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ALSO SEE: Another Putin Critic Dies After Falling Out a Window
Pavel Antov - December 2022
Russian tycoon reportedly fell from a hotel window in Rayagada, India, on December 25 days after his 65th birthday.
The politician and millionaire criticized Putin's war with Ukraine following a missile attack in Kyiv earlier this year on WhatsApp but quickly deleted the message and claimed that someone else wrote it, the BBC reported.
"Our colleague, a successful entrepreneur, philanthropist Pavel Antov passed away," Vice Speaker of the Regional Parliament Vyacheslav Kartukhin said on his Telegram channel, Russian media outlet TASS reported. "On behalf of the deputies of the United Russia faction, I express my deep condolences to relatives and friends."
Ravil Maganov - September 2022
Lukoil chairman Ravil Maganov had been openly critical of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, CNBC reported. Shortly after the war began, the oil company called for "the soonest termination of the armed conflict," per the report.
Maganov, similar to Antov, died mysteriously by falling out the window of a Moscow hospital in September, the outlet reported. However, a now-deleted statement from Lukoil said that the 67-year-old died "following serious illness."
Dan Rapoport- August 2022
Businessman Dan Rapoport publicly condemned the Russia-Ukraine war on social media multiple times and emphasized his support for Ukraine, the Daily Beast reported.
He was discovered dead in front of an apartment building in Washington, D.C, in August, according to the report. Police said he had a Florida driver's license, a black hat, just over $2500, and orange flip-flops when he was found.
Mikhail Lesin- November 2016
Russian press minister Mikhail Lesin was found dead of "blunt force trauma to the head" in a Washington, DC, hotel room in November 2015.
Lesin, who founded the English-language television network Russia Today (RT), was considering making a deal with the FBI to protect himself from corruption charges before his death, per The The Daily Beast.
For years, Lesin had been at the heart of political life in Russia and would have known a lot about the inner workings of the rich and powerful.
Alexander Litvinenko- November 2006
Alexander Litvinenko was a former KGB agent who died three weeks after drinking a cup of tea at a London hotel that had been laced with deadly polonium-210.
A British inquiry found that Litvinenko was poisoned by FSB agents Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, who were acting on orders that had "probably approved by Mr Patrushev and also by President Putin."
Litvinenko was very critical of Putin, accusing him of, among other things, blowing up an apartment block and ordering the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya.
Boris Nemtsov- February 2015
Boris Nemtsov was a former deputy prime minister of Russia under Boris Yeltsin who went on to become a big critic of Putin — accusing him of being in the pay of oligarchs.
He was shot four times in the back just yards from the Kremlin as he walked home from a restaurant. Despite Putin taking "personal control" of the investigation into Nemtsov's murder, the killer has not been found.
Boris Berezovsky- March 2013
Boris Berezovsky was a Russian oligarch who fled to Britain after he fell out with Putin. During his exile he threatened to bring down Putin by force. He was found dead at his Berkshire home in March 2013 in an apparent suicide, although an inquest into his death recorded an open verdict.
Berezovsky was found dead inside a locked bathroom with a ligature around his neck. The coroner couldn't explain how he had died.
The British police had, on several occasions, investigated alleged assassination attempts against him.
Natalia Estemirova- July 2009
Natalia Estemirova was a journalist who sometimes worked with Politkovskaya.
She specialized in uncovering human-rights abuses carried out by the Russian state in Chechnya.
She was abducted from outside her home and later found in nearby woodland with gunshot wounds to her head. No one has been convicted of her murder.
Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova- January 2009
Human-rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov represented Politkovskaya and other journalists who had been critical of Putin.
He was shot by a masked gunman near the Kremlin. Journalist Anastasia Baburova, who was walking with him, was also shot when she tried to help him.
Anna Politkovskaya- October 2006
Anna Politkovskaya was a Russian journalist who was critical of Putin. In her book "Putin's Russia," she accused Putin of turning his country into a police state. She was murdered by contract killers who shot her at point-blank range in the lift outside her flat.
Five men were convicted of her murder, but the judge found that it was a contract killing, with $150,000 paid by "a person unknown."
Paul Klebnikov- July 2004
Paul Klebnikov was the chief editor of the Russian edition of Forbes. He had written about corruption and dug into the lives of wealthy Russians.
