Last updated: July 1, 2025

The BEACH Act Grant Program funds water quality monitoring, communication in the event of unsafe conditions, and other public health initiatives at over 4,500 beaches nationwide, including those along the Great Lakes. These funds are used to determine if elevated levels of illness-causing bacteria make swimming unsafe and if so, to prevent the public from beachgoing until further notice. Under President Trump, the EPA continues to fund the program with $9.7 million in grants for 2025. The funding is authorized by the Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health (BEACH) Act. Rep. David Joyce, Co-Chair of the Great Lakes Task Force, introduced legislation earlier this year that would reauthorize the program through FY 2029 at $30 million per year, equal to the current authorized level. Appropriated funding is currently on par with prior fiscal years. The FY 2026 President’s Budget for the EPA, however, would eliminate the BEACH Grant program, along with other Categorical Grants totaling nearly $1 billion.

Last updated: July 1, 2025

The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA, or Superfund) mandates the EPA to clean up sites across the US contaminated by hazardous waste. Through this program, the areas are slated for cleanup and redeveloped into commercial, recreational, residential, and ecological spaces, such as shopping centers, parks, and more. This work is largely funded by the entities that polluted the areas in the first place. The Trump EPA has touted expedited Superfund cleanup as one of its major accomplishments. In 2025, Superfund sites from Rhode Island to Illinois have undergone major cleanups in an effort to combine environmental revitalization projects with economic development. As of May 1, 2025, $296 million in cleanups were confirmed across the US so far this year, addressing 700,000 cubic yards of contamination. The President’s Budget, however, would cut funding for the Hazardous Substances Superfund account in half, from $537 million in FY 2025 to just $282 million.

Last updated: July 1, 2025

Brownfield sites, former industrial sites that have been contaminated with hazardous substances or carry a risk of such contamination, are an important part of the EPA’s work in environmental restoration and offer incredible benefits for local economies and communities when redeveloped. On May 16, 2025, $267 million in Brownfields Grants were announced for selection to communities across the United States aimed at combining efforts in environmental stewardship and economic growth. This includes $224 million in funding for Brownfields Assessment, Revolving Loan Fund, and Cleanup (ARC) Grant programs; and $42 million in supplemental funding to 34 existing Revolving Loan Fund (RLF) Grant recipients demonstrating successful brownfield site cleanup and redevelopment. However, current threats to EPA funding, namely the proposed 54% cut to the organization’s budget for FY 2026, would slow down projects and the success of brownfield redevelopment. A March 11 hearing held by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on the Environment emphasized the importance of this program and concern about how these cuts might affect brownfield revitalization. Namely, these cuts would deepen administrative delays and barriers, and disproportionately affect disadvantaged communities. The administration’s budget for FY 2026 cuts funding for the Brownfields Projects State and Tribal Assistance Grant from $98 million to $80 million and would completely eliminate funding for the Brownfield Categorical Grant program, funded at $46 million in FY 2025. Cuts to the EPA’s payroll for its staff have also delayed the acquisition of grants and made it difficult to get in contact with individuals from the agency.

With the Brownfields Program, the Trump administration illustrates that its agenda is continuously at odds with itself. Although the current EPA emphasizes the importance of environmental revitalization programs, the administration’s actions fail to align with this priority, and in fact gut the very programs that make revitalization possible.

Last updated: July 1, 2025

PFAS, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as “forever chemicals,” are chemical substances used in a wide variety of consumer products from clothing to cookware. PFAS break down very slowly in the environment, allowing them to accumulate in the environment, most worryingly in soil and drinking water sources. PFAS have been linked to negative health outcomes such as cholesterol increases, lower birth weight, reduced immune response, fertility issues, and kidney, prostate, and testicular cancers.

The EPA has continued its emphasis on addressing the contamination of natural environments by these chemical substances. Proposed efforts under Administrator Zeldin in late April, including the formation of an agency focused on PFAS, the creation of effluent limitations guidelines (ELGs) to prevent them from entering drinking water systems, the strengthening of cleanup efforts in water supplies impacted by PFAS contamination, and procedures for holding polluters accountable through investigations and liability frameworks. A complete list of proposed EPA actions for combatting PFAS contamination can be found here.

