Today, the Biden-Harris Administration released the President’s Budget
for fiscal year 2024 to the Congress. The Budget requests over $12
billion in discretionary budget authority for the
EPA in 2024, a $1.9 billion or 19-percent
increase from the fiscal year 2023 enacted level.
EPA will release the full Congressional
Justification and Budget in Brief materials soon.
The President’s Budget makes historic investments to support the
Agency’s ongoing work to tackle the climate crisis, advance
environmental justice, protect air quality across the nation, invest
in critical water infrastructure and increase support for our state
and Tribal partners in their efforts to implement environmental laws,
and continue to rebuild core functions at the Agency.
“EPA is at the center of President Biden’s ambitious environmental
agenda and the FY 2024 Budget will ensure
the Agency delivers bold environmental actions and economic benefits
for all. Coupled with the President’s historic investments in America
through significant legislative accomplishments, the Budget will
advance EPA’s mission across the board,
boosting everything from our efforts to combat climate change, to
delivering clean air, safe water, and healthy lands, to protecting
communities from harmful chemicals, and to the continued restoration
of capacity necessary to effectively implement these programs,” said
EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan.
“Importantly, the Budget also supports our work to center
environmental justice across all of the Agency’s programs, ensuring
that no family, especially those living in overburdened and
underserved areas, has to worry about the air they breathe, the water
they drink, or the environmental safety of their communities.”
Highlights of the President’s FY 2024 Budget
include:
Tackling the Climate Crisis with Urgency. The
EPA’s Budget prioritizes combatting climate
change with the urgency that science demands. The Budget includes $5
billion, a $757 million increase over the 2023 enacted level, to
support work reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, building
resilience in the face of climate impacts, and engaging with the
global community to respond to this shared challenge, while also
providing resources to spur economic progress and create good-paying
jobs. The Budget proposes a $64.4 million increase over the 2023
enacted budget to implement the American Innovation and Manufacturing
Act to continue phasing out potent GHGs known as hydrofluorocarbons
(HFCs). It also invests $7 million in wildfire smoke preparedness.
Advancing Environmental Justice. The Budget bolsters the Agency’s
efforts to achieve environmental justice in communities across the
Nation by investing nearly $1.8 billion across numerous programs in
support of environmental justice efforts. This investment supports the
implementation of the President’s Justice40 commitment, which ensures
at least 40 percent of the benefits of Federal investments in climate
and clean energy, as well as infrastructure work such as Superfund,
Brownfields, and SRFs, reach disadvantaged communities, including
rural and Tribal communities. Additionally, this Budget will support
activities creating good-paying jobs, cleaning up pollution, advancing
equity, and securing environmental justice for communities that often
bear the brunt of toxic pollution and impacts of climate change. The
Budget also includes $91 million for technical assistance to support
capacity building for communities to advance equity and justice.
Upgrading Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure and Replacing
Lead Pipes Nationwide. The Budget provides more than $4 billion for
water infrastructure, an increase of $1 billion over the 2023 enacted
level. These resources foster water infrastructure upgrades, with a
focus on underserved and rural communities that have historically been
overlooked. The Budget funds all authorizations in the original
Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act of 2021 and maintains
funding for EPA’s State Revolving Funds at
the total 2023 enacted level, which complements funds provided for
water infrastructure programs in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
The Budget also provides $219 million for two grant programs dedicated
to reducing lead in drinking water and lead testing in schools (an
increase of $163 million over the 2023 enacted level). It also funds
other grants and loans to advance the goal of replacing all lead
pipes. Ensuring Clean and Healthy Air for All Communities. The Budget
allocates $1.4 billion to improve air quality and reduce localized
pollution, reduce exposure to radiation, and improve indoor air for
communities across the country. This includes $180 million to support
the development and implementation of national emission standards to
reduce air pollution from vehicles, engines and fuels. The Budget also
supports $367 million to assist air pollution control agencies in the
development, implementation, and evaluation of programs for the
National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) and to establish
standards for reducing air toxics.
Protecting Communities from Hazardous Waste and Environmental Damage.
The prevention and cleanup of harmful environmental damage that poses
a risk to public health and safety continues to be a top priority for
EPA. In addition to an estimated $2.5
billion in Superfund tax revenue that will be available to
EPA in 2024, the Budget provides over $350
million for the Superfund program to continue cleaning up some of the
Nation’s most contaminated land and respond to environmental
emergencies and natural disasters. The Budget also provides over $215
million for EPA’s Brownfields program to
provide technical assistance and grants to communities, including
overburdened and underserved communities, so they can safely clean up
and reuse contaminated properties, as well as $20 million for the
Alaska Contaminated Lands program. These programs support the
President’s Cancer Moonshot initiative by reducing human exposure to
harmful contaminants that are correlated with an increased risk for
cancer.
Ensuring Safety of Chemicals for People and the Environment. The
Budget provides an investment of $130 million, $49 million more than
the 2023 enacted level to build core capacity to implement the Toxic
Substances Control Act (TSCA). Under TSCA,
EPA has a responsibility to ensure the safety of chemicals in or
entering commerce. In FY 2024, EPA will
focus on evaluating, assessing, and managing risks from exposure to
new and existing industrial chemicals to advance human health
protection in our communities. Another priority is to implement
FIFRA to ensure pesticides pose no
unreasonable risks to human health and the environment.
Tackling Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) Pollution. The
Budget provides approximately $170 million to combat
PFAS pollution.
PFAS substances are a group of chemicals
that threaten the health and safety of all communities. This request
allows the EPA to continue working toward
commitments made under EPA’s 2021
PFAS Strategic Roadmap, including:
increasing our knowledge of PFAS impacts to
human health and ecological effects, restricting use to prevent
PFAS from entering the air, land, and water,
and remediating PFAS that have been released
into the environment.
Enforcing and Assuring Compliance with the Nation’s Environmental
Laws. The Budget provides $246 million for civil enforcement efforts,
crucial funding for enforcement in communities with high pollution
exposure, and for preventing the illegal importation and use of
climate super-pollutant HFCs in the United States. The Budget also
includes: $165 million for compliance monitoring efforts, including
funds to conduct inspections in underserved and overburdened
communities, and funds to rebuild the agency’s inspector corps; and
$75 million for criminal enforcement efforts, which includes funding
to increase outreach to victims of environmental crimes and develop a
specialized criminal enforcement task force to address environmental
justice issues in partnership with the Department of Justice.
Restoring Critical Capacity to Carry Out
EPA’s Core Mission. To position the Agency
with the workforce required to address emerging and ongoing
challenges, the Budget added nearly 2,000 Full Time Equivalents (FTEs)
relative to the current level, for a total of more than 17,000 FTEs,
to help rebuild the Agency’s workforce. Developing staffing capacity
across the Agency would enable EPA to better
protect our Nation’s health, while also providing avenues to
strengthen and advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and
accessibility. Staffing resources would additionally fund a
significant expansion of EPA’s paid student
internship program to develop a pipeline of qualified staff.
The Budget makes these smart investments to address emerging and
ongoing environmental challenges while creating good-paying jobs and
improving our country’s long-term fiscal outlook.
Building on the President’s strong record of fiscal responsibility,
the Budget more than fully pays for its investments — reducing
deficits by nearly $3 trillion over the next decade by asking the
wealthy and big corporations to pay their fair share.