President Donald Trump’s proposed budget cuts could hamper the EPA’s efforts to link contamination at hazardous waste sites to companies and others that may be responsible for the pollution, environmental consultants said March 19.
The administration’s fiscal year 2020 budget proposal would cut a fifth of the funding for the Environmental Protection Agency’s forensics efforts, which support its civil and criminal enforcement investigations. The EPA will receive about $13.7 million for the program in fiscal year 2019, but Trump’s proposal would cut the program’s budget to $10.9 million.
Environmental forensics, in a remediation context, involves determining when a contaminant was ...