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 Renews Staff Resignation Plans, Early Retirement Offers Ahead Of RIFs

EPA is opening a second round of deferred resignation plans offered to employees in the first weeks of the Trump administration, in addition to allowing some workers to opt into retiring early, as the agency looks forward to implementing comprehensive reorganization and workforce reduction plans. In an April 28 email sent to employees across the agency, EPA announced it is reopening the Deferred Resignation Program (DRP), similar to the “fork in the road” offer officials made earlier this year, and...

Judge Blocks EO Stripping EPA Unions Of Collective Bargaining Rights

A federal judge has blocked implementation of President Donald Trump’s executive order (EO) stripping public sector unions of bargaining rights at EPA and other federal agencies, calling the order unlawful. Senior Judge Paul Friedman of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued an April 25 preliminary injunction in National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) v. Donald Trump that found that the president overstepped his statutory authority in excluding a host of federal agencies from union representation under...

Judge Orders EPA To Unfreeze Climate, EJ Grants Slated For Termination

A federal judge is again ordering EPA to release all frozen funds it administers under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), allowing the agency to move forward with terminating grant awards on an “individualized basis” but saying recipients must be able to contest the agency’s decision. “EPA needs to comply and go through the process: terminate the grants that they think they can lawfully terminate and that don’t put forth their values,” Judge Mary McElroy said in an April 25 bench...

Past Research Chiefs Urge Senate To Save ORD As EPA Weighs Elimination

Former EPA research heads from Republican and Democratic administrations are urging Senate appropriators to maintain support for the Office of Research and Development (ORD) as EPA weighs its elimination. ORD is “a unique national asset,” says the April 22 letter sent to the Appropriations Committee’s environment subcommittee, which includes environment committee chairman Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) and member Jeff Merkley (D-OR). “The diminishment or loss of this national asset would degrade the ability of the United States to be prepared...

EPA Vows To Terminate Nearly Half Of Active Inflation Reduction Act Grants

EPA is telling a federal court it has terminated or intends to terminate nearly half of all active Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) grants it administers, targeting climate and environmental justice (EJ) projects in particular, citing a perceived loophole in a recent court order that allows it to freeze grants on an “individualized basis.” In an April 24 status report submitted in Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council, et al. v. USDA, et al. , Daniel Coogan, an official in EPA’s Office of...

Water Officials Say EPA Plans EO Compliance Review For FY26 SRF Loans

Top EPA water office officials say they plan to begin reviewing states’ clean and drinking water state revolving fund (SRF) intended use plans (IUPs) to ensure compliance with President Donald Trump’s executive orders (EOs) at the start of fiscal year 2026, seeking to assuage state concerns that such reviews are already happening. Officials are also indicating that even if their IUPs have to comply with Trump’s orders barring use of funds for environmental justice (EJ), climate and other Biden-era priorities,...

DOJ Seeks Large Court Bonds For EPA Plaintiffs But Judges, So Far, Decline

Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers are aggressively pushing courts to require plaintiffs challenging EPA actions to shell out enormous sums of money to obtain preliminary injunctions in a bid to raise barriers to litigation -- though judges have so far denied those requests. In one recent case, DOJ lawyers have asked courts to impose bonds equivalent to the billions of dollars in EPA grants plaintiffs are seeking to unfreeze. In another funding freeze suit, DOJ asked the court to impose...

EPA Starts Process For Staff Firings In EJ Office, Amid Broader RIF Fears

EPA has formally notified the agency’s civil rights office, as well as regional environmental justice (EJ) divisions, of agency plans to conduct a “reduction in force” (RIF) of agency staff, justifying the move as in line with Trump administration executive orders targeting diversity programs and directing workforce “optimization.” While the notification, in the form of an April 21 memorandum , offers confirmation of widely expected efforts to target EJ-related activities, a former EPA official tells Inside EPA the effort...

White House proposes repeal of civil service protections for key staff

The Trump administration is proposing a widely expected regulation that would open the door to rolling back civil service protection for federal career staff with important “policymaking roles or confidential duties” at EPA and other agencies. “This rule empowers federal agencies to swiftly remove employees in policy-influencing roles for poor performance, misconduct, corruption, or subversion of Presidential directives, without lengthy procedural hurdles,” the White House says in an April 18 fact sheet announcing the proposal from the Office of Personnel...

