HOUSE APPROPRIATORS CRITICIZE FY14 EPA PRIORITIES

Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
5/10/13

House appropriators expressed concern this week about proposed cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget for Fiscal Year 2014, while others questioned the Obama Administration’s funding priorities moving forward. At a May 8 budget hearing, members of the House Appropriations Interior and Environment Subcommittee singled out many of the White House’s priorities for FY 2014 as unwise. In his testimony before the subcommittee, acting EPA Administrator Bob Perciasepe said the budget request—which asks for $8.15 billion to fund the EPA for FY 2014, a 3.5 percent funding decrease compared to FY 2012 levels—is the “product of long discussions and difficult choices.” Perciasepe told the panel, “In the end, we believe this budget will enable us to work toward the Agency’s goals as effectively and efficiently as possible.”

Appropriators from both parties, though, said that they were displeased nonetheless. Republicans on the subcommittee said the request does not cut deeply enough and criticized many of the Agency’s proposed priorities for FY 2014. “Mr. Perciasepe, it appears we agree on the continued need to reduce spending. Nevertheless, this is not the budget I would write for EPA,” Subcommittee Chairman Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said. 

Members Split on Top-Line Request

Subcommittee Democrats said they were concerned about what they described as a severe lack in overall funding for EPA. “I am concerned about the recent decline in funding for EPA and what it means for the long-term effectiveness of the Agency. Since 2010, EPA’s funding has been cut by nearly 20 percent, and now because of the sequester they face another 5 percent cut. I fear that this year’s bill will mean further drastic cuts,” Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) said, pointing to the fact that EPA’s budget has been cut several years in a row. 

But Simpson underscored that the top-line numbers for the agency can be deceiving. He said that between 2009 and 2010, EPA’s budget received a 35 percent increase, the equivalent of $2.65 billion. “While EPA has not historically faced a declining budget for four consecutive years, the Agency similarly had not received a historic $2.6 billion increase in one year alone,” he said. “With that in mind, the FY14 budget would still provide EPA with $509 million above its fiscal year 2009 level—meaning this proposed budget would still provide EPA with a half a billion dollar cushion. … Even with the targeted reductions to the Agency’s budget over the past three years, we still have yet to break even.”

Appropriators Criticize Cuts to Water Programs

Members of the subcommittee from both parties particularly criticized the proposed $472 million cut to EPA’s Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds, which provide money for water quality protection projects across the country. Subcommittee Ranking Member James Moran (D-Va.) said he was “disappointed” in that request. “The State Revolving Fund Program is a drop in the bucket in comparison to the [budget], but cutting with no alternative plan really is unacceptable,” he said. “The fact is we’re going to pay a price later if we don’t maintain our needed infrastructure.”

Few mentions were made about EPA’s air quality or climate change-related programs, but Simpson briefly criticized the Administration’s proposed increase to EPA’s Environmental Programs and Management account, which enforces the agency’s major air quality and water regulations, as well as conducts some climate research. Instead, Simpson said funding should be shifted to more popular programs like EPA’s Hazardous Substance Superfund and diesel emissions and rural water technical assistance grants. “It seems to me that the Administration is cutting successful, bipartisan programs knowing that Congress will restore the funding. In doing so, this allows the Administration to propose other new programs that we just don’t have the funding to pay for in a constrained budget environment,” he said.

Simpson said he was also “skeptical” of a new proposed information technology initiative called E-Enterprise Initiative. EPA requested $60 million for that program, which would enable more electronic information sharing between states and EPA to reduce reporting burdens. It would develop what EPA described as an “interactive portal” that tracks regulatory transactions that the Agency makes with states, tribes and the business community such as permit applications.