How Environmental Enforcement Has Dropped Under Trump
Federal officials have been going after fewer polluters in court, according to a new report by an environmental watchdog group.
Federal enforcement of polluters slumped in the first year of the second Trump administration, a new analysis of government data by a nonprofit watchdog group has found.
Compared with the first year of previous administrations, including Trump’s first term, the current administration has taken fewer polluters to court and settled fewer existing cases, according to a review of federal court records by the Environmental Integrity Project.
The pullback on environmental enforcement comes as the Environmental Protection Agency has pursued an aggressive deregulatory agenda, launching the rollback of multiple rules for air, climate and water pollution controls. In the past year, the agency has also lost more than 200 of its staff working on enforcement, including attorneys, according to a survey conducted by the EPA union American Federation of Government Employees Council 238 that was shared with Bloomberg News.
Meanwhile, the US Justice Department’s environment division, which partners with the EPA on some enforcement cases, has lost at least a third of its lawyers on staff in the past year, E&E recently reported.