Everyone knows about the FBI’s famous “Ten Most Wanted” list. The current roster includes murderers, racketeers, kidnappers, drug smugglers, and armed robbers — criminals who represent real dangers to society.
But did you know that the Environmental Protection Agency also has its own FBI-type list of 18 most-wanted environmental fugitives? Their menacing violations include “multiple counts for the blending of motor fuel” (oh my!), selling “R-12 Freon, an ozone depleting substance” (gadzooks!), importing “automobiles that did not meet” U.S. emissions standards (horrors!), giving “indications that the oil-content monitor downstream of the [freighter] vessel’s oily-water separator had been bypassed” (heavens to Betsy!) and aiding and abetting “false entries into an Oil Record Book” (bring out the guillotine!).
The EPA website presents the entire list of these wily, dangerous criminals, complete with downloadable “Wanted Posters.” (I kid you not.) And the EPA website warns: “Do not attempt to apprehend any of these individuals.” My goodness — one of them might spray you with Freon or put a false entry in the maintenance records you keep for your car on how often you change the oil.
The Heritage Foundation has an entire project on overcriminalization, the alarming trend in Congress to try to use criminal law to solve every problem, punish every mistake, and generally coerce Americans into conforming their behavior to satisfy liberal social-engineering objectives. Criminal law is supposed to be used to punish dangerous conduct deserving of the greatest, most substantial punishment. For less serious, less dangerous activities, we’re supposed to use civil penalties. Especially disturbing is the way in which Congress has, over the years, given federal regulatory agencies such as the EPA the ability to criminalize conduct through regulations. Only Congress should have the power to determine what type of intentional and knowingly wrongful conduct is deserving of criminal, as opposed to civil, punishment, and criminal punishment should be the exception rather than the norm.
Maintaining a clean environment is an important public-policy objective. And there is no doubt that there are occasionally serious violations of our environmental laws that should be pursued by the federal government. But creating a most-wanted list for these types of environmental violations, something that the FBI has used to hunt down truly dangerous criminals (and terrorists like Osama bin Laden), trivializes the seriousness of criminal-most-wanted lists and makes a mockery of environmental law. It also makes the EPA look like an out-of-control federal agency that should be featured in National Lampoon or The Onion.
Well, one way to achieve that is to put an end to the ignoring of violations by federal employees. Once the agencies are held to their own and other rules of the CFR you will hear such a hue and cry. Some low level employees do occasionally get held responsible but on the whole and especially for SES, there is a blind eye turned to federal violations of their own rules.
And I'm not talking about regs where the other agencies are specifically exempted even though the agency is conducting the activity of some regulated industry. No, the blind eye is turned on crimes committed just as the blue wall protects police officers
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI agree that the Most Wanted thing is silly, but just so you know, these white collar crime criminals don't just spray people with freon. Just last year one of the individuals on the list pointed a loaded assault rifle at officers who were arresting him pursuant to a legal arrest warrant. Fortunately no law enforcement officers were hurt and the wanted felon survived two gunshot wounds and is now serving well-deserved jail time.
Again, the Wanted List is silly, and one can argue the necessity of criminalizing environmental laws, but just because these guys are not bank robbers doesn't mean they cannot be dangerous.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHans must have some time where he isn't worrying about the new black panther party. But I'm guessing that most Americans do care enough about the environment and understand there are criminal malefactors (often businesses) intent on passing the buck by polluting our natural resources rather than taking care of them as they should. ask the folks downstream of the giant coal ash spill in Tennessee that ruined thousands of homes with health damaging coal ash or the residents of the Gulf Coast still reeling from the Deepwater Horizon. But Hans keeps happy being a mouthpiece for big business and telling us that government is bad and business is always good. No thanks!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseCute nick.
Are you sure you have the right web site?
Sure some businesses create pollution but without exception it is done in order to produce a product or service that people will pay for. And people almost always want to pay the lowest price they can. This means there is always a trade off between cost and side effects. Jeez, is this rocket science to you?
If you really want to do your bit to reduce pollution sell your car and ride a bike.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRE: "But Hans keeps happy being a mouthpiece for big business and telling us that government is bad and business is always good."
That strawman is so massive, that I'd have expect to see Nicolas Cage trapped inside of it, acting poorly. Fire has its upside.
Then again, the defense of any bloated, inefficient, out-of-touch, and fascist government agency or program requires people to fall prey to fall choice fallacies.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe Gulf Coast is just lovely and only reeling because of the jobs lost due to Obama's anti-drilling policies. Expensive environmental policies are good for big business, because they have the economies of scale to handle them. Small businesses, on the other hand, are shut out by regulation. You should be more careful about who is shilling for whom.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYour sneering reference to the "New Black Panther" party is disgusting. When last I checked, voter intimidation was a liberal concern and one that should properly be a concern for all. Your toleration of intimidation of your opponents marks you as a hypocrite, and a dangerous one at that. How ironic it will be on the day that the intimidators come for you.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseConspicuously missing from the list: Egon Spengler, Ray Stantz, Peter Venkman, and Winston Zeddmore. These scofflaws have been operating an unlicensed nuclear device in a Manhattan firehouse since the early 80s.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWow. I never knew that Mr. Spakovsky thought that violating the law should be considered such a humorous matter.
