This online engineering PDH course presents an overview of the Criminal Enforcement Program of the Environmental Protection Agency. The purpose of the Program is to investigate, help prosecute, and deter the most egregious environmental offenders. Environmental laws include criminal provisions that address knowing and negligent environmental violations. Criminal enforcement brings to bear the possibility of incarceration and monetary fines that are EPA’s strongest sanctions. The course discusses these aspects of the Program and in addition describes sixteen landmark cases in environmental law. The seriousness of the subject of the course is illustrated by the Congressional testimony of an EPA administrator: “While both corporations and individuals pay penalties, only individuals can go to prison – a sanction that no one can pass along to the American consumer as just another cost of doing business.” This course is based on the Environmental Protection Agency document, “Criminal Enforcement Program,” EPA Pub. # 310-K-11-001, October, 2011.

Learning Objectives

• Strategic direction of the criminal enforcement program
• Organization and mission of the Criminal Investigation Division
• Organization and mission of the National Enforcement Investigations Center
• Organization and mission of the Legal Counsel Division
• Programmatic trends and case highlights
• Landmark cases