The president's budget request emphasizes security and sustainability, and reflects the need for maintaining economic competitiveness while accelerating environmental protection. The U.S. EPA’s commitment to the four pillars of sustainable infrastructure—Better Management, Water Efficiency, Full Cost Pricing and the Watershed Approach are also reflected in this FY 2007 request.

To help support the pillars, $7 million was proposed for a Water Infrastructure initiative, a major research effort to generate the science and engineering needed to evaluate technologies to reduce the cost of operation, maintenance and replacement of aging and failing systems for drinking water and wastewater treatment.

The Drinking Water SRF was increased over the enacted FY 2006 budget, and the Clean Water SRF program is expected to meet its long-term revolving target of $3.4 billion each year.

The FY 2007 budget also requested $184 million for EPA homeland security efforts, including $38 million for Water Sentinel pilots as well as the continuation of pilots that started in FY 2006.

More than $70 million was proposed to clean and protect the Great Lakes, including $50 million for the Great Lakes Legacy Act, which will support four to six sediment remediation projects.

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