EPA FY01 Budget

4/12/2000

U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development,

Chairman Walsh, Ranking Member Mollohan, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, my name is Colleen Kelley, and I am the National President of the National Treasury Employees Union. The NTEU represents more than 155,000 federal employees, including those who work at the Environmental Protection Agency. I appreciate this opportunity to present testimony to you today on behalf of the men and women who help ensure our waterways are swimmable and fishable, our drinking water is free of harmful toxins, our air is breathable, and any polluted lands are made clean again. The actions of this subcommittee directly affect their lives and the livelihoods of every American.

Whether it's cleaning up already contaminated lands and waterways, or taking pro-active measures to prevent future pollution or contamination, EPA employees are working to reduce the risks to the American public and our environment. If we are to continue our nation's progress in reducing pollution and cleaning up the environment, then we need to ensure that EPA has the staffing and resources it needs to effectively carry out its mission.

As we stand here today in the Spring of 2000, the dawn of the 21st century, we need to ask ourselves what the state of the environment of this great nation will be at the dawn of the next century. Are we going to put the brakes on environmental progress? Are we going to accept that we have reached the pinnacle of scientific innovation and that there is no more to learn about how we can best go about cleaning up after environmental mistakes of the past and preventing similar mistakes in the future?

I think we can all agree that we owe it to future generations of Americans to leave them with a clean environment. We are all stewards of the earth, and of our natural resources, and as such, we should continue to foster science-based innovation and public policy that protects the public health and our environment. One of the best ways we can go about this is by supporting a strong budget for the EPA. The scientists and analysts at the EPA are the ones who have years of expertise in these critical areas, and they are the ones who are in the best position to foster environmental progress.

I am pleased that the President has requested an 11% increase in funding for the EPA's core operating programs for Fiscal Year 2001. 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 will go a long way in supporting EPA's essential operations to provide cleaner air, fresher water, safer food and sound science. The budget will support increased staffing in these areas so that we can continue to make progress in protecting the public health and the environment for all Americans and their communities.

We cannot expect the EPA to continue to protect the public health without the staffing and resources necessary to do the job. We need to increase funding for core EPA environmental programs such as researching and setting environmental standards, ensuring enforcement and compliance of our environmental laws, and providing assistance to our states and municipalities. I believe that the EPA budget request for Fiscal Year 2001 is a good first step, but I believe that the level of funding requested by the EPA should be viewed as a floor, not a ceiling. As the number and complexity of threats to our environment and to human health continue to increase, it is critical that the Congress provide additional funding for staffing at the EPA. While I believe that funding should be used to make technological improvements in EPA programs as well, and I applaud this subcommittee's commitment to this area, I am sure you will agree with me that technology alone cannot possibly address the demands the agency now faces.

The budget proposal before you will allow EPA employees to continue working with states and localities to develop proposals to restore wetlands and to clean up our polluted rivers and lakes. The budget will support EPA efforts underway with industry and municipalities to modernize our drinking water systems. It supports ongoing research into children=s vulnerabilities to exposure to lead and other harmful toxins. The budget will help ensure our food supply is safe by providing funds to develop alternatives to harmful pesticides. And the budget provides funds to clean up our Superfund and brownfield sites and restore these abandoned industrial sites to productive economic use. These are only a sampling of the many programs administered and implemented by the dedicated men and women who work at the EPA. These programs, as well as countless others within EPA need additional staffing to address the increasing demands of protecting and improving the health of the American public.

NTEU supports the budget request of $68 million targeted at protecting the health of our children. The EPA has some of the best-trained and most experienced scientists in the world researching and conducting sophisticated tests to determine the effects of lead and other toxins on children. They are working to develop new standards and new techniques to better protect children and our most vulnerable members of society from environmental dangers. Among other things, the budget supports ongoing research efforts into the effects of air pollution on children with asthma. It targets $75 million for the implementation of the Food Quality Protection Act, which sets food safety standards designed specifically to protect our children. And the budget continues research efforts directed toward finding alternatives to those pesticides most harmful to our children.

