House Appropriations Passes EPA FY 18 Funding
In a marathon session, on Tuesday, June 18, the House Appropriations Committee considered and passed the funding measure for EPA for FY 18, which would start on October 1, 2017. The Committee chose to support the Agency at a much higher funding level than the Administration’s proposal of a 31% reduction. Under the Committee-approved bill, EPA would receive a total of $7,530,087,000 – nearly $2.5 billion more than requested but approximately $527 million less than awarded under the enacted FY 17 Omnibus Bill.
The Committee funded the PWSS program at $101.9 million (level with FYs 16 and 17). The DWSRF also was level funded at $863.2 million. Maintaining level funding for these two programs in this challenging fiscal and political environment is ASDWA’s highest priority.
Other program accounts of interest to state drinking water programs are funded at:
- Science & Technology Program Account = $602,238,000
- Environmental Programs & Management Program Account = $2,363,840,000
- STAG Program Account = $3,288,161,000
- WIFIA Program Account = $30,000,000
Both the (unnumbered) bill text and committee report, as well as a recording of the markup, are available on the Appropriations Committee website.
The next step is to move the bill to the House Floor. No information has yet been provided regarding when this might happen. And then the Senate will start its appropriations efforts.
