States Weigh In on EPA’s ‘Most Serious Environmental Problems’ and Enforcement, Compliance

For years, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has published a list of environmental issues it is focusing on for enforcement. Since 2010, this priority list has been named the National Enforcement Initiatives or NEIs. In December 2022, the EPA announced in its Updated Policy for EPA’s Enforcement and Compliance Initiatives that the list had been renamed “National Enforcement and Compliance Initiatives” (NECI), explaining that “while criminal … and civil enforcement … remain the key tools to address serious noncompliance, hold polluters accountable and create general deterrence, the EPA also uses informal enforcement and compliance tools to advance the national initiatives . . .”