Environmental Protection Agency

For the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Administration has requested $7.2 billion for FY 2008, a 1 percent decrease from the FY07 request. Under the new budget, Science and Technology activities would receive $754.5 million (4.3 percent decrease). Within S&T, research activities would decrease 2.4 percent to $478.5 million. A few science and technology programs are expected to receive small budget increases this year, however, including Clean Air Research (3 percent increase), Environmental Enforcement Forensics (15 percent increase), and Climate Protection (4 percent increase).

 

Science and Technology programs include:

• Air Toxics and Quality - $93 million
• Climate Protection Program - $13 million
• Enforcement Forensics - $15 million
• Homeland Security - $67 million
• Indoor Air - $1 million
• IT, Data Management and Security - $3.5 million
• Pesticides Licensing - $6 million
• Drinking Water Programs - $3.5 million
• Research - $478.5 million
  • Clean Air - $98 million
  • Clean Water - $105 million
  • Human Health and Ecosystems - $217.5 million
  • Land Protection - $11 million
  • Sustainability - $22.5 million
  • Pesticides and Toxics - $25 million

Specific research projects funded by the budget request include:

• Computational Toxicology Research - $15 million to apply mathematical and computational tools to advance the science needed to protect human health and natural ecosystems from pollutants;
• Human Health and Ecosystems Research - $145 million (10 percent decrease) to enhance current risk assessment, management strategies and guidance to better consider risk determination needs for children; and,
• Environmental Technology Verification – No funding is requested (none requested in FY07) to support this voluntary, market-based verification program for commercial-ready technologies.

In keeping with the president’s climate change agenda in this year’s budget, climate change programs at EPA would receive $118 million. Some of these programs are:

• Methane to Markets - $4.4 million to assess the feasibility of methane recovery and use projects;
• Asia-Pacific Partnership - $5 million to cooperate with Pacific Rim countries in developing energy and environmental strategies; and,
• Energy Star - $44 million to support the voluntary labeling program designed to identify and promote energy-efficient products to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Other EPA programs of interest include:

• Pollution Prevention Grants - $6 million to help state programs assist businesses and industries to identify better environmental strategies and solutions for complying with federal and state regulations;
• State and Local Air Quality Management Grants - $185 million;
• Diesel Emission Reduction Grant Program - $35 million (30 percent decrease) to support cleaner fuels and diesel retrofits, rebuilds and replacements;
• Renewable Fuels Standard program - $8 million to develop and operate the market-based credit trading system and to provide analysis of renewable fuel policy impacts;
• Domestic Stratospheric Ozone Protection Program - $9.8 million to support cost-effective projects to eliminate the production and consumption of ozone depleting substances;
• Drinking Water State Revolving Fund - $842 million to provide state with federal capitalization to set up an infrastructure funding account to assist public water systems;
• Regional Science and Technology - $3.5 million to support geographically targeted research activities;
• Fellowships - $8.4 million to support fellowships, including the Science to Achieve Results (STAR) program and the Greater Research Opportunity (GRO) graduate and undergraduate fellowships;
• Small Business Ombudsman - $3.3 million to provide a gateway to EPA for small businesses; and,
• Small Minority Business Assistance - $2.5 million to provide technical assistance to small to ensure that small, disadvantaged, women-owned, Historically Underutilized Business, and Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses have access to EPA programs.