The Monsanto pesticide case is playing out as the Trump administration racks up what critics say is a dismal record of environmental regulation and enforcement. This summer, for example, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decided not to outlaw a pesticide, chlorpyrifos, that its own scientists say harms brain development in children. The pesticide industry’s trade association, CropLife America, welcomed the decision, saying farmers need the chemical to kill insects that attack crops.

Government enforcement of environmental laws and regulations is “where the rubber hits the road and everything else hits the fan,” as Joel A. Mintz, a professor emeritus of law at Nova Southeastern University and former EPA attorney, wrote in his book Enforcement at the EPA, quoting an experienced insider. Enforcement is how the government ensures laws and regulations are followed. When there’s a violation, enforcement actions can lead to hefty penalties against companies and individuals. Within the government and with attorneys representing defendants, there’s often a debate about what kind of charges and penalties are appropriate, if any, when a company or individual illegally pollutes.

The government has significant enforcement discretion, and enforcement trends can change depending on the priorities of different administrations, among other factors, such as staffing levels. Cynthia Giles, head of EPA enforcement during the Obama administration, contends that the EPA under President Donald Trump is engaged in an “abandonment of enforcement.”

Giles and others point to a decline in initiation of civil enforcement actions, to the lowest levels in more than three decades. The decline has been documented in an internal EPA analysis, a report by the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative, and in a congressional hearing earlier this year. Civil actions can involve monetary penalties, compelling companies to clean up pollution, and other ways of addressing violations. The burden of proof in civil cases is lower than in criminal cases.

“The message is very clear that the federal cop is not on the beat,” Giles told POGO.

Criminal enforcement has also declined. EPA’s referrals to the Justice Department for potential criminal prosecution are generally less common than civil actions. Environmental cases the Justice Department criminally prosecutes tend to involve more serious wrongdoing, such as “significant harm, deceptive or misleading conduct, operating outside the regulatory system, and repetitive violations,” according to analysis by the Environmental Crimes Project at the University of Michigan Law School. Criminal convictions can lead to time in prison.

Lately, criminal referrals and prosecutions have become particularly rare. In 2018, the EPA sent fewer referrals and the Justice Department filed fewer prosecutions for environmental crimes than in any year in the last quarter-century, according to government data compiled by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse and analyzed by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

When it comes to violations involving pesticides, “very few cases get referred to the Department of Justice,” said Bill Jordan, a former deputy director of the EPA’s pesticides office.

One of those few: In 1993, a small Arizona pesticide application company and its president both pleaded guilty to felony and misdemeanor charges for illegally disposing of methyl parathion and injuring county inspectors in the process—the same pesticide Monsanto sprayed on Maui in 2014. Back in 1993, that pesticide was only “restricted,” not banned as it has been since the end of 2013.

But, unlike what any Monsanto executive is facing, penalties for the Arizona violation included time behind bars. The company president was sentenced to a year and a day in prison.