Making America Polluted Again: The Trump EPA’s 2025 Enforcement Record analyzes EPA’s data, largely from its Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO) database, to see how the agency’s enforcement performance stacks up against the past 20 years. The report finds that in 2025, the first year of the second Trump administration, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) enforcement of environmental pollution laws was weak by many measures when compared to all administrations from 2005-2025.
A key finding shows that of the 24 categories of enforcement activities measured, 14 of them were at their weakest or second weakest (second only to the first year of COVID in 2020) in 2025. The report finds that this EPA launched fewer civil judicial cases in 2025 than under any other administration over the past 20 years. Additionally, all studied inspection activities dropped in 2025 when compared to 2024, with inspections conducted under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) dropping the most significantly—36% from the year before.
Author(s): Christopher Sellers, Kimberly L. Barrett, Scout Blum, Leif Fredrickson, Marianne Sullivan, Shannan Lenke Stoll, Christopher Cane, Ellen Kohl, Eric Nost, and EDGI
Publication Date: February 2, 2026
Preferred Citation: “Making America Polluted Again: The Trump EPA’s 2025 Enforcement Record”, (Environmental Data & Governance Initiative, February 2, 2026)
CONTACT: Report authors are available for interview. To set up media interviews or for other inquiries, please contact Shannan Lenke Stoll at shannanlenke.stoll@envirodatagov.org.