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.

Ruling Blocking ED Funds Bolsters Trump Defense Of EPA Funding Freeze

Trump administration lawyers are arguing that a recent Supreme Court ruling allowing the Department of Education (ED) to freeze funds previously promised to states is bolstering administration efforts to invalidate multiple suits seeking to block sweeping freezes of billions of dollars in EPA grants -- and judges appear initially sympathetic. The Supreme Court on April 4 issued a per curiam order in Department of Education, et al. v. California, et al. staying a Massachusetts court’s temporary restraining order...

EPA Orders Grant Scrubbed Of Equity, Climate Terms, Terminates Others

EPA has terminated without explanation millions of dollars in environmental justice (EJ) grants to major cities and nonprofits and ordered at least one other award purged of forbidden terms surrounding EJ, racial equity and climate change though it appears to allow the originally funded activity to continue, new court filings show. EPA’s actions are detailed in March 31 filings in Sustainability Institute, et al. v. Trump , litigation that is pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of...

Seeking Congressional Funds, States Grapple With Likely EPA Budget Cuts

States are grappling with what are likely to be significant budget cuts stemming from the Trump administration’s efforts to downsize EPA and other agencies’ spending, urging Congress to provide at least level funding, though with some kind of upward adjustment for inflation. During a Capitol Hill briefing last week held by the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Environmental Council of States (ECOS), state officials raised concerns about their ability to carry out future environmental work in the face of...

Trump Ends Collective Bargaining At EPA, Dissolves Biden-Era Agreements

President Donald Trump is moving to end collective bargaining at EPA and other agencies while dissolving Biden-era agreements that had sought to protect agency personnel and some policies, moves that union sources say would remove a key check on the administration’s power to pursue sweeping personnel and policy changes at the agency. Trump issued a March 27 executive order (EO), “Exclusions From Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs,” that ends union involvement at any agency deemed to have a national security function...

EPA Defends Scrapping ‘Green Bank’ Awards Based On Limited Oversight

EPA says the underlying structure of a $14 billion “green bank” program blocks the agency from conducting sufficient oversight and therefore required that EPA terminate awards under the program, as Trump officials urge a district court to reject grant recipients’ call for an injunction to release the halted funds. The agency says in a March 26 filing that it “reasonably terminated the grants based on concerns” that Biden officials “had significantly reduced federal oversight and control,” as well as a...

Water Nominee Says WOTUS Ambiguities Remain As EPA Weighs Rule

Jessica Kramer, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead EPA’s water office, told members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) that officials have yet to decide whether to conduct a full rulemaking process to revise the Biden-era “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) rule, while acknowledging that some ambiguities remain. Kramer, a former staffer on EPW, emphasized during her March 26 confirmation hearing that the Supreme Court’s decision in Sackett v. EPA was “prescriptive” around a number...

Zeldin Defends Plan To Shutter ORD, Touting Chemical, Water Offices’ Needs

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin is defending the agency’s proposed plan to “eliminate" the Office of Research and Development (ORD), saying that while he has made no decision, the proposal seeks to move researchers to offices with significant backlogs, particularly the agency’s chemical and water offices. “As I stand here today, I’ve made no decision on anything . . . but I will tell you that we are absolutely going through a process to figure out what makes the most amount...

Democrats Urge EPA To Restore Grants After Lawyers Warn Of Violations

Democrats on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) are urging EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to rescind the termination of hundreds of environmental justice (EJ) and other grants after internal emails showed agency lawyers warned the actions were unlawful but top managers left it up to grantees to challenge them in court. In a March 25 letter , the senators, led by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), the committee’s ranking Democrat, raise concerns about EPA’s actions taken in accordance with...

Former Official Warns ORD Shutdown Would Be Irreversible For Labs

EPA’s planned elimination of the Office of Research and Development (ORD) could have devastating and irreversible impacts on the laboratories which carry out critical EPA research, through the loss of animals, equipment and other resources, according to a former ORD official. ORD samples, animal colonies, experiments and costly equipment often require around-the-clock maintenance -- meaning that even a brief shutdown would have devastating effects on laboratory capacity, the source says. If those resources are lost, ORD “would be impossible to...

Capito Expects ‘Most’ Funds To Be Unfrozen But Warns Of ‘Belt Tightening’

Senate environment committee Chairman Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) says she expects “most” EPA funds that the Trump administration has frozen for review will soon be unfrozen, particularly those under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), though she is warning of “belt tightening” due to the large national debt. “I’m trying to preach patience here,” she told state environmental commissioners meeting in Arlington, VA. “I think. . . most of this is going to become unfrozen and back to the states,” she...

