No state has cut funding to its environmental regulatory body more over the last 15 years than Mississippi, a report released Wednesday said.

The new study, done by the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project, found the state slashed funding for the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality by 71% from 2010 to 2024. Mississippi also had the largest decrease in total dollars from that time, with MDEQ’s inflation-adjusted budget dropping from $373 million t0 $107 million, the report said.

The EIP report also looked at staffing reductions over that timeframe. Mississippi ranked 10th in staffing cuts, going from 523 employees in 2010 to 433 in 2024, or a 17% decrease.

In total, 27 states cut funding to their environmental agencies over that period, including Mississippi’s neighbors Alabama (a 49% decrease) and Louisiana (26%). But its other neighbors, Arkansas and Tennessee, both saw opposite trends, with increases of 31% and 30%, respectively. South Dakota saw the second highest budget decrease with 61%.

In an interview earlier this year, MDEQ Executive Director Chris Wells described the agency as being understaffed.

“(MDEQ employees) in certain areas of the agency are stretched pretty thin,” Wells told Mississippi Today in April. “They’re working more than 40 hours a week, barely keeping their head above water, and in a lot of cases not necessarily meeting expectations from the outside in terms of how fast we get permits turned around.”

He estimated MDEQ had lost around 50 employees since he took over the agency in 2020.

MDEQ’s role is to conserve the state’s public, natural resources and to regulate pollution into the air, water and soil. Any business in the state that has such releases must first obtain a permit from the agency. MDEQ’s other roles include overseeing the state’s sewer systems, monitoring aquifers and managing dozens of projects funded from the BP oil spill settlement.

The EIP argued recent cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency at the federal level will put more pressure on state agencies. The White House is looking to cut EPA’s budget by 55% next year, which would bring its funding to the lowest amount since the 1980s, Politico reported in May.

“The Trump Administration is attempting to dismantle EPA and roll back commonsense federal pollution rules, claiming that the states can pick up the slack and protect our communities – but that’s not the case,” Jen Duggan, EIP’s executive director, said. “The implementation of our environmental laws depend on both a strong EPA and state agencies that have the resources they need to do their jobs. But our research found that many states have already cut their pollution control agencies and so more cuts at the federal level will only put more Americans at risk.”

Legislative budget records show about a third of MDEQ’s funding comes from the federal government.

In response to Wednesday’s report, the agency said it couldn’t comment on the study, but added that funding from the state Legislature for MDEQ’s operational costs had increased nearly 14% since 2010.

Records available online show a slight uptick in funding from the Legislature since fiscal year 2011 when adjusted for inflation. But they also show a large drop-off during much of that period, as seen in the chart below.

Moreover, those funds, about $16 million a year, only make up a small portion of MDEQ’s total appropriations. Most of MDEQ’s funding comes from other sources, such as fees it collects and federal support. Overall, funding for the agency decreased by over a quarter between fiscal year 2011 and fiscal year 2025, the chart below shows.