Native Plant Conservation Campaign News: In response to public outcry, final 2018 budget increases spending for science and omitted almost all radical anti-environment proposals.
April 7, 2018
On March 23, after a brief veto threat, Donald Trump signed the fiscal year 2018 omnibus spending bill. The signing avoided another government shutdown, and the final bill contained neither the slashed science and environment budgets or the litany of anti-environment policy riders that were in the original Trump budget proposal.
This important victory is the result of the vocal public opposition to the proposed budget cuts and environmental rollbacks.
While the omnibus spending bill isn’t perfect, here are nine key environmental wins:
- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency budget stayed intact. After Trump’s proposed 25 percent cut, the end result was, in fact, a $763 million increase, including $300 million for clean water and safe drinking water funds.
- $50 million was given to new grant programs to address lead in drinking water.
- Congress soundly rejected the president’s proposal to shut down the highly successful Energy Star program as well as the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy, which awards funding for breakthrough energy technology projects.
- Clean air efforts won. Riders that tried to roll back methane and smog rules, as well as the Clean Air Act, were removed.
- A rider that would’ve allowed clearcutting was shot down, which means protections for Alaska’s old-growth Tongass forest remain intact.
- Our national parks, in the news lately for their state of disrepair, received a $270 million budget increase.
- A rider that attempted to eliminate the Clean Power Plan, one of our best shots at climate change mitigation, was removed.
- Another rider that aimed to roll back the Clean Water Rule, which protects drinking water sources that supply more than 117 million Americans, was also cut.
- The Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy, in charge of promoting clean energy and energy efficiency research, received $2.3 billion—far more than the $636 million requested by the president.
Only one anti-environment rider remained on the final budget: an exemption for livestock operations from reporting the release of harmful chemicals—an obligation for all other industry polluters. The rider was framed as a win for small farms but instead will benefit large-scale factory farms.
For more details, see FY 2018 budget analyses from
