Annually, the EPA publishes a report detailing its environmental enforcement activities from the prior fiscal year. The latest report, delayed until Monday, March 9, represents the latest release timing this century. According to the agency’s press release, the findings indicate “the strongest enforcement and compliance results in years.” However, analyses from three independent groups, including ours, present a starkly different view, highlighting a significant decline in the enforcement of laws designed to protect human health and the environment.
We belong to the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI), a research group, and our discussion includes EDGI’s report on the EPA’s 2025 enforcement track record and an annotation of the EPA’s announcement regarding its fiscal year report.
Foundational U.S. environmental laws like the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, established with bipartisan support, require enforcement to be effective. This process involves detecting violations, typically through inspections, addressing them through administrative or judicial means, and resolving cases with remedies and penalties to ensure compliance and deter future infractions. Robust enforcement is essential for safeguarding human and environmental health.
What explains the discrepancy in the agency’s claims? There are two main reasons. First, many actions highlighted by the EPA’s press office were initiated during the Biden administration. Second, the agency’s comparisons use recent years’ unusually low enforcement figures, obscuring the fact that federal environmental enforcement has significantly declined since the initial Trump administration.
EPA’s Enforcement Record During the Second Trump Administration
The EPA states that its strong enforcement results “have taken place since President Trump was sworn back into office.” However, this claim is misleading because the EPA’s figures are based on fiscal year 2025, spanning from October 1, 2024, to September 30, 2025. Trump’s first full day in office was January 21, 2025, meaning he could not have influenced the EPA for the first 112 days (or 30%) of the fiscal year.
Federal agencies typically report by fiscal year, but attributing all actions of the last fiscal year to Trump is misleading since many initiatives began under Biden. For instance, the EPA reports closing 2,300 civil enforcement cases (or 2,137, as both numbers appear in a press release), an increase over the previous administration. However, 87% of air pollution cases closed in 2025 were initiated before Trump assumed office.
This situation is akin to comparing the NBA seasons of Michael Jordan and Lebron James but using part of Jordan’s season for James’ statistics. In our analysis, we addressed this misleading approach by using the EPA’s raw enforcement data and comparing periods from January 21 to November 30 over the past two decades. Our findings do not support the assertion that the second Trump administration is stronger on enforcement than Biden. In many respects, the opposite is true.
For example, the agency conducted fewer facility inspections compared to 2024 across all categories, including toxic, air, and water pollution, with toxic substance inspections dropping by 36%. Civil judicial cases, dealing with the most severe civil law violations, decreased in both initiated and concluded cases, with more cases concluding with zero penalties and compliance costs than during any year of the Biden administration. Although this EPA concluded more administrative cases, penalties were less severe.
We questioned whether an incoming administration might face unique challenges weakening its enforcement record in the first year. However, the data does not indicate this as a significant barrier. The Trump 2.0 EPA reached historic lows in civil judicial cases concluded—just one among many metrics it was historically low—whereas one of the highest years for concluded judicial cases was Barack Obama’s first year in office, 2009.
Annual number of civil judicial cases concluded from 2005-2025, with cases tracked from January 21 through November 30 each year and data from EPA ECHO. Image shows Figure 31 in the report Making America Polluted Again: The Trump EPA’s 2025 Enforcement Record.Â
Enforcement in Historic Decline
The EPA’s portrayal of its 2025 record is perhaps most misleading due to its reliance on what analysts call the “low base effect,” which measures progress from a very low starting point. For example, claiming that the unemployment rate in 1934 was “great” because it improved from the previous year overlooks that 1933 was the worst year of the Great Depression, with 1934’s unemployment still over 20%—hardly commendable.
We are currently experiencing a significant decline in EPA enforcement, initiated by the first Trump administration in 2017. As EDGI documented, the Trump administration drove EPA enforcement to historically low levels across the board. The Biden administration, likely hindered by the COVID-19 pandemic, did not fully restore the EPA’s previous enforcement activity levels, though it made progress in some inspection categories, including lead paint and actions under the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts.
Therefore, when comparing the current Trump EPA’s enforcement actions to historical levels, we find an ongoing period of significant retrenchment against strong enforcement. Our analysis examined 24 enforcement measures, such as inspections, case initiations, case conclusions, penalties, and compliance costs. In seven of these categories, EPA’s 2025 performance was the weakest in 20 years. In another seven, it was second weakest (only to the first year of COVID-19). This means 58% of enforcement activities are in historic decline under this EPA, contradicting Administrator Zeldin’s claim that the agency is reinstating the “rule of law” in environmental enforcement and compliance. The courtroom is where the nation’s worst polluters are meant to be held accountable, and EPA’s low rate of case initiation in 2025 suggests fewer polluters will face consequences in the coming years.
We cannot accept the misleading claims of the current EPA about its enforcement record, nor can we accept this period of declining EPA enforcement as the new standard. By stepping back from its enforcement duties, this EPA is bypassing Congress and the Supreme Court, undermining the laws that help keep our air and water clean and protect us from toxic substances.
