The agency will craft new policies to standardize how it tracks and reports progress on its joint environmental work with Mexico along the countries’ shared border.
A new Government Accountability Office report urges EPA to create a technical assistance network and Congress to require climate resiliency considerations in federally funded water infrastructure projects.
The Justice Department’s (DOJ) environment division says it cannot stretch its budget to defend the Trump administration’s current and future rollbacks of EPA and other agencies’ rules, noting the division has no base funding for the effort and is thus seeking a funding increase and new positions in its fiscal year 2021 budget request.
EPA’s Environmental Financial Advisory Board (EFAB) is poised to finalize this week a series of recommendations calling for increased federal funding and technical assistance for stormwater management that could shape the upcoming congressional debate around water resources legislation that increasingly includes agency programs.
The Trump administration’s fiscal year 2021 budget proposes to cut EPA’s budget by 26 percent, including a 16 percent reduction in the agency’s core Environmental Programs and Management (EPM) account, as well as steeper cuts in Superfund, science and other programs, prompting warnings that the plan is dead on arrival in Congress.
Even as EPA rolls back its facility safety rules, the White House is proposing to eliminate fiscal year 2021 funding for two key chemical safety programs -- the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) and the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program, worrying industry officials who fear the plan will undermine protections.
The Trump administration is calling for $6.7 billion for EPA in its fiscal year 2021 budget proposal, a 26 percent cut-in funding over FY20 levels, and elimination of over 50 programs -- a reprise of past budget plans that have been rejected by Congress.
With the Trump administration slated to release its fiscal year 2021 budget request Feb. 10, House appropriators are signaling that they could use their next spending bill to give more resources to EPA’s recycling program, although waste chief Peter Wright downplayed any need for a funding boost at a recent hearing on the subject.
Democratic leaders in the House are floating the outlines of a massive proposal to fund transportation, energy and water infrastructure, arguing that multiple elements of the plan will advance efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change, in addition to tackling conventional environmental problems.
