WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Inspector General today issued a report identifying that the EPA had limited success in getting states to include climate adaptation or related resilience efforts in their clean water state revolving fund intended use plans.
The Agency awarded $1.2 billion out of the available $3 billion in fiscal year 2022 CWSRF funds to states that had not discussed climate adaptation or related resilience efforts in their intended use plans. Not prioritizing the effects of climate change may lead some projects that receive state-awarded federal funds to have limited long-term sustainability.
Despite the EPA’s efforts to prioritize climate adaptation and provide guidance to states during the development of their annual intended use plans, half the states did not include climate adaptation or related resilience efforts in their plans. Consequently, the EPA had limited success in meeting the Executive Order 14052 priority of “building infrastructure that is resilient and that helps combat the crisis of climate change.”
To protect future improvements to and the federal investment in clean water infrastructure from the effects of climate change, the EPA should focus its efforts on increasing the number of states that consider climate adaptation in their CWSRF planning and document that consideration by including climate adaptation in their intended use plans.
“The Agency is funding states that are not meeting its requirements of adequately planning for the future,” said Inspector General Sean W. O’Donnell. “Half the states did not include climate adaptation or related resilience efforts in an intended use plan, putting long-term sustainability of the $1.2 billion in CWSRF-funded projects at risk.”
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