EPA Enforcement — ECHO Compliance & Penalties
Who pollutes most, by the numbers — the EPA enforcement record in aggregate
The EPA's ECHO database tracks 3,135,553 regulated facilities. 44,112 (1.4%) carry a formal enforcement action in the last five years and 21,125 a monetary penalty, totalling $10.9B; 78,711 are currently flagged in violation. Penalties concentrate sharply — the top 100 penalized facilities hold 39.4% of the total. Aggregate counts only; no individual named.
Key findings
facilities are tracked in the EPA's ECHO enforcement database — the population of regulated sites under the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, hazardous-waste (RCRA), and Safe Drinking Water Act programs. Of these, 1,637,809 are active and 205,664 were inspected at least once in the last five years.
of all tracked facilities carry at least one formal enforcement action in the five-year window — a small fraction of the regulated universe. A further 136,971 have informal actions, and 21,125 carry a monetary penalty.
in penalties has been assessed across the 21,125 penalized facilities over the five-year window. Every dollar of the penalty record sits at a facility that also has a formal enforcement action — penalties and formal actions move together in the data.
facilities are currently flagged in a violation status — 20,834 as "Significant Violation" (the EPA's highest current-compliance flag) and 57,877 as "Violation Identified". That is 2.5% of the tracked universe carrying an open compliance problem at snapshot time.
— the 0.5% highest-penalty facilities — account for 39.4% of the entire $10.9B penalty pool. The top 10 alone hold 26.3%, and the single largest penalty ($1.7B) is 15.4% of the total. Environmental penalties are concentrated in a handful of very large settlements.
of attributed penalties fall under the Clean Air Act — the largest single-program share. By facility count, the Clean Water Act leads with 12,738 formally-actioned facilities. NAICS/SIC industry codes are not carried in the ECHO Exporter file, so the EPA media program is the available regulatory-domain axis.
At a glance
Current compliance status
How the 3,135,553tracked facilities split across the EPA's current-compliance field. The overwhelming majority show no violation; a thin layer (2.5%) carry an open compliance problem at snapshot time, of which the most serious tier is “Significant Violation”.
| Compliance status | Facilities | Share |
|---|---|---|
| No Violation Identified | 2,157,224 | 68.8% |
| Not classified / blank | 596,352 | 19% |
| Inactive | 287,901 | 9.2% |
| Violation Identified | 55,704 | 1.8% |
| Significant Violation | 20,834 | 0.7% |
| Unknown | 15,365 | 0.5% |
| Violation | 2,173 | 0.1% |
“Significant Violation” is the EPA's most serious current-compliance flag. “Not classified / blank” and “Inactive” facilities carry no current violation determination. Status is the EPA's own administrative field as of the snapshot.
Where the penalties land — by state
The fifteen states with the largest five-year penalty totals among facilities with a formal enforcement action. A high total is often driven by one or a few very large settlements rather than a broad base — Indiana and New Mexico lead on penalty dollars on the strength of a small number of headline cases, while California, Texas, North Carolina, and New York lead on the sheer number of formally-actioned facilities.
| State | Facilities w/ formal action | Of those, penalized | Penalties (5yr) |
|---|---|---|---|
| IN | 957 | 690 | $1,855,134,383 |
| NM | 639 | 265 | $1,256,064,279 |
| CA | 3,857 | 1,160 | $669,172,762 |
| TX | 3,228 | 2,299 | $596,805,665 |
| PA | 2,117 | 1,309 | $378,487,161 |
| NY | 2,701 | 1,213 | $356,957,101 |
| MI | 632 | 369 | $324,739,997 |
| OH | 935 | 379 | $291,618,624 |
| IL | 1,425 | 335 | $258,569,057 |
| FL | 1,598 | 764 | $251,933,298 |
| NC | 3,146 | 678 | $235,536,246 |
| WI | 271 | 99 | $208,114,451 |
| GA | 931 | 576 | $177,738,639 |
| WV | 582 | 273 | $175,504,487 |
| UT | 380 | 229 | $171,638,868 |
US states and territories only; a small number of raw ECHO records carry non-US or invalid state codes and are excluded from this table. Penalty totals are sums of the published five-year facility penalty figures.
