Having Two Sets of Rules is Unjust

Several weeks ago the Department of Justice announced that it would not pursue any criminal charges against anyone involved in the three million ton waste spill in the Animas River because they recognized it was an accident. The EPA was responsible for that clean up. Pacific Legal Foundation Attorney Jonathan Wood wrote a recent op-ed about how the Department of Justice’s decision not pursue any charges is unfair and unjust.
Wood: “The immediate response to this is how can they be so hypocritical, but the point I’m trying to get across is that the hypocrisy is the small issue. The big issue is that we have a severe over-criminalization problem in our environmental law. Too often regulators and bureaucrats use the threat of criminal punishment to go after ordinary people for things that they had no reason to ever think might be a crime. The Animas River Spill demonstrates that they have different standards for their officials than ordinary people. The same standards should apply to both — accidents aren’t crimes. So I think the solution is partly Congress has to do better and the bureaucrats have to be more even-handed. But most importantly we need legal reform so this can’t happen. Another case I that talk about in the op ed is a situation out of Arizona is about a radical environmental group is trying to make the problem worse -- they want more people thrown in jail for accidents that run afoul of environmental regulations -- that is the exact thing we need to stop."