EPA's 2011 Budget Proposal Slightly Less than 2010 Funding
EPA's Proposed 2011 Budget. Click to enlarge.
The Obama Administration on Feb. 1 proposed a budget of $10 billion for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This budget heeds the president’s call to streamline and find efficiencies in the agency’s operations while supporting the seven priority areas EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson outlined to guide the agency’s work.
“To meet our environmental challenges and ensure fiscal responsibility, we’re proposing targeted investments in core priorities. This budget cuts spending while promoting clean air, land, and water, growing the green economy and strengthening enforcement,” said Administrator Jackson. ”The president’s budget is focused on creating the conditions that help American families, communities and small businesses thrive. Clean air, clear water and green jobs are rebuilding the foundations for prosperity in communities across the country.”
Highlights of the budget include the following:
Cleaning up communities: $1.3 billion to address Superfund sites; $215 million is provided to clean up abandoned or underused industrial and commercial sites that are available for alternative uses but where redevelopment may be complicated by the presence of environmental contaminants; $27 million for EPA’s new Healthy Communities Initiative. The initiative will address community water priorities; promote clean, green, and healthy schools; improve air toxics monitoring in at-risk communities; and encourage sustainability by helping to ensure that policies and spending at the national level do not adversely affect the environment and public health or disproportionally harm disadvantaged communities.
Improving air quality: $60 million to support state efforts to implement updated National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS).
EPA's enacted budget FY 1999 to 2011. Click to enlarge.
Building strong state and tribal partnerships: $1.3 billion for state and tribal grants; $25 million for greenhouse gas (GHG) permitting; $60 million to support state efforts to implement updated NAAQS, $45 million for state water enforcement and permitting programs; $30 million for a new competitive Tribal Multi-media Implementation grant program as well as $9 million for Tribal General Assistance Program grants.
Taking action on climate change: More than $43 million for implementing the GHG reporting rule; providing technical assistance to ensure that any permitting under the Clean Air Act will be manageable; performing regulatory work for the largest stationary sources of GHG emissions; developing standards for mobile sources such as cars and trucks; and continuing research of carbon capture and sequestration technologies.
Protecting America’s waters: $63 million to help protect and restore the Chesapeake Bay and $17 million for the Mississippi River Basin to respond to non-point source control recommendations of the Nutrients Innovation Task Group and implement recommendations outlined in the Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Action Plan. This budget also invests $3.3 billion to maintain and improve outdated water infrastructure, in addition to $6 billion in funding provided to states through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).
Assuring the safety of chemicals: $56 million for chemical assessment and risk review to ensure that no unreasonable risks are posed by new or existing chemicals; $29 million (including $15 million in grants funding) in the continuing effort to eliminate childhood lead poisoning, and $6 million to support national efforts to mitigate exposure to high-risk legacy chemicals, such as mercury and asbestos.
Expanding the conversation on environmentalism and working for environmental justice: $8 million for environmental justice programs, targeting increased brownfields investments; $9 million for community water priorities.