Fall 2024
House, Senate Panel Diverge on Bay Funding
The House of Representatives adopted a fiscal year 2025 budget bill for EPA and the Interior Department that would continue funding important Bay programs at their current level. But deep cuts to the agencies’ budget and controversial policy riders led to a nearly party‑line vote on final passage. In contrast, the Senate Appropriations Committee produced a bipartisan version of the legislation that includes small but welcome increases for the same Bay programs.
The bill the House passed on July 24 would keep funding for EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Program and the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Chesapeake WILD grants unchanged at $92 million and $8 million respectively next year. The Bay Program coordinates the multi‑agency, federal‑state restoration partnership. Chesapeake WILD grants fund habitat restoration projects across the Bay’s six‑state watershed.
The bill passed out of the Senate Appropriations Committee on August 1 would boost Bay Program funding to $92.5 million and Chesapeake WILD funding to $8.5 million in fiscal 2025. Although the new fiscal year starts October 1, Congress has yet to complete work on any of the 12 annual appropriations bills for next year.
Supreme Court Blocks New Interstate Smog Limits
The Supreme Court voted 5‑4 in late June to stop EPA from implementing a new rule to reduce ozone pollution that crosses state lines and prevents downwind states from meeting federal air‑quality standards for controlling smog.
The decision to stay the Good Neighbor rule means polluters like coal‑fired power plants won’t have to cut further emissions of a dangerous air pollutant that is especially harmful to children, older adults, people with heart and lung diseases, and communities already subject to multiple environmental and health threats.
It also prevents needed reductions in nitrogen oxides, a key ingredient in smog that also contributes to excess nitrogen pollution in the Bay and its waterways. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation is part of a coalition of environmental and public health groups that urged the Supreme Court in February to let the rule take effect.
EPA Recommits to Leading Federal Cleanup Partnership
Administrator Michael Regan made a strong public statement supporting the future of the Bay cleanup in May when he formally recommitted EPA to leading the federal agencies involved in restoring the Bay and its waterways into the next phase of the cleanup effort. Maryland Democratic Senators Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen both pushed Regan to reaffirm EPA’s leadership role during hearings on EPA’s fiscal year 2025 budget request.
Regan told Cardin that EPA would “absolutely” reinstate the Federal Leadership Committee and reconvene it this fall. The committee was created in 2009 to coordinate the work of the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, Interior, and Transportation under what became the 2014 Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement.
The 2014 agreement set a 2025 deadline for the six Bay states and the District of Columbia to achieve 31 specific goals concerning living resources, water quality, climate change, land conservation, and community engagement.
—Keisha Sedlacek
Federal Director
Chesapeake Bay Foundation
