McCarthy visits Capitol Hill to defend agency's budget request

Jean Chemnick and Daniel Lippman, March 24, 2014

U.S. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy will visit Capitol Hill this week to discuss her agency's fiscal 2015 budget request, which combines substantial cuts to popular loan programs with new spending on climate efforts destined to draw fire from Republicans.

She will appear before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Wednesday, and the House Appropriations subpanel on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies on Thursday.
 

President Obama's budget, released March 4, would provide $7.9 billion for EPA -- a 3.7 percent reduction compared with current levels (Greenwire, March 4).
 

The largest proposed reductions would come from the Drinking Water and Clean Water state revolving funds, which provide cash to states for water infrastructure projects. The programs, which enjoy support from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, would be funded at $1.8 billion for fiscal 2015 -- $581 million below enacted levels.
 

But this year's budget is the first to request funding for the president's Climate Action Plan, released last year. It asks to shift $10 million and the equivalent of 24 full-time EPA employees to "education and outreach" activities related to the climate plan. It also prioritizes funding for grants to support upcoming carbon dioxide rules for existing power plants, which the agency is set to release by June 2. The total proposed investment in climate-related activities is $199.5 million……To Read More….

 

My Take – So they’re cutting funds used to provide clean drinking water, which definitely plays a role in people’s lives, to fund global warming, or global cooling or climate change lies– take your pick - that no one can do anything about.  Did I get that right?