The Right’s Endless War on the EPA
When President Biden proposed the EPA budget for fiscal year 2024 this spring, he called for a 19% increase from the current budget, from about $1 billion to $12 billion. In a budget compromise that kept the U.S. from defaulting on its debt, the president and Congress agreed to modest budget cuts to start reducing the U.S. budget deficit. As a result, last week the Senate made small cuts to the EPA’s budget. Yet ultra-conservatives in the House have proposed slashing the EPA’s budget. Report on the legislative status of the EPA budget, green Line reporter Kevin Bogardus, Michael Doyle and Nidhi Prakash Observe that, according to the Senate bill:
“The EPA will get $9.9 billion in fiscal year 2024. That’s slightly less than the agency’s current annual budget of $10.1 billion. The proposal is also in line with Biden’s call for a 19 percent increase in funding for the agency in his budget proposal earlier this year.” (nearly $12.1 billion). The House Republican bill would cut EPA funding by nearly $4 billion, or 39 percent, from enacted levels, bringing the agency’s annual budget down to about $6.2 billion for fiscal year 2024.”
Since President Biden took office and appointed Michael Reagan to head the EPA, the agency has worked to restore its organizational and scientific capabilities after the damaging effects of the Trump administration. The work is far from done, and while more money is needed, less money would be incredibly disruptive.
according to Inside the EPA, Proposed budget cuts in the House:
“…reduces the agency’s Science and Technology Account by approximately 30 percent from the level enacted in FY 2023, to $560 million; increases the Environmental Programs and Management Account by 26 percent, to $2.429 billion; reduces the Hazardous Substances Superfund Account by 72 percent, to $355.9 million; State and Tribal Assistance Grants (STAG) increased 42% to $2.584 billion, according to the GOP summary.”
The Senate bill would allow the EPA to continue rebuilding its organizational capacity. The House bill would restore the dysfunction of the Trump administration and lead to a renewed exodus of skilled scientists and regulators from this critical institution.
The structure of U.S. environmental law is far from perfect, and some EPA rules are both unfair and outdated. But the overall impact of the EPA and its state and local counterparts is to achieve sustained economic growth while polluting far less than we would have seen without rules and regulations. America’s air and water are cleaner today than in 1970, when the EPA was established. This has been achieved with a growing population and a growing economy. One problem with “starving the regulatory beast” is that instead of reducing government intervention in the private sector, it leads to less ability to apply rules and less customization.
The use of modern observational, computing, and communication technologies will likely enable EPA to adjust the application of the rules to maximize benefits while minimizing costs. Many of the EPA’s enforcement agreements with businesses are designed to provide ample time to comply with the rules while maintaining business operations. But the EPA’s ability to use a scalpel instead of a sledgehammer is limited by insufficient staff, equipment and resources. With dwindling resources, law enforcement cannot be fine-tuned, with the result that law enforcement powers are sometimes used legally but ill-advised. Environmental regulation is stuck in a half-century time warp, but will never be modernized due to the extreme anti-regulatory ideology that controls Congress. Obama was forced to cut EPA staff during his Tea Party reign, and now Biden is in danger of having the same old song sung again.
EPA is more than just a regulatory agency. It performs two other key functions. It provides grants and loans to states and localities to build environmental infrastructure such as sewage treatment plants. It conducts scientific research on our environmental conditions. Both functions will again be weakened by the House budget. As far as I know, some conservatives oppose the federal government’s exercise of regulatory powers, and many believe that environmental protection should be a state function. Unfortunately, air, water, and toxic pollution often cross state and even national borders.That’s why we have a commerce clause in the constitution to regulate interstate highway Commerce; Interstate pollution is a product of interstate commerce. While most environmental problems are actually local, as we’ve learned from this summer’s orange skies, some pollution comes from forest fires or smokestacks hundreds of miles away. In addition, some states do not have the resources to develop the scientific expertise needed to protect their own environments.
State and local governments collectively employ far more people than the federal government and spend more on waste, sewage, and water than the federal government does. But sometimes the state fails to protect the public, as we have seen when lead pipes in Flint, Michigan poisoned the water, or a freight train leaked toxic gas in East Palestine, Ohio. Federal expertise, oversight, and resources are sometimes required, and in such cases, when the threat to public health is clear and present, the issue does not take the form of an ideology. But for some reason, when the issue turned into federal budget politics, it shifted from emergency response to overreach by the government.
Conservative attacks on environmental protection have their origins in the “sagebrush rebellion” and other grassroots responses by farmers and ranchers to regulation of federal agricultural practices and the role of the federal government in western states, where the federal government is a large-scale landowner of state land. owner. parks and other properties. The federal government has a mixed record of listening to locals’ concerns about land use. The economic challenges of farming and livestock are often dealt with harshly by regulators from the Ministry of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency. These grassroots forces have reached a common goal with companies that do not care about environmental stewardship. There is also a sense among conservatives that regulation is stifling business initiative and that dire predictions by environmentalists are exaggerated, even hysterical. While the specifics of their grievances differ, the source of the problem is an equally apathetic Washington bureaucracy.
I understand the point of view of some corporate interests when they oppose the imposition of costly environmental rules, and certainly understand the difficulties ranchers and farmers face trying to make a living off the land before we find ourselves in a climate-challenged world. But it’s hard for me to understand why anyone would want to make it easier for the public to be poisoned. If your next-door neighbor’s septic leaks into your drinking water, shouldn’t the law protect you, or at least allow you to recover the costs of your neighbor’s negligence? If a chemical plant in Cancer Lane, Louisiana, leaks toxic substances into the surrounding community: How is that any different than your neighbor’s sewage ruining your drinking water? Why doesn’t the public have the right to stop the poisoning and pay for damages? I know that Trump conservatives seem to distrust the institutions that enforce law and order these days. But I don’t understand why a company’s right to make money is more important than a family’s right to protect itself from poison. I don’t understand why cutting the resources of the Environmental Protection Agency is a conservative principle. I see how the politics are evolving, but what seems to be needed is not deregulation, but improved and smarter regulation. No one wants the environment to be destroyed, just like no one wants homicides and mass shootings.The issue is how We protect people and the planet. We need a new approach to protecting the planet, but that won’t happen because of resource-poor institutions.
When Congress reconvenes this fall, the extremists who control the House of Representatives appear determined to get their way with the budget or shut down the government. Since these people don’t seem to want to own the federal government anyway, a government shutdown is pretty much their goal. Elections have consequences, but a congressional majority should not allow government to be hijacked by a handful. America needs a well-functioning and capable EPA. If we refuse funding, we don’t get it.
