Nice, especially the point about how failure to bring charges is a continual disincentive to installing clean equipment. My favorite part (emphasis mine):

Critics of the agency say its flagging efforts have emboldened polluters to flout U.S. environmental laws, threatening progress in cleaning the air, protecting wildlife, eliminating hazardous materials, and countless other endeavors overseen by the EPA.

"You don't get cleanup, and you don't get deterrence," said Eric Schaeffer, who resigned as director of the EPA's Office of Civil Enforcement in 2002 to protest the administration's approach to enforcement and now heads the Environmental Integrity Project, a watchdog group. "I don't think this is a problem with agents in the field. They're capable of doing the work. They lack the political support they used to be able to count on, especially in the White House."

Sounds a lot like what happened in FDA and Justice, and weren't there some in the CIA and even NASA (resignations in the face of stupidity).

And let's not forget how this tendency is tied to mine safety (or the lack thereof) as well.