05/14/2025 at 10:30AM
Subcommittee hearing.
Witness:
- Lee Zeldin, Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency
| Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Program Name | $ Change Enacted from 2025 (in millions) | Brief Description of Program and Recommended Reduction or Increase |
| Increases | ||
| Drinking Water Programs | +9 | The Budget provides $124 million in funding for the drinking water mission at EPA. The $9 million increase from the 2025 enacted level is to equip EPA with funds to respond to drinking water disasters. |
| Indian Reservation Drinking Water Program | +27 | The Budget increases funding for Tribes to retain access to funding for drinking water and wastewater infrastructure on their lands, with a total level of $31 million for the grant program. |
| Cuts, Reductions, and Consolidations | ||
| Clean and Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Funds | -2,460 | The Budget provides the decreased funding level of $305 million total. |
| Categorical Grants | -1,006 | The Budget includes the elimination of 16 categorical grants, and maintains funding at 2025 enacted levels for Tribes. |
| Hazardous Substance Superfund | -254 | The IIJA and the Inflation Reduction Act helped finance the Superfund program. |
| Office of Research and Development | -235 | The Budget puts an end to research grants, environmental justice work, climate research, and modeling that influences regulations. The Budget provides $281 million. |
| Environmental Justice | -100 | EPA’s environmental justice program is eliminated in line with the vision the President set forth in Executive Order 14151, “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing,” and Executive Order 14173, “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity.” |
| Diesel Emissions Reduction Act (DERA) Grants | -90 | This program is eliminated. |
| Atmospheric Protection Program | -100 | The Atmospheric Protection Program imposes climate change regulations. This program is eliminated in the 2026 Budget. |
In an exchange with Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Zeldin asserted that his administration is not bound by laws passed under previous Congresses.
ROUNDS: There's a lot of us here that really do think there's an importance to the clean water and drinking water state revolving loan funds. There's a $2.47 billion decrease in the skinny budget proposal that's been laid out.Let me just ask this question on it. Congress appropriates, and we direct, we authorize, and so forth. My suspicion is that Congress will seriously consider reappropriating those funds again. Would it be fair to say, although there have been some suggestions that you’re not following the law and so forth, that if we appropriate it, and direct that it be put back into those revolving loan funds, that you’ll follow the law and you’ll see that it’s done.
ZELDIN: Of course, yes, senator.
ROUNDS: I appreciate that because the misunderstanding is that somehow you’re not going to follow the law on this. When Congress puts it in and we say, “No, we want it back in, and it should go back out to the states,” at that stage of the game, we can count on you working with us to get it done appropriately.
ZELDIN: Senator, I appreciate you raising this point and raising this example. Congress appropriates funding, and then the agency distributes that funding as it’s required to under the law. That doesn’t mean from one administration to the next, that the Trump administration is going to come in agreeing with the policy priorities of the prior administration that just left office. There might be a disagreement of opinion between administrations. And we come in towards the beginning of a fiscal year. The way that funding will go out the course of a fiscal year might be applying the new administration’s priorities, as the American public voted for last November.
ROUNDS: Based upon where there is broad latitude provided to the executive branch in the expenditure of those authorities. But where the Congress is more specific in their appropriations, it makes it cleaner and more directed in terms of your ability to decide up front whether it is truly the will of Congress to do it in one particular program such as these revolving loan funds.
ZELDIN: Senator, I love your question. This applies to so much from appropriation to policy. If Congress wants an agency to take a specific action, Congress can give an obligation to an agency. I’m here, as I was in my confirmation process, and I will continue to come before Congress, committing to fulfilling all statutory obligations. And if there’s some new statutory obligation because of some law that’s passed say a month from now, our agency will fulfull those statutory obligations. It’s a really important point.