The attorney general isn’t investigating. Neither is the governor’s office. Neither is the Legislature. Yet the nagging allegation still hangs out there that former Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Dawn Gallagher offered to forego enforcement of hazardous waste standards against industry giant International Paper in exchange for a key legislator’s support for the DEP’s Androscoggin River bill.

If the allegation were true, which we apparently will never know, Pete Didisheim of the Natural Resources Council of Maine said it would be the first time he’s heard of a cabinet member offering to ignore the law in his 10 years as a lobbyist in Augusta.

“Yeah, we’re concerned that the AG’s Office hasn’t investigated,” Didisheim, NRCM director of advocacy, said Friday. “The truth hasn’t come out.”

Gallagher has denied offering a quid pro quo to Wilton state Rep. Tom Saviello, who chairs the Legislature’s Natural Resources Committee when he’s not running IP’s environmental program at the Jay mill. And when he’s not leaving the Democratic Party to become an independent.

Didisheim said the NRCM’s primary concern continues to be that Saviello is allowed to serve on the committee that drafts – or kills – legislation that regulates IP.

But that’s a whole other column.

Saviello apparently has a witness at DEP who backs up his story that Gallagher made the offer. Unlike the scandal unfolding now in Washington, D.C., the allegation here in Maine is not whether someone traded cash and gifts for legislative support, but rather that enforcement of existing law was surrendered for a legislative vote or two.

Hazardous waste enforcement law, no less.

Turns out it’s not illegal to do that because even if Gallagher made the offer, she had full discretion to enforce the laws she wants – or to not enforce them. As long as no one profits financially by the deal, it is not a crime. Same goes for any law enforcer, according to Cabanne Howard, a Maine law professor and longtime former assistant attorney general who specialized in governmental law.

Cops decide every day whether to cite or summons a person, Howard said Wednesday. They have total discretion. Gallagher enjoyed that discretion, too, he said.

To continue the analogy, however, would be to say that it’s OK for a cop to stop a mayor for drunken driving but, in using his discretion, offers not to arrest him in exchange for his support on police department proposals.

“If nothing of pecuniary value is being offered, I don’t think it would violate any bribery laws,” Howard said. “… That does not mean that they’re not politically responsible for their actions.”

But even that is questionable.

Chuck Dow, spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office, didn’t want to talk much about the affair last week. When asked if not enforcing the law was legal, Dow said, “We are really reluctant to give a definitive answer. It’s possible that this controversy will continue to swirl and we could still be called in to investigate.”

For now, however, “we don’t see any reason to investigate,” Dow said.

Same goes for Gov. John Baldacci.

Crystal Canney, spokeswoman for the governor, said Thursday that Baldacci did not discuss the allegation with Gallagher, even when he accepted her resignation (read: fired her) in December for fouling up the whole DEP-IP-river bill thing – including allowing secret meetings between DEP staff and some mill officials last summer.

Without being asked, the governor wanted to emphasize, Canney said, that he had no role in any part of the river bill debacle. According to Canney, Baldacci considers the allegation against Gallagher to be a meaningless “he said, she said” dispute and considers the case closed.

When asked whether the governor would be troubled if his cabinet members were indeed trading enforcement for legislation, Canney said, “I am not prepared to answer that.”

And that was after having a full day to prepare an answer.

Baldacci intends to keep Gallagher on his staff somewhere. Gallagher is on vacation, Canney said, while a new position for her is found. She remains on the state payroll because she has many talents that can be used in other capacities, Canney said.

“It hasn’t been proven” that Gallagher made the offer, Canney said. “At this point there’s nothing to respond to and the action that was taken (to remove Gallagher from her job) is a response in itself.”

Neither Gallagher nor Saviello could be reached for comment.