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.

Democrats Seek To Counter EPA Reorganization In GOP’s Pending CWA Bill

House Democrats are seeking to counter the Trump EPA sweeping reorganization of agency offices and functions, filing what are likely to be messaging amendments to pending Clean Water Act (CWA) legislation that would require officials to rehire some laid-off staff to ensure effective CWA implementation and restore the disbanded research office. While the amendments, filed with the House Rules Committee ahead of a July 21 markup of H.R. 3898, are unlikely to be ruled in order, they telegraph Democrats’ messaging...

EPA Overhaul To Consolidate OLEM, Combine Personnel And Budget Work

The second phase of EPA’s reorganization will combine the Office of Land and Emergency Management’s (OLEM’s) Superfund office with the emergency management office, while consolidating agency personnel and budget offices to “realize efficiencies.” The restructuring moves, announced July 17 , would also move administrative law judges (ALJs) who adjudicate some enforcement cases directly into Administrator Lee Zeldin’s office. The announcement comes after the Supreme Court greenlighted the Trump administration’s plans for restructuring and mass firings. The reorganization will also see...

EPA Plans To ‘Re-Align’ OECA Functions In Second Reorganization Phase

EPA has announced the second phase of its massive reorganization effort, including likely overhauling parts of the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA), making unspecified changes to the Office of Land and Emergency Management (OLEM) and consolidating administrative and financial functions into one office. “This action is the latest part of EPA’s comprehensive reorganization efforts to address agency inefficiencies by delivering organizational improvements to personnel structure that directly benefit the American people and improve EPA’s ability to fulfill its...

EPA Expands Buyout Offers As Part of Sweeping Reorganization Plan

EPA leadership is beginning to announce details of a new round of buyout offers to curb staffing levels as the Trump administration launches its much-anticipated sweeping reorganization of the agency, with top officials holding a July 17 all-hands meeting that will be followed by program office-specific meetings to discuss additional details. The additional round of the Deferred Resignation Program (DRP) that exercises the Voluntary Early Retirement Authority (VERA), also known as “early out,” is being offered to employees who received...

House Republicans Advance EPA’s FY26 Bill Despite Democrats’ Attacks

Republicans on a House Appropriations panel are advancing a proposal to cut EPA spending in fiscal year 2026 by 23 percent, despite criticism from subcommittee Democrats over the measure’s cuts to agency resources and numerous policy riders blocking enforcement of Biden-era regulations. During a July 15 markup, the House Appropriations Interior panel on an 8-5 party line vote approved the FY26 bill for EPA and related agencies, sending it to the full committee for consideration. Lawmakers did not amend the...

House Republicans’ FY26 Legislation Details EPA Cuts, Policy Restrictions

House Republicans are proposing a $2.1 billion cut to EPA spending in fiscal year 2026, which is about a quarter less than its current budget but higher than the Trump administration’s request, while also floating numerous policy riders that would block or restrict Biden-era air and water policies. The House Appropriations Committee on July 14 released its FY26 bill for EPA, Interior and related agencies ahead of a planned markup July 15. Overall, it details a $2.1 billion reduction to...

House GOP Takes Aim At Biden EPA GHG Regulations In FY26 Legislation

House Republicans are proposing provisions in draft fiscal year 2026 spending legislation for EPA that would block implementation of numerous Biden-era climate rules, alongside a 23 percent cut to the agency’s budget that Democrats say would hinder the government’s response to climate change. The July 14 release of the bill text , prior to a planned July 15 House Appropriations subcommittee markup, offers a preliminary negotiating marker for the House chamber -- with the release of a Senate FY26 plan...

EPA Grant Recipients, DOJ Clash Over Award Terminations In 4th Circuit

City and nonprofit recipients of EPA climate and environmental grants are arguing in appellate court that the agency’s terminations of their awards are unconstitutional and illegally broad, while the Trump administration says federal courts lack jurisdiction over these issues -- an argument that an appellate panel has initially supported. Those arguments come in a June 20 brief by the Justice Department (DOJ) and a July 7 brief by plaintiffs in a major funding freeze case, The Sustainability Institute, et al....

ENRD Struggles To Defend EPA Actions Amid Staff Cuts, Increased Suits

The Justice Department’s (DOJ) environment division is struggling to meet some court deadlines in litigation challenging EPA and other agencies’ actions as the department’s downsizing efforts collide with a growing number of suits challenging the Trump administration’s efforts to remake EPA. In several cases involving EPA, attorneys in DOJ’s Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD) are asking district and appellate judges for extensions, citing heavy workloads and absent colleagues. In a June 10 motion filed in Sierra Club, et al....

