EPA’s top water official on Wednesday defended a Trump administration proposal to gut federal dollars for water and sewer infrastructure, asserting that states have been slow to get the money out the door.
The White House budget request for next year would cut EPA’s State Revolving Funds for drinking water and wastewater by 87 percent and 90 percent, respectively. At a hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Democrats accused the administration of ignoring the needs of the nation’s crumbling water infrastructure, a problem exemplified by a massive raw sewage spill in the Potomac River.
“If you really want to prevent incidents like the Potomac Interceptor collapse from happening, you just can’t cut infrastructure investments,” Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said during the hearing.
But Jess Kramer, EPA assistant administrator for water, said the cuts are motivated in part by a $14.8 billion backlog of “uncommitted funds” previously approved by Congress. States have been sitting on that funding, which is meant to be allocated to water utilities and local governments in the form of grants and loans, for more than a year, Kramer said.