Trump Reportedly Eyes Targeting Tax Status Of Environmental Nonprofits

President Donald Trump is reportedly poised to sign executive orders (EOs) as soon as next week that would target the tax-exempt status of environmental nonprofits, an effort that would follow similarly public attacks on other groups, including universities. Bloomberg in an April 18 report says that the EOs under consideration would strip some environmental groups of their tax-exempt status, “setting up a possible Earth Day strike against organizations seen as standing in the way of President Donald Trump’s push...

ECOS Urges EPA To Maintain ‘Robust’ Research As ORD Faces Uncertain Fate

The Environmental Council of the States (ECOS) is urging EPA and Congress to continue to support “robust scientific research and development capabilities” as Trump administration officials weigh shuttering the agency’s Office of Research and Development (ORD), saying states lack the resources to replace EPA’s scientific functions. “Under the cooperative federalism structure for environmental protection, states collaborate with and rely on the U.S. EPA to provide sound science,” the group of state environmental commissioners said in an April 16 statement ...

Judge Finds EPA Illegally Halted ‘Green Bank’ Grants, As EPA Wins Brief Stay

A district court judge is concluding that EPA has unlawfully attempted to scrap $20 billion in clean energy grants under the agency’s “green bank” program, finding the agency failed to explain its reasoning for canceling the awards and that it is wrongly seeking to scuttle the congressionally approved program as a policy matter. While the order seeks to restore grant recipients’ access to their funding, the Trump administration’s quick appeal of the decision has spurred the U.S. Court of Appeals...

Judge Orders Immediate Release Of IRA, Infrastructure Funds Nationwide

Granting a request from environmentalists, a federal judge has ordered EPA and other agencies to immediately end their across-the-board funding freeze on funds issued under Biden-era laws in a first-of-its-kind nationwide injunction, an action that expands on another ruling that granted a similar request from states. In an April 15 preliminary injunction , Judge Mary McElroy of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island -- a Trump appointee -- blocked agencies’ implementation of a Jan. 20 executive...

Judge Orders ‘Green Bank’ Grant Funds To Restart, As EPA Quickly Appeals

A federal judge is ordering that grant recipients under EPA’s “green bank” program should regain access to their funds, despite the Trump EPA’s attempt to terminate $20 billion in awards under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GHGRF). Citibank, which is acting as the government’s financial “agent” for the program, “must disburse any funds properly incurred before the mid-February suspension of Plaintiffs’ funds,” says a preliminary injunction issued late April 15 in Climate United Fund v. Citibank, et al. , in...

House Democrats seek information on EPA firings

Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee are demanding EPA release information on its past and future plans for mass terminations, expressing “great concern” over the firings’ impacts on EPA’s ability to carry out its core statutory functions and condemning the administration’s “lack of transparency.” The April 14 letter , signed by Reps. Frank Pallone (NJ), Paul Tonko (NY) and Yvette Clarke (NY), says the Trump administration’s “persistent assault on career civil servants threatens public health and will make...

Amid EPA Cutbacks, State Air Regulators Urge Congress To Boost Funds

Despite a wave of spending cuts underway at EPA, state air regulators are urging congressional appropriators to boost their funding to implement Clean Air Act (CAA) programs, warning that funding cuts to states would spur “profound” environmental and economic harms to Americans. In April 4 testimony to the House Appropriations Committee panel on interior and environment, the National Association of Clean Air Agencies (NACAA), representing air agencies in 40 states, urged appropriators to adequately fund state activities in the EPA...

Warning Of ‘Formal Discipline,’ EPA Enforces Return-To-Work Mandates

EPA is notifying agency employees of the mechanisms by which it will verify that they have returned to in-person work at agency offices, and indicating that failure to comply “will result in formal discipline, up to and including removal from federal service.” EPA spelled out the requirements in an April 8 email to agency staff . “This message addresses next steps,” EPA Office of Mission Support Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator Michael Molina writes in the all staff email. The email...

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