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S Criminal Environmental Investigations Lead to Impressive Conviction Rate . The U.S. General Accounting Office The GAO report also indicates that inves- cute since fiscal year 1983 has grown consid- (GAO) recently released a summary tigative activity has been increasing in recent erably. In the 335 cases where charges were of criminal environmental cases filed years. In 1990, EPA referred 66 criminal actually Fled, a total of 743 individuals and with the Department of Justice (DOJ) be- investigations to DOJ. The following two corporations were named as defendants. tween October 1, 1987 and May 31, 1993. years saw S 1 and 109 referrals,respectively. The review contains statistics on investiga- It should be noted. however, that DOI's En- During the subject period, DOJ closed tions referred for prosecution, indictments, vironment and Natural Resources Division cases against 630 defendants,with 532 either case dispositions,and sanctions imposed dur- released data suggesting that slightly less convicted or pleading guilty. Charges were ing this period. The statistics show that the than half of all completed criminal environ- C, dismissed against 46 of the defendants,while number of cases filed has risen steadily since mental investigations actually yielded formal 52 were acquitted.Although the overall con- 1987. Moreover, the review indicates that charges; between October 1, 19S7 (fiscal viction rate was 91.1%, corporations and DOJ is tough on both individuals and corpo year 1988)and May 31, 1993,DOJ declined businesses were convicted more frequently ' rations convicted of committing environ- to prosecute 380 investigations. than individuals. The department convicted mental crimes. 95.67o of all corporations that allegedly com- Indietments and Dispositions mittedenvironmental crimes,while individu- The review was presented as testimony als were convicted at a lower rate of 88.717c. before the Committee on Energv and Com- As depicted in Figure 1, the number of Table 1 shows acomplete breakdown of case merce's Subcommittee on Oversight and In- investigations that DOJ has chosen to prose- dispositions. vestigations within the House of Repre- sentatives.The testimony document,entitled "Environmental Crime: Issues Related to Justice's Criminal Prosecution of Environ- mental Offenses,"was released November 3, 80- 1993 by the GAO. Criminal Environmental 60 co Case Statistics ui Between October 1, 1987 and May 31, U ' 1993,DOJ filed 335 criminal environmental 0 cases aeainst 743 defendants. Cases were (__ 40 closed against 630 of these defendants, with d an overall conviction rate of greater than 91%. Most of the cases involved alleged Z violations of the Clean Water Act,CERCLA, 20 I and RCRA. Of the 335 cases filed, alleged violations of CERCLA and RCRA each ac- counted for roughly 25%. 0 R - ' 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 Referrals FISCAL YEAR' Attorneys at DOJ work with agents in the 'Fiscal year is October 1-September 30.Fiscal year 1993 is omitted due to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and incomplete data. EPA (in addition to criminal investigators from other federal,state,and local agencies) in investigating possible environmental vio Source: Adapted from General Accounting Office testimony entitled "Environmental Crime: lations.Alleged violators are then referred to Issues Related to Justice's Criminal Prosecution of Environmental Offenses,"November 1993. DOJ, whose attorneys review the cases and decide whether to prosecute.Of the agencies involved in investigations, EPA referred the largest number of cases to DOJ (61%). The FIGURE 1 FBI referred 34% of the gases, and other Number of Cases Filed by the Department of Justice agencies referred the remaining 5%. 3.8 The Hazardous Waste Consultant: July/August 1994 ©Elsevier Science Inc. 0738-0232/94/$0+$7.00 r