The Trump EPA also partially rolled back Biden-era PFAS drinking water limits. While the EPA has maintained limits on PFOA and PFOS, enforcement is delayed until 2031. Additionally, the agency removed and weakened regulations on other forms of PFAS on May 14. Specifically, the EPA “is also announcing its intent to rescind the regulations and reconsider the regulatory determinations for” PFHxS, PFNA, and HFPO-DA. The MCL for those PFAS had been set at 10 ppt. The EPA will also do away with a hazard index that would measure and regulate those three PFAS plus PFBS collectively even if their individual concentrations were not above 10 ppt. These changes are likely to see legal challenges because of the Safe Drinking Water Act’s “no backsliding” provision preventing EPA from weakening its rules. Separately, the Trump EPA has been granted more time to decide whether it wants to defend the Biden-era rules in court cases dating back to before the Trump administration began. The latest extension runs out in late July. Regardless of that decision, the court will still need to rule on the legality of the rule, though more delays could come.

A ProPublica investigation has also revealed that the EPA has cancelled grants for research into PFAS. This comes in direct conflict with the EPA of Trump’s first term which stressed the importance of understanding forever chemicals and their effects on the environment. It also conflicts with claims made by Administrator Zeldin in April that the EPA will go through great lengths to ensure air, land, and water are clean from PFAS. Grant cancellations combined with potential cuts to the agency’s budget could undermine the EPA’s ability to protect Americans from PFAS. 

Last updated: September 15, 2025

Perhaps the most prominent and consequential of the Trump administration’s government efforts is its regulatory rollbacks. Under the leadership of Administrator Lee Zeldin, the EPA has focused much of its attention on repealing and reducing regulations, and cutting spending deemed “wasteful,” including diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and environmental justice programs.

In early February, Zeldin announced the agency’s Powering the Great American Comeback Initiative, consisting of five pillars to guide the EPA’s work. Of these, pillars 2, 3, and 5 focus on regulatory rollbacks. Pillar 2 aims to “restore American energy dominance,” language echoing Trump’s campaign promise to maximize petroleum and gas as key energy sources. Pillar 3 aims to stimulate investment by streamlining permit processes. Finally, pillar 5 focuses on bringing back American auto jobs, and calls for the streamlining and development of “smart regulations” that may loosen environmental protections. This pillar also takes aim at Biden-era policies designed to reduce emissions from gas-powered cars. These regulatory cuts once again exemplify the current administration’s dissonant policy approach, as it permits environmentally destructive practices on one hand while claiming to support clean air and water on the other.

March 12 was what Zeldin called “the greatest and most consequential day of deregulation in U.S. history” for the EPA. Administrator Zeldin announced the rollback of 31 Biden era actions ranging in focus from electric vehicles to air pollution. Many of these were reconsiderations or revisions of major regulations, including regulatory flexibility for oil and gas wastewater usage and reviewing wastewater regulations for coal burning power plants. It also included attempts to scrap the Clean Power Plan 2.0 regulation that would require all coal plants and new natural gas plants to use carbon capture technology to capture 90% of their carbon dioxide emissions by 2032 if they planned to be operational in 2040. Three rules that focused on setting stricter standards for gas-powered cars and encouraging emissions reductions technologies are also under review.

Zeldin also announced a review of the definition of Waters of the United States (WOTUS) after the Supreme Court ruled in Sackett v. United States to limit the bodies of water that the EPA has jurisdiction over. Particularly, the Court found in Sackett that wetlands without “a continuous surface connection to bodies of water of the United States in their own right,” are not covered. The Biden EPA rewrote the rule in 2023 to comply with Sackett while maintaining the administration’s priorities around clean water protections, though conservatives charged that the rule was unclear and did not properly implement the ruling. The EPA wants to ensure the revised rule “follows the law, reduces red-tape, cuts overall permitting costs, and lowers the cost of doing business in communities across the country while protecting the nation’s navigable waters from pollution,” the agency wrote in a press release.

In June, EPA Administrator Zeldin announced two proposals to “restore American energy dominance.” The first plan proposes repealing “all greenhouse gas emissions standards for the power sector under Section 111 of the Clean Air Act.” More specifically, this means the emission guidelines for existing power plants, and carbon capture and sequestration/storage-based requirements for new combustion turbines and modified coal plants. The EPA claims this proposal would ensure reliable energy supplies and drive down costs in manufacturing, farming, transportation, heating, and utilities. The Biden EPA claimed that the rules would limit pollution “without disrupting the delivery of reliable electricity,” and would provide annualized net benefits of $19 billion per year. The second plan proposes repealing amendments to the 2024 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) that limited emissions from coal-fired power plants. The EPA touts that a reversal would save roughly $1.2 billion in regulatory costs over a decade, though when the amendments were originally announced, the agency estimated that enacting the stricter MATS standards would save $24 billion per year. MATS has been highly effective in protecting public health and the environment, having decreased mercury emissions by 86 percent, acid gas hazardous air pollutants by 96 percent and non-mercury metals by 81 percent between 2010 and 2017. Administrator Zeldin argues that these facilities contribute little to climate pollution globally and that regulations are only harming Americans via the price of lower energy production capacity.

