A new report from the Environmental Integrity Project says such cuts would particularly affect poorer communities and neighborhoods of color, such as those around the Houston Ship Channel.

Federal environmental law enforcement could drop sharply in a second Trump administration. That's the conclusion of a new report from the Environmental Integrity Project.

The report finds that EPA enforcement, which had been falling steadily since the George W. Bush administration due to budget cuts, dropped steeply during the first Trump administration and has yet to recover to Obama-era levels.

Jen Duggan, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project, said that deeper cuts are likely if President-elect Trump follows the recommendations of the Heritage Foundation's policy blueprint known as "Project 2025."

Among other measures, Project 2025 recommends the elimination of the EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance and Office of Environmental Justice. The latter has been critical to the Biden administration's efforts to crack down on illegal pollution and health threats in poorer neighborhoods and communities of color.

"We are particularly concerned about polluters in the Houston Ship Channel area and in Texas generally," Duggan said, "We don't think those communities would be prioritized for protection in the same way as they have under the Biden administration."

Project 2025 also calls for environmental enforcement to be farmed out to states. Duggan says the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) is notorious for weak enforcement.

"The last time we looked at TCEQ's record of enforcement was in 2023, and we looked at six years' worth of data," Duggan said. "During that six years of time, from 2016 to 2022, there were more than 20,000 incidents in which petrochemical plants released unauthorized air pollution, and only 0.5% of these reported emission events did TCEQ determine to be excessive and require the company to take further action."

The report also notes that some of Trump's allies are pushing for the incoming administration to close the EPA's Washington, D.C., headquarters and relocate the agency to Texas, Florida, or another state.

"The concern is that this would be a major distraction for the agency employees and also potentially force career, experienced staff to retire or to leave the agency," Duggan said, "which would also have an impact of the ability of the EPA to protect communities from illegal pollution."