Follow the money

EPA has released its 2010 budget request. EPA is seeking $10.5 billion,which it describes as “the highest level of funding for EPA in its 39-year history,” and which Science‘s Erik Stokstad says (subscription required) would be “a whopping 38% increase over last year’s budget.” Nearly $4 billion would go toward revolving funds to support state investments in water infrastructure (that’s in addition to $6 billion already dedicated to that purpose by the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act for FY ’09). About $1.3 billion would go to the Superfund program, more than $600 million of that specifically for remediation. Another $600 million would go to enforcement efforts, including 30 new FTE. Obviously, it’s going to be a tough budget climate this year. How well EPA’s requests fare will say a lot about the priority assigned to environmental initiatives by the administration and Congress.