In July, Administrator Zeldin announced that the Trump administration will propose to revoke the 2009 EPA endangerment finding that greenhouse gases “threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations.” Since its declaration, the finding has served as the legal basis for a vast number of climate regulations and emissions policies. The most notable of these regulations have been on motor vehicles and trucks which, combined with other transportation methods, makes up the primary source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. The proposed repeal, if enacted, would become one of the most consequential deregulatory actions of the Trump administration, erasing the primary justification for current limits on air pollution from a variety of sources. Zeldin claims that the finding and the resulting regulations “cost Americans a lot of money,” and that the proposal will save $54 billion annually. However, the costs of repealing the finding and its corresponding regulations will be felt across the American economy as air quality worsens, extreme weather events become more common and severe, water scarcity increases, and vital ecosystems are threatened. A 210-page supplementary document to the endangerment finding in 2009 outlined the threats that climate change resulting from greenhouse gases posed to the world, including severe heat waves, harms to ecosystems and environments, constrained water resources, and more. A March 2024 report from the EPA also found that regulated vehicle tailpipe emissions provide $13 billion in annual health benefits and reduce carbon dioxide air pollution by 7.2 billion metric tons.

Under President Trump, the U.S. has abandoned many of its efforts to curb global warming, such as rolling back limits on pollution for power plants, increasing reliance on and production of fossil fuels, and curbing growth in the clean energy industries. Removing the endangerment finding would significantly curb EPA efforts to fight climate change.

Although conservative groups and some industrial leaders have supported the announcement, the proposal will face challenges from environmental advocates, public health organizations, and legal experts, among many more. Proceedings, hearings, and court cases challenging this new proposal could stifle the repeal until at least next year. The finding has been challenged in court previously, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit dismissed the review, thereby upholding the finding. The repeal may also come into conflict with the 2007 Supreme Court ruling in Massachusetts v. E.P.A. that first established greenhouse gases as a pollutant that could be regulated under the Clean Air Act.

The Trump administration announced plans to eliminate the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, which has tracked emissions from more than 8,000 major industrial facilities since 2009. The agency claims ending the program will save businesses billions in compliance costs, but environmental and health experts warn the move will obscure vital data on climate pollution and undermine efforts to protect public health.

Last updated: July 1, 2025

The Trump Administration, through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has removed federal employees en masse. In February, nearly 25,000 probationary federal employees were laid off, including 419 at the EPA. These employees have fewer civil service protections than other federal employees and have been at their job for one or two years or fewer. This does not necessarily mean that these employees are inexperienced; on the contrary, among the firings are longtime employees who were recently promoted, putting them on probationary status.  Probationary employees were reinstated in mid-March as a result of a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) issued by a federal judge in Maryland. However, by mid-April the administration resumed these firings after a preliminary injunction in Maryland was struck down and another in California was invalidated. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has emphasized goals for staff totals to return to levels last seen under former President Ronald Reagan, although has not communicated concrete employment goals.

In July, the EPA announced its intention to eliminate the agency’s scientific research arm, the Office of Research and Development (ORD). The ORD conducts essential research that allows the EPA to make decisions that protect public health and ecosystems from harmful pollutants. The closure is also accompanied by a RIF that, together, the agency estimates will save $748.8 million in direct federal spending. Opponents, however, clarify that this instead shifts costs to the local level as families, hospitals, and communities bear the effects of pollution. They also state that the action does not account for the incredible risk to the environment and public that would come by undermining the research conducted by the ORD. With 11 ORD facilities across the US employing over 1,500 employees, the closure would layoff hundreds of researchers and scientists conducting research on environmental threats from PFAS to water-borne diseases. For the Great Lakes region, this may impact EPA labs in Cincinnati and Duluth. The Andrew W. Breidenbach Environmental Research Center in Cincinnati is the second largest in the US and 7.7.17.pdf">employs hundreds of individuals in the Greater Cincinnati area while providing the research basis for many decisions that keep ecosystems and humans healthy and safe from environmental pollutants. The Great Lakes Toxicology and Ecology Division (GTLED) Lab in Duluth employs over 130 scientists, contributes over $15 million to the economy, and is vital in keeping Lake Superior clean and healthy. Minnesota Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Tina Smith (D-MN) have 94.2025.04.02-zeldin-letter-ajk-edits-template-clean-final.pdf">written to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to express their concerns and call on him to protect the GTLED Lab.