EPA Union Eyes Legal Fight After Staff ‘Dissent’ Draws Inquiry, Leave

Unions representing EPA staff are weighing their legal options after officials launched an inquiry and placed on administrative leave 139 staffers who signed a public “declaration of dissent” that charged Administrator Lee Zeldin with failing to fulfill the agency’s core mission to protect human health and the environment. “This disgusting move by the administration is a blatant act of retaliation,” wrote Marie Powell, president of American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, the largest union representing EPA workers, in a...

EPA seeks homes for lab animals amidst closures

EPA is putting its laboratory animals up for adoption, a move that environmentalists say reflects the agency’s “drastic planned cutbacks in toxicological and other basic research work,” even as EPA denies it is planning to lay off scores of scientists and close its Office of Research & Development (ORD). Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) released a flyer it obtained from EPA Research Triangle Park (RTP) seeking homes for rats and zebrafish that had been used in laboratory experiments. The...

EPA’s Proposed FY26 Budget Cuts May Stymie Range Of PFAS Goals

The Trump EPA in its fiscal year 2026 budget justification appears to be supporting a swath of initiatives to tackle PFAS contamination, including Superfund cleanups, drinking water issues and toxicity research, but the agency’s planned cuts across several programs related to PFAS are likely to undercut that commitment. EPA’s recently released FY26 budget justification repeatedly signals EPA’s intent to prioritize addressing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contamination through Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) cleanups, research into toxicity...

States Detail Broad Effects To Water Programs Due To FY26 Budget Cuts

State regulators are detailing broad impacts that the Trump administration’s proposed fiscal year 2026 budget cuts for EPA would have on state water quality programs, warning of potential program collapse and failure to meet federal regulatory requirements, as well as significant permitting delays that could pose a threat to the administration’s agenda. The Association of Clean Water Administrators (ACWA) on June 17 posted a pair of documents on its website that it says detail “the potential impacts of the President’s...

Trump EPA, DOJ Face Criticism Over Slow Pace Of New Enforcement Actions

EPA and the Department of Justice (DOJ) have brought only three environmental enforcement cases in federal court since the Trump administration took office five months ago, an abysmal pace that if continued would mean only a handful more cases will be filed by the end of the fiscal year, according to the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP). EIP is tracking the Trump EPA’s enforcement work and says it pales in comparison to the Biden administration’s pace in in FY24, when DOJ...

ASTSWMO Says EPA FY26 Budget Will ‘Decimate’ State Program Capabilities

State waste officials are warning that President Donald Trump’s proposal to slash EPA’s budget in fiscal year 2026 by 54 percent will “decimate” the ability for state environmental agencies to carry out their programs, echoing warnings from other regulators that states may return delegated programs to the agency. The Association of State and Territorial Solid Waste Management Officials (ASTSWMO) submitted June 16 written testimony to the Senate Appropriations Committee’s environment panel, warning that the proposed FY26 budget cuts for EPA...

Amid FY26 Cuts, EPA Seeks Small Boost To Support Air Rule Rollbacks

Even as EPA is planning dramatic spending cuts for fiscal year 2026, officials are proposing a modest boost to certain core functions in the air office to support an ambitious deregulatory agenda that will require staff to write numerous rules either promised by the Trump administration or required by statute, EPA budget documents show. In its just-released budget justification document for FY26, EPA outlines its priorities for the coming fiscal year and its proposed funding levels. “In FY 2026, EPA...

EPA Plans To Speed TSCA Work While Slashing Funding, Budget Says

The Trump EPA is planning to speed TSCA chemical reviews in fiscal year 2026 even as the agency is seeking to slash the program’s budget as part of the administration’s broader goal of streamlining the workforce and reducing “duplicative, voluntary, and unnecessary work,” according to EPA’s recently released budget justification. “In FY 2026 the Agency will work to reduce backlogs in the chemical review process to provide regulatory certainty to industry, furthering the Great American Comeback and unleashing the greatness...

States, Environmentalists File New Suits To Block Trump Grant Freezes

Democratic states, environmentalists, municipalities and tribes have filed a pair of new suits seeking to block EPA and other agencies’ efforts to freeze billions of dollars in Biden-era environmental justice (EJ), climate and other grants, launching the suits as courts continue to grapple with an earlier round of cases that sought to block the freezes. A coalition of environmental, municipalities and tribal groups June 25 filed a class action suit against EPA over its withholding of $3 billion in environmental...

Citing Trump Order, DOJ Urges 9th Circuit To Allow EPA To Reorganize

The Justice Department is urging the 9th Circuit to lift a lower court injunction that had blocked the administration from implementing President Donald Trump’s order requiring large-scale downsizing and restructuring at EPA and other agencies, arguing that the order is a lawful use of executive authority that cannot be reviewed in federal courts. “The President may tell executive agencies how to carry out their lawful functions, and agencies may lawfully conduct [reductions in force (RIFs)],” DOJ wrote in a June...

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