The EPA plans to abolish groundbreaking climate policy
The Trump administration plans to retract important scientific findings that would regulate greenhouse gas emissions and strip the US government of its power to combat climate change.
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The Trump administration highlights that environmental enforcement hit a historic low, as it underscores the administration’s reduction in rules protecting vulnerable communities from pollution, as it hits its historic lows as it places fewer lawsuits against businesses for environmental violations than any other administration in the 21st century.
The administration has launched 14 lawsuits for environmental violations. The fewest lawsuits in the six months of this century have broken previous lows in the Biden administration.
In Trump’s first term, his administration filed 42 such cases in the first six months, federal data show.
The declining enforcement has tracked budget cuts in the EPA’s enforcement division for many years, but some experts say the Trump administration’s enforcement approach could mean that the community loses protection if the polluters are not responsible.
“We all went through the first Trump administration, and while things were mixed up, it felt like there was a rule of law,” said Keene Kelderman, research manager for the WatchDog Group Environmental Integrity Project. “I don’t feel like I’m worried this time.”
Enforcement actions by both administrative and judicial federal agencies are key levers that managers have used to hold businesses accountable for polluting the environment, and are usually the burdens placed on low-income communities.
Administrative cases form the majority of the Environmental Protection Agency’s enforcement measures. These tend to be small crimes that are handled without the need for a court. For example, a water treatment facility that has failed to submit a contamination report.
But for a bigger violation, given the oil spill, the EPA takes the company to court, calling it a judicial case. These cases will be filed through the Department of Justice seeking heavy fines, cleaning compensation and additional pollution prevention equipment. In very rare cases, such as when the company intentionally contaminates the surroundings or when its actions are held responsible for death, the DOJ can pursue criminal charges against the company.
While the Trump administration’s new executive enforcement case coincides with past presidents, new judicial cases with heavier financial results are the lowest of this century.
An example of recent judicial action has come to facilities in Puerto Rico because it releases too many carcinogenic gases.
Asked about the trend of decline, the EPA defended its execution records, downplaying the lawsuit as a measure of execution, highlighting this year’s management and criminal execution records.
The agency said it launched more environmental criminal cases in the first six months than the Biden administration. No data on recent criminal cases has been published in a database analyzed by USA Today. This is the latest criminal case recorded in 2023, and USA Today requested new data to confirm this.
The agency said in a statement: “This administration is focused on efficiently resolving violations and achieving compliance as quickly as possible. This is not to promote broad injunctive relief beyond what the law requires and unfairly and illegally burdens industrial and energy.”
Judicial cases have been on a downward trend for more than a decade after peaking in former President Barack Obama’s first administration in 2009. For the first six months of his first term, the Obama administration filed 102 cases.
All subsequent administration declines since the first Obama administration came as EPA resources fell.
During Obama’s first term, the EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Budget also peaked. It has since been reduced by multiple administrators. In 2024, data compiled by the Environmental Integrity Project showed that in 2024 was about $200 million lower than in 2011, adjusting for inflation and cutting staff by more than 500 employees.
Beyond the EPA, the Federal Restructuring of the Elon Musk-led Government Efficiency Bureau also reduced the environmental enforcement section of the DOJ that handles these major cases.
Based on the farewell party he was invited to, other conversations with Tom Mariani, former chief of DOJ’s Environmental Enforcement Division, estimate that the number of lawyers in his unit is between 65 and 70, falling to age 120 before 2025.
Mariani said when the EPA sues someone, it is a labor-intensive process to get evidence of a violation. He remembers reading about people who say they keep hearing, ‘You need to do more with less.’
In addition to these budgets and staffing cuts, Larry Starfield, former assistant principal at the EPA’s Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Department, said political will is another major variable in enforcement.
In many cases, minorities and low-income communities tend to be disproportionately exposed to pollution. To address these inequalities, the Environmental Justice Programme was instituted.
In March, the EPA set a new enforcement prioritization in a memo, revealing that it would not punish businesses on environmental justice grounds in accordance with Trump’s executive order.
“Environmental justice considerations will no longer be notified of EPA enforcement and compliance assurance work,” the memo said, explicitly noting that it may no longer be possible to consider whether the affected communities are overloaded or vulnerable.
“So, if there are communities that have been suffering from high levels of pollution for decades, enforcers can’t see it. If the community has a high cancer rate and there is a decline in healthcare, enforcers can’t take that into consideration,” Starfield said. “I think it’s a very sad overreaction to a perceived problem, and I think it’s wrong.”
In an email statement, the EPA said environmental justice is “actually discrimination” and that officials are committed to dealing with pollution for all Americans. “The EPA ensures that enforcement focuses on worst pollution and harm to human health.
The March memo also restricts enforcement to suspend energy production.
“Enforcement and compliance assurance measures should not be closed except for the stage of energy production (from exploration to distribution) or the substantial imminent threat to human health,” the document states.
Daniel Farber, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said it’s not uncommon for the administration to align with priorities, but “in this case, the administration’s priorities are so leaning towards environmental protection that it only amplifies the issue at the enforcement level.”
Farber is not the only way environmental laws are enforced.
“There’s state government involvement and some private citizen lawsuits, and I don’t know how much of them are taking up slack,” Farber said.
Beyond changing enforcement priorities, the EPA has launched dozens of other deregulation efforts. It is a proposal to limit greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles and power plants and abolish the government’s ability to weaken standards for emissions from power plants. USA Today previously reported that agency cost analysis models estimate that these actions could cost more than they could save Americans.
Starfield said he hopes the EPA is established: focusing on public health and protecting the environment.
“Until this year, I would like to restore it to what Richard Nixon had to do with it.”
Mariani, former DOJ Environmental Executive Director, said there is an incredible number of people living near certain industrial operations. “If you care about clean air, clean water and the land we have to dispose of things in a safe and secure way, you should be concerned about this.”
