Media, Law & Policy

TRAC: Federal water pollution convictions decrease in past decade

Thursday, October 14, 2010, By News Staff

According to a new analysis of Justice Department data by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), during the first two years of the Obama administration, federal criminal convictions for water pollution remain lower than any year since the first Clinton administration. According to the latest information, there have been 23 convictions under “33 USC 1319-Water Pollution Enforcement” through July 2010, a 50 percent decrease from 10 years ago.

For details, view the full report at: http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/environ/241.

According to TRAC, if this activity continues at the same pace, the annual total of convictions will be 28 for this fiscal year, down 12.5 percent over the past fiscal year when the number of convictions totaled 32.

TRAC is a data gathering, data research and data distribution organization at Syracuse University. The purpose of TRAC is to provide the American people—and institutions of oversight such as Congress, news organizations, public interest groups, businesses, scholars and lawyers—with comprehensive information about staffing, spending and enforcement activities of the federal government.