EPA: Enforcement and Compliance Annual Results for Fiscal Year 2023
From https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/enforcement-and-compliance-annual-results-fiscal-year-2023:
In Fiscal Year 2023, EPA’s enforcement and compliance assurance programs focused on addressing 21st century environmental challenges and reinvigorating EPA’s enforcement and compliance program. EPA promoted fair and robust enforcement and compliance assurance programs to hold polluters accountable, protect public health and the environment in communities across America, and ensure that companies who meet their legal obligations are not at a competitive disadvantage with those who break the law.
To help meet the existential threat of climate change, EPA issued its Climate Enforcement and Compliance Strategy on September 28, 2023, that directs all EPA enforcement and compliance offices to address climate change, including with criminal, civil, federal facilities, and cleanup enforcement actions. For the first time ever, the climate strategy requires EPA to pursue climate mitigation, adaptation, and resiliency whenever possible in its enforcement actions and compliance assurance programs.
EPA accelerated efforts to promote environmental justice (EJ) through increased inspections and enforcement in communities already overburdened by pollution. In EPA’s Strategic Plan, EPA committed to increasing the percentage of onsite inspections in EJ communities from30% to 55% by FY 2026. In FY 2023, EPA surpassed that goal three years ahead of schedule, achieving 60% of onsite inspections in communities overburdened with pollution.
EPA utilized the full range of compliance monitoring and enforcement tools, including inspections, technical assistance supported by advanced technologies, and early actions and innovative remedies to ensure high levels of compliance with environmental laws.
EPA dramatically increased its enforcement and compliance resources during 2023, after a decade of budget cuts reduced EPA enforcement by approximately 950 positions and hampered EPA’s ability to protect communities from the harmful effects of pollution. EPA is in the process of hiring more than 300 new employees—inspectors, attorneys, and technical staff—that will enable EPA to rebuild our inspector cadre and significantly increase our enforcement and compliance presence throughout the United States.
Already, EPA is producing results from its efforts to revitalize its enforcement and compliance assurance programs:
More on-site inspections to protect communities from harmful pollution since before the pandemic, supplemented by more selective use of off-site compliance tools developed during the pandemic.
More civil case conclusions since 2018, which eliminated an estimated 1.21 billion pounds of pollutants, and required violators to pay over $708 million in penalties, fines, and restitution, a 57% over FY 2022.
More Superfund enforcement instruments since 2017, with 80% of those Superfund actions in EJ communities; and
More criminal investigations opened than in any year since 2015 (with the exception ofFY 2020 when EPA confronted a surge of Covid-related fraud), resulting in a 70%percent increase over FY 2022.
EPA expects to increase its efforts to address 21st century environmental challenges and to strengthen its enforcement programs in FY 2024 and beyond. But in FY 2023, EPA sent an unmistakable message to the regulated community that EPA will work with its state partners to ensure that polluters are held accountable and that everyone living in the United States can breathe clean air and drink safe water.