Climate science, policy, politics, and action
Chair Shaheen
Witness:
The Department of Justice FY2024 budget request is $39.7 billion, including $156.5 million for the Environment and Natural Resources Division
Witnesses:
Statement by Administrator Regan on the President’s FY 2024 Budget:
Today, the Biden-Harris Administration released the President’s Budget for fiscal year 2024 to the Congress. The Budget requests over $12 billion in discretionary budget authority for the EPA in 2024, a $1.9 billion or 19-percent increase from the fiscal year 2023 enacted level. EPA will release the full Congressional Justification and Budget in Brief materials soon.
The President’s Budget makes historic investments to support the Agency’s ongoing work to tackle the climate crisis, advance environmental justice, protect air quality across the nation, invest in critical water infrastructure and increase support for our state and Tribal partners in their efforts to implement environmental laws, and continue to rebuild core functions at the Agency.
“EPA is at the center of President Biden’s ambitious environmental agenda and the FY 2024 Budget will ensure the Agency delivers bold environmental actions and economic benefits for all. Coupled with the President’s historic investments in America through significant legislative accomplishments, the Budget will advance EPA’s mission across the board, boosting everything from our efforts to combat climate change, to delivering clean air, safe water, and healthy lands, to protecting communities from harmful chemicals, and to the continued restoration of capacity necessary to effectively implement these programs,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan. “Importantly, the Budget also supports our work to center environmental justice across all of the Agency’s programs, ensuring that no family, especially those living in overburdened and underserved areas, has to worry about the air they breathe, the water they drink, or the environmental safety of their communities.”
Highlights of the President’s FY 2024 Budget include:
Tackling the Climate Crisis with Urgency. The EPA’s Budget prioritizes combatting climate change with the urgency that science demands. The Budget includes $5 billion, a $757 million increase over the 2023 enacted level, to support work reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, building resilience in the face of climate impacts, and engaging with the global community to respond to this shared challenge, while also providing resources to spur economic progress and create good-paying jobs. The Budget proposes a $64.4 million increase over the 2023 enacted budget to implement the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act to continue phasing out potent GHGs known as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). It also invests $7 million in wildfire smoke preparedness.
Advancing Environmental Justice. The Budget bolsters the Agency’s efforts to achieve environmental justice in communities across the Nation by investing nearly $1.8 billion across numerous programs in support of environmental justice efforts. This investment supports the implementation of the President’s Justice40 commitment, which ensures at least 40 percent of the benefits of Federal investments in climate and clean energy, as well as infrastructure work such as Superfund, Brownfields, and SRFs, reach disadvantaged communities, including rural and Tribal communities. Additionally, this Budget will support activities creating good-paying jobs, cleaning up pollution, advancing equity, and securing environmental justice for communities that often bear the brunt of toxic pollution and impacts of climate change. The Budget also includes $91 million for technical assistance to support capacity building for communities to advance equity and justice.
Upgrading Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure and Replacing Lead Pipes Nationwide. The Budget provides more than $4 billion for water infrastructure, an increase of $1 billion over the 2023 enacted level. These resources foster water infrastructure upgrades, with a focus on underserved and rural communities that have historically been overlooked. The Budget funds all authorizations in the original Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act of 2021 and maintains funding for EPA’s State Revolving Funds at the total 2023 enacted level, which complements funds provided for water infrastructure programs in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The Budget also provides $219 million for two grant programs dedicated to reducing lead in drinking water and lead testing in schools (an increase of $163 million over the 2023 enacted level). It also funds other grants and loans to advance the goal of replacing all lead pipes. Ensuring Clean and Healthy Air for All Communities. The Budget allocates $1.4 billion to improve air quality and reduce localized pollution, reduce exposure to radiation, and improve indoor air for communities across the country. This includes $180 million to support the development and implementation of national emission standards to reduce air pollution from vehicles, engines and fuels. The Budget also supports $367 million to assist air pollution control agencies in the development, implementation, and evaluation of programs for the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) and to establish standards for reducing air toxics.
Protecting Communities from Hazardous Waste and Environmental Damage. The prevention and cleanup of harmful environmental damage that poses a risk to public health and safety continues to be a top priority for EPA. In addition to an estimated $2.5 billion in Superfund tax revenue that will be available to EPA in 2024, the Budget provides over $350 million for the Superfund program to continue cleaning up some of the Nation’s most contaminated land and respond to environmental emergencies and natural disasters. The Budget also provides over $215 million for EPA’s Brownfields program to provide technical assistance and grants to communities, including overburdened and underserved communities, so they can safely clean up and reuse contaminated properties, as well as $20 million for the Alaska Contaminated Lands program. These programs support the President’s Cancer Moonshot initiative by reducing human exposure to harmful contaminants that are correlated with an increased risk for cancer.
