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The Obama Administration released its FY2015 Budget request today which proposes $581 million in cuts to the Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Fund programs (CWSRF and DWSRF).  The budget proposes funding the CWSRF and DWSRF at $1.018 billion and $757 million respectively. This constitutes $431 million to the CWSRF and $150 million to the DWSRF over last year’s funding levels. Overall, the budget request proposes $7.9 billion for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), $300 million below the $8.2 billion Congress appropriated to the Agency for FY2014.  Click here for a chart that compares proposed discretionary spending levels for EPA's water programs from FY2012 through the current FY2015 budget proposal.

This request is the Administration’s third consecutive budget which has proposed steep cuts to the SRF programs. The Administration argues that since the federal government established the CWSRF, it has provided nearly $97 billion of investment capital (including state matching grants and additional unspecified amounts leveraged by states from other sources). 

This year’s budget request again includes a proposal to limit the amount of tax liability wealthy individuals can claim on interest income received from investments in municipal bonds to 28%. At the same time, the budget again proposes a new bond program called America Fast Forward Bonds, which provides subsidy payments to State and local governmental issuers of conventional taxable bonds. The Administration is also proposing to lift the volume cap for private activity bond investments in water infrastructure projects.

With such steep cuts to the SRF programs being requested, it is more critical than ever to attend the National Water Policy Forum & Fly-In, hosted by NACWA, the Water Environment Federation, and Water Environment Research Foundation, to voice your concerns on priority clean water community issues, including the importance of maintaining funding for these programs on Capitol Hill.

For more information, please contact either Patricia Sinicropi ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) or Hannah Mellman ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ).