Interested in what the federal government spends on environmental health? Relevant line items in President Obama’s recent 2016 budget request included:
- A request of $179 million for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Environmental Health Programs, drawing both from general budget authority as well as from a new Prevention and Public Health Fund created by the Affordable Care Act. The President’s request would increase funding for CDC work on climate and health, while decreasing funds for environmental health outcome tracking.
- A request of $681.8 million for the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, a $14.4 million increase from the FY2015 enacted budget.
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Funding for the Environmental Protection Agency – totaling $8.6 billion, which would be a $450 million bump from the 2015 enacted budget — includes $1.11 billion for climate change and air quality, $2.3 billion for drinking water and clean water state funds, and $528 million for research including in computational toxicology.
- A significant bump in federal investment in programs to combat the threat of antibiotic resistant bacteria to public health, including through phase-outs of medically-important antibiotics in animal agriculture; this request of $1.2 billion would nearly double the 2015 funding level.
Of course, what the President requests is not necessarily what will eventually be funded, just the first step in the federal budget process.
The first pie chart in this post represents CDC Environmental Health Program budget requests 2016. The second pie chart represents NIEHS budget requests 2016.