Under EPA’s Zeldin, Pollution Enforcement Dying a Quick Death
Civil prosecutions of illegal pollution plummeted to historically low levels during the first year of President Trump’s second administration, according to figures released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), reflecting a sharp decline in Department of Justice (DOJ) action on cases referred by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The data compiled by PEER shows that DOJ settled just 15 of the cases referred by EPA for civil prosecution in the year since President Trump’s second inauguration. That is far below the 71 concluded during the first full year of the Biden Administration or the 75 concluded during the first full year of President Trump’s first term.
The data also reveals:
- DOJ virtually stopped enforcing the Clean Air Act, lodging just one consent decree in a relatively small case since Trump’s inauguration last year, versus 26 in the first year of Trump’s first term, and 22 after Biden’s first year.
- Superfund cleanup settlements have also hit rock bottom, with only seven consent decrees lodged in the past year, about a quarter of the totals in the Trump and Biden inaugural years––2017 & 2021, respectively.
- DOJ landed four Clean Water Act consent decrees in the first year, a record low under any Administration.
This collapse in enforcement comes as EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin moves forward with plans to stop calculating the public health benefits of rules aimed at reducing air pollution and to make it harder for EPA to enforce environmental laws under a new compliance first policy. Reduced civil enforcement means fewer penalties, fewer cleanups, and fewer deterrents preventing illegal pollution.
“Under Lee Zeldin, anti-pollution enforcement is dying a quick death,” remarked PEER Executive Director Tim Whitehouse, formerly an enforcement attorney at EPA. “Administrator Zeldin is removing all incentives for big polluters to follow the law and turning a blind eye to those who suffer from the impacts of pollution.”
“Enforcing environmental laws ensures that polluters are held accountable and prevented from dumping their pollution on others for profit,” said Joanna Citron Day, PEER General Counsel and a former Senior Counsel at DOJ’s Environmental Enforcement Section. “For the sake of our health and the environment, Congress and the American people need to push back against Lee Zeldin’s dismantling of EPA‘s environmental enforcement program.”
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