He was killed in a drive-by shooting in an apparent contract killing, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Sergei Yushenkov- April 2003
Sergei Yushenkov was a Russian politician who was attempting to prove the Russian state was behind the bombing of an apartment block.
He was killed in an assassination by a single shot to the chest just hours after his political organization, Liberal Russia, had been recognized by the Justice Ministry as a party, the BBC reported.
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Flanked by lawmakers and supporters, Gov. JB Pritzker picks up the nearly 800-page criminal justice reform bill after signing it into law during a ceremony at Chicago State University on the South Side, Monday, Feb. 22, 2021. (photo: Ashlee Rezin/Chicago Sun-Times)
Illinois is poised to become the first state to completely eliminate cash bail. Other states have tried versions of what Illinois is about to do.
In a barrage of attack ads before last month’s elections, the Pretrial Fairness Act was derided as a “purge law” that would unleash violent criminals upon the public.
But advocates have argued the law will impose long-needed equality in the criminal justice system and will actually make the public safer.
Other states, red and blue, have tried limited versions of what Illinois is about to do. That has made it difficult to know exactly what to expect.
As researchers at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government found, “There are so many different approaches to bail reform and because few jurisdictions rigorously evaluate the bail reforms they have implemented, there is not a clear blueprint for what works.”
But, they added, “It is notable that none of the studies we analyzed for this report found that bail reforms led to a meaningful increase in crime.”
Why reform bail?
Advocates for bail reform say the criminal justice system is inherently unfair when people with money can get out of jail, even if facing serious charges, while poorer people can end up spending months behind bars for minor crimes.
Under the law, judges will hold detention hearings where prosecutors and defense lawyers argue whether a person poses too much danger to the public to be released or is considered a flight risk.
No one will have to put up money to get out, resolving a basic inequality that has come with considerable social cost, argues Insha Rahman with the Vera Institute of Justice.
“People do better when they are connected to their family [and] they are employed,” Rahman said. “Jail interrupts all of that … and has incredibly negative consequences.”
The longer a person is held in jail, the more likely they are to lose their job or home or connection to family and community. People behind bars are also likely to agree to higher sentences in a plea agreement than people out of jail.
“Being incarcerated means prosecutors have a lot of leverage to seek plea deals,” Rahman said. It also makes it more difficult for attorneys to meet with clients and discuss cases.
More than a third of the people incarcerated in the United States are being held in county or city jails awaiting trials, according to the Prison Policy Initiative. In Illinois, the number of people booked into a jail each year has been rising for decades. In 2019, more than 173,000 people were booked in a jail in the state, the group’s data shows.
“Jurisdictions across the country spend millions and millions, if not billions, of dollars incarcerating people pretrial for no public safety benefit,” Rahman notes.
The savings could be used to target crime in other ways, like more drug treatment programs, more affordable housing and other social services, Rahman said.
Across the country, a growing number of jurisdictions are reevaluating the use of cash bail. As in Illinois, the efforts have met with resistance. There have been problems along the way, but there have been notable successes.
Washington, D.C.
The nation’s capital is often cited as a leading example of the success of bail reform.
Since 1992, the court system in Washington, D.C., has operated under a mandate to limit pretrial detention by emphasizing the release of people under the least restrictive conditions that still ensure they see their cases through and don’t commit new crimes.
While cash bail is not completely prohibited, it has not been the status quo there for three decades. It can only be imposed for those deemed at risk of fleeing the jurisdiction and cannot exceed a person’s ability to pay.
In a report examining the last five years of data, the district’s Pretrial Services Agency found that 83% of people were released to the community at their first court appearance. Most of them were released with certain conditions, like electronic monitoring or supervision by the courts.
Of the remaining 17%, more than half were released after subsequent hearings to determine special conditions and only 7% remained behind bars.
Those who are released can be connected to mental health services and substance abuse treatment if their case warrants it.
The approach appears to be working.
In the five-year analysis, 88% of defendants were not arrested for another crime. Of those who were, less than 2% were alleged to have committed a violent crime.
The appearance rate for defendants has remained similarly high, with 89% of defendants showing up for court.
New Jersey
In New Jersey, court officials have reported similar results after the state passed a slew of criminal justice reforms in 2017 under Republican Gov. Chris Christie, including the near elimination of cash bail.
In 2021, only 23 people were required to post money to be released and only because most of them were accused of violating the initial conditions of their release, according to a report to the legislature.