The budget provides $784 million for President Clinton's Clean Water Action Plan. This funding will allow the EPA to continue to work with other federal agencies, states, and local communities to improve environmental protections for our lakes, rivers, and waterways throughout this country. EPA scientists are constantly working to develop new techniques to make our waterways clean enough for drinking, fishing, and swimming. The funds administered by EPA employees will help reduce polluted runoff into our waterways, and will provide grants to enable water districts to find more cost effective and efficient ways to deliver even cleaner drinking water to our residents. The American public rightfully expects that their drinking water will be clean and the fish they eat from our lakes and bays will not be contaminated. They depend on this subcommittee and the Congress to give EPA employees the tools they need to establish strict water quality standards and to ensure that these standards are being met.

The President's budget provides $1.45 billion for the Superfund program to continue the cleanup of the nation's most polluted toxic waste sites. Hundreds of Superfund sites nationwide have been cleaned up since the program's inception. Thanks to the work of EPA analysts and lawyers, polluters have been forced to pay for their neglect of our environment, and communities have been able to develop more cost effective means to clean up the sites. The budget also invests $92 million in cleaning up our slightly less contaminated, but still highly toxic, brownfield sites. The new budget proposal will continue EPA's progress in helping our communities clean up these lands, put them back into productive economic use, and create more jobs where we most need them.

The EPA has also taken successful actions to provide cleaner, healthier air for all Americans including setting the toughest standards ever for reducing harmful air pollution. Often times, these actions have come under fire by certain industry groups, but because the EPA actions have always been backed up by extensive research and sound science, the EPA has been able to prevail in courts and prevail in public media battles. The result has been reduced air pollution, increased pollution prevention efforts, and a decrease in the number of pollution-related illnesses and deaths. Under the 2001 budget, the President is requesting $215 million to continue to support partnerships with states, tribal governments and local communities to collectively work to improve air quality across the nation. In addition, the President has requested $85 million for the Clean Air Partnership Fund, which will help strengthen these partnerships, help foster local innovation and investment, and bring the most creative and most successful ideas for cleaning the air to communities where they are most needed. NTEU supports these EPA initiatives.

Finally, we are also very supportive of the President's budget request of $30 million for the Information Integration Initiative. This initiative will expand the public's right-to-know through the development of an information network with the states to ensure that key environmental information will be made public in a timely manner through the internet and other means. This will help localities improve their decision-making, will reduce the burden of paperwork on the regulated community and the states, and will guarantee the taxpaying public reliable, high quality information about what threats to the environment exist in their communities, and what steps are being taken to address these threats. NTEU believes that not only do the American people demand to have this critical information at their fingertips, they also demand that their tax dollars are being spent to continue to expand the science base at the EPA so that we can better mitigate and prevent these environmental threats.

The work performed by the men and women at the EPA is often taken for granted. Yet thanks to persistent science-based work by EPA employees, we are reducing air pollution, improving the quality of our drinking water systems, and allowing Americans to live longer and healthier lives. EPA employees are working with states and local communities to build on initiatives that get results and shelve those that have failed. And EPA scientists, analysts, lawyers, and others who have dedicated their lives to serving the public at the EPA continue to work to find the most cost effective and most efficient solutions to addressing our country's greatest environmental threats. And while we should continue to support technological advances in reducing pollution and cleaning up our environment, technology alone cannot clean up every lake, every Superfund site, or every particle of toxic matter in our air. Technology needs to be supported by sound science and by sound public policy. Science-based regulations need to be implemented, overseen, and enforced by knowledgeable scientists. We know that there are always better ways of doing things - more cost effective and innovative ways - and it's up to this subcommittee and the entire Congress to continue to foster this scientific innovation. Now is the time to build on our science base and expand it so that we can be assured that the planet we leave to our next generation is cleaner and in better shape then the one we inherited from earlier generations.

I would like to thank the Subcommittee again for the opportunity for our Union to present its views on the budget for Fiscal Year 2001. As you continue your subcommittee's deliberations, I hope you will give special consideration to EPA's dedicated workforce, a team of public servants who have committed themselves to cleaning up our environment and protecting the health of the American people.