page_title: Environmental policy of the Donald Trump administration
section_title: Proposed EPA budget cuts
hierarchical_section_title: Environmental policy of the Donald Trump administration / Proposed EPA budget cuts
caption_attribution_description: English: People's Climate March 2017 in Washington DC. Middle aged couple with signs, "Resist cuts to EPA and NIH." (Environmental Protection Agency and National Institutes of Health.) "Save the earth, Keep the ACA, Resist all bias.
context_page_description: The environmental policy of the Donald Trump administration represents a shift from the policy priorities and goals of the preceding Barack Obama administration; where President Obama's environmental agenda prioritized the reduction of carbon emissions through the use of renewable energy with the goal of conserving the environment for future generations, the Trump administration policy is for the US to attain energy independence based on fossil fuel use fossil fuel use and to rescind many environmental regulations. As of May 2020, the Trump administration has rolled back 64 environmental rules and regulations, and an additional 34 rollbacks are in progress. Some environmentalists are concerned that a successful reelection of Trump in 2020 will result in severe and irreversible changes in the climate.
  The Trump administration supports energy development on federal land, including gas and oil drilling in national parks. Soon after taking office, Trump began to implement his "America First Energy Plan" and signed executive orders to approve two controversial oil pipelines.
context_section_description: While campaigning for office Trump had proposed the idea of eliminating the EPA in order to help balance the United States' budget. Trump said, "We're going to have little tidbits left but we're going to get most of it out". Following his election, in March 2017, he announced plans to cut the EPA 2018 budget by 31%, by far the largest budget cut to any federal agency. The cut would result in a loss of 19% of the workforce or roughly 3,200 employees, through both staff buyouts and layoffs. The choice to remove the Clean Power Plan, which was put in place to reduce carbon dioxide emissions chiefly from coal-fired power plants, would effectively eliminate Obama's efforts to curb climate change. This plan would also remove the $100 million allocated to fund research combating climate change. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration provides $250 million for programs which aid countries with high risk of impacts from rising and increasingly warm and acidic sea water levels. These programs would be eliminated under the new set of budget cuts. If enacted, this would mean the elimination of up to 38 of the agency's programs. Programs to be eliminated included the radon program, grants to clean up industrial sites ("brownfields"), climate change research, and the Office of Environmental Justice.
  Trump's objectives include the lifting of regulations from various energy industries to boost domestic energy production. Trump asked American manufacturers which regulations made production the most difficult. The industry leaders responded, and an overwhelming number of them recommended lifting restrictions related to the environment and workers' rights. In an open letter to Scott Pruitt, Mustafa Ali, former head of the EPA's Environmental Justice Program who resigned in protest to Pruitt's budget cuts, expressed concerns with how the budget cuts will effect pollution in poor and minority neighborhoods.
  The administration said it planned to refocus the EPA mission on clean water, air, and other core responsibilities. It also planned to delegate more of the EPA's enforcement activities to the states, while decreasing the amount of money given to states for that purpose by 30%. Issues like greenhouse gas emissions would be trimmed significantly or eliminated from the budget.
  On September 12, 2018, the Senate approved a so-called "Minibus funding bill" or "Omnibus spending bill," which reduced the EPA's budget from $8.2 billion annually to $5.7 billion, a decrease of $2.5 billion or -31%. The bill was expected to eliminate more than 50 programs and 3,200 jobs, discontinue funding for international climate-change programs, cut funding for the Office of Research and Development in half, cut funding for the Superfund cleanup program and the Office of Enforcement and Compliance, and prioritizes drinking water and wastewater infrastructure projects.
caption: People's Climate March in Washington DC - 2017
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