The Indiana Department of Environmental Management’s Partners for Pollution Prevention is an extreme example of mission creep. The primary duty of the state agency is enforcement against environmental polluters, not serving as their public relations team.

There is nothing wrong with IDEM officials patting on the back those corporate citizens with exemplary environmental records for their environmental stewardship. Praising companies that successfully demonstrate an understanding that protecting Indiana’s environment protects the state’s economy is wise. But as the Sunday story by Dan Stockman showed, IDEM’s Partners for Pollution Prevention program recognized 22 businesses that it also has fined for environmental violations.

IDEM officials try to sell the program as a public-private partnership to prevent environmental pollution. But it’s clear the agency needs to be more selective about its partners.

The list of companies participating in the prevention program is rife with companies already cited for breaking state environmental laws. The list of 58 partners includes several of the state’s largest polluters. And those companies have accumulated more than $1 million in fines and costs to meet IDEM demands.

And IDEM has earned a reputation for being weak on enforcement and imposing fines on environmental polluters.

According to federal data, the big polluters on the list of partners include Duke Energy, General Motors and BP Products. Among the partners are 17 companies that are included in the state’s top 10 percent of air polluters by volume and were responsible for 27 percent of the air toxins in Indiana that required reporting to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2007. And seven partners are among the top 25 for pollution into state lakes and streams in 2007.

Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, had a better description of the program: “promiscuous partnering.”

The requirements for joining the program are too liberal. A company simply needs to pledge to spread the word about their good environmental efforts and attend at least two quarterly meetings each year. The host for the last quarterly meeting was ArcelorMittal. IDEM has fined ArcelorMittal more than $100,000 since 1997. It is one of the world’s largest steel manufacturers. It is also the site of a large pile of scrap metal that likely violates state open-dumping regulations. But IDEM has yet to address the scrap-metal pile.

“These companies are not necessarily bad guys, but these agencies are supposed to be regulators,” Ruch said. “If your regulatory style is to have a party and give out party favors for pollution control, that raises questions.”

Hoosiers have to wonder whether IDEM is more reluctant to issue fines to those companies on its list of partners.

For two years IDEM has been ridiculed for the leniency it showed the BP Whiting oil refinery. Officials in neighboring Illinois were outraged that Indiana regulators were going to permit the refinery to increase the pollution the refinery dumps into Lake Michigan, the source of Chicago’s drinking water. And recently, the EPA amended its citation against the BP refinery for clean air violations.

According to the IDEM, no partner has ever been removed from the program because of violations.

The agency needs to make enforcement against companies that pollute a greater priority. And save the feel-good partnership programs for companies that are demonstrating good environmental stewardship.