Monday, March 4, 2013

Will Sequestration Affect Our Environmental Protection Efforts?

Will Sequestration Affect Our Environmental Protection Efforts?
     The President and Congress could not get their act together and make rational decisions about the budget and spending in our country. Due to that the Sequestration kicked in which is basically across the board cuts to major programs and entities in government. I think somehow we will all feel this is one way or another. Be it personally or just a family member. So can the Sequester cuts affect our nations EPA or any other types of environmental protection efforts? The short answer is yes most definitely there will be direct cuts to the EPA's budget. What types of cuts am I talking about? The Environmental Protection Agency's 2013 budget will be cut by $472 million due to the March 1st Sequester order. Now that is just a direct budget cut. The other programs that are being cut are regulatory programs and also state Grant programs that help states implement EPA's strong federal environmental  protection rules. These are the same programs that the states are all ready saying are currently underfunded at this level. So with these cuts I do believe that the Sequester order is going to have an adverse affect on how the EPA goes after companies and individuals that pollute and also the loss of grants to help the states enforce the Environmental protection rules will stop them from enforcing them as vigorously. So I think this all adds up to an environment where there is less money to monitor these programs and less money to help the states go after people who pollute the environment. If there is no enforcement you may as well not have the laws. Because without enforcement efforts the law is just a good idea. It has no teeth.

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