The detailed budget draft, first reported on Saturday by the Washington Post, shows how EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and his team propose to slice $2.5 billion from the agency's spending next year and lay off 25 percent of its employees. Congress undoubtedly will balk at some of the proposed cuts; some Republicans on Capitol Hill already have voiced opposition to the elimination of programs important to their constituents, like infrastructure assistance for Great Lakes restoration projects and for native villages in Alaska.
But the draft EPA budget memo also sends a strong signal that Donald Trump's administration wants the knife to fall heavily on any activity related to global warming.
The internal memo, from acting Chief Financial Officer David Bloom to top agency personnel, calls for "taking a comprehensive look at our priorities and thinking differently about the best ways to accomplish our core statutory responsibilities." The memo repeatedly portrays climate as outside the agency's "core statutory requirements." That's a radical change from the Obama administration's last EPA budget proposal, which called greenhouse gas mitigation and climate change adaptation "the issue of highest importance facing the agency."
The draft addresses the budget for fiscal year 2018, which begins Oct. 1. The agency is now operating on a stopgap spending bill that expires late this month.
The administration is seeking to save $70 million and cut 224 full-time employees by eliminating the EPA's Climate Protection Program, including 14 voluntary partnerships with industry that were aimed at cutting energy use and greenhouse gases. The best known of those is the Energy Star labeling program, aimed at providing consumers and businesses with information on the energy costs of appliances they purchase. The memo calls for transferring the program to a non-governmental entity.
Read more at Trump Plan to Slash EPA Budget Goes Even Deeper, New Memo Shows
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