EPA shuts down Bush company environment scheme

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is shutting down a scheme started in 2000 but mostly managed by the Bush administration.

The National Environmental Performance Track Program, brought hundreds of companies into the project provided they introduced steps to cut pollution and use less energy.

The programme was one of various public and private combinations iconic of the Bush administration’s policy for the environment.

Membership of the EPA’s scheme was allegedly only for companies with excellent environmental status, however many have called it a scam since most of the participants came nowhere near the necessary environmental achievements.

The EPA said on Monday that it would examine and improve the scheme to create a more effective way of safeguarding the environment and health.

The inspector general of the EPA said in a 2007 report that members who were not meeting targets were undermining the programme.

It did not have lucid strategies and did not reveal its achievements, the report said.

A newspaper investigation said in December that Performance Track congratulated companies with dubious environmental achievements, spent millions of dollars on publicity and finding new members, and cushioned figures to increase membership.

Its 548 members included Fortune 500 companies, gift shops and trailer parks, the newspaper alleged, and some of the members had variable or bad environmental status.

It is not yet evident what effect the programme’s closure may have on other partnership schemes in EPA and in another places from the Bush presidency.