Administrator Zeldin Directs Enforcement Resources to Align with Executive Orders and EPA’s Core Mission
WASHINGTON – U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin announced updated enforcement discretion to allow the agency to better focus on its core mission and Powering the Great American Comeback. Specifically, he announced that EPA will immediately revise National Enforcement and Compliance Initiatives to ensure that enforcement does not discriminate based on race and socioeconomic status (as it has under environmental justice initiatives) or shut down energy production and that it focuses on the most pressing health and safety issues. This focus on EPA’s established mission will also provide predictability as EPA considers changes to regulations, thereby lowering costs for Americans and relieving the economy of potentially unnecessary bureaucratic burdens.
“The Biden-Harris Administration paired burdensome, legally questionable regulations with unpredictable but punitive enforcement aimed at shutting down American energy and manufacturing and promoting so-called ‘environmental justice.’ By re-aligning enforcement with the law instead of activist goals, we can help deliver economic prosperity and energy security while ensuring compliance with sound regulations,” said EPA Administrator Zeldin.
The “Ensuring Lawful Governance” Executive Order directs agencies to “preserve their limited enforcement resources by generally de-prioritizing actions to enforce regulations that are based on anything other than the best reading of a statute and de-prioritizing actions to enforce regulations that go beyond the powers vested in the Federal Government by the Constitution.” EPA’s realignment of enforcement furthers this effort.
This was announced in conjunction with a number of historic actions to advance President Trump’s Day One executive orders and Power the Great American Comeback. Combined, these announcements represent the greatest and most consequential day of deregulation in the history of the United States. While accomplishing EPA’s core mission of protecting the environment, the agency is committed to fulfilling President Trump’s promise to unleash American energy, lower costs for Americans, revitalize the American auto industry, restore the rule of law, and give power back to states to make their own decisions.
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