While many more people were being released from jail, the rate of people appearing at their subsequent court hearings rose to 97% in 2020. The report noted part of the increase could be attributed to the expanded use of phone and video hearings during the pandemic.
Since the reforms passed, New Jersey has not seen a rise in the rate of people charged with new crimes while out on pretrial release. The state did see a spike in 2020, when the rate of defendants charged with felonies increased about 7%. But at the same time, there was a decrease in new lower-level offenses.
“The reality is that there is no magic crystal ball. … These systems are in place to do their best,” said Emily Schwartz, a former public defender who now works at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice.
“Public safety and crime is an issue everyone is concerned with, understandably so,” Schwartz said. “I think unfortunately people are creating linkages (between bail reform and crime) that don’t necessarily exist.”
Less than 1% of defendants arrested in 2020 and released picked up new charges for violent crimes, or offenses that carry the state’s strictest sentences, the state’s data shows.
In an editorial last year, the New Jersey Law Journal declared the state’s reforms “a very significant success” that had a positive effect on lower-income people while not significantly increasing recidivism.
The Journal noted that the number of people denied release for serious crimes had also increased, declaring it “welcome news to those favoring preventative detention.”
Alaska
Not all states that have implemented reforms have stuck with them.
In the early 2010s, Alaska had a problem: The number of people it was jailing was expected to grow faster than the state could keep up with housing for them. And falling oil prices were leading to severe budget cuts.
With bipartisan support, the state passed significant criminal justice reforms that went into effect in 2016, including curtailing the use of cash bail. Senate Bill 91 established a Pretrial Enforcement Division to provide risk assessments of defendants and restricted a judge’s ability to set bail in cases where a defendant’s risk score was low.
A report from the Alaska Judicial Council found that, in the year the reforms were enacted, 75% of defendants were released before trial compared to 48% the previous year with “no difference in the number of rearrests before and after reform.”
But an increase in property crimes, including vehicle thefts, fueled a public uproar over the law, which came to be called “catch and release,” according to Ben Muse, a former public defender in Anchorage.
Six months later, the law was amended to give judges more discretion over bail decisions. The state “essentially went back to the old bail statute,” said Susanne DiPietro, director of the Alaska Judicial Council.
Muse believes the reasons for the increase in certain crimes was more complex than people getting out of jail without paying cash bail, including a shortage of public housing and an opioid epidemic.
The law also didn’t do enough to help people with social services like drug treatment, he said. “An extremely common scenario would be for addicts to steal cars so they had a warm place in the winter to use heroin,” Muse said.
Given the whiplash, it’s extremely difficult to find any conclusive impact of bail reform in the state, DiPietro said.
Now, more than half of the state’s incarcerated population is being held pending trial, worse than before the bail reform was passed, according to DiPietro, who also cautioned that the reason for that is unclear and likely complicated by crime trends during the pandemic.
New York
New York got rid of cash bail for most misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies in 2020. But months later, amid an increase in violent crime that mirrored national trends during the pandemic, lawmakers began adding charges that could keep people in.
They are now considering further rollbacks, particularly after an election season dominated by tough-on-crime rhetoric that may have lost congressional seats for Democrats.
Rahman from the Vera Institute of Justice, which is based in New York, believes the state failed because it did not follow the example of its neighbor New Jersey.
“New Jersey did implementation really well,” Rahman said, pointing to the two years the state spent working with stakeholders and gathering data.
“New York did not do implementation,” she added. “They rushed to put the new law into effect and there was no deliberate process for getting buy-in from across all of the audience that need to be brought in. And almost three years later, New York is still facing a lot of backlash around bail reform and there’s talk of more rollbacks.
“Illinois, I think, has done a remarkable job,” Rahman said.
Illinois
Cash bail is set to be eliminated in Illinois on Jan. 1, though a Kankakee County judge is hearing legal challenges from many counties and is expected to issue a ruling by the end of the year.
The law was included in the sweeping SAFE-T Act, which includes other court and police reforms. Under the act, the Illinois Supreme Court created a new statewide office for pretrial services, including risk assessment of people who are arrested. Cook County implemented pretrial risk assessment in 2015.
Risk assessments have become one of the most popular pretrial reforms nationally, the Harvard researchers found, and they play an important role when cash bail is no longer required.
“Everyone wants to be safe,” Rahman said. “It’s a kitchen table issue.”
