Polluters and the EPA

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is moving in the direction of subsidizing polluting industries and rubber-stamping permits, rather than protecting the health and well-being of people and the environment. In other words, don't expect the federal government to protect us from polluters.
The 2026 President’s Budget for EPA proposes a 54 percent decrease from the 2025 EPA budget level.  

There is little understanding of the need for strong environmental regulation and enforcement in this budget proposal. Recent agency actions strongly indicate that commitment to environmental protection is negligible.
No one living in the United States will escape the results of EPA’s budget reduction and the poor decisions to waiver enforcement of our nation’s environmental standards.
 
The EPA is required to deny any proposed permit deemed not in compliance with the Clean Air, Clean Water or Endangered Species Act.  EPA has cut its compliance inspections, initiated fewer civil pollution cases and filed fewer criminal complaints.
 
EPA Region 4, which Florida is a part of, will likely see the largest funding cuts in the following areas: 

• Enforcement staff within the EPA Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. 
• Emergency Response and Toxic Cleanup Staff EPA within the EPA Office of Land and Emergency Management.
• Safe Drinking Water Staff within the EPA Office of Water.

Suing the EPA to make them do what the law already requires them to do and for which they are already being paid will become the norm. 
 
More time and money will be spent figuring out how to remove companies from regulation than is spent getting companies regulated. Fines that EPA collect are already smaller than the profits polluters earned by breaking the law in the first place; and most importantly: most enforcement cases against influential polluters are started by some combination of environmental organizations, the media and local citizens. 
 
It is irresponsible for our federal agencies to give industries the green light to pollute. Priority should be given to protecting the public’s health and the environment from the toxic effects of air and water pollution.

Please tell EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, Senator Rick Scott and Senator Ashley Moody that you disagree with the current decision to reduce environmental protections. Allowing polluters to pollute with less oversight will hurt the public’s health, environment and the nation’s economy.

Glenn Compton is the Chairman of ManaSota 88, a non-profit organization that has spent over 30 years fighting to protect the environment of Manatee and Sarasota counties.