Interactive

Trace the origins of the EPA from the (often failed) attempts by local governments to control pollution through the politics of environmentalism in the 1960s.

Note: this timeline is best viewed on a normal screen.

This graph shows the costs associated with mitigating pollution and other environmental problems. Compliance costs (also known as “injunctive relief”) for civil enforcement actions are the estimated costs that regulated entities incur when they bring their operations into compliance with the law. Superfund cleanup costs are the costs that responsible parties have to pay to clean up Superfund (hazardous waste) sites. Supplemental Environmental Projects (SEPs) are agreements violators make to fund projects to improve environmental or human health in affected communities.

Use the cursor to hover over the graph and see presidential administrations and specific numbers. The dotted line is the average. The data are for fiscal years, which begin October 1 and end September 30. The calendar year it ends in is the year used to name the fiscal year. For example, fiscal year 2015 started on October 1, 2014 and ended on September 30, 2015. Inflation adjustment is in 2020 dollars. For more information terms, see the APE Glossary and Primer: How Enforcement Works at the EPA.

This graph shows the fines (penalties) levied against violators of environmental laws as a result of civil and criminal EPA enforcement cases.

Use the cursor to hover over the graph and see presidential administrations and specific numbers. The dotted line is the average. The bar with an asterisk is an outlier, truncated to make the rest of the graph more legible. The data are for fiscal years, which begin October 1 and end September 30. The calendar year it ends in is the year used to name the fiscal year. For example, fiscal year 2015 started on October 1, 2014 and ended on September 30, 2015. Inflation adjustment is in 2020 dollars. For more information terms, see the APE Glossary and Primer: How Enforcement Works at the EPA.

This graph shows the number of inspections undertaken by the EPA and the number of legal cases started (initiated) and concluded. The EPA inspects facilities to identify violations of the law (noncompliance). The EPA may also discover violations through self-reporting or citizen reporting. If noncompliance is discovered, the EPA may initiate a formal legal case against the violator. Most cases are civil administrative cases. Less common, but usually more serious cases, result in the initiation of civil judicial cases or criminal cases. When cases are resolved, which may take months or years, the result is a case conclusion.

Use the cursor to hover over the graph and see presidential administrations and specific numbers. The data are for fiscal years, which begin October 1 and end September 30. The calendar year it ends in is the year used to name the fiscal year. For example, fiscal year 2015 started on October 1, 2014 and ended on September 30, 2015. For more information terms, see the APE Glossary and Primer: How Enforcement Works at the EPA.

This heat map shows changes in frequency of climate- and energy-related terms (e.g. “climate change”) in a selection of five EPA document collections: issues of EPA Journal, EPA news releases, EPA strategic plan documents, EPA budget summaries, and EPA budget justification documents. The blue bars at the top indicate the time span of each document set. At the top a timeline shows key events related to the history of the EPA and climate change science. Hovering over a marker in the timeline displays information about the key event.

The color of each cell represents the normalized frequency of the term for the given year, i.e., the number of times the term appears in the selected document groups divided by the number of pages of documents published in that year. Each term on the left side of the visualization represents clusters of related phrases grouped together to compute the frequency of the term across the documents. For example, the frequency of the term “climate change” includes the combined frequency of “climate change,” “climatic change,” and “changing climate.” These groupings help us capture variations in terms that have the same basic meaning. 

To see the words included in each term group, hover over the heading for the term group in the left column. When you hover over an individual cell in the heatmap, a tooltip displays the term and normalized frequency of that term for the given year. To toggle document sets on or off, click on the corresponding header label for the given document set. The visualization automatically updates to display new counts when document sets are toggled.

Explore the changing context and approach of the EPA to climate change over time.

Note: this timeline is best viewed on a normal screen.

Explore the importance of enforcement to the creation of the EPA, and the changing way that the EPA has approached enforcement over time.

Note: this timeline is best viewed on a normal screen.