Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Annual Results for Fiscal Year 2024: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Issue Report

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) issued on December 5th a press release publishing a report titled:

Enforcement and Compliance Annual Results for Fiscal Year 2024 (“Report”).

The Report provides for fiscal year 2024 various activities of the EPA in terms of civil and criminal enforcement of the environmental statues/programs that it administers.

EPA states in the accompanying press release that its enforcement and compliance assurance program delivered:

…results to address 21st century environmental challenges including climate change, environmental justice, and waste and chemical risks, leveraging an expanded and reinvigorated enforcement program that had suffered more than a decade of budget cuts.

Listed as “highlights” of the agency’s accomplishments during 2024 include:

• 2.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions were reduced, treated or eliminated.
• 227 million pounds of pollution eliminated in communities overburdened by pollution, the highest total ever.
• $1.7 billion in penalties, the highest level since FY 2017.
• 1,851 civil cases concluded – the highest number since FY 2017.
• 121 criminal defendants charged, the highest since FY 2019.
• 8,500+ inspections, nearly 10 percent increase from FY 2023.
• 53 percent of inspections in areas overburdened by pollution.
• 82 percent of completed Superfund enforcement settlement agreements at sites in overburdened communities.

The Report addresses EPA enforcement activities under various subjects such as:

• Federal facilities.
• Superfund enforcement.
• Civil enforcement.
• Criminal enforcement.
• Climate change.
• Environmental justice.
• National enforcement and compliance initiatives.
• Compliance assurance.

Attached is an interactive map that lists for various states:

• Concluded enforcement cases.
• On-site compliance inspections.
• Current cleanup work.

Note the Arkansas Department of Energy and Environment – Division of Environmental Quality and the Arkansas Department of Health (in the case of the Safe Drinking Water Act) have been delegated the authority to implement and enforce the primary federal environmental statutes. As a result, the majority of environmental enforcement in the State of Arkansas is undertaken by the Arkansas agencies. Nevertheless, despite delegation, EPA retains the ability to undertaken enforcement in the State and occasionally does so.

A link to the press release and the Report can be found here.