Venable partner Fred Wagner was quoted in a May 2, 2017, Law360 article on the proposed budget for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) currently making its way through Congress. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump called for a 30 percent cut in the EPA’s funding but the budget currently under consideration only cuts the agency's budget by one percent compared to last year.
Later this year, when Congress begins work on the 2018 budget, Wagner said there is a good chance congressional Democrats will be able to solidify their defense of the EPA with environmental issues likely to be a focus of the administration this summer. He said supporters of increased EPA funding will look for a lack of environmental enforcement or deals cut on regulation and litigation to support their case that decreased funding could lead to environmental harm. "A conversation about the size of EPA and the size of EPA’s budget done in isolation is a very different thing than the same conversation with six to nine months of a record with the new team in place," he added.