The Environmental Protection Agency enforces the country’s environmental laws. But a new report from the watchdog group Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) says the Trump EPA initiated a record low number of legal actions against polluters in 2025 — fewer even than during Trump’s first term.
By examining court records, EIP found that the U.S. Department of Justice filed just 16 legal actions on the EPA’s behalf. That total is 87% lower than Obama’s first year of his second term, 76% lower than Biden’s first year, and 81% lower than Trump’s first year in 2017.
Part of the decline reflects staffing at the Justice Department: an E&E News analysis found at least a third of lawyers in DOJ’s environment division left in the past year, reducing the number of government attorneys available to bring cases.
EPA press secretary Brigit Hirsch, in an emailed statement to NPR, said the agency remains committed to clean air, land and water. “Unlike the last administration, we are focused on achieving swift compliance and not just overzealous enforcement intended to cripple industry based on climate zealotry,” Hirsch wrote. She called the EIP report “erroneous” and said the agency will soon publish numbers showing the EPA “has concluded more cases in the first year of the Trump administration than the Biden administration had in its last year.”
EIP also found administrative penalties against polluters fell. Through September, the EPA imposed $41 million in penalties — about $8 million less (adjusted for inflation) than the same period in Biden’s first year, and $5 million less than the first Trump administration. “Our nation’s environmental laws are meaningless when EPA does not enforce the rules,” said Jen Duggan, EIP executive director. “Failing to enforce our environmental laws means Americans across the country are more likely to be exposed to illegal air and water pollution that threatens their health and their quality of life.”
EIP notes that measuring enforcement in a first year can be complicated because some cases take more than a year to resolve, and it found some areas, like drinking water standards, where enforcement numbers under the current administration are higher than previous administrations.
The report comes as the Trump administration emphasizes deregulation, government reorganization, and personnel changes, including at the EPA. Last March, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced plans to target more than two dozen rules and policies, calling it the “most consequential day of deregulation in U.S. history.” The administration frames such moves in economic terms while reversing Biden-era climate policies and promoting domestic fossil fuel production.
In September, Trump called climate change a “con job” at the United Nations and has previously withdrawn the U.S. from the 2015 Paris Agreement. Zeldin said the administration is “driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more.”
The administration plans to repeal power plant climate pollution limits, overturn a 2009 finding that underpins many climate rules, and end greenhouse gas regulations for vehicles. Those moves are taking place as climate scientists report the past three years have been the hottest on record, suggesting warming may be accelerating.