Ensuring Safety of Chemicals for People and the Environment. The Budget provides an investment of $130 million, $49 million more than the 2023 enacted level to build core capacity to implement the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Under TSCA, EPA has a responsibility to ensure the safety of chemicals in or entering commerce. In FY 2024, EPA will focus on evaluating, assessing, and managing risks from exposure to new and existing industrial chemicals to advance human health protection in our communities. Another priority is to implement FIFRA to ensure pesticides pose no unreasonable risks to human health and the environment.
Tackling Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) Pollution. The Budget provides approximately $170 million to combat PFAS pollution. PFAS substances are a group of chemicals that threaten the health and safety of all communities. This request allows the EPA to continue working toward commitments made under EPA’s 2021 PFAS Strategic Roadmap, including: increasing our knowledge of PFAS impacts to human health and ecological effects, restricting use to prevent PFAS from entering the air, land, and water, and remediating PFAS that have been released into the environment.
Enforcing and Assuring Compliance with the Nation’s Environmental Laws. The Budget provides $246 million for civil enforcement efforts, crucial funding for enforcement in communities with high pollution exposure, and for preventing the illegal importation and use of climate super-pollutant HFCs in the United States. The Budget also includes: $165 million for compliance monitoring efforts, including funds to conduct inspections in underserved and overburdened communities, and funds to rebuild the agency’s inspector corps; and $75 million for criminal enforcement efforts, which includes funding to increase outreach to victims of environmental crimes and develop a specialized criminal enforcement task force to address environmental justice issues in partnership with the Department of Justice. Restoring Critical Capacity to Carry Out EPA’s Core Mission. To position the Agency with the workforce required to address emerging and ongoing challenges, the Budget added nearly 2,000 Full Time Equivalents (FTEs) relative to the current level, for a total of more than 17,000 FTEs, to help rebuild the Agency’s workforce. Developing staffing capacity across the Agency would enable EPA to better protect our Nation’s health, while also providing avenues to strengthen and advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. Staffing resources would additionally fund a significant expansion of EPA’s paid student internship program to develop a pipeline of qualified staff.
The Budget makes these smart investments to address emerging and ongoing environmental challenges while creating good-paying jobs and improving our country’s long-term fiscal outlook.
Building on the President’s strong record of fiscal responsibility, the Budget more than fully pays for its investments — reducing deficits by nearly $3 trillion over the next decade by asking the wealthy and big corporations to pay their fair share.
To members: Please submit requests to testify to Elizabeth Markus, at [email protected], by Wednesday, March 22, 2023, at 5:00 p.m. Written testimony will be due to the subcommittee by Friday, March 24, 2023, at 5:00 p.m.
All outside witness testimony must be received by April 14, 2023, at 5:00 p.m. ET.
The Department of Commerce’s Fiscal Year 2024 Budget proposes $12.3 billion in discretionary funding and $4 billion in mandatory funding. $6.8 billion is for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The budget also includes $97 million for NIST’s activities on Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability
The Department of Justice FY2024 budget request is $39.7 billion, including $156.5 million for the Environment and Natural Resources Division
The National Science Foundation FY2024 budget request is $11.314 billion, including $1 billion for the U.S. Global Change Research Program, $550.5 million for clean energy research, $30 million for the National Discovery Cloud for Climate, and $15 million for climate equity fellowships.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration FY2024 budget request is $27.2 billion, including $2.5 billion for earth science.
Analyzing climate change and proposing solutions at the nation-state level can obscure the path forward, as ambition varies widely across countries and can change dramatically as soon as the next election. Furthermore, coordinating the actions of nearly 200 nations (including more than a dozen major emitters) presents its own challenges. Viewing climate solutions as sectoral rather than “national,” may be more productive and give a clearer of how to cut the most emissions in the fastest manner.
This webinar series, sponsored by American University’s Center for Environmental Policy (CEP) and the not-for-profit think tank Energy Innovation, reframes causes and solutions of climate change as “sectoral” issues.
Among the most evident sectors to most consumers, transportation and buildings both involve high expenditures on infrastructure to retrofit extant systems and build new ones. What are the successes and obstacles to date in these sectors? What is needed in these sectors to generate more effective climate mitigation?
