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Green Club an EPA charade
The EPA touts the perk-filled program, but has recruited some firms with dismal environmental records.
Xerox Corp., recently elevated to the most elite Performance Track status, has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent by 2012.
"Performance Track was a good fit with what we were already doing and created an opportunity to network with other companies," said Xerox executive Catherine Reeves. "Performance Track pushed us to do more - stretched us to think about setting goals three years into the future instead of one."
Stephen L. Johnson, EPA chief since 2005, said the program encourages companies to brand themselves as environmentally conscious.
"I view that as an essential component of the EPA toolbox, now and for the future," Johnson said. "Who wouldn't want to encourage that?"
Skeptics say that there's no proof that Performance Track works, and that the EPA should not be praising industries that it is required by law to police.
"It's a clear pattern of corporate coziness, deficient accountability, and disregard for the public good," said John Walke, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "The EPA should get back to the business of enforcing clean water and air protections rather than spending precious time and money on PR for polluters."
The EPA insists that enforcement has not slipped during the Bush administration. The agency measures its success by calculating total "commitments," including consent agreements. EPA said commitments since 2005 exceeded $45 billion, a figure it called a record sum.
But by at least one more traditional statistical measure - fines - enforcement is down. Government Accountability Office figures show that overall, enforcement fines against polluters have declined from their peak of $292 million in 1999 to just $137 million in 2007.
Furthermore, a Harvard-University of Pennsylvania study commissioned by the EPA found that companies involved in voluntary programs were no more likely to follow environmental regulations than others.
"One would think from the name - Performance Track - it would be attracting the best environmentally performing companies, and that can't be demonstrated," said the study's co-author, Cary Coglianese, associate dean of the Penn Law School and a leading expert on Performance Track.
"It's not something EPA should be claiming."
A river fouled
Performance Track was created in late 2000, during the waning days of the Clinton administration, as a way to reward green companies and encourage them to do more than merely follow the rules.
Corporate applicants choose four environmental goals - such as energy or waste reduction - and must also promote "environmental stewardship" to the local community.
Applicants must not have had any pollution-related criminal convictions or pending civil suits for the last five years. They also must be in compliance with any court settlement and have had no more than two significant violations in the previous three years.
In theory, a company under fire for its environmental policy should not be a candidate for Performance Track, much less a member.
But records obtained by The Inquirer show that the EPA recruited Olin in 2005, several months after local residents began to complain about the mercury pollution.
Olin's plant in Charleston has not broken any laws or been cited for mercury-related violations since 2003. But the chlorine factory, roughly halfway between Chattanooga and Knoxville on the banks of the Hiwassee, is Tennessee's largest emitter of mercury.
Last year, state officials declared the Hiwassee "impaired." The state posted warnings, saying that eating some fish found there could increase the risk of serious illness in humans. It also warned that children, pregnant women and nursing mothers should avoid the fish, since mercury can impair cognitive development in children.
State tests show levels of mercury in the largemouth bass are 25 percent above the EPA limit, and air tests by environmental groups put mercury concentrations six times above EPA guidelines.
