The federal government's anti-pollution detectives have lost their focus, allege government watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

According to documents obtained by Peer under the Freedom of Information Act, the Environmental Protection Agency's investigation unit is understaffed and referring fewer cases for federal prosecution than during the Bush administration.

"We've been contacted by special agents in the EPA's Criminal Investigation Division saying they feel that the program is headed in the wrong direction," said Peer executive director Jeff Ruch.

Peer's announcement, which came days before the 40th anniversary of the EPA's Clean Air Act, is the latest in a series of CID controversies.

During the Bush administration, when the EPA at large was under political pressure to skew many of its scientific decisions in favor of industry, CID investigators were assigned such environmentally-unrelated activities as providing security at Super Bowls and all-star games.

Rather than pursuing corporate wrongdoers, some of the agency's elite, badge-carrying agents became personal errand-runners for then-EPA chief Christie Todd Whitman, who used them to pick up laundry and walk her dogs.

Backlash sparked by attention from Peer and other activists prompted review, and the EPA under President Obama has – despite concerns over chief Lisa Jackson's industry ties and prior pollution enforcement record – been far truer to its mission.

But according to Peer, much work remains to be done.

"The overall point that agents are bringing to us is that the management of CID has lost focus on environmental prosecution as the purpose of the program," said Ruch. "Things are adrift."

Employment records released by the EPA to Peer show that in June, there were just 173 CID investigators (.pdf), well below the 200 required by the U.S. Pollution Protection Act of 1990 and fewer than the 180 investigators employed at the end of the Bush administration.

"You'd think that to the extent you're going to do more enforcement, having more investigators would be a good idea," said Ruch.

According to an EPA statement relayed by agency spokesperson Stacy Kika, those numbers were accurate when sent to Peer in June but no longer apply. "With recent hires, EPA currently has 192 agents in its Criminal Investigative Division and another 20 in the pipeline," said the EPA.

Peer's documents also show that CID referred only 339 cases for federal prosecution (.pdf) in 2009, well below the Bush administration average of 365 cases per year. The agency doesn't conduct prosecutions itself, but suggests candidates for legal action to the Department of Justice.

The EPA replied that it had opened 387 cases in 2009, the highest number in five years. But Ruch said that cases referred are a far more meaningful number.

"Opening a case just means that you've started an investigation, which may or may not be concluded, which may or may not be referred for prosecution," he said. "We're focusing on the number of cases that EPA took to the Justice Department and said, 'You should prosecute.'"

Stated the agency, "Special agents are carefully allocating our finite resources by going after the biggest, most serious offenders."

Peer will deliver further critiques of CID in coming months, said Ruch.

"What we're hearing, on an anecdotal basis, is that a lot of the focus is on bureaucratic minutiae, at the expense of putting polluters in jail," he said.

*Image: Chemical waste on a beach in Lake Charles, Louisiana photographed in 1972 by Marc St. Gil as part of the EPA's Documerica project. *

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Brandon Keim'sTwitter stream and reportorial outtakes; Wired Science on Twitter. Brandon is currently working on an ecological tipping point project.