Clean Water — News & Analysis

Trump FY2026 budget proposes 89% cut to federal clean water and drinking water funding (May 2, 2025)

May 2, 2025 — President Trump's fiscal year 2026 budget request proposed slashing the Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Fund programs by nearly $2.46 billion — an 89 percent reduction from FY2025 funding levels — leaving the programs with a combined budget of roughly $305 million. The administration justified the cut by arguing that states should be "responsible for funding their own water infrastructure projects." The SRFs are the primary source of federal funding for drinking water treatment, wastewater management, and stormwater control in the United States.

The proposed cut was of historic scale. The National Association of Clean Water Agencies called it unlike anything previously proposed, noting that while administrations of both parties sometimes proposed SRF reductions as a budget negotiating tactic, a 90 percent cut with an explicit intention to end the programs was categorically different. The EPA's own assessment put the cost of upgrading U.S. water and wastewater infrastructure at $1.3 trillion over the next two decades — just to comply with existing law. Meanwhile, federal funding for water infrastructure had already fallen 77 percent in real terms since its peak in the late 1970s.

Bipartisan opposition was swift: Senators Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and others from both parties objected to cuts that would devastate their states' capacity to fund safe water projects. West Virginia stood to see its annual SRF allocation fall from $35.6 million to under $4 million; Nevada, from $55 million to a fraction of that. Smaller water utilities serving rural communities — which cannot afford costly treatment upgrades without dramatically raising rates — were identified as especially vulnerable.