FY 2023 Federal Environmental Enforcement/Compliance: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Issues Summary Report

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) issued on December 18th a report titled:

Enforcement and Compliance Annual Results for Fiscal Year 2023 (“Enforcement Report”)

Categories addressed in the Enforcement Report include:

• Compliance
• Civil Enforcement
• Criminal Enforcement
• Superfund Enforcement
• Federal Facilities
• Emerging Areas of Focus

Additional information was provided addressing:

• Annual Results Maps
• Data and Trends

EPA contends in the Enforcement Report that Fiscal Year 2023 showed significant increases in:

• On-site inspections
• New criminal investigations
• Civil settlements
• Cleanup enforcement
• Record levels of enforcement activity in environmental justice communities

Other notable information provided in the Enforcement Report included:

• Additional 300 new positions added to the Enforcement Program
• 60% of onsite inspections in environmental justice communities
• More than 50% of civil settlements in environmental justice communities
• Creation of a Climate Enforcement and Compliance Strategy
• Initiated 199 criminal investigations constituting an increase of 70% over FY 2022
• Concluded 1,789 civil settlements which was 150 more than in FY 2022
• Enforcement compliance work resulted in the reduction, treatment, elimination, or minimization of 1.84 billion pounds of pollutants
• Assessment of $704 million in penalties, fines, and restitution for alleged violations, constituting a 57% increase over FY 2022
• Obtained $1.1 billion from Superfund cleanup and cost recovery settlement agreements and recovery of past and future costs
• Issued 203 Safe Drinking Water Act Orders to public water systems
• Conducted 160 onsite inspections at public water systems

Note that Arkansas has been delegated basically every federal environmental statutory program. As a result, the vast majority of environmental enforcement in the State of Arkansas is by the Arkansas Department of Energy & Environment – Division of Environmental Quality. Nevertheless, EPA retains the statutory right to initiate enforcement actions in the State and does so on occasion.

A link to the EPA Enforcement Report can be found here.