The Nickel Report

The US EPA released its draft strategic plan for 2018-2022 on October 5, 2017.^[1] Not surprisingly, the draft plan differs greatly from the Obama EPA’s last strategic plan. The change in administrations has produced innumerable shifts in the policies, goals and operations of the federal government. EPA’s draft strategic plan is emblematic of these shifts.

The Administration’s proposed 30 percent reduction to EPA’s operating budget has raised many questions.  Will it happen?  How would it impact operations?  Are all EPA programs equally affected?   The final answers will come at the end of a lengthy congressional process, but last week’s hearing provided clues that any final cuts could be significantly less than the Administration’s request.  But first, it’s worth a quick review of the federal budget process.

In 1980, a lame duck Congress passed the nation’s first legislation, the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act, 42 U.S.C. §9601 et seq. (CERCLA), to address the cleanup of toxic waste disposal sites. Comprehensive amendments were passed six years later. Over the next 30 years, EPA’s enforcement powers were used with increasing regularity and consistency to study, begin, and often complete cleanups at hundreds of the nation’s contaminated waste sites. The program has always had its critics, but not until the current administration has there been a fundamental reassessment of its basic cost-benefit structure, just as is being done with many other federal programs.