"The Environmental Protection Agency said on Thursday that it would overhaul enforcement of the Clean Water Act, as lawmakers sharply criticized the agency's decade-long lapses in punishing polluters.

At a daylong hearing before the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, the E.P.A. administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, said that agency officials 'are falling short of this administration's expectations for the effectiveness of our clean water enforcement programs.'"

Charles Duhigg reports for the New York Times October 15, 2009. [2]