Environmental Enforcement Watch

Congressional Report Card
Alabama; seat held by Richard Shelby since 1987
Snow

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Introduction

Why Report Cards on compliance with and enforcement of Environmental Laws?

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is charged by Congress to enforce laws that protect people from air pollution, water pollution and hazardous waste. Without effective enforcement, these laws are meaningless. Based on data from EPA’s Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO) database this report card reviews violations, inspections and enforcement actions under three laws: Clean Air Act (CAA), Clean Water Act (CWA) and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) for this state since 2001. Report cards are available on the EEW website for all members of the key congressional committees that oversee the EPA: the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. The EEW website also has a summary analysis of nationwide enforcement trends and data issues. The report cards contain data from both state environmental agencies and EPA. Provided states are enforcing the above laws, it is because EPA has delegated that authority to them. EPA must ensure that states are doing their job. Congress must ensure that EPA is doing its job. And the public must have accurate data from states and EPA in order to understand if national environmental laws are being properly enforced. For the first time, EEW Congressional Report Cards give members of Congress and their constituents the chance to evaluate whether EPA is fulfilling its mandate in their state. Congress can strengthen EPA enforcement by increasing its budget, passing more effective laws, requiring better data collection, and holding EPA accountable when it fails to protect people.

What is a “regulated facility”?


A regulated facility in this report is a facility that reports air or water emissions under the Clean Air Act or Clean Water Act, or a facility that generates, transports, or disposes of hazardous waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Regulated facilities can be large-scale e.g. oil refineries, or small-scale e.g. dry cleaners.

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Key Changes in this State under the Trump Administration

Clean Water Act Violations*: better than the average over the previous 16 years, representing a 20% decrease in violations


Enforcement Actions under Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act*: worse than the average over the previous 16 years, representing a 45% decrease in enforcement actions

*see data limitations page for metric calculations


*This is an average, it does not mean that every facility has a violation. Some facilities may have many more than 1 or zero.

In AL, there were 40.1 Clean Water Act violations per 100 regulated facilities in 2019.

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Highlights for Alabama


The reliability of data in figures throughout this report is indicated by the figure subtitle and degree of transparency. See the data limitations page (Page 10) to view the transparency-coding table and access state and congressional district data here.

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This State in Comparison


These two charts show how inspections and violations in this state compare to the national average per 1000 facilities in 2019. We use data from 2019 as it was the most recent full year and the ECHO database only reports currently active facilities. To enable comparison across locations with a differing number of active facilities, we standardize the comparison to a value per 1000 facilities, proportionally adjusting the data if there are more or less than 1000 facilities in a district or state.

For access to the Jupyter Notebooks which pull data from ECHO at the state and congressional district level, click here. For national data, click here. The reliability of data in figures throughout this report is indicated by the figure subtitle and degree of transparency. Figure transparency illustrates data reliability: the more transparent, the more uncertain the data. See the data limitations page (Page 10) to view the transparency-coding table

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Recent Non-Compliance in this State

These figures show the ten facilities in this state with the worst history of environmental compliance based on their number of noncompliant quarters in the past 3 years (not necessarily consecutive).

ECHO reports for facilities:

ECHO reports for facilities:

ECHO reports for facilities:

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Clean Air Act

The Clean Air Act (CAA) regulates air emissions from mobile sources, such as cars, and stationary sources, such as refineries and power plants. Please note, in this report we are only utilizing data from stationary air emission sources. For the CAA, violations are most commonly recognized via inspections. Infrequent inspection usually results in fewer identified violations. If CAA violations have decreased, make sure to check whether inspections have also decreased as recent cuts in inspections are likely related to drops in CAA violations. Unless thorough inspections are occurring regularly, fewer violations does not necessarily mean air quality has improved. More info on CAA

There are 1958 facilities currently reporting under the CAA in this state

These figures show patterns of CAA inspections, violations, enforcement actions and fines in this state since 2001 based on available EPA data (see page 10). The bars are colored by president. Figure transparency illustrates data reliability: the more transparent, the more uncertain the data. Data on CAA violations is particularly unreliable as emissions are often not directly monitored but are estimates. Inspection, enforcement, and fine data can be unreliable because state reporting to ECHO may be incomplete.For access to the Jupyter Notebook which pulls data from ECHO at the state and congressional district level, click here.

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Clean Water Act

The Clean Water Act (CWA) establishes quality standards for surface waters. In this report, we focus on CWA’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) which permits facilities to discharge certain kinds and amounts of pollutants. Unlike the CAA, under the CWA effluent (waste emissions) is directly measured and routinely reported electronically to ECHO. CWA violations are automatically triggered if data is not submitted and if contaminant levels in effluent exceed the permitted amount. Such CWA violations can lead to inspections. More info on CWA

There are 10836 facilities currently reporting under the CWA in this state

These figures show patterns of Clean Water Act inspections, violations, enforcement actions and fines in this state since 2001 based on available EPA data (see page 10). The bars are colored by president. Figure transparency illustrates data reliability: the more transparent, the more uncertain the data. Data on CWA violations is particularly reliable as effluent violations are automatically reported to EPA. For access to the Jupyter Notebook which pulls data from ECHO at the state and congressional district level, click here.



