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For Immediate Release
January, 22 2026, 01:00pm EDT
Contact:
Kaylee Rodriguez, krodriguez@peer.org
Joanna Citron Day, jday@peer.org
Under EPA’s Zeldin, Pollution Enforcement Dying a Quick Death
Department of Justice Civil Pollution Settlements Plummet to Record Lows
Civil prosecutions of illegal pollution plummeted to historically low levels during the first year of President Trump’s second administration, according to figures released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), reflecting a sharp decline in Department of Justice (DOJ) action on cases referred by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The data compiled by PEER shows that DOJ settled just 15 of the cases referred by EPA for civil prosecution in the year since President Trump’s second inauguration. That is far below the 71 concluded during the first full year of the Biden Administration or the 75 concluded during the first full year of President Trump’s first term.
The data also reveals:
- DOJ virtually stopped enforcing the Clean Air Act, lodging just one consent decree in a relatively small case since Trump’s inauguration last year, versus 26 in the first year of Trump’s first term, and 22 after Biden’s first year.
- Superfund cleanup settlements have also hit rock bottom, with only seven consent decrees lodged in the past year, about a quarter of the totals in the Trump and Biden inaugural years––2017 & 2021, respectively.
- DOJ landed four Clean Water Act consent decrees in the first year, a record low under any Administration.
This collapse in enforcement comes as EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin moves forward with plans to stop calculating the public health benefits of rules aimed at reducing air pollution and to make it harder for EPA to enforce environmental laws under a new compliance first policy. Reduced civil enforcement means fewer penalties, fewer cleanups, and fewer deterrents preventing illegal pollution.
“Under Lee Zeldin, anti-pollution enforcement is dying a quick death,” remarked PEER Executive Director Tim Whitehouse, formerly an enforcement attorney at EPA. “Administrator Zeldin is removing all incentives for big polluters to follow the law and turning a blind eye to those who suffer from the impacts of pollution.”
“Enforcing environmental laws ensures that polluters are held accountable and prevented from dumping their pollution on others for profit,” said Joanna Citron Day, PEER General Counsel and a former Senior Counsel at DOJ’s Environmental Enforcement Section. “For the sake of our health and the environment, Congress and the American people need to push back against Lee Zeldin’s dismantling of EPA‘s environmental enforcement program.”
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EPA to Stop Considering Lives Saved when Setting Rules on Pollution
PEER protects public employees who protect our environment. We are a service organization for environmental and public health professionals, land managers, scientists, enforcement officers, and other civil servants dedicated to upholding environmental laws and values. We work with current and former federal, state, local, and tribal employees.
LATEST NEWS
'Senseless Betrayal' of Workers as Trump Agency Scraps Anti-Harassment Guidance With No Public Input
"Trump-installed Chair Andrea Lucas orchestrated this rescission through the back door, refusing to issue the opportunity for public comment."
Jan 22, 2026
The Trump administration, quietly and with no public input, voted Thursday to scrap federal guidance aimed at clarifying and bolstering anti-harassment protections on the job, a move that rights advocates condemned as yet another destructive attack on workers.
The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which President Donald Trump targeted last year by firing two of its Democratic commissioners before their terms were up, voted 2-1 to rescind the anti-harassment guidance approved under the Biden administration.
Unlike the approval process, which garnered tens of thousands of public comments, the decision by Republicans on the EEOC to completely scrap the guidance was made without any feedback from the American public.
Noreen Farrell, executive director of Equal Rights Advocates (ERA), said in a statement that the Trump administration is "abandoning millions of workers who face harassment on the job and sending a clear message that this administration will not lift a finger to protect them."
"Trump-installed Chair Andrea Lucas orchestrated this rescission through the back door, refusing to issue the opportunity for public comment," said Noreen Farrell, executive director of Equal Rights Advocates (ERA). "Requests for meetings to discuss the rescission, including ERA’s request, were canceled. This administration does not want to hear from the workers it is abandoning."
"The Trump administration’s rescission of the EEOC workplace harassment guidance is about weaponizing a civil rights agency against the very people it was created to protect," Farrell added.
Ahead of Thursday's vote, Lucas was vocal in her opposition to the portions of the 2024 guidance that clarified the illegality of workplace harassment based on gender identity. Under Lucas' leadership, the EEOC last year moved to drop virtually every lawsuit the agency had filed in the previous year over discrimination against transgender workers.
Late last year, Lucas reportedly received a green light from the Trump White House to pursue the complete rescission of the 2024 guidance—not just the sections related to sexual orientation and gender identity, which had already been vacated by a federal court.
