House and Senate Take Different Approps Positions

Over three days — June 14-16 — the House and Senate Appropriations Committees completed their work on their respective funding bills for EPA in FY 17.  If the process retains this early momentum, next steps would be to have the measures taken up and voted on by the full House and Senate.  Should that process occur in a timely fashion, each chamber would then appoint members to participate in a House-Senate conference to resolve the differences between the two measures.

Looking more closely at what those difference might be, we find that the two chambers have different funding priorities.  For example, while the Senate funds EPA overall at slightly greater than $132M more than the House, the House provides $20M more than the Senate for WIFIA.  The Senate allocates $17M more than the House for STAG (State & Tribal Assistance Grant) activities, but the House funds Science & Technology by $74M more than the Senate.  For program-specific funding, the House and Senate agreed on $109,700,000 for PWSS and $9,646,000 for Exchange Network grants but took different approaches to SRF funding.  Here’s a detailed comparison:

Program                            HOUSE                                                       SENATE

EPA Overall                         $7,976,018,000                                         $8,108,715,000

Sci & Tech                            $720,072,000                                           $645,910,000

EPM                                      $2,521,410,000                                         $2,538,545,000

STAG                                    $4,370,729,000                                        $3,613,278,000

WIFIA                                  $50,000,000                                             $30,000,000

Exchange Network           $9,646,000                                                $9,646,000

PWSS                                  $109,700,000                                            $109,700,000

DWSRF                             $1,070,500,000                                          $1,020,500,000

CWSRF                             $1,000,000,000                                          $1,350,000,000

You may view the House bill (still unnumbered) at http://appropriations.house.gov/  The Senate bill and report are both available at http://www.appropriations.senate.gov/hearings.   ASDWA will continue to follow the appropriations process and report on progress as it occurs.