EPA appears to be on track for a modest funding boost next year following the Senate Appropriations Committee’s approval late last month of a slate of FY20 spending bills. The full Senate voted to proceed to debate on a package of appropriations measures – including the EPA funding bill – on October 23.
As approved by the committee and under consideration by the full Senate, the FY20 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies appropriations bill would provide EPA with $9.01 billion next year, a sum that is $161 million more than its FY19 level and $2.79 billion above what President Trump had requested for the agency. The bill would provide nearly $1.13 billion for the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF) and $1.64 billion for the Clean Water SRF. The SRF appropriations would fall just below the record high funding levels each program received in FY19.
The Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) program was also a winner under the bill, as its funding would increase by $5 million, to $73 million. EPA would leverage that appropriation into more than $6 billion worth of low-interest loans for major water infrastructure projects across the country
Other items funded by the EPA spending measure include $29 million for lead contamination testing at schools and childcare centers, $20 million for lead reduction projects, $1 million for water sector workforce training, and $2 million for EPA’s new Drinking Water Infrastructure Resilience and Sustainability Program. AMWA has long championed the resilience program as a way to help drinking water systems adapt their infrastructure to climate change, and Congress authorized the program last year.
Over the summer the House of Representatives approved its own version of an FY20 EPA spending bill, which included even higher funding amounts for the agency and its infrastructure programs. But that measure was written before House and Senate leaders reached a deal on overall budget caps for the 2020 fiscal year, and the limits eventually agreed to were somewhat lower than the House’s assumption – meaning that there will be less funding available to achieve every spending priority in the House’s spending bill.
A stopgap appropriations bill that has been funding federal agencies since the new fiscal year began on October 1 is scheduled to expire on November 21, but another funding extension will likely be necessary. AMWA has weighed in with Congress on the importance of finalizing the EPA spending bill as quickly as possible, joining a coalition of other water and wastewater groups on October 24 to request “continued federal investment in critical water infrastructure funding assistance programs” next year.