Commissioner Kalpana Kotagal, the EEOC's only Democrat and the lone vote against rescinding the guidance, lamented that "instead of adopting a thoughtful and surgical approach to excise the sections the majority disagrees with or suggest an alternative, the commission is throwing out the baby with the bathwater."
"Worse, it is doing so without public input," Kotagal added.
"This move will leave the commission enforcing guidance from a time when gay marriage was illegal and most people didn’t have internet at home."
US Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), a senior member and former chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, said in a statement that the guidance rescission "is a senseless betrayal from an administration doing everything it can to make working people’s lives harder at every turn."
"While this move doesn’t change the underlying law, this administration is turning back the clock decades by abandoning robust enforcement of sexual harassment in the workplace—this hurts everyone and helps no one," said Murray. "Andrea Lucas is openly waging war on the independence and basic mission of the EEOC—and this move will leave the commission enforcing guidance from a time when gay marriage was illegal and most people didn’t have internet at home."
“Whether it’s protecting sexual predators in the Epstein files, promoting alleged abusers to the highest offices in government, or getting rid of basic standards to protect workers against harassment, this administration has proven time and again that they couldn’t care less about workers, women, or victims of abuse," the senator added. "Under Trump, the EEOC is taking the side of abusers over working people just trying to do their jobs. We can’t let this get swept under the rug."
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Jack Smith: Trump 'Willfully Broke the Law' and Is Seeking 'Revenge' Against Those Who Uncovered It
"President Trump was charged because the evidence established that he willfully broke the law, the very laws he took an oath to uphold."
Jan 22, 2026
Former special counsel Jack Smith on Thursday defended his decision to bring criminal charges against President Donald Trump, while also expressing deep concerns about the rule of law in the US during the second Trump administration.
During testimony before the US House Judiciary Committee, Smith emphasized that he decided to prosecute Trump solely because the facts in the case showed he had committed crimes.
"President Trump was charged because the evidence established that he willfully broke the law, the very laws he took an oath to uphold," said Smith. "Grand juries in two separate districts reached this conclusion based on his actions as alleged in the indictments they returned."
Smith then said that after losing the US presidential election in 2020, Trump "engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results and prevent the lawful transfer of power."
The former special counsel emphasized that he stood by his decisions to bring charges against Trump because "our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity."
Smith told lawmakers on the committee that he had uncovered evidence that Trump knew his claims about the 2020 election being stolen were false, but he pushed them anyway in order to illegally remain in the White House.
"Trump was not looking for honest answers about whether there was fraud in the election," said Smith. "He was looking for ways to stay in power. And when people told him things that conflicted with him staying in power, he rejected them."
In addition to discussing his criminal cases against the president, which were dismissed without prejudice after the 2024 presidential election, Smith also delivered a warning about Trump's campaign of retribution against his enemies.
"President Trump has sought to seek revenge against career prosecutors, FBI agents, and support staff simply for having done these cases," he said. "Vilifying and seeking retribution against these people is wrong. Those dedicated public servants are the base of us, and it has been a privilege to serve with them."
Smith then pivoted to warning about the state of the rule of law in general during Trump's second term.
"My fear is that we have seen the rule of law function in our country for so long that many of us have come to take it for granted," he said. "The rule of law is not self-executing. It depends on our collective commitment to apply it. It requires dedicated service on behalf of others, especially when that service is difficult and comes with costs. Our willingness to pay those costs is what tests and defines our commitment to the rule of law and to this wonderful country."
Smith's testimony earned praise from Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee.
"Special Counsel Smith, you pursued the facts," Raskin said. "You followed every applicable law... Your decisions were reviewed by the Public Integrity Section. You acted based solely on the facts."
The Maryland Democrat said that Smith's approach to enforcing the law was in stark contrast to the approach the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has taken during Trump's second term.
"The opposite of Donald Trump, who now has purported to take over the Department of Justice," Raskin said. "He’s in charge of the whole thing under his unitary executive theory, and he acts openly, purely based on political vendetta and motives of personal revenge. And he doesn’t deny it."
As Smith was testifying, Trump called Smith a "deranged animal" and put direct pressure the DOJ to punish the former special counsel.
"Hopefully the Attorney General is looking at what he’s done, including some of the crooked and corrupt witnesses that he was attempting to use in his case against me," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "The whole thing was a Democrat SCAM — A big price should be paid by them for what they have put our Country through!"
