EPA will receive just over $9 billion next year – an increase of about $200 million – while funding for its drinking water and wastewater infrastructure programs will largely hold steady under an end-of-the-year appropriations package approved by Congress and signed by President Trump just before federal funding was scheduled to lapse on December 20.
Funding for EPA was included in one piece of a two-part package of appropriations bills that funds the entire federal government for the remainder of the 2020 fiscal year. While EPA’s overall appropriation represents a slight increase, funding for the Drinking Water and Clean Water State Revolving Funds (SRFs) will each decline slightly. The DWSRF will receive $1.126 billion (compared to $1.164 billion in FY19), while the CWSRF will get $1.639 billion (down from $1.694 billion last year). However, both programs will remain close to their all-time high funding levels.
Also suffering a small cut is EPA’s Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) program. WIFIA will receive a total of $60 million this year ($5 million of which will be reserved for administrative expenses at EPA), compared to $68 million last year. In addition, Congress set aside another $5 million of WIFIA’s appropriation exclusively for projects compiled by state infrastructure financing authorities, as allowed by legislation enacted in 2018. Lawmakers expect that WIFIA’s appropriation could be leveraged into as much as $11.5 billion worth of loans and loan guarantees for water infrastructure projects, but they also added a new stipulation that will require EPA to develop criteria to ensure the program’s compliance with the Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990 before soliciting applications for the FY20 funds.
Other parts of EPA’s funding bill will deliver $19.5 million for a grant program to help communities and low-income individuals replace lead service lines and $26 million for grants to help schools and child care centers voluntarily test for lead in their drinking water. AMWA has consistently supported funding for each of those programs.