get_epa_enforcement
Returns EPA federal CIVIL enforcement cases from ICIS FE&C (the EPA's Integrated Compliance Information System) via the ECHO bulk download — ~135K cases, EPA-lead administrative and judicial civil actions. CRIMINAL prosecutions are NOT in this source, and neither are state-lead actions. Refreshed weekly by EPA (~Saturday). Use this when the user asks about: EPA fines / penalties against a company, Clean Air Act / Clean Water Act / RCRA / Superfund enforcement, environmental violations by facility or state, settlements and consent decrees, or supplemental environmental projects (SEPs). Record shape (one doc per case, joins pre-flattened): case_number (RR-YYYY-NNNN), case_name, defendants[] (names), statutes[] + primary_statute (CWA, CAA, FIFRA, SDWA, RCRA, TSCA, CERCLA, EPCRA), activity_type ('administrative' | 'judicial'), activity_status + status_date, penalties from the CASE_PENALTIES table — fed_penalty, state_local_penalty, sep_amount, compliance_action_cost, cost recoveries, penalty_collected — settlement_lodged_date (earliest; only ~34% of cases lodge, mostly judicial) + settlement_entered_date (latest) + settlements_count, facilities[] (name, city, state, NAICS, FRS registry ID), region_code, doj_docket_number, enf_outcome, voluntary_self_disclosure, multimedia, summary_text, and source_url (the ECHO case report page). Date filters (since/until) and the default sort use status_date — the case's last status-change date, present on every case. Sorting by fed_penalty cannot be combined with since/until (numeric field). Cross-source: pair with get_enforcement_actions (press-release actions from 8 other regulators), get_federal_contracts (whether an EPA defendant still wins federal awards), and get_material_events (8-K environmental-liability disclosures). Pure-publisher posture: EPA's case records as published — no derived severity scores or compliance opinions.
Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| limit | No | Maximum records to return. Default 50, max 500. | |
| since | No | status_date lower bound (YYYY-MM-DD inclusive). | |
| state | No | Two-letter state code of a named facility (e.g., 'TX'). Derived from the case's facilities. | |
| until | No | status_date upper bound (YYYY-MM-DD inclusive). | |
| sort_by | No | Default: status_date. fed_penalty surfaces the largest federal penalties (cannot be combined with since/until). | |
| sort_order | No | Default: desc. | |
| case_number | No | Direct lookup by ICIS case number, format RR-YYYY-NNNN (e.g., 'HQ-1998-0303'). | |
| fiscal_year | No | EPA fiscal year of the case (e.g., 2024). | |
| min_penalty | No | Only cases with fed_penalty >= this amount (USD). | |
| activity_type | No | administrative = EPA's own formal actions (~93% of cases); judicial = DOJ-filed civil court cases. | |
| defendant_name | No | Case-insensitive substring against defendant names + case name (e.g., 'caterpillar', 'exxon'). | |
| primary_statute | No | Lead statute code (RANK_ORDER=1): CWA (Clean Water Act), CAA (Clean Air Act), FIFRA (pesticides), SDWA (drinking water), RCRA (hazardous waste), TSCA (toxic substances), CERCLA (Superfund), EPCRA (right-to-know). Rare others: AIM, MPRSA, MWTA. |