Environment Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt said Thursday he is trying to save the agency’s grant programs from being slashed as the EPA braces for major cuts under President Trump’s budget proposal.
Pruitt discussed his budget priorities for the agency at an annual conference of mayors Thursday in Washington. State and local governments rely on many of the grant programs he supports to improve water infrastructure and fund cleanups of waste that can lead to economic revitalization.
“I want you to know that with the White House and also with Congress, I am communicating a message that the brownfields program, the Superfund program, water infrastructure … are essential to protect,” Pruitt said. He added that the budget discussions are “just starting” in Congress, but there are already “some concerns about some of these grant programs that EPA has been a part of, historically,” Pruitt said.
Pruitt’s reassuring comments to local leaders come as the Trump administration is reportedly looking to slash EPA’s budget by at least 25 percent. The main target of the Trump administration’s cuts appears to be its climate change programs, but it is not clear how far the budget cuts would go.
Myron Ebell, the former head of Trump’s EPA transition team, told the Washington Examiner in recent weeks that the grant programs likely would be spared in the budget because of how they will factor into Trump’s infrastructure plan.
Trump “promised to undo all of Obama’s climate agenda, including the greenhouse gas emissions rules for power plants; the [Waters of the U.S. rule]; and other job-killing rules,” Ebell said in an email. “On the other hand, he supports the pass-through grants to the states for water and other environmental infrastructure projects.”
The grants make up about half of the EPA’s $8 billion budget, Ebell said. “So I expect this funding to survive or even increase as significant budget cuts are made at the federal level.”
Pruitt said Thursday that he supports EPA’s many clean-up programs such as the Superfund and the brownfields, which are geared to revitalizing abandoned industrial sites.
“I want to be able to share that the investment with the brownfields program needs to be enhanced and strengthened because it truly goes to job creation, benefits to the community and environmental benefits, as well,” Pruitt told the mayors.
Trump is reportedly planning to cut EPA’s $8 billion budget by $2 billion, which has EPA employees bracing for layoffs. Trump is expected to issue an executive order next week to scuttle EPA’s Clean Power Plan, the centerpiece of former President Barack Obama’s climate change agenda.
Trump is also expected to issue a separate order ending Obama’s moratorium on coal leases at the Interior Department, now that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has been confirmed.
