EPA’s Annual Enforcement Results Shows Significant Increase in Enforcement Activity to Protect Communities from Pollution | US EPA

Revitalized Enforcement and Compliance Program is Delivering on 21st Century Environmental Challenges, Leading to Highest Enforcement Levels in Years

December 18, 2023

Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced its Fiscal Year 2023 (FY 2023) Enforcement and Compliance Annual Results, which showed significant increases in on-site inspections, new criminal investigations, civil settlements, and cleanup enforcement, as well as record levels of enforcement activity in environmental justice communities long scarred by pollution.

In FY 2023, EPA’s enforcement and compliance program focused on addressing 21^st century environmental challenges like climate change, environmental justice, and PFAS, while adding approximately 300 new positions to reinvigorate an enforcement program that had suffered more than a decade of budget cuts that eliminated approximately 950 positions.

“In 2023, EPA moved decisively to focus our enforcement and compliance program on the Nation’s most significant environmental threats and to increase our efforts to hold all polluters accountable,” said David M. Uhlmann, Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance.  “While our work is not complete, EPA’s revitalized enforcement program is making a positive difference in communities across America, particularly for people living in underserved and overburdened communities that for too long have borne the brunt of pollution. From helping ensure that our children can drink safe water to improving the air we all breathe, EPA is delivering on the promise of America’s environmental laws.”

EPA’s enforcement and compliance program made significant progress in efforts to support communities with environmental justice concerns.  The Agency’s FY 2022-2026 Strategic Plan set a goal to increase the percentage of annual on-site inspections in environmental justice communities from 30 to 55 percent 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. More than half of its civil settlements were in those communities as well.

To better address the defining environmental threat of this time, climate change, EPA launched its “Climate Enforcement and Compliance Strategy” that directs all EPA enforcement and compliance offices to address climate change in 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 also issued a set of six national enforcement and compliance initiatives to focus and coordinate resources across the country on leading environmental challenges and threats, including the first ever national initiatives on climate change, the forever-chemicals per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), and contamination from coal ash facilities.

Additional highlights of our accomplishments this past year include: 

• Conducted more on-site inspections in FY 2023 than since before the pandemic, with 60% in communities with environmental justice concerns.
• Opened 199 criminal investigations in FY 2023, an increase of 70% over FY 2022. Concluded 1,789 civil settlements, over 150 more than in FY 2022. Over 55% of the cases address facilities in communities with potential EJ concerns, the highest percentage since FY 2014.
• EPA’s FY 2023 enforcement and compliance work resulted in the reduction, treatment, elimination, or minimization of 1.84 billion pounds of pollutants, and required violators to pay over $704 million in penalties, fines, and restitution, which is a 57% increase over FY 2022.  
• Obtained approximately $1.1 billion from Superfund cleanup and cost recovery settlement agreements and recovery of past and future costs. This brings the total value of the Agency’s Superfund enforcement actions, since inception of the program in 1980, to $50 billion to address contamination at more than 3,900 Superfund sites across the country.   
• Issued 203 Safe Drinking Water Act orders to public water systems which collectively protected more than 1.9 million people. Eight of the 203 orders were emergency orders to protect almost 2,000 individuals in small, overburdened communities with drinking water that did not meet federal health standards. 
• Conducted 160 on-site inspections at public water systems (PWS) in FY 2023, which is 90% more than the prior 10-year average. The resulting 150 cases to correct PWS violations in FY 2023 is an increase of more than 300% over the prior 10-year average.  

To learn more about EPA’s FY 2023 enforcement and compliance accomplishments, including case highlights, visit EPA’s Enforcement and Compliance Annual Results for Fiscal Year 2023 website.

Members of the public can help protect our environment by identifying and reporting environmental violations. Learn more at EPA’s Report Environmental Violations web page.