Actually, while there is certainly room for civil penalties, of course intentional violation of environmental law should sometimes lead to criminal sanctions.
Who is worse? Some guy who gets into a bar fight (sanctioned by criminal law) or an executive who pollutes our water supply, causing health problems for many innocent people?
I will tell you who is worse. The executive. By far. Environmental law is quite appropriately enforced with criminal sanctions, depending on the seriousness of the offense.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI don't see why it's so hard to grasp the point of the article, but it is how a huge federal agency has too much time on its hands.
"Wow. I never knew that Mr. Spakovsky thought that violating the law should be considered such a humorous matter."
You should contact the humor police and have him arrested for inappropriate levity.
These guys must be evil people because, after all, they are listed on a government page with mugshots. And we know the government is always wise and never hypes things up.
Of all of the charges, the only material offenses are mail fraud, mishandling contaminated soil, transporting hazmat on an aircraft and illegally dumping oil.
Even in the case of the Valujet guy they're only actually saying that he didn't properly inspect some components that appear to have been completely unrelated to the crash. None of the charges indicate that any person was directly injured as a result of any of these characters' actions.
All the other charges are a collection of completely non-violent, non-dangerous acts that simply violate some regulation, or the ever popular "conspiracy" and "obstruction" which are just padding the charge sheets.
These guys are a bunch of sleazeballs who could be handled by the local police just fine.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseCute nick.
Are you sure you have the right web site?
Sure some businesses create pollution but without exception it is done in order to produce a product or service that people will pay for. And people almost always want to pay the lowest price they can. This means there is always a trade off between cost and side effects. Jeez, is this rocket science to you?
If you really want to do your bit to reduce pollution sell your car and ride a bike.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDialectic Environmentalism. No more scientific and no more effective than its Marxist cousin.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Their menacing violations include 'multiple counts for the blending of motor fuel'(oh my!), selling 'R-12 Freon, an ozone depleting substance'(gadzooks!), importing 'automobiles that did not meet'U.S. emissions standards (horrors!), giving 'indications that the oil-content monitor downstream of the [freighter] vessel’s oily-water separator had been bypassed'(heavens to Betsy!) and aiding and abetting 'false entries into an Oil Record Book'(bring out the guillotine!)."
The man wanted for "the blending of motor fuel" was convicted under Texas state law - not federal law.
The men wanted for "selling R-12 Freon" and for "importing automobiles that did not meet U.S. emissions standards were charged with those crimes because the freon had been smuggled from Mexico and the automobiles had been smuggled from Italy - which looks to me like regulation of international commerce. (They also were charged with mail and wire fraud.)
When you look at the details of these men and their wanted posters it becomes somewhat more apparent why they are wanted.
If Mr. von Spakovsky wants to repeal some laws, then he ought to focus on the specific laws he wants repealed rather than pick selected details from this list to make the entire enterprise of enacting criminal environmental laws sound like federal overreach. And he does nothing in this post to support his assertion that these men are being charged with laws promulgated by regulation rather than by Congress.
I'm quite sympathetic to reducing the number and scope of federal criminal laws, even if some of those laws are aimed at protecting the environment. (Although Mr. von Spakovsky ought to keep in mind that if you make a violation "civil" rather than "criminal", you greatly ease the government's burden of proof and make it more likely that persons will have to pay the lesser penalty.)
And I understand the tactic of picking up something the government does, making it look goofy and then trying to use that goofiness to discredit a larger enterprise - it's a common political tactic.
But if you're going to do that, do a better job - and don't make it so easy for people to look at the underlying facts and conclude "Well heck, that seems like it might warrant a criminal charge."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI work with the EPA fairly often and have found that rather than wanting to facilitate commerce while ensuring laws and regulations are sensibly applied and followed, they want to shut down business and development (i. e., job growth). As one EPA apparatchik recently commented to me, "Who needs terrorism when you have business."
Eliminate the EPA!!!
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"It also makes the EPA look like an out-of-control federal agency that should be featured in National Lampoon or The Onion."
They've been there since 1984's Ghostbusters.
It is an agency with an important agenda; too important to be delegated to the self-inflated, power-craving buffoons who've been running that joint.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFunny how that list did not include those evil importers of Indian and/or Tanzanian wood for making electric guitars. They must be public enemy number one.
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