive relief valued at $3.1 billion. ENRD says its actions saved the U.S. taxpayer more than $2.1 billion.
Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim says the division had “remarkable success” in FY 2022, with favorable outcomes in 100 percent of civil enforcement cases, 91 percent of civil defensive cases, 95 percent of criminal cases, and 100 percent of condemnation cases.
“In the past year, ENRD has taken great strides in advancing the interests of the American people in environmental and natural resources matters,” said Assistant Attorney General Kim.
Among the areas prioritized were efforts to fight climate change:
· ENRD targeted illegal flaring of waste gases at chemical plants and obtained settlements at multiple facilities in Texas and Louisiana.
· Settled cases to strengthen detection and repair at eight natural gas processing plants in Colorado.
· Filed cases to protect water and other natural resources as well as shield Indian tribes from climate change and its effects.
· Filed cases to enforce laws that protect forests, wetlands, and other areas around the country including cases in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Missouri.
· Handled the defense of climate-related regulations.
· Defended Biden Administration efforts to shift energy production to cleaner sources.
Also highlighted in the report was ENRD’s commitment to environmental justice.
· ENRD established the Office of Environmental Justice to engage all of DOJ in the collective pursuit of environmental justice.
· Issued a comprehensive environmental justice strategy.
· Authorized the use of settlements that include supplemental environmental projects— to further the goals of federal environmental laws.
And the report discussed some of the prosecutions of environmental crimes, including one case were ENRD partnered with the criminal division and the U.S. Attorneys’ Office for the Eastern District of Michigan to successfully prosecute FCA US (formerly known as Chrysler) for conspiracy to defraud regulators and customers about emissions control systems in vehicles.
Formation of TIMBER Working Group
As part of EarthWeek, ENRD hosted a roundtable on the newly created Timber Interdiction Membership Board and Enforcement Resource (TIMBER) Working Group. The Working Group is comprised of DOJ, the Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Department of the Interior (DOI), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the U.S. Council on Transnational Organized Crime’s Strategic Division.
The goal is to fight illegal timber trafficking and deforestation, which contributes to climate change.
“The members of the Working Group each bring to this important work their particular expertise, their dedication to the rule of law in the environmental arena, and their commitment to their respective agency missions of conservation, environmental protection, and public service,” said Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General Benjamin Mizer.
The group will work to target resources across the federal government to identify and investigate complex timber trafficking cases, develop new tools and techniques to investigate and prosecute such cases, and build partnerships with governments worldwide to fight illegal timber trade.