Watchdog: Trump-era EPA Sees Sharp Drop in Legal Enforcement

A recent review by a nonprofit oversight group finds that the EPA under the Trump administration initiated far fewer courtroom challenges to alleged polluters than recent predecessors, and that monetary penalties imposed through September were smaller in dollar terms. The EIP counted 16 enforcement lawsuits filed by the Department of Justice on the agency’s behalf in the administration’s opening year, a tally that represents a steep percentage drop when compared with equivalent first-year figures from prior administrations. The group links this shortfall in part to attrition at the Justice Department’s environmental unit, where a sizeable share of prosecutors have left, limiting the federal government’s ability to bring and sustain cases. Agency officials pushed back, framing their approach as prioritizing rapid compliance over heavy-handed litigation, and noting plans to publish alternative enforcement metrics. Beyond the courtroom totals, administrative penalty collections declined to roughly $41 million through September, which EIP reports as lower than comparable periods under recent administrations after adjusting for inflation. The watchdog cautions that first-year snapshots can miss longer-lived investigations and multi-year settlements, but argues the scale of the decline is meaningful in the context of broader deregulatory moves. The Trump team has publicly pursued an aggressive rollback of environmental rules and reorganized agency priorities, moves that coincide with reduced enforcement activity in several program areas. Where enforcement did increase—such as for certain drinking water standards—those instances were exceptions rather than the rule, according to the analysis. The combination of fewer lawsuits, smaller penalties and reduced DOJ staffing creates practical limits on the federal government’s reach to check industrial discharges and emissions. For regulated parties, the shift lowers near-term legal and financial risk; for communities downstream of industrial activity, it raises concerns about diminished regulatory deterrence. The report underscores that enforcement posture is a policy lever: changing it alters compliance incentives, public-health exposure, and the pace at which regulatory rollbacks translate into on-the-ground environmental outcomes.