In a step toward heading off a government shutdown when a temporary funding agreement expires at the end of January, appropriators in both the Senate and House of Representatives released a bipartisan spending package Monday morning that kept the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency largely intact.
The spending package would fund several federal agencies and scientific bodies, including the EPA, departments of Interior and Energy and the National Science Foundation through Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.
The “minibus” bills, which will likely move to the House floor for a vote this week, allocated more than $38 billion to Interior, Environment and related agencies, or $9.5 billion more than the Trump administration’s budget request.
“This legislation is a forceful rejection of draconian cuts to public services proposed by the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., the ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, in a statement.
“The bill prioritizes unleashing American energy, ensuring access to public lands, promoting the reversal of harmful Biden-era rulemakings that have hamstrung farmers and industries and rightsizing agency funding levels, including a $320 million reduction to the Environmental Protection Agency,” said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., chair of the House Appropriations Committee, in a statement outlining key provisions of the package.
The package allocated $8.8 billion for the EPA, roughly 4 percent less than last year’s $9 billion budget for the agency, a far less drastic reduction than environmental advocates had feared.
Both DeLauro and Cole noted the lack of “poison pills” in the package, referring to policy provisions added by opponents of a bill designed to sabotage its passage.
“This bill blocks the worst cuts and policy riders to EPA and shows Congress getting back to its job by passing bipartisan bills rather than relying on short-term stopgaps,” said Marc Boom, senior director of public affairs for the nonprofit Environmental Protection Network (EPN), in a statement. The group is made up of more than 700 former EPA employees.
Before Congress adjourned for the holiday recess in December, former EPA staffers led by EPN urged legislators to adopt the Senate’s bipartisan approach to funding the nation’s environmental regulators to halt what they called the dismantling of protections for Americans’ health.
The bipartisan Senate bill had negotiated a 5 percent budget reduction. The House, by contrast, had originally proposed a 23 percent cut, which was less severe than the Trump administration’s proposed 55 percent reduction but deep enough to hobble the agency’s core enforcement and research duties, warned experts with EPN.
Democratic members of the Senate Appropriations Committee said the package of funding bills rejects “draconian” cuts and policies pushed by President Trump and House Republicans, and reasserts congressional control over key funding decisions, in a statement Monday.
The bill is a notable step in the right direction, said Boom, “but it doesn’t yet undo the damage to EPA’s capacity to protect public health or prevent further destructive actions by Administrator [Lee] Zeldin.”
In July, the EPA announced staff cuts and “organizational improvements” affecting the Office of Research and Development (ORD) it said would save $748.8 million. The agency had already cut more than 3,700 EPA employees in the first seven months of Trump’s second term.
“Science is really foundational to EPA in its ability to achieve its mission, and now it’s at risk,” said Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, a former principal deputy assistant administrator with ORD, at an EPN briefing last month. “Dismantling EPA’s Office of Research and Development would devastate the agency’s ability to protect us from legacy pollution and emerging threats,” said Orme-Zavaleta, who spent 40 years at the agency.
The administration already dismantled the Board of Scientific Counselors for ORD, Orme-Zavaleta told Inside Climate News, referring to the independent federal advisory committee established in 1996 to support the office’s research.
ORD once had more than 1,5o0 employees but now just 140 are left, she said. “There remains a lot of uncertainty about whether the agency is going to take the final step and dismantle the whole thing, or are they waiting to see how the budget plays out?”
It’s also unclear whether Colorado’s Democratic senators will support the package, after the Trump administration threatened to close the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a global leader in climate and earth science based in Boulder, and then vetoed a bill to fund a drinking water pipeline in the state.
Boom credits the “sustained advocacy” of the many environmental experts at EPN who urged Congress to adopt the bipartisan Senate approach and halt the relentless assault on the EPA. But the EPA’s budget remains historically low when adjusted for inflation, continuing a decade-long erosion of the agency’s capacity as its responsibilities have grown, he said.
“EPN volunteers will continue to press Congress to finish the job of ensuring EPA is fully resourced, accountable and able to carry out its proper mission of protecting the American people,” Boom said.
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Liza Gross is a reporter for Inside Climate News based in Northern California. She is the author of The Science Writers’ Investigative Reporting Handbook and a contributor to The Science Writers’ Handbook, both funded by National Association of Science Writers’ Peggy Girshman Idea Grants. She has long covered science, conservation, agriculture, public and environmental health and justice with a focus on the misuse of science for private gain. Prior to joining ICN, she worked as a part-time magazine editor for the open-access journal PLOS Biology, a reporter for the Food & Environment Reporting Network and produced freelance stories for numerous national outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Discover and Mother Jones. Her work has won awards from the Association of Health Care Journalists, American Society of Journalists and Authors, Society of Professional Journalists NorCal and Association of Food Journalists.
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