US Congress passes EPA budget for 2019

President Trump has signed into law a last-minute federal spending deal and avoided another partial government shutdown in the process. Congress's 2019 fiscal year budget, which will fund the government until the end of September, appropriates $8.8bn for the EPA. The deal, which largely maintains the agency's FY 2018 funding levels, represents a rejection of the President’s initial budget request to slash agency spending by $2.66bn. The Environmental Protection Network (EPN) – a nonprofit organisation of EPA alumni – said the agreed budget is "not nearly as harmful as the drastic cuts" floated by the Trump administration. But it said that maintaining flat funding is "a recipe for a slow death, as EPA gradually loses the resources." Frozen funding, it added, "limits the agency’s ability to fully respond to evolving problems and priorities", like implementing changes to TSCA brought about by the 2016 Lautenberg Act. Meanwhile, the agency is still reeling from the impact of the longest government shutdown in history, which ended in late January when President Trump signed a continuing resolution to fund the government through until 15 February.