Enforcement of laws against polluters nearly non-existent in US, analysis finds

Enforcement of environmental laws against major polluters has virtually ground to a halt under the Trump administration, a new analysis of Environmental Protection Agency records from January 2025 to January 2026 shows.

Major polluters typically include companies that are among the largest in the oil, gas, coal and chemical industries.

Records show the EPA filed just one Clean Air Act consent decree compared with 26 in the first year of Trump’s first term, and 22 during Biden’s first year. Consent decrees are the legal mechanism by which the agency and US Department of Justice enforce environmental laws against major polluters.

The agency appears to have similarly slowed enforcement of Superfund laws, which cover the cleanup at the nation’s most polluted sites. It filed just seven consent decrees, down from 31 under the first Trump administration.

The number of Clean Water Act enforcement actions has also dramatically declined from a peak of 18 during Biden’s first year, to four during the second Trump administration, the analysis by the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer) non-profit found.

The EPA’s enforcement program “is dying on the vine, and that’s intentional”, said Tim Whitehouse, Peer’s executive director and a former EPA attorney.

“Without an adequate enforcement program that provides deterrence to polluters, the laws become voluntary, and when laws become voluntary many companies choose to ignore them because they know there are no consequences,” Whitehouse said. “That means more pollution for communities near the facilities and more profits or the polluters.”

The analysis looked only at major cases. When the EPA investigates a major case, it forwards the allegations to the justice department, which brings cases against the polluter in federal court and seeks a settlement.

Major cases are typically brought against large corporations, including Volkswagen, which in 2017 agreed to pay $1.4bn for a Clean Air Act violation for installing “defeat devices” that evaded emissions tests. In Indiana in 2023, the EPA found BP to be emitting dangerous levels of highly toxic VOCs into the air and required it to pay $250m in penalties and corrective measures. Norfolk Southern, which was responsible for the 2023 East Palestine, Ohio, train wreck, settled for $335m for Clean Water Act violations, including penalties and cleanup.

Similar blockbuster settlements are now rare, industry observers say.

An EPA spokesperson defended the administration’s enforcement record in a statement to the Guardian.

“Unlike the last administration, we are focused on achieving swift compliance and not just overzealous enforcement intended to cripple industry based on climate zealotry,” the spokesperson said. “One erroneous report from a leftwing group funded by dark money does not change the facts.”

A current EPA enforcement employee who declined to use their name for fear of retribution said there was a significant difference between “compliance” the Trump administration is touting and “enforcement” with punitive measures. The latter is a deterrent, the former largely is not, the employee said.

“They want us to do more of what they call compliance rather than enforcement – inspect a company, and say ‘Hey maybe do these things better,’ and maybe give them a slap on the wrist, but do not impose significant changes or fines,” the employee said.

The employee reviewed Peer’s data and said it aligned with what they see anecdotally. They said several actions by the administration over the last year were driving the enforcement decline.

Trump’s political appointees at the top of the EPA are more closely scrutinizing investigators’ work. Enforcement agents must send a case far up the chain of command if a company disagrees with an investigation’s findings. Similar approval is required if an EPA investigator wants to require action beyond what the law requires. That is important, the employee said, because the law often does not require the steps that are needed to fully correct a violation.

The requirements have also caused a review backlog that is delaying cases, the employee said.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has at times effectively paused enforcement action against the energy industry. A 12 March EPA memo stated that enforcement actions will no longer “shut down any stage of energy production”.

At the same time, staffing levels in the enforcement division are down by as much as 30% in some regions, the employee estimated, while the number of justice department environmental division attorneys is down by about 50%.

The sum of these issues creates a “broad chilling effect” on enforcement, the employee said. Investigators are afraid to take bold action and try to not attract political appointees’ attention, they said.

“That means that the American people are at risk of health impacts from pollution of air, water, and companies are going to feel emboldened to get away with more,” the employee said. “They know that the people at the EPA and DoJ are friendly to industry and aren’t going to enforce the laws against them.”

The EPA spokesperson said the agency had concluded more cases in the first year than the Biden administration did in its first year, and the agency would be publishing those figures soon.

However, the Peer report looked at major cases, not all cases. The EPA handles minor enforcement as a civil administrative case. This has included issues such as a mechanic shop that illegally dumps small amounts of a pollutant into a stream. The cases are investigated by EPA inspectors, who may issue a notice of violation. They attempt to reach a settlement in which the polluter must agree to a remedy and potentially a fine.

In its report, the Peer addressed that claim, writing “administrative enforcement is a good way to handle violations that can be resolved quickly and are less likely to be repeated”.

“But they are not well suited for large, complex cases that warrant higher penalties or the substantial, long-term remedies needed both to correct any violations and to prevent their recurrence,” the report states.

The attack on enforcement is part of a broader effort to weaken the EPA, Whitehouse said. The administration has also attacked scientific research and protective regulations.

“The Zeldin EPA is conducting itself as a subsidiary of oil and chemical industries and other big, powerful industries in the US,” Whitehouse said. “It is really doing the work of those types of industries, and, bigger picture enforcement is a large part of that.”