Federal environmental enforcement against mining and drilling in 2026: 367 cases, 34 percent with no fine

Our Mining Incidents index tracks the safety side of American mines through MSHA data: fatalities, citations, inspections. This piece looks at the environmental ledger for the same industry. EPA's enforcement database, ECHO, tags every civil case with an industry code, so we filtered 2026 to NAICS 21, the extraction sector: mining, quarrying, and oil and gas. Same operations, different receipts.

The extraction ledger in five numbers

• 367 extraction-sector enforcement actions settled between January 1 and October 14, 2026: 256 oil and gas (NAICS 211), 106 mining and quarrying (NAICS 212), 5 support activities (NAICS 213).
• States led 316 of them. EPA led 43 and local agencies 8. Most of this is state air agencies enforcing federal Clean Air Act permits, with Louisiana (110 cases), Colorado (88) and Texas (34) the busiest.
• 317 of the 367, or 86 percent, are Clean Air Act cases. 40 are Clean Water Act, 4 RCRA, 4 Safe Drinking Water Act, 2 FIFRA.
• 126 of 367, or 34 percent, closed with no fine from any government: orders and agreements that require fixes but no money.
• The 241 fined actions total $19.2 million. State and local penalties are $13.9 million of it across 214 actions (median $12,688). Federal penalties are $5.4 million across 28 actions (median $54,885).

The receipts

1. Antero Resources: $3.8 million civil penalty for Clean Air Act violations at oil and gas production facilities in West Virginia and Ohio (settled March 31), divided between the United States and West Virginia, $1.9 million each. ECHO records it on two dockets and shows both halves on each, so a plain sum counts it twice. The full package also covers about $5.8 million of vapor control work across 242 well pads and $1.5 million of orphan well plugging in West Virginia.
2. Gold Quarry Operations, Nevada: $2,580,830, a state Clean Air Act settlement (June 25). A second settlement the same day at the same gold mine added $258,830.
3. Smith Coal Processing, Kentucky: $2.0 million, a state Clean Water Act case (May 11).
4. CEMEX Construction Materials, Lyons, Colorado: $855,000, state Clean Air Act (May 11).
5. XTO Energy: $778,000, EPA Clean Air Act (March 16), for Permian Basin sites in Texas and New Mexico found by 2020 to 2022 optical gas imaging flyovers.
6. Permian Resources Operating: $691,253, EPA Clean Air Act (August 19), one of two EPA cases against the company this year.
7. Duran Construction, S&S Pond: $350,000, EPA Clean Water Act (September 30).
8. EOG Resources, Clarks Creek and Fort Berthold well sites: $333,087, EPA Clean Air Act (August 5).
9. ET Gathering and Processing: $245,500, EPA Clean Air Act (August 24).

What the no-fine pile looks like

The 126 no-fine cases are mostly small state air actions at single well pads and tank batteries, plus 15 of the 43 EPA-led cases: consent orders and expedited settlements where the remedy is monitoring, repairs, or permit compliance rather than money. Ten case names carry a flyover or optical gas imaging tag, meaning the leak was spotted from the air with an infrared camera before an inspector ever knocked.

A correction to our July count

The first version of this piece, published July 15, said 94 percent of 229 cases closed with no fine. That counted federal penalties only and called every case an EPA case, when most are state cases carrying state fines. Counting state and local penalties, 37 percent of the January 1 to July 15 actions closed with no fine. The window itself also grew: ECHO keeps adding cases after they settle, and the same January to mid-July window now holds 290 actions, not 229.

Why this pairs with mine safety data

MSHA citations measure whether a mine hurts its workers. These cases measure whether the same operation pollutes its neighborhood's air and water. The two ledgers share operators but not much else: MSHA publishes weekly and names every mine, while environmental cases surface in a database most people only meet through law firm newsletters. Reading them together gives you the full compliance picture of an extraction company, and that is the direction our data products are heading.

Method

Data source: EPA ECHO civil enforcement case records via the public case_rest_services API, pulled October 24, 2026. Filter: primary NAICS code beginning with 21, settlement date between January 1 and October 14, 2026, the newest settlement date in the data. A case counts once per enforcement action: Antero's two dockets are one DOJ settlement, counted once at $1.9 million federal and $1.9 million state. "No fine" means ECHO records neither a federal nor a state or local penalty. ECHO adds cases after they settle, so later pulls of the same window can grow. MSHA safety enforcement is a separate system and is not included.