Groups Seek To Expand Court Pause Over ‘Green Bank’ Grant Terminations

Groups that are challenging EPA’s termination of their awards under the agency’s major clean energy financing grant program are pressing a federal court to issue a preliminary injunction blocking EPA’s move and releasing the funds, a step that would build on a temporary order they won preventing EPA from immediately clawing back the money. Three groups -- which are all direct recipients of the $14 billion National Clean Investment Fund (NCIF), the largest program within the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund...

States Fear ‘Cloud Of Uncertainty’ Blocking Future ‘Green Bank’ Lending

State-run “green banks” are raising alarm about the future of EPA’s $20 billion low-carbon project financing program, arguing that Trump officials’ attacks on the program have already stirred instability that will have a lasting effect even as a federal judge has expressed skepticism about the legality of the administration’s actions. “By casting a cloud of uncertainty over the availability and legitimacy of the $20 billion appropriation, EPA will render the entire funding stream toxic to risk-averse financial market participants,” says...

States Poised To Meet As Trump EPA Cuts Threaten Environmental Work

State environmental regulators are poised to meet next week during their annual Spring meeting to discuss hot button environmental issues, amid fears that the Trump administration’s threats to slash EPA’s budget and cut key program offices imperil states’ abilities to fill in the gaps. The Environmental Council of States (ECOS) is holding its annual Spring meeting from March 23-26, during which regulators will discuss key environmental issues, including permitting efficiencies, strategies for reducing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in products,...

Loss Of ORD Likely To Strain EPA, State Air Regulators, Delay Rules

EPA’s plan to shutter its Office of Research and Development (ORD) will stymie the air office’s ability to comply with statutory obligations to write a variety of rules, placing additional burdens on state regulators faced with likely cuts to their federal funding and possibly delaying numerous EPA air rules that are required by law, sources say. The loss of ORD “would be devastating” to the Office of Air and Radiation (OAR), which has responsibility for air issues, says one former...

Cities, Nonprofits Sue Over Renewed EPA Freeze Of BIL, IRA Funds

Several nonprofit organizations and six cities are suing EPA and other Trump administration agencies over their freeze on Biden-era energy and environment grants, citing evidence of renewed holds on EPA-administered funds despite a bevy of court orders barring such a freeze as unconstitutional. The suit , The Sustainability Institute, et al., v. Donald Trump, et al. , filed in the U.S. District Court for South Carolina, offers new information about the ongoing local impacts of the freeze and points to...

Potential OECA Breakup Would ‘Drastically’ Limit Enforcement, Experts Say

Despite Administrator Lee Zeldin’s suggestions he would preserve EPA’s enforcement office, former officials expect the agency to break it up and distribute its functions and staff across the agency -- a move they say would dramatically hamstring enforcement and leave it vulnerable to industry influence over the long term. Enforcement “will be harder, slower, decision-making will be much more inconsistent and difficult, and you will have areas of the country [and] different medias that have very different levels of enforcement,”...

EPA resolves OIG recommendations on LSL funding allocations

EPA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) has found that the agency has resolved pending recommendations aimed at addressing findings that officials failed to verify largely inaccurate state data in its formula used to allocate funds for replacing lead service lines (LSLs), resulting in skewed allotments. “All recommendations for the subject report are now considered resolved. You should track implementation of EPA corrective actions in the Agency’s audit tracking system until all actions are completed,” OIG said in a March 10...

After Order, EPA Rehires Probationary Workers But Places Them On Leave

EPA has rehired more than 400 probationary workers fired in a mid-February purge, though the agency immediately placed those employees on administrative leave, an action taken in accordance with a federal court decision declaring the firings unlawful and ordering their swift reversal. “In accordance with the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland . . . this email is to provide official notice that the Agency is rescinding your termination effective immediately,” says a message sent from the agency...

Judge Poised To Rule On Call To Release EPA’s ‘Green Bank’ Awards

Three groups that were awarded a total of $14 billion under EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GHGRF) program are fleshing out their legal claims for why the agency has improperly scuttled those grants, as a federal judge appears poised to narrowly grant their request for a temporary restraining order (TRO) that would restart some payments. Judge Tanya Chutkan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who is considering three related challenges to the grant terminations, appeared sympathetic...

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