At the same time, she believes bail reform is gaining momentum as more people know someone caught in the criminal justice system.
“In this country,” Rahman said, “we are at a point where one out of two people — so that’s a lot of Democrats, a lot of Republicans, a lot of independents, a lot of everybody else — has had a loved one who has been incarcerated at some point.”
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The highly rated variety of medical marijuana known as "Blue Dream" was displayed among other strains at a cannabis farmers market in Los Angeles in 2014. (photo: Fredric J. Brown/Getty)
‘You’d think they would have shown compassion’: patient’s son decries Kansas police who issued citation as father suffered
The encounter took place in mid-December, when police in the city of Hays say two officers showed up at the cancer patient’s hospital room to issue him a citation for a drug violation. Police also took away a vaping device and cannabis product that hospital staff had already confiscated.
While the police department later dropped the citation, which would have required the cancer patient to appear in court, reports of the incident fueled debate over the continued criminalization of cannabis in Kansas, one of the three US states that has not legalized the product in any context.
While he was glad the charge against his father was dropped, Lee Bretz, the patient’s son, said the incident was “humiliating” for his father and left him “pretty upset”.
His father, who has terminal, inoperable cancer, was issued a “must appear” citation for drug possession, Bretz said. “He can’t make it to court. He’s bedridden. He can’t move his legs.”
“You’d think they would have shown a lot of compassion and not done anything,” his son said of the officers who responded to the incident.
A spokesperson for the Hays medical center in Hays, Kansas, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Greg Bretz, the 69-year-old cancer patient, initially told an opinion columnist for the Wichita Eagle that he was “flat on my back” in his hospital bed, and that he had been using a vaping device and eating some THC paste on bread to cope with the symptoms of his disease.
A doctor had told him that it was fine “to do whatever he wants if it makes him feel better”, since there were no medical treatments left for him other than hospice care, he said.
On 19 December, hospital staff contacted the Hays police department about a patient vaping in a hospital room, which “they were concerned about as a potential fire hazard”, and also possessing THC, “which is illegal in the state of Kansas”, Hays police chief Don Scheibler said.
An initial report of the police interaction with the cancer patient as a “Christmastime hospital-room raid” was inaccurate, Scheibler said. “It’s not a raid.”
Scheibler said he had reviewed an audio recording of the two officers’ interaction with the patient in the hospital room, which he said lasted “less than eight minutes” and in which officers were “polite, courteous, respectful” to the frustrated patient, while issuing him a citation for a drug violation with a court date of 26 January.
The police officer who issued the drug citation to the cancer patient had second thoughts, the police chief said, and, that same day, after a discussion with a supervisor, emailed the city prosecutor, recommending that he dismiss the charge.
“At the end of the day, they showed compassion and empathy, and that’s what they want from law enforcement,” Scheibler said. “They made the decision to write the ticket and made the recommendation to dismiss it on their own. It wasn’t anything that happened in the news.”
Because of the Christmas holiday, the city prosecutor had not seen the email about dismissing the charge until after the police interaction with the cancer patient had already become a viral news story, the police chief said. He said he personally let the patient know on 27 December that the police department was not pursuing the citation and that he would not have to appear in court.
More than a hundred people have called or emailed the Hays police department, upset about news reports of officers’ interactions with the cancer patient, the chief said. Local news outlets reported that the hospital had also received threats in the wake of the reported incident.
“As a police officer, we don’t determine what the law is,” Scheibler said. “I think the discussion about medical marijuana needs to happen.”
Lee Bretz, the patient’s son, said he hoped Kansas would legalize medical marijuana soon. “Nobody wants to see their loved ones hurting, and you’d do anything to see them not hurt,” he said.
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A five-year-old jaguar named Jatobazinho was released back into the wild at Ibera national park, in the north-eastern Argentinian province of Corrientes, on 31 December 2021. (photo: Matias Rebak/Getty)
The big cats once roamed North America but have been pushed near to extinction. Could they make a comeback?
The dark-spotted big cat, a male known as “Sombra” to wildlife researchers, wanders between three mountain ranges, hunting for deer and piglike javelinas and, perhaps, searching for a mate.
The last known female jaguar north of the Mexican border was shot by a hunter in 1963, so Sombra’s chances of producing offspring to continue the US population are near zero.
