The Environmental Protection Agency Promises Deregulation

July 2025

Overview

EPA launches biggest deregulatory action in history. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin plans to revamp and reorganize the agency. EPA will reduce costs while maintaining effectiveness. EPA is creating the first-of-its-kind Office of State Air Partnerships. EPA will save taxpayers more than $300 million annually in FY 2026. EPA terminates Environmental Justice and DEI arms of the agency.

Reading these recent announcements from and about EPA, one might conclude that tectonic plates underlying the environmental regulatory landscape are dramatically shifting. But there’s an undeniable chasm between the announcements and the realities for the regulated community. While EPA Administrator Zeldin can influence policy, priorities, and personnel at EPA, there are significant hurdles to overcome before the regulatory obligations on business and industry are materially altered.

Change Is Good, Not Easy

The most impactful changes would eliminate or modify existing regulations, but canceling legally enacted rules doesn’t happen by EPA Administrator fiat. Industry sectors most likely impacted by rollbacks include energy, electricity, mining, and related infrastructure, following Executive Order 14156, signed January 20, 2025, declaring a “National Energy Emergency.” Working collaboratively with states and Tribes to implement programs and clear backlogs would align with statutory intent and minimize federal second guessing, but EPA Regional Office habits die hard. Retirement incentives, consolidation of functions, and hiring low-cost entry-level professionals would reduce taxpayer costs of running the federal agency, but recasting agency personnel inevitably involves delay in agency work, diminished expertise, and loss of institutional knowledge. These challenges mean Administrator Zeldin’s intentions face obstacles to clear before they can impact the realities of business and industry.

Issue 1: Regulatory Slow Rollbacks

EPA has identified targets for reconsideration in lists of regulations, including those that affect air quality, water quality, and chemical listings. EPA launched this work in March 2025, and so far, few EPA proposals are out for public comment, nor is there clarity on the steps underway to complete the reconsiderations or regulatory revisions. Few concrete rollbacks are emerging. In April 2025, EPA announced a delay in compliance deadlines (from 2027 to 2031) for the Biden-era PFAS National Primary Drinking Water Regulation. In June, EPA proposed to repeal 2024 amendments to mercury and air toxics limits on emissions and to repeal all greenhouse gas emissions standards for the power sector. Two Joint Resolutions passed Congress in early 2025 that disapproved Biden-era rules. One signed into effect by President Trump in March 2025 nullified the EPA's 2024 final rule on Waste Emissions Charge for Petroleum and Natural Gas Systems, thereby ending a waste emissions charge on methane emissions. The other resolution, not yet signed by the President, would nullify a Biden-era rule requiring certain sources of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) to comply with major source obligations even after reclassifying as area sources. Also in March, EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) published a memo aligning OECA functions with presidential executive orders and Administrator Zeldin’s “Powering the Great American Comeback” initiative. These examples reveal the tools EPA can deploy:  delayed compliance dates, exemptions, internal directives, and Congress.

Other activity to date involves the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). In April 2025, CEQ removed its implementing regulations for the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), leaving federal agencies to implement their own NEPA rules or guidance; and in May 2025, CEQ withdrew its policy for considering greenhouse gas emissions and climate change under NEPA. SCOTUS added to the NEPA rollback on May 29, 2025, in its opinion in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County (No. 23-975), ruling that courts must give federal agencies substantial judicial deference regarding relevant information in an environmental impact statement and that NEPA does not require agencies to consider environmental effects that are separate in time and place from the proposed action subject to NEPA review. All this activity adheres to Executive Order 14154, “Unleashing American Energy,” signed January 20, 2025.

Stoel Rives expects that EPA will likely choose actions that do not trigger legal process and public review under federal administrative procedure law, such as the postponement of compliance deadlines and OECA memo. EPA will likely begin with rollback of programs implemented by the federal government, not delegated to states, like reviews of requirements for Regional Haze and adoption of stringent National Ambient Air Quality Standards. Even if momentum builds and EPA rollbacks accelerate, states have already incorporated federal requirements or delegated programs into state law. Consequently, actions achieved by EPA that impact programs enacted into state law across the country will require local legislative action to unwind. This means that businesses and industries remain subject to compliance obligations and environmental reviews under state and local law, even if EPA gets traction on rule changes. Regulatory trackers provide good content on steps and status involved in this work. (See Harvard Law’s Regulatory Tracker.)

Issue 2: (Un)Cooperative Federalism

Cooperative federalism in environmental law is the principle that programs operate effectively when the federal government sets standards and the states implement those standards, tailoring to specific state needs. When it functions well, states gain flexibility and voice in the implementation of regulation. When it malfunctions, states lose out to federal overreach. Regulated entities must navigate increased uncertainty unless there is a balance between federal and state roles, collaboration, transparency, and ultimately autonomy for states. EPA intends to advance cooperative federalism by giving power back to the states to make their own decisions.

Decades of practice and habit led to the realities of (un)cooperative federalism that will be difficult to undo. EPA Regional Offices influence the work of state agencies through oversight, program funding, and active reviews of permits or rule interpretations. Some EPA Regional Offices perceive their role as “keeping the states in check.” Some states learned over the decades that to avoid uncomfortable program reviews, it’s best to “engage EPA early.” Regulated entities crave more autonomy from EPA for their local regulators. While EPA Administrator Zeldin may intend to rebalance the power between federal and state agencies, it will require more than announcements to achieve. This means that businesses and industries remain caught between the rhetoric of EPA leaders in support of a functional cooperative federalism framework and the actions of agency personnel in the throes of change.

Issue 3: EPA Staff are Resilient

EPA staff are smart, resilient, patient, and masters of their broad authorities. During the first Trump administration, some who remained on the roster manifested a quiet rebellion, resulting in strict (sometimes new) interpretations of existing requirements, selective enforcement, and strategic settlement positions – all to advance the agency’s mission despite shifting administration priorities. In this current reality, EPA staff are enduring personnel reductions in force, budget cuts, and internal requests to report on colleagues behaving contrary to administration orders. Losing expertise, experience, and funds for scientific study means diminished capacity to execute EPA’s mission to protect public health and the environment.

It is unpredictable just how EPA staff may operate during this administration, but one can imagine EPA staff applying their authority and discretion (within the boundaries drawn by leadership) to influence and steer outcomes in support of previously popular priorities, like environmental justice, enforcement, and robust permitting. This means that businesses and industries need to be alert and wary of inevitable interactions with inspectors, permit writers, or enforcement teams.

What’s Next: Tomorrow All of This May Be Wrong

Nothing that is written on these shifting circumstances today may be true or accurate tomorrow. Nothing is static, and it’s all still new. Announcements are issued frequently. Courts are reviewing cases that will inform those announcements. And EPA will face increased litigation over action and inactions during this period.

In this undulating landscape, only this message is reliable: environmental compliance is an unyielding obligation that persists until all applicable requirements (in federal rule, state law, and permits) are nullified. That means businesses and industries are wise to stay the course of environmental stewardship and invest in compliance and communities, until further notice.