Biden Budget Maintains Great Lakes, Clean Water Investments

Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition

Biden Budget Maintains Great Lakes, Clean Water Investments

Budget misses opportunity to fully fund programs to address ongoing threats to drinking water, public health.

ANN ARBOR, MICH. (March 13, 2024) – The Biden Administration’s proposed fiscal year 2025 federal budget, released Monday, takes a positive step in strengthening EPA and its core environmental protection mission, while maintaining funding levels for core clean water and Great Lakes investments. The budget does not support full funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and programs that support community drinking water and wastewater infrastructure.

“The Biden Administration’s budget keeps Great Lakes restoration and EPA’s environmental protection efforts on solid footing, although we are disappointed not to see the president support full funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and water infrastructure programs,” said Laura Rubin, director of the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition. “With ongoing water infrastructure failures, flooding, and sewage overflows, we need the approved and increased amounts of funding.  We hope Congress and the Administration work together to fully fund Great Lakes restoration and water infrastructure programs in the coming year to ensure every person has access to safe and affordable drinking water and sanitation services. We have manageable solutions to these problems, and delay will only make these issues worse and more expensive to solve.”

The president’s budget requests $368 million for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, while Congress has authorized up to $450 million for the program.

The president’s budget requests $1.12 billion for the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, while Congress has authorized up to $4.3 billion for the program that helps communities update their drinking water infrastructure.

The president’s budget requests $1.24 billion for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, while Congress has authorized up to $4.8 billion for the program that helps communities update their wastewater infrastructure.

The release of the president’s budget comes amid a ramped-up effort by the Biden Administration to tackle water infrastructure challenges. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which President Biden signed into law in 2021, is providing historic levels of investment to fix the nation’s infrastructure, including $50 billion to upgrade the nation’s drinking water, storm water, and wastewater infrastructure. While those investments have been essential for towns and cities across the region, the nation still faces a staggering backlog of work to meet its clean water goals.

The Great Lakes states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, for example, require more than $225 billion over 20 years to fix, repair and update their drinking water and wastewater infrastructure. That is why the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition is pushing for the Biden Administration and Congress to continue full funding of clean water programs in the annual appropriations process.

“The historic investments we have seen over the last few years in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act have been absolute game-changers for communities,” said Rubin. “The Biden Administration and Congress deserve tremendous credit for addressing urgent threats with those investments. At the same time, we still have a tremendous amount of work to do to ensure no community is left behind and that we extend help to the communities most impacted by pollution, environmental harm, and insufficient water infrastructure. Resting on our laurels now would be a mistake, considering the work left to do.”

Since 2004, the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition has been harnessing the collective power of more than 185 groups representing millions of people, whose common goal is to restore and protect the Great Lakes. Learn more at HealthyLakes.org or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads @HealthyLakes.