This month, conservationists called on the federal government to stop big cats like Sombra from going extinct in the US by reintroducing jaguars to the region and increasing protections for the animals’ habitat.
The non-profit Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the US Fish and Wildlife Service to create an experimental population of jaguars in the Gila national forest, a sprawling, rugged 3m-acre wilderness in New Mexico dotted with pinyon pines. They also called for protections for millions of acres of wildlands in New Mexico and Arizona, including the tracts where Sombra currently lives.
“Jaguars evolved in North America eons ago and lived here until people killed them off for their beautiful pelts and to eliminate a threat to livestock,” says the petition. “Over 50 years since the jaguar was placed on the endangered species list, we should not be facing the realistic prospect that this sole jaguar in Arizona will be the last.”
Researchers believe the cats, known for their reclusive nature, once populated a huge swath of North America, stretching from the Carolinas to California. Now, a small, struggling population lives in northern Mexico near the border and the sleek, long-tailed cats have been known to wander north into the US. But this population has little genetic diversity and faces its own risks of extinction, the researchers say.
Meanwhile, the jaguars’ ability to venture into the US is hemmed in by barriers, including highways and the US border wall.
Michael Robinson, the conservation advocate who drafted the petition for the center, said jaguars could be drawn from healthier wild populations in South America or in southern Mexico, or from captive cats at zoos or rescue centers for the reintroduction.
In Argentina, a “rewilding program” is under way, in which the cubs of captive jaguars are raised in a huge wildland enclosure designed to cut them off from any human contact. They learn to hunt before a gate is opened remotely to allow the cats to return to the wild.
Whatever approach is chosen would involve years of study, negotiation and planning, Robinson said.
The petition argues that the federal government, which funded a team of hunters to exterminate jaguars and other big predators that operated at least into the 1960s, has the responsibility to save native animals now facing extinction.
“The bottom line is that the Endangered Species Act makes it a federal responsibility to recover endangered species,” said Robinson. “We are pointing out that they haven’t done so. They don’t have a plan to save the jaguar and it’s time to take a different approach.”
A ‘turning point’ for Washington
Not much is known about the daily lives of the jaguars in the US, because through most of American history, the focus has been on shooting them, not studying them.
Robinson said ranchers would round them up with packs of dogs. He also explained that in 1915, the federal government appropriated $125,000 to fund a team of hunters, charged with the task of “destroying wolves, coyotes, and other animals injurious to agriculture and animal husbandry”.
Several jaguars have been killed even since they were given protection in 1972. In 2009, the Arizona state game and fish department killed a male jaguar named “Macho B”, after he was wounded in a trap that was allegedly set by an agency contractor. At the time, Macho B was the last known jaguar in the US.
Sombra was first spotted on research cameras in 2016. Researchers believe he was born in Mexico and wandered north. His name, which means shadow in Spanish, was given to him by a group of Tucson middle school students.
Since 1964, at least nine distinct jaguars have been spotted on US lands in the only way researchers ever see them in the wild: by using trip cameras with night vision and motion detector technology. But all are believed to have been male.
A spokesperson for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which has been sued by conservation groups in the past to get it to take more steps to ensure the jaguars’ survival, said the agency cannot comment on petitions while they are under review. But, responding to a 2021 study concluding New Mexico and Arizona would offer suitable habitat for a reintroduction of jaguars, an agency representative told National Geographic that an analysis of jaguars and their habitat was “ongoing”.
Robinson said he hoped Joe Biden’s wildlife-friendly appointments, including the secretary of the interior, Deb Haaland, the first Native American to hold the post, will come to represent a “turning point” in how the US government treats predator populations.
However, opposition from cattle ranchers will probably be fierce. The New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association did not return calls from the Guardian. But it has vehemently opposed plans to restore Mexican gray wolf populations in the south-west, calling them a “death warrant” for rural populations in the region. A spokesperson, speaking to the Albuquerque Journal, called an earlier proposal to save the jaguars’ habitat “ridiculous”.
A 2021 study led by ecologist Eric Sanderson of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) showed that an expanded territory for the jaguars in the south-west, similar to the one proposed in the petition, could accommodate 90 to 150 jaguars. That’s a large enough population to be sustainable.
The study concluded that restoring the jaguars would have little effect on human or livestock populations. It cited a 2001 book which found no evidence of anyone ever being killed by a jaguar in the US. “Reports of unprovoked attacks by jaguars are extremely rare,” that book said. “And most of these take place prior to 1850 so they are now nearly impossible to verify.”
