WASHINGTON (Sept. 28, 2023) – Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its Climate Enforcement and Compliance Strategy, directing all EPA enforcement and compliance programs to address climate change, wherever appropriate, in every matter within their jurisdiction. To meet this challenge, EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance will incorporate where appropriate climate-related solutions and measures to reduce, prevent, and prepare for the impacts of climate change in its criminal, civil, cleanup, and federal facility enforcement actions.
“The threats posed by climate change have never been greater, as we mark the warmest year on record, with more billion-dollar weather events than any year in U.S. history,” said Assistant Administrator David M. Uhlmann for EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. “EPA’s climate enforcement and compliance strategy reflects the urgency of holding polluters accountable for unlawful emissions that contribute to climate change, as well as the importance of incorporating climate resilience and adaptation requirements in our cases. These efforts are particularly necessary in overburdened and marginalized communities that are on the frontlines of the climate crisis.”
The Climate Strategy directs all EPA criminal, civil, cleanup and federal facilities activities to apply the following: (1) prioritize enforcement and compliance actions to mitigate climate change; (2) include climate adaptation and resilience requirements in case conclusions whenever appropriate; and (3) provide technical assistance to achieve climate-related solutions and build climate change capacity among EPA staff and its state and local partners.
Last month, EPA announced EPA’s first-ever national enforcement and compliance initiative (NECI) on climate change, which will target methane emissions from oil and gas facilities and landfills as well as illegal importation of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in violation of the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act (the AIM Act), which phases down production and consumption of HFCs, consistent with the Kigali Amendment. The Climate Enforcement and Compliance Strategy announced today builds on EPA’s climate change NECI and goes further by requiring EPA’s enforcement and compliance programs to fairly and vigorously enforce the full array of EPA’s current and future climate rules, including, but not limited to, greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting requirements and limits on other climate pollutants, such as carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide. In addition, the Strategy directs EPA staff to “embrace climate-related solutions, whenever appropriate…so that entities in both criminal and civil enforcement matters factor climate mitigation, adaptation, and resilience into their operations.”
EPA’s Climate Strategy is consistent with and supports President Biden’s Executive Order 14008, which calls on all federal agencies to implement a whole of government approach to tackling the climate crisis. It also supports EPA Administrator Regan’s decision to designate addressing the climate crisis as the top cross-cutting goal in EPA’s Strategic Plan.