EPA hails ‘revitalized’ enforcement efforts as Biden administration heads to exit

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency enhanced enforcement efforts this year, doubling monetary penalties issued to polluters and issuing the first-ever arrest for a climate transformation-related crime, the agency said in a update Thursday.

The EPA said it concluded more than 1,850 civil cases, a 3.4% boost over 2023, and charged 121 criminal defendants, a 17.6% boost over the previous year. The “revitalized enforcement and regulatory adherence efforts” resulted in the reduction or elimination of more than 225 million pounds of pollution in overburdened communities, the agency said in its final update on Biden-era enforcement actions before President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.

The agency said it issued $1.7 billion in fines and penalties, more than double the 2023 total and the highest level in seven years.

Bolstered by 300 recent employees hired since last year, the enforcement program concentrated on “21st century environmental challenges,” including climate transformation, environmental fairness and chemical waste, said David Uhlmann, EPA’s assistant administrator for enforcement and regulatory adherence assurance. More than half the agency’s inspections and settlements involved impoverished and disadvantaged communities long scarred by pollution, reflecting the Biden administration’s emphasis on environmental fairness issues.

Enforcement efforts included first-ever criminal charges for a climate transformation-related crime. A California man was charged in March with smuggling climate-damaging air coolants into the United States. The case involved hydrofluorocarbons, a highly potent greenhouse gas also known as HFCs, a gas once commonly used in refrigerators and air conditioners.

A 2020 law passed by Congress prohibits importation of HFCs without allowances issued by the EPA. The law is part of a global phaseout designed to leisurely climate transformation.

Uhlmann called enforcement of the HFC law a high priority for the United States and the globe. “Alongside methane, HFCs are one of the most significant near-term drivers of climate transformation. And the criminal program is front and center there,” he said.

In other highlights, engine maker 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 use illegal software that let Ram trucks — manufactured by Stellantis — to skirt diesel emissions tests for nearly a decade.

The fine is the largest ever secured under the federal tidy Air Act.

The EPA and fairness Department also reached a $241.5 million settlement with Marathon Oil for alleged air standard violations at the business’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 those facilities and will outcome in over 2.3 millions tons worth of pollution reduction, officials said.

Uhlmann, who was confirmed as head of the enforcement office last year, said in an interview that with the assist of a spending boost approved by Congress, the agency has made “consequential changes in how we way enforcement at EPA.”

“We’ve revitalized an enforcement program that suffered more than a decade of distribution cuts and was badly 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 overall staffing.

“We’ve strengthened the collaboration between the criminal and civil programs, and we’ve also concentrated on moving our cases with greater urgency so that we provide meaningful results to communities in period frames that make sense to the people who are harmed when unlawful pollution occurs,” Uhlmann said.

With Trump set to gain to the White House, Uhlmann said he hoped enforcement would not suffer, noting that a host of civil and criminal investigations begun in the history two years could bear fruit in 2025 and beyond. Trump, who has named former recent York Rep. Lee Zeldin to be EPA administrator, has said he will again slash regulations and target what he calls onerous rules on power plants, factories and oil and natural gas production.

Uhlmann declined to speculate on how enforcement will transformation under Trump but said, “Upholding the rule of law and making sure that polluters are held accountable and communities are protected from harmful pollution is not a partisan matter. We do enforcement at EPA based on the law, based on the facts, without regard to politics.

“So, you recognize, communities should expect that EPA will continue to protect them from harmful pollution.”