By EPA program (the pollution domain)
The ECHO Exporter file does not carry a NAICS or SIC industry code, so the available “sector” axis is the EPA media program — the regulatory domain a facility is actioned under. Clean Water Act (NPDES) facilities are the most numerous, but Clean Air Act cases carry by far the largest attributed penalties.
| EPA program | Code | Facilities w/ formal action | Attributed penalties (5yr) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clean Air Act (air) | CAA | 7,266 | $2,455,581,367 |
| Clean Water Act (water/NPDES) | CWA | 12,738 | $487,211,975 |
| Hazardous waste (RCRA) | RCRA | 4,918 | $179,040,181 |
| Safe Drinking Water Act | SDWA | 10,273 | — |
A facility can be regulated under more than one program, so program counts overlap and do not sum to the 44,112 total. Program-attributed penalties also do not sum to the $10.9Bheadline — the largest settlements are recorded against a facility's overall penalty figure, not split by media (the Safe Drinking Water Act program records facility actions but no attributed penalty in this file).
By year of most recent enforcement action
Because the file is a five-year rollup rather than a per-year ledger, the cleanest temporal cut is each facility's most recent formal enforcement action. Penalty dollars swing year to year with the timing of a few mega-settlements — 2022 carries an outsized total on the strength of several billion-dollar-class cases.
| Year of last formal action | Facilities | Penalties (5yr) |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 (partial) | 3,728 | $425,429,398 |
| 2025 | 9,821 | $2,104,925,544 |
| 2024 | 9,449 | $2,290,032,912 |
| 2023 | 8,029 | $823,043,890 |
| 2022 | 8,939 | $5,105,795,678 |
| 2021 | 3,966 | $155,008,131 |
Penalty figures are each facility's full five-year penalty total grouped by the year of its most recent action — not a per-year breakdown of when each dollar was assessed. 2026 is a partial year at snapshot time.
How concentrated the penalty record is
Of 21,125 facilities carrying any penalty, the 100 largest (0.5% of them) account for 39.4% of the $10.9B total. The top 10 hold 26.3%, and the single largest penalty — $1.7B — is 15.4% of the entire pool on its own. Environmental penalties are not spread thin across many sites; they are dominated by a small set of very large industrial settlements.
Top facilities by assessed penalty
The twenty facilities with the largest five-year assessed penalties in the ECHO record. Facility and company names are public EPA regulatory records published at echo.epa.gov; no individual is named. The ordering is the EPA's own published penalty amount — not a Fonteum score, risk rating, or accusation.
