By Maureen Lorenzetti
The Environmental Protection Agency on Feb. 4 gave Congress a $7.6 billion budget proposal for the 2003 fiscal year that starts Oct. 1, 2002. It included large cuts in water programs because there was no specific direction given from lawmakers yet on where money should be earmarked, officials said.
About $431 million in congressional line items are not in the budget this year, although EPA officials said it wanted Congress to provide more direction to help fund specific water infrastructure repairs.
Meanwhile, the agency asked Congress for $1.21 billion for the Clean Water State Revolving Loan Fund (SRF), $138 million below last year's funding level. EPA wanted to keep funding for the Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Fund (DWSRF) at $850 million, the same as last year.
Administrator Christine Whitman said the SRF budget request for the 2003 fiscal year "continues EPA's commitment for the fund to provide $2 billion in average financial assistance over the long-term even after federal assistance ends."
Total SRF funds available for loans as of July 2001, reflecting loan repayments, state match dollars and other sources of funding, are about $37.7 billion, of which $34.4 billion has been provided to communities as financial assistance, EPA said.
Some groups were immediately critical of EPA's budget shortfalls, particularly for drinking water.
The Water Infrastructure Network for example said the EPA budget should at a minimum fund the DWSRF at the $1 billion level authorized by Congress. And the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Jim Jeffords (I-VT) vowed to restore the cuts.
"As our nation suffers from increasing rates of asthma in our children and fewer sources of safe drinking water, now is the time to increase our investment in the environment, not decrease it," he said.
The agency sought to deflect those criticisms by saying it planned to introduce a new $21 million watershed project and expand its brownfields program for $200 million.
EPA is also facing criticism on enforcement issues, especially from environmental groups.
Seeking to shift environmental law enforcement responsibilities from the federal government to the states threatens effective and uniform enforcement of national environmental laws, according to Joan Mulhern, senior legislative counsel for Earthjustice.
"Cutting clean water funding and shifting more enforcement responsibilities to the states were among the most controversial aspects of President Bush's environmental budget last year, and they were rebuked by both Republicans and Democrats in Congress," said Mulhern. "Frankly, I am surprised that the administration would resurrect these unwise shifts in priorities when they were so soundly rejected by Congress during the last session."
The agency said it wanted an increase of about $16 million in enforcement spending, from about $387 million to $402 million. But EPA said it wanted to earmark $15 million toward a controversial state grant proposal that Congress rejected last year.
On homeland security, the agency said it wants Congress to appropriate $124 million this year, with $20 million to go toward drinking water and $75 million for research that could offer better ways to clean buildings contaminated by biological agents such as anthrax. EPA last year received $176 million from a post-Sept. 11 emergency spending bill for related anti-terrorism measures.
