Obama's Budget Increases EPA Spending 34 Percent, Funds Good Things

If you do a quick search for "Environmental Protection Agency" on this website, you'll find a few articles where we took the Bush Administration to task over the EPA not actually, you know, protecting the environment. But, with the new Obama administration running things now, we had hopes that the EPA would get back on track. And looking at the new budget President Obama unveiled yesterday, that very well may be the case.Obama's budget plan calls for a 34 percent increase in spending by the EPA, from $7.8 billion to $10.5 billion. As well, Bloomberg News reports that the plan would "tax certain oil and chemical producers to pay for cleaning up hazardous waste." Obviously green people (not literally) are pleased.

Environmental protection advocates applauded the EPA plan and other parts of Obama’s proposed budget, which includes programs to curb carbon emissions and increase taxes on fossil fuels.

There are increases in clean water programs, Great Lakes restoration, building a greenhouse-gas emission inventory (the first step towards creating a cap-and-trade system), and even Superfund stuff.

The EPA budget proposal would restore excise taxes on oil and chemical producers to replenish the Superfund Trust Fund for hazardous-waste cleanup. The Superfund tax, which expired in 1995, would be reinstated sometime after 2011 'after the economy recovers,' according to the budget request. It would raise an estimated $6.6 billion by 2014.

I'm pretty sure this is all good news. I think. I'm having trouble seeing a downside, aside from that everyone's broke at this point, and that may cause some eyebrows to be raised about all this stuff. But we can hope good things. But takepart and keep up-to-date at the EPA website to learn what the new administration is doing to keep us healthy. We'll worry about the wealthy and wise later.