EPA budget cuts water programs

WASHINGTON, Feb. 4 (UPI) -- The Bush administration strove to assure the country Tuesday that the Environmental Protection Agency budget had not been cut, though next year's request is $300 million less than the agency will actually spend this year.

Some of the biggest potential cuts are in state water loan programs and water infrastructure funding.

Congress added funds to the 2002 White House budget request, resulting in a larger final EPA budget last year. Therefore, if granted as asked, the new White House's budget request would result in lower spending for 2003 -- though the request is actually more than last year's request, Christie Whitman, EPA administrator, told reporters Monday.

"Understand that we do it every year -- 'back out' the Congressional earmarks," said Whitman. "We set out budget based on our priorities."

Some of those congressional additions, she said, were one-time add-ons and personal programs important to legislators.

Environmental experts said some of cuts -- $138 million in clean water state revolving funds and $336 million in water infrastructure funds -- are likely to be added back by Congress.

"This is an old fight between executive branch and legislative branch," said Ed Hopkins, director of environmental quality programs at the Sierra Club, an environmental group. "The money goes to build water and wastewater treatment plants. To be sure that they get funding for their projects, members of Congress like to write them into appropriations bills."

The previous Clinton administration was also against the earmarks, said Hopkins.

Linda Echmiller, deputy director of the Association of State and Interstate Water Pollution Control Administrators, said that the money is usually put back in by Congress.

The budgetary environment this year is markedly different, however, and restoration is not assured. At this point in the budget cycle last year the recessionary storm was still forming and terrorists had not yet struck the American psyche.

"It could be more serious this year," said Echmiller. "Who knows what's going to happen?"

EPA has a variety of new anti-terrorism responsibilities, particularly bioterror cleanup, as a result of last October's attacks. At one point during the terror attack investigations, 40 percent of the agency's investigators were assigned to crash sites in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

Whitman said the agency will spend a total of $300 million on homeland defense this year and next, if the budget is approved. Of this total, which reflects both the 2003 budget request and supplemental monies allocated by Congress after the terrorist attacks, $60.4. million will go to building the organization's ability to handle bioterror cleanup and investigations. There will be $77.4 million for research, $108.8 million to assess threats to drinking water and $3.9 million monitor air quality.

The agency hopes to spend $49 million to enhance protection of its facilities and infrastructure. Of the additional $71 million slated for operation, about $50 million will go toward new homeland defense responsibilities, one official said.

The budget also includes estimated anticipated income of $230 million. The money, about 3 percent of the budget request, would come from environmental services, reimbursement from polluters for the cleanup of superfund sites and "re-registration revolving funds."

The incoming money is an estimate, however, and shortages could impact agency resources.

The re-registration fund may be for the re-registration of pesticides, which is required by law, said Ed Hopkins, a Sierra Club spokesman.

"Under the Food Quality Protection Act, pesticide manufactures have to re-register their pesticides periodically to make sure they attain the most up-to-date safety standards," Hopkins said. The funds were not part of this year's or last year's budget, because Congress moved to block the fees, he said.

The budget request this year for cleaning up polluted industrial areas called brownfields is twice that asked for last year, said Whitman. The budget will also have $21 million to clean key watersheds. That money will also be used to find ways to use information from the human genome project to do computerized testing -- reducing the amount of animal testing currently done.