On Tuesday, Trump filed a motion asking the US District Court of the Southern District of Florida to prohibit the DOJ from carrying out a planned future release of Smith's report on his case against Trump that involved the unlawful retention of top-secret government documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort after he left the White House in 2021.
Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, linked the timing of Thursday's hearing with Smith to the potential release of his report on the classified documents case.
" Republicans are only now allowing this hearing simply because Judge Cannon’s injunction keeping the second volume of Jack Smith’s report private is about to expire," she said. "Keeping the truth locked away is an assault on the rule of law and on the transparency owed to the American people."
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Bondi Announces 3 Arrests Over Protest at Church of ICE-Linked Pastor
"The administration literally changed the rules to allow ICE to raid churches," said one Baptist minister. "That's attacking, not protecting houses of worship!"
Jan 22, 2026
A year after President Donald Trump revoked a rule barring US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from arresting immigrants in or around "sensitive" locations like places of worship, his attorney general on Thursday announced the arrest of three people tied to a recent protest at a Minnesota church where an ICE official reportedly serves as a pastor.
A few dozen demonstrators disrupted a service last Sunday at the Cities Church in Saint Paul, according to the Associated Press. One of the Southern Baptist church's pastors, David Easterwood, seemingly also leads a local ICE field office. Some protesters approached the pulpit, and others chanted "ICE out" and demanded justice for Renee Good, a woman fatally shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis earlier this month.
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has declined to open a civil rights investigation into Good's killing but swiftly launched one into the church protest. Attorney General Pam Bondi said on social media Thursday morning that at her direction, Homeland Security Investigations and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents "executed an arrest in Minnesota."
"So far, we have arrested Nekima Levy Armstrong, who allegedly played a key role in organizing the coordinated attack on Cities Church in Saint Paul, Minnesota," she continued. "We will share more updates as they become available. Listen loud and clear: WE DO NOT TOLERATE ATTACKS ON PLACES OF WORSHIP."
As the AP reported Monday:
Levy Armstrong, who participated in the protest and leads the local grassroots civil rights organization Racial Justice Network, dismissed the potential DOJ investigation as a sham and a distraction from federal agents' actions in Minneapolis-Saint Paul.
"When you think about the federal government unleashing barbaric ICE agents upon our community and all the harm that they have caused, to have someone serving as a pastor who oversees these ICE agents, is almost unfathomable to me," said Armstrong, who added she is an ordained reverend. "If people are more concerned about someone coming to a church on a Sunday and disrupting business as usual than they are about the atrocities that we are experiencing in our community, then they need to check their theology and the need to check their hearts."
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem shared on social media a photo of Levy Armstrong's arrest and said that "she is being charged with a federal crime" under 18 USC § 241, which calls for fining or imprisoning people who conspire "to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person... in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same."
Noem added that "religious freedom is the bedrock of the United States—there is no First Amendment right to obstruct someone from practicing their religion," without mentioning the other rights guaranteed by that amendment, including freedom of speech and the right of the people peaceably to assemble.
Later Thursday morning, Bondi posted an update: "A second arrest has been made at my direction. Chauntyll Louisa Allen has been taken into custody. More to come. WE WILL PROTECT OUR HOUSES OF WORSHIP."
Allen is a member of the Saint Paul Public Schools Board of Education. FBI Director Kash Patel said on social media that both women are accused of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, or 18 USC § 248, which in part calls for fining in imprisoning anyone who "by force, or threat of force, or by physical obstruction, intentionally injures, intimidates, or interferes with, or attempts to injure, intimidate, or interfere with any person lawfully exercising or seeking to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship."
As the Washington Post detailed Thursday:
Passed in 1994, the FACE Act has primarily been known for protecting access to reproductive health clinics by making it a crime for demonstrators to block entrances, damage property, or threaten patients.
During the Biden administration, Republicans accused the Justice Department of wielding the act as a cudgel to punish anti-abortion demonstrators for exercising their First Amendment rights.
Since President Donald Trump's return to the White House, the department has cut back on FACE Act prosecutions and deployed the law instead to target protests staged outside houses of worship.
During Trump's 2024 campaign and second term that began a year ago, he and his allies have been accused of trying to move the United States toward "an authoritarianism guided by Christian nationalism," including by pushing to let churches endorse political candidates and establishing a Religious Liberty Commission that critics argue is intended "to advance a Christian nationalist agenda and impose one narrow religious view on the nation's public school children."
Early Thursday afternoon, Bondi and Patel announced a third person, William Kelly, had been arrested over the church protest.
This article was updated to included the arrest of William Kelly.
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