Polluters Ran Amuck Under Romney, Says Watchdog
Polluters Ran Amuck Under Romney, Says Watchdog
—By Kate Sheppard| Thu May. 24, 2012 11:49 AM PDT
As governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney made a number of decisions that significantly limited the state's ability to crack down on environmental crimes, according to the watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).
On Thursday, the group released a recap of Romney's efforts to cut and reorganize the state's enforcement agencies. His time as governor was marked by budget cuts, understaffed and underfunded agencies, and lax enforcement, PEER said.
Just weeks after taking office in 2003, he announced a plan to centralize the state's legal services and lay off as many as half of its attorneys, including many within the Department of Environmental Protection. In rolling out the plan, Romney's chief legal counsel Daniel Winslow singled out environmental positions as a target for cuts in an interview with Lawyers Weekly. Critics said the move would limit the state's ability to prosecute environmental crimes, as the DEP was already "chronically understaffed" and would likely have to drop some cases. In the end, Romney's reorganization plan was stymied by opposition from enviros, unions, and residents.
His administration also cut the DEP's budget by almost a third, and temporarily closed its Northeastern Regional Office in Wilmington, Mass. An internal DEP memo that the Boston Globe obtained noted that these cuts were hurting the state. "Over the long term ... these budget and staffing cuts cannot be sustained without significantly increasing risks to public health and the environment and increasing serious operational and service delivery problems for the agency," it said.
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http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/05/polluters-ran-amuck-under-romney-says-watchdog
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