On Tuesday, the Appropriations Committee in the United States Senate released twelve Fiscal Year 2021 appropriations bills. These bills are not expected to be marked up by the subcommittees in the upper chamber, but rather kickstart negotiations in pursuit of an omnibus to fund the government through FY 2021 when the current Continuing Resolution expires on December 11th. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) said last week that he and Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) “agree that we ought to do an omnibus appropriation bill and do it in December, no matter who wins the election.”
Of particular interest for RCRC is the inclusion of:
- $13.6 billion to the Department of Interior (DOI) for 2021, a slight decrease from the enacted 2020 spending levels of $13.9 billion for DOI. Included in this funding is
- $900 million in mandatory funding to the National Park Service for land and water conservation funding programs.
- $1.69 billion for DOI and the Bureau of Reclamation to help manage, develop, and protect the water resources of Western states.
- $9.1 billion for the Environmental Protection Agency and $7.5 billion for the U.S. Forest Service, which was roughly steady funding for both agencies from last year.
- $2.35 billion in wildfire suppression cap adjustment funding.
- $2.765 billion to the Clean Water and Drinking Water state revolving funds and an additional $60 million to the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act program to provide low-interest loans to communities needing to upgrade their systems.