Jaguars, which the federal government has described as “cryptic and difficult to detect”, have been known to occasionally attack livestock. But the study cited evidence collected from Mexican jaguar populations, suggesting that livestock mortalities would be expected to be very few. “Such losses may be minimized by proactively deploying mitigation strategies”, such as employing range riders to scare off predators from cattle in specific hotspots and compensating ranchers for lost animals, the report said.
It also concluded a reintroduced jaguar population could provide ecotourism benefits, similar to the reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone national park, which was estimated to generate $5m a year in ecotourism revenues.
“The fact that we spent something like 400 years trying to get rid of carnivores in the United States makes it a big idea for us to try and bring them back,” Sanderson said. “Ultimately, it’s about what it means to be an American and what it means to be an American in nature. To me, it’s not complete and it’s not right without jaguars.”
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District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly said residents 'must have an honest and accountable representative'. (photo: David Becker/Washington Post)
District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly said residents “must have an honest and accountable representative”
The district attorney, Anne T. Donnelly (R), said in a statement: “The numerous fabrications and inconsistencies associated” with Santos “are nothing short of stunning.” The residents in the congressional district “must have an honest and accountable representative in Congress” and “if a crime was committed in this county, we will prosecute it.” Donnelly’s spokesman, Brendan Brosh, said in a statement, “We are looking into the matter.”
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Supporters of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro attacked federal police headquarters when Lula's victory was certified on December 12 (photo: Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters)
Some supporters of outgoing far-right President Jair Bolsonaro have called for a coup to prevent a transition of power.
Justice Alexandre de Moraes issued the temporary suspension on Wednesday, which covers both firearms and ammunition. The measure will be in effect starting this evening until January 2, the day after Lula’s inauguration.
Lula’s team reportedly requested the suspension amid concerns about potential violence.
Tensions have remained high in Brazil following Lula’s narrow victory over far-right President Jair Bolsonaro on October 31. Bolsonaro supporters have responded with acts of political violence, with some calling for a military coup to prevent Lula from being sworn in.
In the days following Bolsonaro’s loss, truckers and other protesters erected roadblocks at 271 points on Brazil’s highways, in an attempt to roll back the election results. And Bolsonaro supporters have set up camps near military barracks to encourage the army to act.
One group camping outside of army headquarters in Brasilia has developed a reputation as the most extreme. On December 12, members of the encampment attacked federal police headquarters in Brasilia following the official certification of the election results earlier in the day.
Last Saturday, a man was arrested for allegedly trying to set off a bomb to protest Lula’s win. He said that Bolsonaro had inspired him to build an arsenal of weapons.
For years, Bolsonaro spread false claims about widespread fraud in the country’s election system, hinting that he would not accept an election loss. In October’s presidential election, Bolsonaro delivered an unexpectedly strong performance in the first round, with 43.2 percent of the vote, but he nevertheless trailed his left-wing rival, Lula.
With neither candidate winning a clear majority, the election went to a second round, and on October 30, Lula emerged victorious. Since his defeat, Bolsonaro has mostly stayed silent. In a speech days after the election, he said he would follow the constitution but did not acknowledge Lula’s victory outright.
In November, Bolsonaro and his allies filed a complaint challenging the election results.
That effort was shot down by Moraes, who oversees Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court (TSE). He issued a fine against Bolsonaro’s coalition for bringing a complaint with a “total absence of any evidence”.
During his tenure in office, Bolsonaro rolled back restrictions on gun ownership, with the number of registered gun owners growing sixfold to about 700,000.
As Lula’s inauguration approaches, officials have expressed concern that Bolsonaro’s far-right supporters could create a dangerous atmosphere, and incoming Justice Minister Flavio Dino said that the court’s ruling would help ensure security.
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Executives at the Shell Chemical petroleum refinery in Norco, Louisiana, agreed to install $10 million in pollution monitoring and control equipment in 2018 to settle allegations it was violating the Clean Air Act. (photo: Drew Angerer/Getty)
The Environmental Integrity Project said the 72 civil enforcement cases closed in court during the fiscal year that ended in September under President Joe Biden’s administration was the “lowest number in at least 22 years.”
