March 24, 2017. Last week, the Trump administration released the Trump Budget Blueprint which describes in very general terms the President’s budget proposals for federal agencies. The Blueprint just opens the debate on the 2018 federal budget. Congress will significantly influence the final budget and members from both parties have already expressed concern about some of Trump’s proposed budget cuts. Percentage-wise, the deepest cuts in the Trump Budget Blueprint affect the Environmental Protection Agency. As background for the coming federal budget debate, this blogpost looks at the potential impact of the Trump budget plan on key state environmental protection programs.
Based on preliminary reports, the North Carolina Chapter of the Sierra Club provided a guide to the potential impact of the Trump budget the day before actual release of the Budget Blueprint. (Full disclosure — I assisted in preparation of the Sierra Club report.) For each major state environmental protection program, the report shows the percentage of the program budget currently funded by federal grants and the impact of cuts identified in the Trump budget plan. The report also provides information on other DEQ activities supported by federal grants that may be eliminated under the Trump administration’s budget plan.
I want to focus on information in the Sierra Club report about impacts to Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act programs in North Carolina. EPA has delegated federal permitting and enforcement authority under those laws to the state’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). EPA provides oversight to ensure the state programs meet federal requirements, but DEQ has responsibility for day to day implementation. DEQ issues Clean Water Act permits for wastewater discharges; Clean Air Act permits for air emissions and air pollution control equipment; and Safe Drinking Water Act permits for public water systems. DEQ also enforces water quality, air quality and drinking water standards. In return for the state taking on those federal permitting and enforcement responsibilities, EPA provides program implementation or “categorical” grants to partially offset the cost.
The Trump Budget Blueprint does not provide detail on many cuts, but specifically proposes a 45% reduction in the EPA categorical grants that support basic state Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act and Safe Drinking Water Act programs. The tables below put the proposed cut in the context of each delegated program’s budget. Some notes on the numbers:
♦ “Total Need” means the complete budget (from all funding sources) for the delegated Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act program.
♦ Both the “total need” and federal funding numbers come from the certified state budget for the 2016-2017 fiscal year.
♦ These numbers only cover the EPA categorical grants for the delegated federal permitting/enforcement programs. The numbers do not reflect separate federal grants for targeted research or pollution reduction projects like the Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Program. Some of those federal grants reportedly have been targeted for elimination in Trump administration budget plans.
♦ The proposed federal funding cuts shown below are higher than those show for these same programs in the Sierra Club report because the final Trump Blueprint increased the percentage reduction over those reported earlier.
N.C. Clean Air Act Implementation
| Total Need | Federal Grant | % Federally Funded | Proposed Federal Funding Cut |
| $4,854,105 | $2,482,845 | 50% | – 45% |
Clean Water Act Program Implementation
| Total Need | Federal Grant | % Federally Funded | Proposed Federal Funding Cut |
| $14,160,554 | $6,662,950 | 50% | -45% |
Safe Drinking Water Act Program Implementation
| Total Need | Federal Grant | % Federally Funded | Proposed Federal Funding Cut |
| $5,870,612 | $3,316,895 | 50% | – 45% |
In sum: EPA grants provide 50% of the funding for each of the major environmental permitting and enforcement programs delegated to the state under federal law. A 45% reduction in the federal grant would result in a cut of nearly 25% to each of those state programs. As discussed in an earlier post, many N.C. environmental protection programs have already experienced significant reductions in state funding since 2009-2010. The water quality program has been particularly hard hit.
Deep cuts to the federal grants would force the state to decide whether to make up the loss of federal funds with increased state appropriations from tax revenue or higher permit fees. The alternative would be to accept further erosion of those programs. The question may be particularly acute for the air quality program which is now entirely supported by the federal grant and permit fees.
You can find the entire Sierra Club report here .
NOTE: The original blog post has been revised to more accurately describe the release date for the Sierra Club guide and to note that information on percentage reductions to these particular programs changed (for the worse) after release of the Sierra Club report.