Stacey Mitchell Quoted in E&E News on DOJ’s Stepped-Up Environmental Enforcement

E&E News has quoted Akin Gump environment and natural resources partner Stacey Mitchell in the article “DOJ official touts ‘proactive’ take on enviro crimes.” Mitchell was one of the speakers this week at an Environmental Law Institute panel, “Lessons from the Past for the Future of Environmental Criminal Enforcement.”

The article reports that the Department of Justice under President Biden is taking a more proactive approach in prosecuting polluters than it did during the Trump administration. At the heart of those efforts, the article says, is a new program working with victims of contamination and environmental disasters to pinpoint violators, especially in low-income and minority communities.

Mitchell, a former Environmental Crimes Section Chief at the Justice Department, said this new approach has led her to change the way she works with clients. She now advises them, she said, to engage with residents of environmental justice communities that surround their facilities, since they might be collecting data on air, land and water contamination from nearby industrial facilities that may be of interest to federal prosecutors.

It’s very important, Mitchell said, “to know how you’re impacting your community.”