How environmental enforcement has dropped under Trump

Zahra Hirji, Bloomberg News on Feb 5, 2026

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WASHINGTON — 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 U.S. 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.

“Civil lawsuits against polluters fell to a historic low in the year after Inauguration Day,” according to the report published Thursday.

The EPA has no control over filings made by the Justice department. EPA press spokesperson Brigit Hirsch said the agency will soon publish its own enforcement statistics showing it has concluded more enforcement cases in its first year than the Biden administration.

"Unlike the last administration, we are focused on achieving swift compliance and not just overzealous enforcement intended to cripple industry based on climate zealotry," she added.

The Justice Department declined to comment.

Between Jan. 20, 2025 and Jan. 19, 2026, the Justice Department filed 16 civil lawsuits against polluters referred by the EPA, federal court records show. That’s down 81% from the first year of Trump’s initial term, when the Justice Department filed 86 complaints. The EIP analysis did not look at criminal lawsuits, which generally represent a minority of enforcement cases.

At the same time, the current administration settled 40 cases against violators of air, water, hazardous waste and other pollution laws in its first year. That represents a 65% decrease compared with the 115 cases settled in a similar time period during Trump’s first term, according to the EIP report.

The agency has recently shifted its approach on polluters. An EPA memo, distributed internally in December and reviewed by Bloomberg Law, outlined a new “compliance first” approach for its enforcement team, advocating for staff to find ways to get polluters in line quickly by using methods such as proactive outreach and technical assistance. Some ex-EPA staff have raised concerns this could lead to the agency being more lenient towards companies breaking the law.

The EPA can also pursue enforcement outside the courts, through what are called administrative cases. This is one area where the agency has ramped up action, according to the latest available data: It settled nearly 1,650 cases between Jan. 20, 2025 and Sept. 30, 2025. This represents a 15% increase from a similar timeframe in Trump’s first term, and a 35% increase compared with President Joe Biden’s administration.

Despite more of these cases being settled, the researchers found the agency imposed fewer total penalties — almost $41 million in penalties, compared with about $49 million in Biden’s first year and almost $46 million in Trump’s first term.

“Our nation’s landmark environmental laws are meaningless when the EPA doesn’t enforce the rules,” said Jen Duggan, executive director of EIP, which was founded in 2002 by ex-EPA Office of Civil Enforcement director Eric Schaeffer.