We've mentioned before in this blog the reports from TRAC that quantify this administration's environmental enforcement record -- uneven and declining. Check out their latest report, which tracks the rates of declining enforcement with the specific environmental statutes that are decreasingly enforced; here's an excerpt: While the government's overall pollution enforcement effort is definitely down, the new data base shows that for last 12 years the government's enforcement trends have somewhat varied, depending on the particular statute under examination.

You make a mess, you clean it up: that's the classic principle behind Superfund, which forces polluters to pay for the clean-up of their messes. Forced, that is: Today, September 30th, marks the one year anniversary of the bankruptcy of the Superfund Trust Fund. The federal Superfund toxic waste program ran out of polluter-contributed funds exactly a year ago, leaving taxpayers with the entire bill. Once the Bush administration refused to honor the polluter pays principle, they stopped holding big oil and chemical companies accountable for the messes they made.

It's beginning to sound like a broken record. The Washington Post reported today that food industry lobbyists met with the Bush administration 10 times during the crafting of rules to protect our food supply from bioterrorism. The result? A weaker rule than the one originally proposed by FDA.

In case you missed it, the Seattle Times has a story today about John Graham, head of the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. It is a broad profile of Graham's work in that office. For more details on his history and the "intellectual" underpinnings of his approach to his work in this administration, be sure to check out an excellent analysis put out by Public Citizen when Graham was nominated for the job. PubCit carefully documented a history of Graham taking corporate money and -- surprise!