Environmental Enforcement to Evolve, but Not Vanish Under Trump

Environmental enforcement is almost certain to dip under President-elect Donald Trump, but that doesn’t mean the EPA won’t keep looking for violations—just different ones, former agency officials say.

Traditional enforcement is expected to remain strong for certain types of violations, such as ones linked to lead pipes and contaminated sites. But the historic levels of enforcement under President Joe Biden is likely to tail off in areas that scrutinize the industrial sector.

The incoming Trump administration will also likely have its own priorities that shape how it enforces environmental laws.

For example, the agency could get tough on imported vehicles and engines that fail to meet US emission standards, said Matthew Morrison, a former acting division director at the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Civil Enforcement.

That kind of enforcement would compliment Trump’s protectionist leanings. The president-elect has pledged to impose an extra 10% tariff on goods from China, the world’s biggest motor vehicle producer, and a 25% tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico, which are also large producers.

The EPA might try to target groups that got billions of dollars in funding under the climate or infrastructure laws, surmised Stan Meiburg, a longtime EPA staffer and former acting deputy administrator.

Trump has said he wants to repeal the climate law, and some of his advisers have recommended steering those funds into other projects. That would be politically tricky because many states and cities want the money, several projects have already broken ground, and Congressional approval isn’t certain.

An easier path might be to scrutinize grant recipients “under the rubric of fraud, waste and abuse,” said Meiburg, now executive director of Wake Forest University’s environment and sustainability center.

Lead Pipes, Cleanup Enforcement

Enforcement for lead pipes and brownfield cleanups could also remain strong, because those programs protect people from toxins and create jobs, said Judith Enck, a former EPA regional administrator.

The agency’s Superfund cost recovery enforcement program also could keep running at a high level because it captures money from polluters for cleanups paid by the government, Meiburg said.

EPA enforcement will still be tough in cases of accidental releases and flagrant spills—especially ones “so blatant that you can’t just look away,” like the 2023 Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, Meiburg said.

In other areas, the Trump administration’s position remains mysterious. For example, the Justice Department in the first Trump administration worked to undo the settlement tool known as supplemental environmental projects (SEPs)—environmentally beneficial works that an alleged violator agrees to perform as part of its settlement. President Joe Biden restored the use of SEPs.

“They believed that SEPs were being used to support organizations that were at odds with the administration’s objectives and ideology,” Meiburg said of the Trump administration. “It would not surprise me” to see Trump undo those again, he said.

But to Morrison, now a partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, the future of SEPs isn’t clear.

“SEPs are generally popular with both industry and environmental groups,” he said. “The last Trump administration thought EPA was adding SEPs to penalty payments, but EPA’s policies allow them as an offset to civil penalties, which industry tends to favor. Whether SEPs remain depends, in part, on whether regulated industries are vocal in their support of SEPs as a means of lowering civil penalty payments.”

Enforcement Improvements

Some supporters of tough enforcement are hoping new technologies will fill any voids.

The 2022 climate law provided $81 million in grants for local governments to deploy and maintain air monitoring stations, the coronavirus pandemic sharpened the agency’s skills in watching regulated entities from afar, and the costs of monitoring technologies continues to fall.

Remote detection and surveillance tools, as well as third-party monitoring and reporting, will be critical if Congress cuts the budget for EPA enforcement, forcing the agency to do more with less, Morrison said.

“The problem will be that permit requirements are rarely framed in such a way as to make detections of high levels of pollution with such sensors directly admissible as evidence of permit violations,” Meiburg said.

The EPA under Trump isn’t likely to invest in new monitoring tools, Enck said.

“I just hope they’re not going to take down existing monitors,” she said.

Record Highs, Record Lows

Trump’s EPA is unlikely to produce enforcement numbers like the ones the agency touted in December, which it called its strongest in years. In fiscal 2024, the agency concluded 1,851 civil cases and collected $1.7 billion in penalties—both the highest levels since fiscal 2017. Over the year, 121 criminal defendants were charged, the most since fiscal 2019, the EPA said.

In the first Trump administration, EPA enforcement reached record lows in inspections, civil cases concluded, and civil cases referred for prosecution, according to the Environmental Integrity Project.

“I think we’re going to see this all over again with mass deregulation and virtually no enforcement at the federal level,” said Enck, now a senior fellow at Bennington College’s Center for the Advancement of Public Action.

Enforcement might tail off even more if the EPA follows the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which calls on the EPA to eliminate its enforcement office and hand that job to the agency’s air, water, land, and other sub-departments. Project 2025 also suggests the agency “encourage compliance over enforcement” and work more closely with regulated groups, especially small businesses.

Business groups have said they want some level of enforcement, because it stops bad actors from getting an unfair advantage. But to Meiburg, it doesn’t always play out that way.

For example, large oil and gas companies have favored methane restrictions because they could afford controls that their smaller rivals couldn’t, he said. But many of those investments have already been made, meaning the economic benefit of regulation is lower.

“No matter what they say about wanting a level playing field, I’ve never seen corporate America advocate for stronger enforcement of environmental laws,” Enck said.