More Permission to Pollute: The Decline of EPA Enforcement and Industry Compliance during COVID

On March 26, 2020, the EPA suspended pollution monitoring requirements for regulated entities that claimed to have been impacted by Covid-19. EDGI’s Environmental Enforcement Watch used EPA’s ECHO database to analyze facility reporting and compliance. This analysis showed that although few facilities claimed the Covid-19 exemption, a significant proportion of facilities had still failed to report data that would allow for a determination of non-compliance.