Environmental Justice in Enforcement and Compliance Assurance

Fair and robust enforcement is key to EPA's efforts to promote environmental justice in communities across America that have been overburdened by pollution.  EPA’s enforcement and compliance assurance program vigorously applies environmental justice considerations across all criminal, civil, federal facilities, and cleanup enforcement activities. Our commitment to environmental justice seeks to deliver on the promise of clean air, safe drinking water, and communities free of toxic waste for everyone in the United States.

On this page:

• FY 2024 Enforcement and Compliance EJ Highlights
• EPA’s Enforcement and Compliance Assurance EJ Strategy

FY 2024 Enforcement and Compliance EJ Highlights

Maintaining a significant presence in communities overburdened by pollution is a cornerstone of EPA’s enforcement and compliance assurance program. In fiscal year (FY) 2024, OECA’s accomplishments in these communities included:

• Eliminating 227 million pounds of pollution in communities overburdened by pollution, the highest total ever.
• Conducting 53% of inspections in overburdened communities, surpassing our goal of 50%.
• Issuing 12 Safe Drinking Water Act section 1431 emergency orders to protect over 21,000 individuals in small or overburdened communities from imminent and substantial endangerment.
• Enhancing community engagement activities to understand better a community’s concerns and improve EPA’s ability to negotiate appropriate relief and cleanup work.
• Addressing toxic site contamination that benefits approximately 611,662 people living in communities within a one-mile radius of a Superfund site.
• Conducting 61% of new criminal cases in communities overburdened by pollution.
• Advancing and refining our screening tool to ensure that we are focused on the most overburdened and underserved communities.

Learn more: Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Annual Results for FY 2024 – Environmental Justice.

EPA's Enforcement and Compliance Environmental Justice Strategy

In January 2021, the Biden-Harris Administration issued  Executive Order 13985 directing all federal agencies to advance racial equity and support for underserved communities. This directive was soon followed by the January 2021 Executive Order 14008, and EPA Administrator Michael Regan’s message to all EPA offices (titled, “Our Commitment to Environmental Justice”), which specifically called on EPA to strengthen enforcement to help advance the protection of communities overburdened by pollution.

EPA responded to the Administrator’s direction by issuing four memoranda directing enforcement staff to strengthen EJ considerations in the civil, criminal, and cleanup enforcement programs, and to use all available tools to do so:

• Memorandum from Acting Assistant Administrator for Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Larry Starfield, “Strengthening [Civil Regulatory] Enforcement in Communities with Environmental Justice Concerns" (pdf)  (April 30, 2021)
• Memorandum from Acting Assistant Administrator for Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Larry Starfield, "Strengthening Environmental Justice Through Criminal Enforcement" (pdf) (222.35 KB, June 21, 2021)
• Memorandum from Acting Assistant Administrator for Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Larry Starfield, "Strengthening Environmental Justice Through Cleanup Enforcement Actions" (pdf) (227.79 KB, July 1, 2021)
• Memorandum from Acting Assistant Administrator Larry Starfield, Using All Appropriate Injunctive Relief Tools in Civil Enforcement Settlements,(pdf) (April 26, 2021)  

Our work to protect communities with potential EJ concerns is a shared goal and responsibility of EPA and our partner agencies. EPA conducts joint planning with states and other co-regulators and, whenever possible, endeavors to perform enforcement and compliance work in partnership with them.

In August 2023, EPA announced the Fiscal Year 2024-2027 National Enforcement and Compliance Initiatives or NECI to focus its enforcement and compliance resources on the most serious environmental programs facing the country. All six initiatives incorporate environmental justice considerations, including focusing more NECI inspections and compliance monitoring activities in overburdened or vulnerable communities, to ensure that the benefits of our nation’s environmental laws can be shared by everyone living in the United States.