The Kentucky Department for Environmental Protection is the state agency responsible for enforcing many state and federal environmental laws. But a year-long WFPL News investigation has found a stark decline in several markers of enforcement actions.
Under Gov. Steve Beshear and his predecessor, Ernie Fletcher, far fewer cases have gone to court than during the administrations of Govs. Brereton Jones and Paul Patton.
At the same time, repeated budget cuts have reduced the enforcement agency’s budget to 60 percent of what it was two decades ago.
