Analysis Shows EPA’s Enforcement Claims Are Misleading

Analysis Shows EPA’s Enforcement Claims Are Misleading

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 19, 2026

CONTACT: To arrange an interview or with questions about EDGI’s analysis, please direct media inquiries to shannanlenke.stoll@envirodatagov.org.

Analysis Shows EPA’s Enforcement Claims Are Misleading

March 19, 2026 – The Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI) analyzed the Environmental Protection Agency’s announcement last week that it achieved its “strongest enforcement and compliance record in years” under Trump 2.0’s first year. EDGI’s analysis finds the EPA press office uses misleading and out of context data to make its claims. 

Many of the claims in EPA’s press release for the fiscal year report take credit for work largely performed under the previous administration. For example, EPA claims its conclusion of 2,300 civil enforcement cases represents an achievement over the previous Biden administration, yet EDGI finds that many cases closed in 2025 (87% in the case of air pollution cases) were initiated before Trump took office. Meanwhile, a massive 71% of cases begun and settled in Trump 2.0’s first year incurred zero penalties, and there were fewer inspections conducted than under the Biden administration across the board. 

Additionally, many of the claims made in the press release simply do not have publicly available data, making their veracity difficult if not impossible to fact check. For example, the agency claims it obtained “sentences for 99 criminal defendants, more than the previous year.” Under this Trump administration, the EPA no longer provides public data on individual criminal cases, despite having done so up until 2024.  

Background:

Every fiscal year, the EPA releases an annual report on its enforcement and compliance activities. While this report is often released in December, the 2025 report was released on March 9, 2026, later than it has been in at least a decade. This release followed several independent organizations’ analyses of EPA’s publicly available enforcement data, all showing the agency’s enforcement activity taking a record dive. 

EDGI reported on the EPA’s publicly available enforcement data, comparing the first ten months of each year from January 21, and revealing historically weak enforcement in 2025 across many of the most important metrics. Specifically, in 2025, the EPA: 

  • Had either the weakest or second weakest (second only to the first year of COVID) enforcement of any other administration in the past 20 years in 14 of the 24 categories of enforcement activities measured. That’s a whopping 58% of enforcement activities that were historically weak in 2025.
  • Launched fewer civil judicial cases in 2025 than under any other administration over the past 20 years, marking a historic retreat from the courtroom, the place where the nation’s worst polluters are held accountable.  
  • Conducted fewer facility inspections for all categories of pollution—including air emissions, water pollution, hazardous waste, and toxic substances—compared to 2024, with inspections conducted under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) dropping the most significantly—36% from the year 2024. 

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