The Trump administration’s EPA closed an average of 94 cases per year while the Obama administration averaged 210 per year, the report says.
“The Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency was expected to step up enforcement of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and other environmental laws after the investigation and prosecution of polluters reached new lows under the Trump administration,” the group said in a statement. “It has yet to keep that promise, thanks to a refusal by Congress to reverse more than a decade of budget cuts or to confirm President Biden’s nominee to head EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance.”
The number of people working in EPA’s civil enforcement program has fallen from 3,294 in 2012 to 2,253 in 2022. There were 189 criminal enforcement EPA agents in 2012 but that number had fallen to 155 by 2022, the report says.
“The professional staff at EPA appears to be doing the best it can with increasingly limited resources,” said Eric Schaeffer, the Environmental Integrity Project’s executive director and the former director of civil enforcement at EPA. “But they are not helped by ruthless budget cuts and the inability of the Senate to confirm President Biden’s pick for Assistant Administrator of EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, David Uhlmann.”
Uhlmann, a former chief of the environmental crimes section of the U.S. Department of Justice and director of the University of Michigan’s environmental law program, was nominated in June 2021 for the post, but saw his confirmation vote stalled.
“The former president’s hostility to EPA and to the enforcement of environmental laws in particular are well known,” Schaeffer said. “But Democrats have controlled the House of Representatives for the past four years and the Senate for the past two. At this point, the Congressional refusal to support the enforcement of environmental laws it enacted is a bipartisan problem.”
U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., placed holds on Biden’s nominees over a dispute with EPA about Louisiana’s application to permit, site and monitor carbon sequestration wells. (A hold is an informal practice in which a senator informs Senate leadership that they object to a floor vote on a nomination or measure.)
In August, the Senate voted to discharge Uhlmann’s nomination from the Committee on Environment and Public Works, where it had been held up, but it has yet to come to the floor for a vote.
“Senator Cassidy does not have a hold on any EPA nominees because none of those who have been considered in committee have been brought to the Senate floor for a final vote,” a spokesperson for the senator said. “The senator does not plan on holding Uhlmann should he be brought to the Senate floor, however the senator plans to hold other nominees. … EPA continues to block the state government’s ability to lower emissions via capturing and storing CO2, which is a vital step in preserving existing jobs and strengthening Louisiana’s economy.”
In the meantime, however, enforcement at hundreds of facilities with major air and water pollution violations is languishing, the report contends.
“EPA enforcement records show at least 257 major sources of air pollution with high priority violations that have persisted for more than 30 months without any real enforcement response,” the Environmental Integrity Project said. “Similarly, discharge monitoring reports show that more than 900 facilities have violated water pollution limits at least 50 times over the past three years but faced no significant enforcement action.”
Budget negotiations
The EPA’s overall budget was nearly $9.5 billion in 2012, with a workforce of 17,106. For the fiscal year that ended in September, it had a budget of nearly $9.6 billion and 14,581 employees.
Per the EPA, the budget for the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance was $593 million in 2011, falling to $539 million in 2022.
“The EPA is proud of its accomplished enforcement work in Fiscal Year 22, especially considering the resource constraints the agency continues to face as a result of a decade of declining enforcement budgets,” said Melissa Sullivan, an EPA spokeswoman. In an executive order in 2021, Biden directed EPA to strengthen enforcement of violations “with disproportionate impact on underserved communities.”
“Our targeted enforcement work in overburdened and vulnerable communities significantly increased over past years and demonstrates the administration’s commitment to holding polluters accountable,” Sullivan said. “President Biden’s budget calls for a significant increase in enforcement resources that would help reverse the decline in enforcement numbers that has occurred over the last decade.”
In the budget for the fiscal year that ends in September of 2023, Biden’s administration sought a total EPA budget of nearly $11.9 billion, about 1,900 new full time employees and an additional $213 million for civil enforcement efforts.
Late last week Congress passed appropriations legislation that includes a $10.1 billion EPA budget, less than Biden sought but still an increase of $576 million. It includes an additional $71.6 million for enforcement and compliance.
“We’re pleased to see Congress is increasing EPA’s enforcement budget in their 2023 omnibus spending bill, and call on our leaders to take immediate steps to further improve enforcement of environmental laws by confirming David Uhlman as head of EPA’s enforcement and compliance office as soon as possible,” said Patrick Drupp, the Sierra Club’s deputy legislative director.
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