WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency has stepped up enforcement efforts this year, significantly reducing pollution in congested communities, the agency said in a report Thursday.
The EPA said it has completed more than 1,800 civil cases, up 3% from 2023, and charged 120 defendants, up 17.6% from the previous year. The “revitalized enforcement and compliance efforts” resulted in pollution reductions of more than 225 million pounds in overburdened communities, the agency said in its final report on Biden-era enforcement actions before President-elect Donald Trump took office in January.
Boosted by 300 new employees hired since last year, the enforcement program focused on “21st century environmental challenges,” including climate change, environmental justice and chemical waste, said David Uhlmann, EPA’s assistant administrator for enforcement and compliance assurance. The inspections and settlements involved poor and disadvantaged communities long scarred by pollution, reflecting the Biden administration’s emphasis on environmental justice issues.
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The enforcement efforts include the first-ever criminal indictment against a California man accused of smuggling climate-damaging air refrigerants into the United States. The case involved hydrofluorocarbons, a very potent greenhouse gas also known as HFCs, a gas once widely used in refrigerators and air conditioners.
The EPA has pledged to enforce a rule mandating a 40% reduction in HFCs as part of a global phaseout aimed at slowing climate change.
In other highlights, engine manufacturer Cummins Inc. paid. more than $2 billion in fines and penalties — and agreed to recall 600,000 Ram trucks — as part of a settlement with federal and California authorities. Cummins was found to be using illegal software that allowed Ram trucks – manufactured by Stellantis – to bypass diesel emissions tests for nearly a decade.
The fine is the largest ever imposed under the federal Clean Air Act.
The EPA and Department of Justice also reached a $241.5 million settlement with Marathon Oil over alleged air quality violations at the company’s oil and gas operations on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota. The settlement requires Marathon to reduce climate and health-harming emissions from these facilities and will result in a reduction in pollution of more than 2.3 million tons, officials said.
Uhlmann, who was named head of the enforcement bureau last year, said in an interview that the agency, with the help of a spending increase approved by Congress, has made “consistent changes in the way we approach enforcement at the EPA.”
“We have revived an enforcement program that has suffered more than a decade of budget cuts and was severely hampered by the (COVID-19) pandemic,” he said. The agency also weathered a series of actions by former President Donald Trump’s administration to roll back environmental regulations and reduce its overall workforce.
“We have strengthened the partnership between the criminal and civil programs, and we have also focused on handling our cases with greater urgency so that we can deliver meaningful results for communities in a timeframe that makes sense for the people harmed by illegal pollution. happens,” Uhlmann said.
With Trump set to return to the White House, Uhlmann said he hoped enforcement would not suffer. He noted that a large number of civil and criminal investigations launched in the past two years could bear fruit in 2025 and beyond. Trump, who appointed former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin as EPA administrator, has said he will again cut regulations and focus on what he calls burdensome rules for power plants and oil and natural gas production.
Uhlmann declined to speculate on how enforcement will change under Trump, but said: “Upholding the rule of law and ensuring polluters are held accountable and communities are protected from harmful pollution is not a partisan issue. At EPA, we enforce based on the law, based on the facts, without regard to politics.
“So, you know, communities should expect that EPA will continue to protect them from harmful pollution.”