| # | Facility (EPA public record) | Location | Penalties (5yr) | Formal actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CUMMINS INCORPORATED IRWIN OFFICE BUILDING | COLUMBUS, IN | $1,675,000,000 | 1 |
| 2 | HINO MOTORS | TOKYO, JA | $532,213,114 | 1 |
| 3 | ALTAIR RECYCLING FACILITY | ALTAIR, TX | $181,012,404 | 4 |
| 4 | EES COKE BATTERY L.L.C. (P0408) | DETROIT, MI | $100,728,768 | 1 |
| 5 | THE MANITOWOC COMPANY, INC. | MANITOWOC, WI | $85,200,000 | 2 |
| 6 | GREKA BELL COMPRESSOR PLANT | SANTA MARIA, CA | $65,389,856 | 1 |
| 7 | HENRY CHARGING USA 41-3H / 31-3TFH | NEW TOWN, ND | $64,500,000 | 1 |
| 8 | VERIS GOLD JERRITT CANYON MINE | ELKO, NV | $61,044,398 | 12 |
| 9 | NAVISTAR | WARRENVILLE, IL | $52,000,000 | 1 |
| 10 | RED HILLS GAS PROCESSING PLANT | JAL, NM | $47,833,048 | 1 |
| 11 | RED BUD CTB | JAL, NM | $40,336,818 | 1 |
| 12 | HP GAS PAD | JAL, NM | $40,336,818 | 1 |
| 13 | AZALEA BATTERY | JAL, NM | $40,336,818 | 1 |
| 14 | NANDINA CTB | JAL, NM | $40,336,818 | 1 |
| 15 | AMEN CORNER CTB | JAL, NM | $40,336,818 | 1 |
| 16 | TADANO AMERICAS CORPORATION | HOUSTON, TX | $40,000,000 | 1 |
| 17 | ARTESIA REFINERY | ARTESIA, NM | $33,916,450 | 2 |
| 18 | ARTESIA GAS PLANT | ARTESIA, NM | $33,504,866 | 2 |
| 19 | DCP MIDSTREAM - EUNICE GAS PLANT | OIL CENTER, NM | $33,504,866 | 2 |
| 20 | BP PRODUCTS NORTH AMERICA, INC. | WHITING, IN | $32,503,785 | 16 |
Facility, city, and state are as published in the EPA ECHO record (a small number of records carry non-US locations). A large penalty reflects the size of a single federal settlement, not a per-facility risk ranking. Confirm any facility's current status at echo.epa.gov.
Reproduce it
Re-derive every figure on this page from the published artifacts:
- Reproducible SQL — the exact aggregation queries, with expected-result comments.
- Download JSON · Download CSV — the committed aggregate snapshot.
Re-check the source snapshot
Every figure here traces to a signed source snapshot, not our word for it. Each ECHO pull is content-hashed and chained; you can re-hash the published bytes against the attestation yourself.
Re-check a snapshot → — re-hash any Fonteum snapshot and confirm the bytes match the chained attestation.
Methodology
The study aggregates one table in the fonteum-platform warehouse: public.epa_echo_exporter_facilities (3,135,553 rows), the EPA ECHO Exporter facility file. Universe counts (queries 1–2) are full-table aggregates over the 3,135,553-row table. State, program, year, concentration, and top-facility figures (queries 3–7) filter to the formally-actioned subset (formal_action_count_5yr > 0, 44,112facilities), which is where the entire penalty record sits — the sum of penalties over that subset equals the full-table penalty sum exactly. Compliance status uses the EPA's own current-compliance field; the EPA media program is read from the per-program program_metricsJSON rollup. Penalty figures are the EPA's published five-year facility totals. Every published figure is re-derivable from the SQL linked above, whose expected-result comments match the committed JSON snapshot.
How to cite this
Fonteum (2026). EPA's Top Violators 2026: Who Pollutes Most, by the Numbers. Derived from the EPA ECHO Exporter facility file (snapshot 2026-06-25). https://fonteum.com/gov/research/epa-top-violators-2026
Canonical URL: https://fonteum.com/gov/research/epa-top-violators-2026 · License: U.S. Government Works (public domain; 17 U.S.C. §105)
Related federal enforcement evidence
- FDA Enforcement Trends 2026 — 56,777 recalls, by the numbers →
- The anatomy of the federal healthcare blacklist — 68,055 OIG exclusions, by statutory authority →
- Federal Suspension & Debarment Scorecard — the US exclusion registry, ranked →
- Federal records questions, answered →
- Government records evidence — all studies →
Limitations
- The ECHO Exporter file is a five-year rolling rollup, not a per-year ledger. The year-by-year table groups each facility's full five-year penalty total by the year of its most recent formal action — it is not a breakdown of when each penalty dollar was assessed, and actions before the five-year window are not included.
- The file does not carry a NAICS or SIC industry code in the fields read here. The “by program” table uses the EPA media program as the regulatory-domain proxy. A facility can fall under multiple programs, so program counts overlap and program- attributed penalties do not sum to the headline total.
