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On December 5, 2025, Craig Pritzlaff, Acting Assistant Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA), signaled a significant shift in EPA enforcement policy by issuing an internal memorandum to enforcement and compliance assurance staff announcing a new, "Compliance First" orientation to environmental enforcement (the "Pritzlaff Memo").
Effective immediately, the Pritzlaff Memo builds on EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin's "Powering the Great American Comeback" initiative by outlining several new policies aimed at achieving environmental compliance "in the most efficient, most economical, and swiftest means possible" across all EPA civil judicial and administrative enforcement activities. These new policies come at a time when the EPA is seeing a significant reduction in staff and the lowest level of federal environmental enforcement activity in the modern era.
As discussed below, this policy shift has profound ramifications for how federal environmental law is enforced in Tennessee and how regulated entities operating in the state should approach environmental compliance and enforcement going forward.
Key Takeaways
- Compliance First. Staff are instructed to resolve violations and to ensure compliance in the most efficient and quickest means possible by prioritizing compliance assistance tools like proactive outreach, technical assistance, and training, promoting voluntary compliance, and avoiding taking aggressive legal positions that could delay resolution.
- State Coordination. Most U.S. environmental laws work through cooperative federalism, meaning the federal government sets national environmental standards while states implement those standards within their borders. The Pritzlaff Memo emphasizes deference to states in enforcement and recasts EPA's role as merely a supportive co-regulator to states, except where there is a "clear federal interest."
- Questions of Legal Interpretation. The Pritzlaff Memo raises the standards for finding violations, requiring they be "clear and unambiguous, well-tailored, and based on the best reading of the relevant statute and regulation," the purpose of which is to avoid delaying compliance due to protracted litigation over the interpretation of ambiguous statutory and regulatory provisions. Relatedly, staff are now instructed to immediately elevate regulated entities' questions over legal interpretations so that EPA can ensure national consistency in its interpretations.
- Limitations on Broad Relief. The Pritzlaff Memo reinstates the first Trump Administration's policy barring use of supplemental environmental projects (SEPs) in settlement agreements (until EPA issues further guidance) and significantly cabins the scope of injunctive relief EPA may seek in settlements.
- Open Communication. Staff are instructed to maintain clear and open communication with stakeholders and to operate in a "no surprises" framework to promote expeditious compliance and to avoid protracted and costly disputes.
Implications for Regulated Entities in Tennessee
EPA's new enforcement approach suggests that we will continue to see historically low levels of formal federal environmental enforcement activity by EPA nationwide, including in Tennessee. In cases where Tennessee entities nonetheless find themselves caught between EPA's crosshairs, regulated entities can expect to engage with EPA earlier in the enforcement process with an aim towards rectifying noncompliance through compliance assistance measures prior to reaching formal enforcement. Accordingly, we can expect to see more no-penalty Administrative Orders on Consent and fewer judicial referrals.
While EPA may no longer utilize SEPs and injunctive relief as settlement tools in formal enforcement, the Pritzlaff Memo's heightened standard for violations, and its instruction to adopt the "best reading" of statutes and regulations, suggests that EPA will avoid aggressive and novel legal theories and may choose to enforce a more narrowly tailored set of compliance requirements, potentially resulting in lower financial penalties. The Pritzlaff Memo also allows regulated entities already in enforcement proceedings with EPA and/or DOJ to raise issues regarding statutory or regulatory ambiguity and to request EPA draw a connection between the injunctive relief sought and the statute or regulation invoked.
Notwithstanding the above, it remains vitally important for regulated entities in Tennessee to remain diligent in their compliance with federal and state environmental laws and regulations. EPA's deference to states in cases where there is no clear federal interest suggests that the Tennessee Department of Conservation and Environment (TDEC) will remain an active enforcer of state environmental laws and regulations implementing federal standards, such as Tennessee's Water Quality Control Act, Air Quality Act, Hazardous Waste Management Act, and Safe Drinking Water Act. Additionally, federal enforcement policy can always change, especially with changes in administrations.
Therefore, regulated entities in Tennessee should maintain proactive compliance programs, regularly auditing their operations for compliance, and, as needed, making voluntary disclosures to federal and state environmental agencies pursuant to EPA's Audit Policy and/or TDEC's Self Policing and Voluntary Correction Policy, which reward voluntary disclosure with certain civil, criminal, and administrative penalty protections.
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