Two years ago, in a campaign ad aimed at the oil and gas industry, Shapiro blamed corporate influence over Pennsylvania’s politicians as the reason for lax enforcement of environmental laws.

“The last eight years, the fracking industry has spent over $40 million dollars on lobbying in Pennsylvania. So it’s no surprise that, even though they’ve had over 4,000 violations, all they’ve ever gotten was just a slap on the wrist.

“It’s time for that to change…I’ll hold the oil and gas companies criminally liable for poisoning our air and our drinking water. I’ll be an Attorney General who alway works for you.” – Josh Shapiro Campaign Video, 2016.

Shapiro campaigned on holding the oil and gas industry accountable, but that didn’t explicitly include a promise to take on the public officials in charge of policing it.

In an email to Public Herald, Chief Deputy Attorney General Steven Santarsiero wrote, “As we’ve discussed, the OAG does not have criminal jurisdiction in oil and gas matters absent a referral from a relevant state agency or from a district attorney’s office.” (emphasis added)

But neither Santarsiero, nor the Attorney General’s Communications Officer Joe Grace, would confirm or deny whether a referral is also required to investigate the actions of public officials.

As previously reported by Public Herald, OAG Director of Communications Joe Grace wrote via email that, “By law, the Office of Attorney General has authority to investigate state officials or employees for criminal conduct affecting the performance of their public duties, whether the matter involves the environment or any other issue.”

But Grace would not elaborate about what kind of DEP “criminal conduct” the OAG could pursue. Would they, for example, prosecute DEP for refusing to investigate a citizen’s water complaint or test drinking water? DEP is mandated to do both according to state law, but has ignored some citizen’s requests for help.

(Examples of this are included in our February report. This evidence was mailed to the Attorney General in April, and his office confirmed receipt.)

“I spoke with [an OAG agent] just last week,” said Craig Stevens, whose water was impacted back in 2011. In 2013, his water tasted like metal, and he developed recurrent nosebleeds.

“[The agent] told me they’ve asked higher-ups at DEP why they weren’t doing their job. So, if they’re talking to DEP, are they going to press charges for the crimes DEP’s committed over the last decade? What about the people who’ve been living on bottled water for eight years? What will happen to them?

“Does DEP get to just keep issuing fracking permits, business-as-usual, and continue letting oil and gas companies get away with not fixing the water?”