- Penalty concentration and the top-facility table are computed over the formally-actioned subset, which holds the entire penalty record (the subset penalty sum equals the full-table sum). The compliance-status
snc_flagfield is not populated in this file, so significant non-compliance is measured via the current-compliance status text and the per-program rollup. - Facility and company names in the top-N table are normalized from the EPA's published facility-name field; a small number of records carry non-US or malformed locations. Names are administrative records, not a Fonteum ranking or accusation.
- Compliance status and penalties change over time. A figure here reflects the EPA's published ECHO file as of the 2026-06-25snapshot. Confirm any specific facility's current status at echo.epa.gov.
Sources
One EPA enforcement database, U.S. Government Works (public domain). The ECHO Exporter facility file is a five-year rollup of inspections, informal and formal enforcement actions, monetary penalties, and current-compliance status across the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, hazardous-waste (RCRA), and Safe Drinking Water Act programs.
Source: U.S. EPA — Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO) Exporter facility file (echo.epa.gov), snapshot 2026-06-25. Public domain (U.S. Government Works). Confirm any specific facility's current status at echo.epa.gov. Confirm current status at SAM.gov →
Frequently asked questions
What is EPA ECHO, and what does this study count?
ECHO (Enforcement and Compliance History Online) is the EPA's public database of regulated facilities and their inspection, violation, enforcement, and penalty history. This study profiles the ECHO Exporter facility file — a five-year rollup covering 3,135,553 facilities. Every figure here is an aggregate: counts by compliance status, by state, by EPA program, by penalty year, and by penalty rank. To confirm a specific facility's current status, search the official database at echo.epa.gov.
What does a 'Significant Violation' status mean?
The EPA's current-compliance field flags facilities by status. "Significant Violation" is the most serious current-compliance flag — it indicates a significant non-compliance condition under one or more EPA programs. As of this snapshot, 20,834 facilities carry that flag and a further 57,877 are flagged "Violation Identified" or "Violation", for 78,711 facilities in some violation status (2.5% of the tracked universe). A compliance flag is the EPA's own administrative determination at snapshot time, not a Fonteum judgment.
Why are penalties so concentrated in a few facilities?
Environmental penalties are driven by a small number of very large settlements — typically Clean Air Act or multi-program federal cases against major industrial sites. Of 21,125 facilities carrying any penalty, the top 100 (0.5% of them) account for 39.4% of the $10.9B total, and the single largest penalty alone is 15.4%. The long tail of penalized facilities carries comparatively modest amounts.
Why is this broken down by EPA program instead of by industry (NAICS/SIC)?
The ECHO Exporter facility file does not carry a NAICS or SIC industry code in the fields this study reads, so a true industry breakdown is not available here. Instead the study uses the EPA media program — Clean Air Act (air), Clean Water Act (water/NPDES), hazardous waste (RCRA), and Safe Drinking Water Act — as the regulatory-domain axis. A facility can be regulated under more than one program, so program facility counts overlap and do not sum to the total. Program-attributed penalties also do not sum to the headline total, because the largest settlements are recorded against a facility's overall penalty figure rather than split by media.
Are the company names in the top-N table a Fonteum ranking or accusation?
No. Facility and company names in the top-N table are public EPA ECHO regulatory records, each shown with its own published five-year penalty figure exactly as the EPA records it. The ordering is the EPA's published penalty amount, not a Fonteum-derived score, risk rating, or accusation. The study names no individual, produces no per-person report or dossier, and makes no determination about any facility or company. Confirm any record at echo.epa.gov.
What time period does this cover?
The ECHO Exporter file is a five-year rolling rollup; the snapshot here was ingested on 2026-06-25. Because it is a rollup rather than a per-year ledger, the year breakdown in this study reflects each facility's most recent formal enforcement action, not a full annual time series of every penalty. 2026 is a partial year at snapshot time, and actions before the five-year window fall outside the file.