EPA’s budget would be cut by roughly one quarter under President Trump’s FY19 budget request sent to Congress this month, though funding for the Drinking Water and Clean Water State Revolving Funds (SRFs) remain about level with their current funding amounts.
FY19 budget documents released by EPA on February 12 propose to reduce overall agency funding to $6.146 billion under the Trump plan, down from its FY17 appropriation of just over $8 billion. But the proposed reductions would not be applied evenly across the agency; several geographic programs, benefitting regions like the Chesapeake Bay and Long Island Sound, would be severely cut or eliminated completely, while others like the SRFs would maintain roughly level funding next year.
The budget requests $2.3 billion for the SRFs – with $863 million going toward the DWSRF and $1.394 billion set aside for the CWSRF. Each of these sums is in line with the programs’ FY17 levels. Congress has yet to finalize an FY18 appropriations bill for EPA, though it is expected to do so before the latest continuing resolution expires on March 23.
EPA’s Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) program would be in line for a significant cut under President Trump’s budget. Despite praising WIFIA as a “powerful new tool to help address a variety of existing and new water infrastructure needs,” the budget would provide the program with only $20 million, just two-thirds of its total $30 million funding for FY17. Congress authorized WIFIA to receive up to $50 million in funding in FY19, the last year of the program’s initial authorization.
The president’s annual budget request is only the first step in a long appropriations process. Last year President Trump recommended cutting to EPA’s budget by more than 30 percent, but House and Senate appropriators largely ignored that request when drafting their own FY18 spending proposals. If Congress is able to finalize the FY18 budget as expected by next month, lawmakers will then turn their full attention to FY19.