SEN. REED HIGHLIGHTS CUTS TO EPA STATE AND LOCAL GRANTS

Tamar Hallerman

GHG Monitor

05/18/12

Senate Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Jack Reed (D-R.I.) this week criticized proposed cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency’s grant programs for state and local water programs, a move requested earlier this year by the Obama Administration to free up more funds for air quality and climate change programs within the Agency. “I’m very concerned that the Administration is proposing cuts in one of the few areas in the EPA budget that both sides agree is extremely important,” Reed said at an EPA budget hearing this week. He added: “The bottom line is that cutting these programs means cutting construction jobs, and despite the fact that many of EPA’s programs are controversial, funding for water infrastructure has bipartisan support.”

The Obama Administration’s Feb. 13 budget request to Congress for Fiscal Year 2013 asks for $8.34 billion for EPA, about 1 percent below the agency’s currently enacted budget. Within that amount, the request recommends that roughly 40 percent of the agency’s budget be funneled into state and tribal assistance grants, the vehicle for which states, tribes and local governments implement clean air programs regulating emissions from power plants, as well as clean water programs. Within that allocation, categorical grants for pollution control programs under the Clean Air Act get a boost to $265.26 million, roughly a 10 percent bump from last year’s enacted $238.40 million level. But in order to offset that increase, EPA proposed cutting clean water state revolving funds and drinking water state revolving funds by 20 and 8 percent, respectively, as well as by eliminating overlapping and underperforming programs. 

Reed said that while he understood the need to cut budgets in a time of economic hardships, state revolving funds, especially for water programs, are a good investment. “The state revolving funds are tremendous job creators, especially when our federal grants are combined with additional funds that states contribute as a matching requirement or stretch even further by leveraging through the bond markets. Every dollar we invest in these grants creates more than $2 in total investment in actual projects on the ground,” he said. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said that clean water programs continue to be a priority for the Agency, but that cuts to the program “represent the kinds of tough choices that we have to face” in the tight budget environment, she said.

Interior-Environment Bill Could Face Political Landmines 

The Senate hearing barely touched on the controversial issue of EPA’s air quality programs, the vehicles that states use to implement regulations such as those governing coal-fired power plants recently proposed by the agency. The programs will likely be contentious ones as Congress begins the budget process in earnest for the FY2013 Interior-Environment appropriations bill. Consideration of the funding measure has been largely muted in recent months given the large political fight that is expected to surround the funding bill. 

Last year’s Interior-Environment appropriations bill quickly became a political lightning rod on Capitol Hill after it was introduced last summer. Following a bruising battle over EPA funding levels within the House Appropriations Committee, the FY2012 funding bill was eventually bogged down by more than 200 amendments on the House floor, some of which aimed to effectively gut key EPA programs and chip away at controversial air regulations. House leaders pulled the bill, leaving the more controversial measures to be hammered out by a House-Senate conference committee. The full Senate did not consider the measure individually, also leaving much of the negotiating to take place behind closed doors in conference, which ultimately rid the bill of most of its controversial measures.

For the FY2013 funding bill, House Appropriations Interior-Environment Subcommittee Chairman Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said earlier this spring that he is pessimistic about the odds of a smoother ride this year. Subsequent remarks made by House and Senate leaders have indicated that the bill will likely not be considered individually by either chamber and will probably be addressed as a larger omnibus spending bill later in the year. To date neither a House nor a Senate version of Interior-Environment funding bill has been released.