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On Friday, the Administration released its analysis of the impact of automatic cuts to federal programs as a result of the budget agreement Congress and the White House negotiated in August 2011, which was enacted as part of the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA).  The BCA required automatic cuts of $1.2 trillion to most discretionary and non-discretionary programs over ten years in the absence of an alternative budget that Congress could negotiate.  These reductions are on top of the $1 trillion of reductions currently built into federal spending baselines based on that same agreement.  The automatic cuts are referred to as sequestration and will take effect January 2013, unless a new budget agreement is reached.

The Administration’s analysis shows that most non-defense discretionary budget accounts, including accounts that fund the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), will see further reductions of approximately 8.2% below Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 spending levels, with some exceptions based on specified rules in the BCA.  For EPA, these cuts will occur more or less across the board with the exception of mandatory spending items such as spending on superfund projects. EPA will see a $716 million reduction below FY12 levels.  For programs that NACWA tracks, below is a chart detailing anticipated cuts to various programs from FY12 levels.

Sequestration is scheduled to automatically occur at the beginning of each fiscal year beginning January 2013 unless Congress enacts a new budget.  As NACWA reported last week, Congress will complete work this week on a Continuing Resolution to keep the Federal Government operating through the middle of FY13 at which point Congress will need to complete the FY13 appropriations process which will either maintain these sequestration levels or include different levels of spending based on a potentially new budget agreement.

NACWA will continue to track developments on the Federal budget and report them to our members as they occur.   For more information on federal budget or appropriations, please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , NACWA’s Legislative Manager.