At a time when the Trump Administration is proposing draconian cuts to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), claiming that states can take on more responsibility for environmental oversight, more than half of states (27) cut their environmental agency budgets over the last 15 years according to EIP’s report, “State of Decline.”
Seven states – including Texas, with its rapidly growing oil and gas industry – reduced their pollution control funding by at least a third from 2010 through 2024, when adjusted for inflation. The steepest cuts were led by Mississippi’s decision to slash its environmental agency by 71 percent, South Dakota’s 61 percent cut, and Connecticut’s 51 percent reduction.
