Budget

EPA's annual appropriations funding sets the tone for the scope of the agency's agenda during each fiscal year. Our Budget section tracks the latest news on how the agency is implementing its existing dollars and how future budgets may affect its work.

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EPA's annual appropriations funding sets the tone for the scope of the agency's agenda during each fiscal year. Our Budget section tracks the latest news on how the agency is implementing its existing dollars and how future budgets may affect its work.

EPA Formally Launches Agency Reorganization, Opening Door To RIFs

The Trump administration is officially launching its long-awaited efforts to significantly reorganize EPA’s structure, notifying staff that it is moving forward on the restructuring that would dismantle the agency’s Office of Research and Development (ORD) and open the door to a planned reduction in force (RIF) for its personnel. The agency on Sept. 22 launched its agencywide reorganization plan, which eliminates ORD and moves many of its scientists to program offices as well as kickstarting the newly created Office of...

Appeals Court Opens Door To New Block On EPA RIFs, Reorganization

An appeals court is allowing union, nonprofit and local government plaintiffs seeking to block mass firings and restructuring at EPA and other agencies another shot at stopping the overhauls, while allowing discovery revealing the Trump administration’s secretive plans for such changes to proceed in the lower court. In a Sept. 19 order in American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO, et al. v. Donald Trump, et al. , the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit denied the administration’s request...

EJ groups appeal ruling allowing EPA to cancel grants

Environmental justice (EJ) groups are appealing a federal district court’s ruling allowing EPA to cancel $2.5 billion in grants and are asking the court to issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) requiring EPA to preserve the funding rather than return it to the Treasury. The Sept. 16 filing in Appalachian Voices, et al. v. EPA says plaintiffs will ask the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to reverse an Aug. 29 decision by the lower...

As Democrats Eye Shutdown, EDF Pushes To Fund EPA At Senate Levels

As Democrats consider shutting down EPA and other government agencies when funding expires later this month, at least one environmental group is urging lawmakers to reject administration requests to slash EPA and instead fund the agency at the flat-funding levels set by Senate appropriators. “The Senate has worked on a bipartisan basis to release an environment appropriations bill that rejects the administration’s proposal for draconian cuts to funding to protect our air, water and communities,” Joanna Slaney, a vice president...

Judge Allows Reorganization, RIF Suit To Continue Amid Discovery Battle

A federal district court judge is allowing Trump administration critics to continue their lawsuit challenging restructuring and mass firings at EPA and other agencies, rejecting administration arguments that a July Supreme Court order greenlighting the overhauls means the lawsuit should be dismissed. In a vindication for union, nonprofit and local government plaintiffs, Judge Susan Illston of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled Sept. 9 to broadly reject the Justice Department’s (DOJ’s) motion to dismiss the...

As EPA Pulls Back, States Eye Creative Enforcement Amid Budget Cuts

SANTA FE, NM -- State environmental officials are grappling with ways to advance creative enforcement actions due to tight agency budgets and a “perception” that EPA and other federal officials are easing their approach to enforcement under the Trump administration. Leah Feldon, director of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, suggested during a Sept. 4 panel at the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS) fall meeting in Santa Fe, NM, that officials can get “creative” amid tighter budgets, including by...

Critics slam EPA firings, suspensions of Zeldin critics

EPA’s Aug. 29 firings and suspensions of dozens of employees who signed a letter of dissent warning about Administrator Lee Zeldin’s leadership is prompting harsh criticism from its employees’ union and former agency officials. The American Federation for Government Employees (AFGE) Council 238 says in a Sept. 5 statement that EPA’s move to fire and suspend employees for speaking out against Zeldin’s leadership is “illegal” and an “attack on free speech” as well as “our ability to protect human health...

EPA, State Officials Clash Over Federal Funds For Environmental Work

SANTA FE, NM -- State regulators and a top Trump EPA official are clashing over the appropriate level of financial support for states to implement core federal environmental laws, with states lobbying Congress to protect these resources while the No. 2 EPA official is renewing claims that states can cope with significantly less funds. EPA’s proposed fiscal year 2026 budget “refocused categorical grants where the federal need still exists,” Deputy Administrator David Fotouhi said during Sept. 4 remarks here at...

D.C. Circuit Ruling Opens Door To EPA Reclaiming Billions In GHGRF Funds

A split appellate panel has vacated a lower court ruling that stayed EPA efforts to withdraw around $16 billion in funds that the Biden administration distributed from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GHGRF), opening the door to officials seeking to reclaim the funds and forcing the plaintiffs to fight the case in claims court where their remedies are limited. A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit voted 2-1 in Climate United Fund et...