In the Interior-Environment appropriations bill that passed the Senate Appropriations Committee in July, the Committee pushed back against the proposal, writing in the Committee Report that they were “appalled,” and directing the EPA “to immediately halt all actions related to the closure, reduction, reorganization, or other similar such changes to ORD and the EPA scientific workforce.”

Also in July, EPA conducted a reduction in force (RIF), decreasing its workforce from 16,155 to 12,448 employees. This represents the elimination of nearly 4,000 positions. The reduction is expected to affect staffing levels across the agency, with potential implications for regulatory enforcement, program implementation, and day-to-day operations.

In carrying out the Trump administration’s executive order calling for an end to government diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, the EPA announced the termination of the agency’s DEI and environmental justice arms. To carry out such action, the EPA began a Reduction in Force (RIF) for approximately 280 DEI and environmental justice employees. Additionally, the EPA is in the process of dismantling its Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights. This included placing 11 employees in DEI and 160 in environmental justice roles on administrative leave. Administrator Zeldin also intends to reorganize and eliminate offices of environmental justice at all 10 EPA regional offices and the agency’s DC office. These offices address the disproportionate levels of pollution and contamination affecting low-income and minority communities, and their closures would end much of the work aimed at reducing the burden of environmental injustices.

Last updated: September 8th, 2025

In March 2025, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under Administrator Lee Zeldin moved to rescind approximately $20 billion in grants for the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), a program created under the Inflation Reduction Act to expand clean energy access and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The programs were intended to channel federal support into nonprofit lenders, green banks, and community development institutions to help finance renewable energy, efficiency upgrades, and emissions reduction projects across the country. The cancellations revoked even funds that had already been transferred to awardees such as the Climate United Fund and the Coalition for Green Capital. EPA cited concerns about program oversight and accountability in its announcement.

In April, a federal district court issued a preliminary injunction blocking EPA from clawing back the money. On September 2nd, however, that injunction was lifted by the D.C. circuit court. The court ruled that the disputes must be resolved in the Court of Federal Claims, not in federal district court. It also held that the Inflation Reduction Act did not explicitly prevent EPA from terminating the awards.

With the injunction lifted, the rescissions remain in place while litigation proceeds. Grantees have reported that project timelines, hiring plans, and financing arrangements have been thrown into uncertainty. Many of the awards were designed to leverage significant amounts of private capital, and the sudden reversal has complicated those investment partnerships. For states and communities that had anticipated new funding streams, the pause raises questions about whether projects can move forward on schedule.

The long-term fate of the terminated grants will now be determined in the Court of Federal Claims, where awardees will argue that the government breached its agreements. In the meantime, the EPA has not announced any plans to reissue or reallocate the funds.

Last updated: July 1, 2025

Proposed budget cuts at the EPA have the potential to imperil the agency’s work and many of its Great Lakes programs. One main area facing cuts are the Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds (SRFs), which would be cut by over 90%. These funds finance a wide range of water quality and drinking water infrastructure projects, having provided over $244 billion in financial assistance as of April 2025. The SRFs were funded at $1.64 and $1.13 billion, respectively, in FY 2024 appropriations. Under the budget proposal, the SRFs would be funded at a combined $305 million. The Trump Administration justified these cuts by claiming that the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) could help fund these projects. However, WIFIA is a smaller program that complements the SRFs, and cannot replace them. Moreover, the budget seeks to cut WIFIA too, from $72.9 million to a mere $8 million, effectively severing two vital arms of funding for critical water infrastructure projects. Proposed cuts to the SRFs are not uncommon, and typically rejected by Congress—President Biden’s FY 2025 budget requested just $2.4 billion in SRF funding—but these are the biggest cuts ever proposed for the program since its inception, and funding at this level would dramatically decrease federal water infrastructure investment. The budget also seeks to eliminate 16 EPA categorical grants totaling about $1 billion. Among these are several critical Great Lakes accounts, including beach grants and the Brownfields Grant Program. On a more positive note, funding cuts did not impact funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI), a program that aims to protect and restore the Great Lakes and their local ecosystems, as a request for $368 million is equal to FY 2025 levels.