EPA's Fiscal Year 2017 Statistics Reflect Accelerating Decline In Federal Environmental Enforcement

On February 8, 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its environmental enforcement statistics for fiscal year 2017 (FY 2017). Because EPA's fiscal year ends in September, the newly released statistics capture the final three plus months of the Obama administration and slightly more than the first eight months of the Trump administration. The enforcement statistics appear noteworthy on their face: commitments of $1.2 billion by private parties to clean up contaminated sites; criminal fines, restitution, and mitigation of approximately $2.98 billion; increases in the value of actions to improve compliance; and $1.6 billion in collected administrative and civil judicial penalties.1 Despite these seemingly impressive statistics, the enforcement results actually reflect a rapid decline in environmental enforcement by EPA.2 This steep decline in environmental enforcement began during the Obama administration and appears to be accelerating during the Trump administration.

It can be difficult to assess environmental enforcement statistics from year to year because federal environmental enforcement cases typically take several years to reach resolution. Moreover, extremely large cases, like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, can skew enforcement results in any given year.

Despite the difficulty of assessing the progress in environmental enforcement in any given year, there is a clear pattern of declining environmental enforcement by EPA over the past decade. The number of inspections and evaluations by EPA has declined from over 20,000 inspections in fiscal year 2010 to slightly more than 15,000 inspections in fiscal year 2015 to approximately 11,700 inspections in fiscal year 2017.3 Likewise, the number of civil environmental enforcement cases initiated by EPA has dropped from 3,436 cases in fiscal year 2010 to 2,378 cases in fiscal year 2015 and only 1,938 cases in fiscal year 2017.4 The number of criminal enforcement cases initiated by EPA has also dropped from approximately 350 cases in fiscal year 2010 to 213 cases in fiscal year 2015 and 115 cases in fiscal year 2017.5

While there is little doubt that federal environmental enforcement declined in the first year of the Trump administration, it had already started a steady decline under the Obama administration. Indeed, the Obama-era 2014-2018 strategic plan for EPA anticipated a 25 percent drop in inspections and evaluations below baseline for the period ending in 2018 and...