The $3.8 trillion FY14 budget request sent by President Obama to Congress last week proposes new cuts to EPA and the Drinking Water and Clean Water State Revolving Funds (SRFs).
Under the president’s plan, EPA would receive $8.2 billion next year, a decrease of $296 million below its final FY12 appropriation, but about $250 million above the agency’s sequester-impacted FY13 funding level.
The plan would cut funding for the DWSRF to $817 million, while the reducing the CWSRF to $1.095 billion. The FY13 continuing resolution signed into law last month funded the SRFs at $908.7 million and $1.452 billion, respectively, but those figures do not include additional cuts of approximately $140 million due to the budget sequestration.
The administration’s proposal, if enacted, would represent the lowest annual appropriation to the DWSRF since 1999, and the fourth-straight year of declining budgets for the program.
Despite the reductions, the Obama Administration’s budget documents explain the SRFs will still be able to finance “approximately $6 billion in wastewater and drinking water infrastructure projects annually,” and notes the SRFs “have been provided with approximately $53 billion” since their inception. The document also explains the administration’s view that EPA should “target SRF assistance to small and underserved communities.”
Congressional appropriators are expected to hold hearings on the president’s budget proposal in the coming weeks, but many revisions are likely before an FY14 EPA spending plan is finalized.