Speakers:
Sara Baldwin is the Director of Electrification Policy at Energy Innovation Policy & Technology LLC®, where she leads the firm’s electrification policy practice area to advance economy-wide decarbonization through the electrification of buildings, transportation, and industry. She provides policy analysis and original research to support policymakers at the state, federal, and local levels. She previously served as Vice President of Regulatory for the Interstate Renewable Energy Council and as a Senior Policy Associate for Utah Clean Energy. Sara is a member of GridLab’s advisory board and hosts Energy Innovation’s Electrify This! podcast.
Chris Busch is Director, Transportation and Senior Economist at Energy Innovation, where he leads the firm’s Transportation Program and the firm’s carbon market analysis for regions including California and China. Chris previously served as EI’s California lead and in this role, he led development of the California Energy Policy Simulator to strengthen policies in all major sectors, accelerating decarbonization while delivering social and economic benefits worth tens of billions. Chris is an expert in energy economics and carbon pricing policy, and his research accurately predicted the buildup in excess tradeable permits in California’s cap-and-trade program. Chris previously worked for the BlueGreen Alliance, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
David Levy is Director of Planning and Zoning for the Town of Vienna, VA. He has extensive experience both in government and the private sector. Before coming to Vienna, he served as Assistant Director and Chief of Long-Range Planning for the City of Rockville, MD. Previously, he served as Assistant Commissioner for Land Resources in Baltimore’s Department of Housing & Community Development; and as a consultant with both ICF International (a global consulting and technology-services company) and PA Consulting (formerly Hagler Bailly); as Brownfields Project Coordinator for the Baltimore City Department of Planning; and as Special Assistant to the Mayor of Quito, Ecuador. He has been Chair of the Planning Director’s Technical Advisory Committee of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments and Vice President of the Maryland Chapter of the American Planning Association. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) and of the Urban Land Institute.
Danielle Miller Wagner serves as the Program Director of the Center for Environmental Policy at American University, School of Public Affairs. She brings more than 20 years of experience working with local governments, universities, NGOs and federal agencies to facilitate collaborative solutions to complex environmental challenges. In her current role, Wagner works across the university as well as with a broad array of external stakeholders to research and communicate about data-driven equitable environmental solutions. Prior to joining American University, Danielle served as Program Director of Smart Cities Week, Brownfields Program Manager at ICMA and International Policy Manager at the GLOBE Program, among other positions.
Witness:
The Commission requests $411 million and 764 full-time equivalents (FTE) to operate the Commission and advance priority initiatives in FY 2024. This request is an increase of $46 million, or 12.6%, above the FY 2023 Enacted Budget and includes an additional 5 FTE, or 0.7%, above the FY 2023 Congressional Spend Plan.
The Chairman’s office provides leadership to the Climate Risk Unit (CRU) which continues to evaluate the role of derivatives in understanding, pricing, and mitigating climate-related risk, and supports the orderly transition to a low-carbon economy through market-based initiatives.
Toxic soot pollution affects millions, but it doesn’t need to be this way.
Right now thousands people are fighting hard to ensure the EPA doesn’t let big polluters off the hook when it comes to setting the strongest possible standards on soot pollution.
Join us at the EPA HQ for our final public testimony as the comment window on national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for particulate matter (PM) closes.
And please spread the word about this event demanding clean air and healthier communities now
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Headquarters 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
To members: Requests to testify must be received by noon on Thursday, March 23rd. Please email the request to Scott Prutting at [email protected] with the Member’s name in the email subject line.
The Subcommittee is currently accepting only written testimony from outside witnesses, which should be emailed to [email protected] no later than 6:00 p.m. on April 17, 2023.
2024 Department of Energy Budget Justification: $52 billion ($32.5 military)
Bureau of Reclamation FY 2024 Budget: $1.4 billion
U.S. Army Corps of Civil Engineers Civil Works Budget Justification
U.S. Army Corps of Civil Engineers Civil Works Budget Overview
For the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Civil Works Program, the Budget would provide over $7.4 billion in gross discretionary funding that would be distributed among the appropriations accounts as follows:
Witnesses:
The Department’s 2024 budget totals $18.9 billion in current authority ($18.3 billion in net discretionary authority)—an increase of $2.0 billion, or 12 percent, from the 2023 enacted budget.
Witnesses
Of the $215.1 billion Air Force budget request, $942 million (0.4%) is seen as mitigating climate risk.
Of the $30 billion Space Force budget request, $6 million (0.02%) is seen as mitigating climate risk
The purpose of the hearing is to examine improvements in the fields of weather modeling and forecasting. This hearing will have testimony from leading private sector companies in the U.S. weather enterprise on the data and services they can provide to benefit the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This will be the first hearing in a series that looks at legislation to reauthorize the Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act of 2017.
Opening Statements:
Witnesses: