AIBS has endorsed a community letter urging congressional appropriators to support increased funding for the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Science and Technology (S&T) account in fiscal year (FY) 2025.
The letter recommends that Congress provide at least $876 million for EPA S&T, of which $40 million is requested for the Science to Achieve Results (STAR) Program. With this requested increase, the letter also recommends that Congress direct EPA to implement recommendations from the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Mathematics (NASEM) to enhance innovation within the STAR Program and to enable the EPA’s Office of Research Development, which oversees EPA S&T, to contribute further to the training of the future environmental workforce.
The letter reads, in part:
“EPA faces historic staffing shortages with staffing levels today below those from 2014. Funding for EPA S&T has also decreased from its peak of $846 million in FY 2010 to $758.1 million for FY 2024. Similarly, the Science to Achieve Results program (STAR) Program, which provides research grants to U.S.-based universities to augment EPA’s internal S&T capacity to conduct research has also been routinely under-funded with a reduction from its peak of $138 million in FY 2012 to $28.6 million for the last several fiscal years. The reduction in funds to the EPA S&T account has occurred despite the research it supports leading to significant positive benefits to human health and welfare, pollution control, and environmental sustainability for the last several decades.”
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