White House releases details about proposed budget cuts
EPA's core workforce would shrink to its smallest size since the mid-1980s, while funding for numerous grant programs would be zeroed out, according to new documents released Friday.
The White House released a 'skinny budget' earlier this month. Now the Office of Management and Budget and agencies are posting additional information to help appropriators craft their fiscal 2026 bills.
The number of 'full-time equivalent' EPA employees would fall from 14,130 this year to 12,856 in 2026 — a 9 percent drop, documents show. Overall, the administration's request would slash the agency's funding from $9.1 billion to $4.2 billion.
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A variety of grant programs would be eliminated to save more than $1 billion. Among those on the chopping block: funding for state and local air regulators, brownfields redevelopment, and pesticides enforcement.
Funding for politically popular watershed restoration programs would mostly be kept steady, but San Francisco Bay would lose $41.6 million — roughly 75 percent of its budget.
DOE, Interior
At the Department of Energy, the new Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations would begin to 'wind down operations.' The White House would cancel $3.7 billion in unobligated bipartisan infrastructure law funding.
The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy would be cut by 70 percent. The budget would eliminate around 50 percent of its full-time staff and refocus the office to prioritize geothermal and hydropower.
The Interior Department would lose more than 5,000 full-time positions at the National Park Service. The president's budget would also eliminate the department's offshore wind program.
The proposal calls for legislation to create a unified wildfire agency 'responsible for carrying out all aspects of the Federal wildland fire missions currently assigned to the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture.'
The budget seeks to reauthorize the National Parks and Public Lands Legacy Restoration Fund to pay for a backlog of maintenance concerns on public lands.
Established by the Great American Outdoors Act in 2020, the fund would be supported by 'an annual deposit for five years based on 50 percent of all Federal energy development revenue from the prior year.'
Overall, the administration wants to achieve a more than $160 billion reduction to nondefense discretionary spending. But bipartisan pushback suggests the fiscal 2026 bills Congress is looking to pass this fall would almost certainly fund the government at higher levels than what the president is requesting.
The administration does want an increase of nearly $4 billion to the Federal Emergency Management Agency's disaster relief fund, according to documents released by the Department of Homeland Security.
Reporter Miranda Willson contributed.
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