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CLINTON-GORE FISCAL YEAR 2001 EPA BUDGET CONTAINS LARGEST INCREASE EVER FOR AGENCY OPERATING BUDGET TO PROTECT PUBLIC HEALTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Release Date: 02/07/2000
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Administrator Carol M. Browner today announced President Clinton’s proposed Fiscal Year 2001 budget of $7.3 billion for the United States Environmental Protection Agency and $2.2 billion for the Better America Bonds program. The budget is the largest increase in the history of the Clinton/Gore Administration in spending for EPA’s essential operations to provide cleaner air, cleaner water, safer food and sound science.

The President’s budget ensures that seven years of unprecedented environmental progress under the Clinton-Gore Administration will continue into the future, providing improved protection of public health and the environment for all Americans and their communities.

Said, Browner, “The Clinton-Gore Administration has achieved an unparalleled record of protecting the public health and environment of America. This budget builds on that progress and addresses our country’s greatest environmental challenges -- providing our children and our communities with cleaner air, cleaner water, cleaner lands and improved quality of life.”

Major environmental initiatives and on-going priorities are:

CLEANING AMERICA’S WATER

Cleaner Water. The budget provides $784 million for President Clinton’s Clean Water Action Plan, designed to finish the job of cleaning up America’s waters. These funds will ensure that federal agencies, states, tribes, and local communities can work together in unprecedented ways to improve access to environmental information, enhance natural resource stewardship, protect public health and restore the full use of America’s lakes, rivers and bays. Included in the funding for the Clean Water Action Plan, the Clinton-Gore Administration is proposing the following new investments for FY 2001:

Restoring Our Nation’s Great Lakes. The Clinton-Gore Administration will invest $50 million in a new initiative to protect and improve one of our country’s greatest natural resources -- the Great Lakes. Great Lakes communities would be eligible for grants to help restore and protect their local waterways for drinking, fishing, swimming, boating and urban redevelopment.

Cleaner Waters Across America. Stepping up efforts to identify and restore polluted waterways, the President’s budget is providing an additional $45 million in state grants for a new initiative aimed at waterways still in need of improvements. These funds will go toward the development of specific plans for individual waterways, helping to restore the quality of some 20,000 waters nationwide.

Doing More To Address the Greatest Threat To Water Quality. The President’s budget includes new and additional funding options to protect our lakes, rivers and bays from polluted runoff -- the largest remaining threat to our nation’s water quality. The budget provides states with the added flexibility of using up to 19 percent of the funds they receive under the Federal Clean Water State Revolving Fund to fight polluted runoff. It also provides a total of $250 million -- an additional $50 million in FY 2001 -- in grants to states for polluted runoff control projects.

CLEANING AMERICA’S AIR

Cleaner Air. The Clinton-Gore Administration has taken the most aggressive actions in history to provide cleaner, healthier air for all Americans including setting the toughest standards ever for reducing harmful air pollution from passenger vehicles, SUVs and trucks. Under the 2001 budget, the President is requesting $215 million to support partnerships with states, tribal governments and local communities to collectively work to improve air quality across the nation.

Clean Air Partnership Fund. To help strengthen partnerships with states, tribal governments and local communities, the Clinton-Gore Administration is requesting $85 million for the Clean Air Partnership Fund. The Fund will bring the most creative ideas for cleaning the air to communities where they are most needed, providing a magnet for local innovation and investment.

The Climate Change Technology Initiative. The Administration is providing $227 million for the Climate Change Technology Initiative to expand voluntary, cost-effective programs. These programs promote innovative technologies, cost effective solutions and are already working to save Americans more than $35 billion in energy costs over the next decade, while reducing the pollution that contributes to global warming.

PROTECTING OUR CHILDREN

Protecting America’s Children. The President’s budget provides $68 million targeted to one of the Administration’s top environmental priorities -- protecting children’s health. This initiative targets such potential environmental threats to children as lead contamination and air pollution that contributes to asthma.

Ensuring the Safety of America’s Food. The Clinton-Gore Administration already has restricted use of some of the most pervasive pesticides that can adversely affect the health of children. Under this budget, the Administration continues its dedication to food safety by providing $75 million, an increase of $9 million, for implementation of the Food Quality Protection Act. This landmark food safety law, passed through the leadership of the Clinton-Gore Administration, for the first time sets food safety standards designed specifically to protect children.

PROVIDING FOR COMMUNITIES

Expanding the Public’s Right-To-Know. The President’s budget includes $30 million for the Information Integration Initiative, a fundamentally new approach to ensuring broad and immediate dissemination of key environmental data and information. Under this initiative, EPA will develop a network with the states and tribes to ensure that key environmental information will be made public through the internet and other means to ensure improved decision-making, reduce paperwork burden on the regulated community and the states and provide more reliable, high quality information to the public.

Protecting America’s Communities. EPA is proposing to be in the forefront of supporting the President’s and Vice President’s creative initiative to ensure more livable American communities through Better America Bonds. This innovative, financial tool will provide resources to communities so they can address problems like traffic congestion, threatened water quality, shrinking parkland, and abandoned industrial sites, called Brownfields. The Administration is proposing $690 million in tax credits over five years that will support $10.8 billion in bond authority for investments by state, local and tribal governments. Specifically, the President’s budget supports $2.2 billion in bond authority in FY 2001. Investors who buy these 15 year bonds will receive tax credits in lieu of interest, in turn reducing the costs to state and local governments involved with local initiatives like preserving green spaces.

CLEANING UP TOXIC WASTE

Cleaning up Waste Sites and Redeveloping Contaminated Lands. The President’s budget provides $1.45 billion in Superfund to continue the cleanup of the nation’s worst toxic waste sites. Under the Clinton-Gore Administration, about three times as many Superfund sites have been cleaned-up as in the 12 previous years of the program. The new budget proposal will continue that progress. The budget also invests $92 million for the highly successful Brownfields program that helps communities work together to create jobs and put abandoned properties back into productive use.


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