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EPA criminal sanctions align with a county's wealth, not pollution, study finds
- February 23, 2026 at 9:20 PM
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When the federal government brings its toughest environmental enforcement actions against polluters, they tend to be in communities of greater wealth, not the most polluted places. That's the takeaway from a new paper co-authored by a Washington State University researcher that examined criminal prosecutions by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from 2011 to 2020 in every U.S. county. The findings are published in the journal Nature Sustainability.
Originally published at Phys.org