A House Appropriations subcommittee this month advanced FY19 funding legislation for EPA that trims the agency’s regulatory budget but maintains high funding levels for its water infrastructure programs.
The draft spending bill includes $7.958 billion in base funding for EPA, which the committee said is $100 million below its FY18 level and represents a $228 million cut to the agency’s regulatory budget. But that sum excludes an extra $340 million the bill would deliver through a separate allocation for additional water infrastructure and Superfund cleanup funding. The extra infrastructure funding is the result of a budget deal lawmakers struck earlier this year.
Overall, the bill would provide a total of $1.013 billion for the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, and $1.543 billion for the Clean Water SRF. Each sum is $150 million below the program’s FY18 funding levels, but would still represent appropriations on the high end of what each program has typically received in recent years.
The bill would provide EPA’s Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) program with $67 million to support water infrastructure loans, plus an additional $8 million to cover EPA’s administrative costs for running the program. The funding, up from a total WIFIA appropriation of $63 million this year, could support more than $8 billion worth of water infrastructure loans.
The full Appropriations Committee is expected to consider the bill in June.