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Resource Conservation and Recovery Act

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) gives EPA the authority to control hazardous waste from “cradle-to-grave”, regulating the generation, transportation, treatment, storage, and disposal of hazardous waste. Facilities self-report under RCRA, like the CAA, and violations are most often found after an inspection. If RCRA violations have decreased, make sure to check whether inspections have also decreased as recent cuts in inspections are likely related to drops in RCRA violations. More info on RCRA

There are 5729 facilities currently reporting under RCRA in this state

These figures show patterns of RCRA inspections, violations, enforcement actions and fines in this state since 2001 based on available EPA data (see page 10). The bars are colored by president. Figure transparency illustrates data reliability: the more transparent, the more uncertain the data. Data on RCRA violations is particularly unreliable as violations are not necessarily directly measured. Inspection, enforcement, and fine data can be unreliable because state reporting to ECHO may be incomplete.For access to the Jupyter Notebooks which pull data from ECHO at the state and congressional district level, click here.



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Legislator Information


Richard Shelby (R)

In office since January 6th, 1987

Relevant Committee Membership: Environment and Public Works



The Senate Environment and Public Works Commmittee

This standing committee has broad jurisdiction that has expanded significantly since its creation in 1837. The committee legislates on a myriad of issues including fisheries and wildlife, maintaining and authorizing public works, water pollution and air pollution, among others. It has oversight over seven independent agencies including the EPA. Currently, the Committee consists of 21 members – 11 Republicans and 10 Democrats.


Relevant Subcommittees:


Clean Air and Nuclear Safety


Superfund, Waste Management, and Regulatory Oversight



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About the EPA Data Analyzed in this Report Card and its Limitations

The data in this report is from EPA’s publicly-available ECHO database that compiles information from a number of distinct state and federal sources. However, poor reporting by states and inconsistent reporting schemes result in data gaps and inaccuracies. EPA lists numerous specific issues on its “Known Data Problems” page. In addition, EPA notes that data on inspections, violations, and enforcement actions prior to 2001 should be treated as incomplete and unreliable. For that reason, we have only tracked data back to 2001. In addition to many data entry errors – too numerous to list here – there are several major problems with ECHO:

Data reliability coding

In this report, we have divided data issues into three categories, using transparencies in graphs as well as subtitles to indicate data reliability and completeness. See the table below:

Notes on 2020 data

We do not include data from 2020 because we are only part way through the year. It is important to note, as well, that data from 2020 will be strongly influenced by the EPA’s decision to suspend, from March through August, pollution monitoring requirements for industries that claim to have been impacted by COVID-19. EDGI’s report on this policy “More Permission to Pollute” found that, despite relatively few facilities claiming the COVID exemption, a much larger proportion of facilities are still failing to report environmental data.

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How and why EEW developed the metrics in this report

Page 2: Trump Administration Grade

To enable direct comparison between changes in enforcement and violations since the Trump Administration took office, we calculate the percent change in Clean Water Act violations and enforcement actions per district or state between Trump’s first three years in office, and the historical average in each state from 2001 to 2016. We analyze data since 2001, as EPA is most confident in its own data since 2001. We analyze violations data just for the Clean Water Act because that data is the most complete due to routine digital reporting requirements. We analyze all forms of enforcement actions, informal and formal. All data is drawn from the ECHO database.

We describe rates to be “Much Worse” if the percent increase in violations or decrease in enforcement actions is greater than 100%, “Worse” if the percent change is between 0% and 100% percent and “the same” if there is no change.

We describe rates to be “Better” if violation rates decreased or enforcement rates increased by 0% to 100% and “Much Better” if rates of enforcement or compliance increased by more than 100%.


This District or State in comparison dot plot:


The dot plot shows the number of Clean Water Act violations in this state or district compared to all others in this Senate or House committee in 2019. We use Clean Water Act data as it is the most reliable and use 2019 as we have the most confidence about data per 1000 facilities in that year. We provide this metric as some states’ rates of violations and enforcement may not have changed because their performance is consistently poor or good.

Page 3: Highlights from this State

Trump and Obama Administration comparison: To enable comparison to a more recent administration we compare levels of inspection and enforcement in the first three years of the Obama administration to the first three years of the Trump administration. For these figures inspections and enforcement numbers for the CWA, CAA and RCRA are combined. We compare to only the first 3 years of each Administration’s term for parity.


Facilities in Violation (non-compliant facilities):


To highlight the problem of chronic and routine violations of major environmental laws, this bullet point provides data on the number of facilities in each Congressional District or state which have been out of compliance with environmental laws for 9 or more months in the past 3 years under the Clean Water Act.

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How and why EEW developed the metrics in this report (continued)

Page 4: This State in Comparison

To generate a comparison across states, each of which has a different number of facilities, we look at the average number of violations, inspections and enforcement actions per 1000 facilities. In states where there are fewer than 1000 facilities this requires us to scale up their data.

Page 5: Recent Noncompliance in this State

To examine facilities with consistent records of noncompliance, we provide information on the 10 facilities with the most quarters of non-compliance under the CAA, CWA, and RCRA. Important notes here: These charts show the number of quarters of non-compliance, not exactly which quarters they were out of compliance. Non-compliance shown here may not be consecutive. Quarters can also be confusing: there are 4 quarters in a year, so 12 quarters equals 3 years of time. In some locations there may be more than 10 facilities out of compliance for all 12 quarters. We limit our figures to 10 facilities for space and clarity. A list of 20 facilities can be found in the Jupyter notebook for that district or state. Additionally, the x-axis for these figures displays a maximum of 12 quarters for the CAA and RCRA, but 13 for the CWA. Under the CWA, violations are reported automatically, so we have violations information for the first three quarters of 2020 for the CWA, and only the first two quarters of 2020 for CAA and RCRA.

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