The President’s Fiscal Year 2023 budget requests $11.881 billion for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s essential work to protect people from pollution.
Following the release of the President’s Budget for fiscal year (FY) 2023, the EPA has announced its detailed FY 2023 Congressional Justification.
This document includes further details on proposed funding across all EPA programs and descriptions of individual investments. The FY23 Budget makes historic investments to advance key priorities in EPA’s FY 2022-2026 Strategic Plan, including upgrading the aging water infrastructure, tackling per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), assuring compliance with environmental laws, and rebuilding core functions at the agency.
The FY 2023 President’s Budget makes critical investments across environmental priorities. Some highlights include:
Upgrading drinking water and wastewater infrastructure
The Budget provides approximately $4 billion to advance efforts to upgrade drinking water and wastewater infrastructure nationwide, with a focus on underserved communities.
This includes approximately $1 billion to fully fund water grant programs authorized in the Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act (DWWIA). The Budget also supports water infrastructure with an increase of $160 million in grants to reduce lead in drinking water and an increase of $240 million for the Sewer Overflow and Stormwater Reuse grant program.
The Budget proposes a new $25 million water sector cybersecurity grant program. The Budget also maintains funding for the State Revolving Funds, which will complement the $23.4 billion provided for the traditional SRF programs over five years in the recently enacted Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
Tackling PFAS pollution
PFAS are a group of man-made chemicals that threaten the health and safety of communities across the nation. As part of the President’s commitment to tackling PFAS pollution, the Budget provides approximately $126 million in FY 2023 for EPA to increase its understanding of human health and ecological effects of PFAS, restrict uses to prevent PFAS from entering the air, land, and water, and remediate PFAS that have been released into the environment. EPA will continue to act on the Agency’s PFAS Strategic Roadmap to safeguard communities from PFAS contamination.
Assuring compliance with environmental laws
The Budget provides $213 million for civil enforcement efforts, which includes increasing enforcement efforts in communities with high pollution exposure and to prevent the illegal importations and use of hydrofluorocarbons in the U. S. The Budget also includes $7 million to operate a coal combustion residuals compliance program, $148 million for compliance monitoring efforts, and $69 million for criminal enforcement efforts, including the development of a specialized criminal enforcement task force to address environmental justice issues in partnership with the Department of Justice.
Protecting communities from hazardous waste and environmental damage
Preventing and cleaning up environmental damage that harms communities and poses a risk to public health and safety continues to be a top priority for the Administration. The Budget provides $1.15 billion for EPA’s Superfund programs to continue cleaning up some of the Nation’s most contaminated land and respond to environmental emergencies. The Budget also includes $215 million for EPA’s Brownfields programs to provide technical assistance and grants to communities, including overburdened and underserved communities, so they can safely clean up and reuse once contaminated properties. The Budget supports additional Community Development Specialists to manage land revitalization projects and works with Tribal, rural, and overburdened and underserved communities to address brownfields.
Advancing environmental justice
The Administration is committed to increasing efforts to deliver environmental justice in communities across the Nation. The Budget supports the President’s Justice40 commitment to ensure at least 40 percent of the benefits of federal investments in climate and clean energy reach historically overburdened and underserved communities. The Budget invests more than $1.45 billion across the Agency’s programs that will help create good-paying jobs, clean up pollution, advance racial equity, and secure environmental justice for all communities. To elevate environmental justice as a top Agency priority, EPA has proposed a new national environmental justice program office to coordinate and maximize the benefits of the Agency’s programs and activities for underserved communities.
Tackling the climate crisis
The Budget prioritizes funding for tackling the climate crisis and invests an additional $100 million in grants to Tribes and states that will support on-the-ground efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase resiliency in the Nation’s infrastructure. The Budget proposes an additional $35 million to implement the American Innovation in Manufacturing Act to continue phasing out potent greenhouse gases known as hydrofluorocarbons and invests an additional $13 million in wildfire prevention and readiness.
Restoring critical capacity to carry out EPA’s core mission
The Budget includes more than 1,900 new Full Time Equivalents (FTEs) relative to current levels, for a total of more than 16,200 FTEs, to help rebuild the Agency’s capacity. Restoring staffing capacity across the Agency will facilitate and expedite EPA’s work to reduce air, water, and climate pollution and advance environmental justice. The Budget continues to strengthen the Agency’s ability to recruit, hire, develop, promote, and retain top talent and remove barriers to equal opportunity at the management and staff levels in order to strengthen and advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.
