Congress grills Zeldin over plan to cut EPA budget in half

The largest proposed cuts are in state and tribal assistance grants, which fund state environmental agencies that carry out day-to-day environmental law enforcement in place of the federal EPA. The budget proposes cutting these categorical grants by approximately 83 percent. Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID), chair of the House Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee, stated at the April 27 House hearing that the Senate and House are not going to accept these cuts, making clear that even Republicans responsible for EPA appropriations will not support the proposed grant reductions.

Senate Democrats accused Zeldin of abandoning the EPA's core mission of protecting human health and the environment. Sen. Whitehouse stated that Zeldin has executed the fossil fuel industry's agenda and that a massive reckoning is coming.

The budget also proposes slashing clean water state revolving funds and drinking water state revolving funds by 74 percent, leaving only $300 million in funding. These revolving funds provide loans to states and localities for water infrastructure projects. The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law had provided an additional $43 billion over five years for these programs, but that supplemental funding expires in 2026 and the proposed EPA budget would not replace it.

Democratic Rep. Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts asked at a House hearing how states could remove harmful PFAS from municipal water supplies with 90 percent fewer dollars. Zeldin pointed to promising technologies and congressional earmarks, responses that the committee's ranking member found unpersuasive. The PFAS question highlighted how the budget would hit drinking water safety programs at precisely the moment the BIL funding ends.

The FY2027 proposal also eliminates the Atmospheric Protection Program, which funds climate research and greenhouse gas monitoring, and eliminates environmental justice grants and staffing. Zeldin has separately eliminated major climate change programs and canceled billions of dollars in Biden-era environmental justice grants. The combined effect of these actions and the proposed budget would end the EPA's capacity for large-scale climate and environmental health research.

The administration argues these programs were funded through inflation-era spending increases that distorted the EPA's mission and that the agency should focus on core statutory responsibilities. A Vinyl Industry analysis found the proposal also reduces the Toxic Substances Control Act chemical review budget by 15 percent despite a statutory requirement for the EPA to complete chemical safety reviews within defined timeframes.

Congress's reaction to the FY2027 proposal mirrors its response to the FY2026 request: bipartisan opposition to the deepest cuts. In FY2026, Congress ultimately reduced EPA spending by only 3.5 percent despite an administration request to cut it by more than half. Appropriations committee members from both parties made clear at the April hearings that states rely on categorical grants to fund environmental enforcement and that cutting those grants by 83 percent would effectively eliminate state environmental agency capacity in many states.

House Interior subcommittee chair Mike Simpson said explicitly that the proposed steep cuts to state and tribal grants are not going to happen, and subcommittee ranking member Chellie Pingree (D-ME) accused the administration of slashing the federal commitment and dumping costs on the states.

Zeldin used the hearings to defend his agency's record on specific environmental issues while accepting the budget framework. He cited an agreement with Mexico to reduce sewage flows into the Tijuana River and accelerated work on radioactive contamination cleanup in the St. Louis region as examples of EPA accomplishments under reduced funding. He also touted the agency's deregulatory agenda as the biggest in American history.

E&E News reported a contentious exchange over the mercury rule for coal-fired power plants, in which Zeldin read from prepared figures showing cumulative mercury emissions under the Biden rule versus after its repeal. Democratic members argued that the EPA's own estimates indicated annual mercury emissions would be higher after the repeal. The EPA's press office disputed the framing, arguing the Biden-era increases would not have materialized until 2035.

The EPA's FY2027 budget request includes targeted increases in some areas aligned with administration priorities: $122 million for drinking water contamination programs, $30 million for a prize challenge to develop pesticide alternatives as part of the Make America Healthy Again initiative, and funding for faster NEPA project permitting. The proposal also maintains Superfund cleanup funding at $290 million, supplemented by industry taxes.

The administration's approach involves a deliberate effort to restructure the EPA around permitting, enforcement on specific administration priorities, and deregulation, while eliminating climate research, environmental justice programs, and the grant infrastructure that has allowed states to build their own environmental agency capacity since the 1970s. Independent environmental policy analysts warn this restructuring may be difficult to reverse even if a future administration chooses to do so.