Court Allows EPA To Cancel $2.5 Billion In EJ Grants, Rejects Class Action

A federal district court is allowing EPA to cancel $2.5 billion in already obligated environmental justice (EJ) block grants, rejecting environmentalists’ efforts to bring a class-action suit against the agency and accepting EPA’s motion to dismiss the case after finding most of the claims belong in federal claims court. Judge Richard Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia delivered EPA a sweeping victory in an Aug. 29 opinion in Appalachian Voices, et al. v. EPA ,...

EPA’s Planned Superfund Fixes Threatened By Staff Losses, Experts Say

The Trump EPA’s renewed efforts to streamline Superfund processes could help speed cleanups at some sites, a top former official and other experts say, though many are concerned that significant staff losses could outweigh any improvements stemming from the planned increased use of presumptive remedies and removal actions. EPA Deputy Administrator David Fotouhi told Bloomberg in an Aug. 13 article that EPA is promoting the use of presumptive remedies at sites where cleanup options are well-understood, in addition to...

EPA Says High Court Ruling Boosts Jurisdictional Argument In Grant Case

EPA says a recent Supreme Court decision is boosting its jurisdictional argument in a major clean energy grant terminations case, while attorneys assert the decision is underscoring broader challenges for parties litigating against numerous such Trump administration grant terminations. “The Supreme Court has now twice held that district courts likely lack jurisdiction over [Administrative Procedure Act (APA)] challenges to grant terminations,” the Justice Department (DOJ) arguing on behalf of EPA says in an Aug. 28 filing to the U.S. Court...

EPA Union Sues To Reinstate Contract, Alleging Threats And Retaliation

A union representing EPA employees in Region 9 is suing to reinstate its bargaining rights and union contract, in the first legal challenge after the agency terminated collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) for a host of unions in violation of a promise made to federal courts, though the plaintiffs face legal hurdles in their bid to win early relief. The unions filed an Aug. 21 amended complaint in the case, American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), et...

EPA Threatens Criminal Charges For Union Staff Working On Personal Time

EPA is warning that union officials conducting union activities on their personal time without agency pre-approval may face criminal conflict-of-interest charges, a significant escalation in the Trump administration’s attempts to eliminate unions at the agency. The move comes after EPA stripped union representatives of their previous right to use on-duty time for union activities, meaning the agency is now cracking down on all union activities. According to an Aug. 22 legal filing , EPA sent a series of messages to...

States Renew Warnings Over Delegated Programs Ahead Of FY26 Deadline

State environmental regulators are renewing warnings that they may be forced to return delegated federal environmental programs to EPA should Congress not provide adequate funds in fiscal year 2026, just days before lawmakers return from their summer recess facing a Sept. 30 deadline to fund federal agencies. “Continued increases from state general fund, permit fees, and other funding may not be sustainable to support core programs,” says New Mexico environment secretary James Kenney, who serves as president of the Environmental...

Environmentalists Warn Trump Grant EO Will Further Politicize Science

Environmentalists are warning that President Donald Trump’s recent executive order (EO) to “improve” federal grantmaking will instead likely lay a dangerous path to further politicize science at EPA in the wake of Administrator Lee Zeldin’s decision to move key scientists to his office as part of the agency’s reorganization. The “most obvious thing” the EO does is it “politicizes something that should fundamentally not be political and if anything should be strictly merit-based, which is the awarding of these kinds...

Kansas officials feud over joining EPA grant freeze challenge

Kansas’ Republican attorney general (AG) is seeking to block the state’s Democratic governor from joining a suit brought by Democratic state AGs’ seeking to halt what they say are unlawful Trump administration grant freezes at EPA and other agencies. Kansas AG Kris Kobach (R) in an Aug. 14 filing in New Jersey, et al. v. Office of Management & Budge (OMB),, et al. , in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts urges the court to dismiss a...

Senate Democrats Say EPA Intentionally Skews GOP’s Climate Fund Repeal

Senate Democrats are accusing EPA of illegally clawing back billions of dollars in already obligated clean energy funding, arguing the agency is intentionally misinterpreting Republicans’ budget law that rescinds the statutory provision for the agency’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GHGRF). “Despite these baseless attacks, the bottom line is that neither [the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)] nor Republicans understood the repeal and rescission of the GGRF to save anything more than EPA’s unspent oversight dollars. Wishful statutory interpretation on the part...

DOJ, EJ grant backers spar over scope of high court injunction ban

The Department of Justice (DOJ) and plaintiffs seeking to force EPA to release frozen environmental justice (EJ) grants are sparring over the scope of a recent Supreme Court ruling curtailing nationwide injunctions, with DOJ arguing that the holding bars plaintiffs’ request in this case to enjoin the freeze while plaintiffs’ attorneys arguing the opposite.The dueling positions on the impact of the high court’s June 27 holding in Trump v. CASA are laid out in new supplemental briefs in National...

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