California district attorneys must pay back misspent environmental funds

Californians are proud of our state’s leadership on environmental issues, and rightfully so. We have some of the toughest and most far-reaching environmental laws in the nation. But there is a key aspect of California’s record where our state has repeatedly fallen short: the enforcement of our environmental laws and the prosecution of violators.

In 2002, in an attempt to rectify this shortcoming, the Legislature enacted the Environmental Enforcement and Training Act. Under the Act, the California Environmental Protection Agency was directed to work with the California District Attorneys Association to ensure that trained local prosecutors would enforce environmental crimes throughout California. State law also directed legal funds to the CDAA specifically for environmental enforcement, particularly in counties that lack sufficient resources, such as low-income areas and communities of color.

However, a recent internal audit of CDAA’s finances revealed that, for the past decade, the district attorneys group has repeatedly misappropriated funds — totaling nearly $3 million — from environmental enforcement. Instead, it has used the money for other purposes, including extensive lobbying efforts in the state Capitol against criminal justice reforms. As a result, the environmental fund is now broke and the CDAA has no resources to enforce California environmental laws, train prosecutors and go after violators.

This outrageous misuse of public resources contravenes California law.

While the CDAA has acknowledged the misappropriation of environmental enforcement funds, that’s not nearly enough. The CDAA must immediately reimburse the environmental enforcement account in full — as demanded recently by a wide range of environmental groups in a letter to the Legislature.

The repeated malfeasance by the district attorneys, our state’s top cops — those most responsible for upholding and enforcing our laws — indicates that the group needs a major overhaul. As the audit indicates, CDAA would not have been able to finance all of their lobbying in Sacramento if it hadn’t been for the fact that the group turned the environmental enforcement account into a slush fund.

Spending environmental enforcement money on lobbying against criminal justice reform is reprehensible. The CDAA needs an immediate course correction to shift its focus back to one of its entrusted responsibilities: protecting California’s residents by ensuring that harm to our air, water, wildlife and natural resources is investigated and prosecuted. The years of neglect must end.

When was the last time you heard or read about a major enforcement action in your community concerning a violation of California environmental laws?

From Exide to Aliso Canyon to the families living near faulty oil and gas infrastructure, too many of our communities have been saddled with the pollution of weakly enforced environmental justice laws. Low-income neighborhoods, in particular, suffer from high rates of health problems because local gross polluters are not being held to account.

Since the release of the audit, the CDAA, instead of renewing its commitment to fulfill its duties under the Environmental Enforcement and Training Act, has launched an attack on one of our colleagues, Assemblymember Sydney Kamlager, D-Los Angeles. Why? Because she decided to publicly criticize the district attorneys’ misappropriation of environmental funds.

To be fair, local prosecutors, by and large, deserve credit and thanks for the enforcement of our laws. But when it comes to defending our environment, the CDAA has failed. Period. That must change. And the group must immediately pay back the $2.8 million it misappropriated.

If that means the CDAA will have to curtail or suspend its lobbying campaigns in Sacramento to comply, so be it. Enforcing California’s environmental laws and protecting our communities from gross polluters is far more important than being a roadblock to criminal justice reform.

After all, what’s the point of California having the toughest environmental laws in the nation if the people entrusted to enforce those laws have no interest in doing so?