Leaked Trump Budget Would Slash EPA's Climate, Environment Spending

The plan would cut EPA funding by nearly one-third, slash spending on renewable energy innovation, and eliminate the Greenhouse Gas Reporting program, among others.

Details of President Donald Trump's 2018 budget proposal, leaked this week, reveal that the administration appears determined to wallop environmental programs, including many that tackle climate change.  It would cut Environmental Protection Agency funding by nearly one-third, slash spending on renewable energy innovation, and eliminate the Greenhouse Gas Reporting program, among other programs.

The White House only has the first move in the long budget process; once the proposal is unveiled officially next week, it will be Congress' turn to weigh in on spending priorities.  With Trump embroiled in scandal, and many popular programs targeted for elimination, it's not at all clear that lawmakers will follow the president's lead.

The president's so-called "skinny" budget, released in March, also called for slashing EPA funding by 31 percent but was light on detail.

This second version of the budget proposal, leaked late this week, reveals that the administration intends to follow through on its commitment to reduce EPA to the size it was in the 1970s, when climate change wasn't on its radar screen.

Research on air and energy would be slashed by 67 percent, and clean air regulatory programs—which include climate change—would be cut 47 percent.

Among the EPA programs that would be eliminated:

• The $8 million Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, under which industrial facilities have been reporting their carbon emissions since 2010.
• The $27 million national estuaries program for protection of coastal waterways.
• $7 million for Environmental Justice.
• $19.9 million in assistance to Alaska villages.
• $427 million in geographic programs focused on environmental issues in the Great Lakes, the Gulf of Mexico, Chesapeake Bay, Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans, and other hot spots.

By slashing the geographic programs, which have bipartisan support on Capitol Hill, the Trump administration is showing little inclination to open the budget process with any conciliatory moves to win over key members of Congress.  To pass cuts to discretionary programs like those at EPA would require some Democratic support to reach 60 votes in the Senate, where the GOP holds 52 seats.  Some Republicans also have indicated they would not support the deep cuts that the White House had signaled it was seeking.

At a public forum in Washington this week, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, (R-Alaska), chair of both the Senate Energy Committee and the Appropriations Committee's subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Other Agencies, had voiced hope that the administration would back off of its planned cuts.

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