In his first year in office, President Trump has begun to deliver on his campaign promise of rolling back environmental regulations—from the waters of the United States rulemaking to the Clean Power Plan. He has also proposed steep cuts to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s budget. While decreased environmental regulation and enforcement by U.S. EPA may be beneficial for the bottom line of many businesses, any potential gains may be offset by increased litigation and enforcement by nonprofit and citizen groups.

Most of the major environmental acts allow citizens to directly enforce environmental requirements against businesses. Following Trump’s election, many environmental nonprofit groups saw a sharp increase in donations and these groups are ramping up their enforcement of environmental laws against businesses using so called “citizen suit” provisions. By initiating a citizen suit, an environmental organization can directly enforce environmental regulations against a company without the federal or state governments’ involvement.