Three weeks ago, Mayor Muriel Bowser posted a video on X, formerly Twitter, in celebration of Earth Day.
“Let’s keep Washington, D.C. a leader in sustainability and continue building a greener future together,” the post’s caption reads.
Her administration has repeatedly affirmed that the District should be a leader among cities — not just in the U.S., but globally — when it comes to climate. In November, Bowser flew to Qatar for an annual United Nations climate change. While she was there, the city released a long-awaited plan detailing how the city would meet its goal of being carbon-free by 2045.
But residents focused on environmental and transportation issues have for years argued that the mayor’s proposed budget doesn’t match her rhetoric on environmental leadership. More than 80 people signed up to testify at the budget oversight hearing for the Department of Energy and Environment (DOEE), D.C. Water and the D.C. Green Bank on April 29.
Chris Weiss, head of the DC Environmental Network, said during the hearing that the administration has used DOEE and environmental programs “as an ATM,” taking money for the general budget out of dedicated funding sources established by law.
“Funds are swept that have been promised to benefit District utility ratepayers, our communities, our rivers and parks, and our efforts to save the planet and protect residents from the ever-worsening impacts of the climate crisis,” Chris Weiss, head of the DC Environmental Network, said during the hearing. “These sweeps happen to us each budget cycle, whether or not there are budget shortfalls.”
But this year in particular, many city programs across the board face uncertain futures due to revenue shortfalls. Here are three of the environmental priorities the Informer is watching as the Council continues to deliberate over a final budget.
Safe, Efficient, Affordable Options for Getting Around Without a Car
Bowser’s budget proposal would deal heavy blows to city residents’ options for moving around the city without a car. In addition to being helpful to the 1 in 3 District residents who don’t own a car, providing these options reduces traffic deaths, road congestion, toxic air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
One proposed casualty is the District-run DC Circulator System, which the mayor’s budget would cut entirely. During a budget oversight hearing on April 11, the D.C. Department of Transportation’s acting director, Sharon Kershbaum, offered vague assurances from the Department of Transportation about “augmented Metrobus services.”
Kershbaum also announced during that hearing that long-awaited design changes to Connecticut Avenue NW would no longer include bike lanes. It’s a hotly contested issue within Ward 3: Bowser had committed to adding bike lanes along the high crash corridor in 2021, but walked it back two years later.
In 2015, Bowser launched the Vision Zero Project, an initiative that aimed to bring the District’s traffic fatalities down to zero by 2024. Instead, the city has seen traffic deaths rise, reaching a high mark last year with 53 people killed in crashes. An auditor’s report last year found that the program’s failure stemmed from a lack of oversight and funding.
The D.C. Council created a dedicated Vision Zero Fund, which is supposed to be financed by surplus money collected from traffic citations. But the mayor’s proposal this year, as in previous years, sweeps that money back into the general budget — leaving several traffic safety laws passed by the Council unfunded.
“What [Bowser] is telling us she stands for is that she’s comfortable with putting lives at risk,” said Jeremiah Lowery, advocacy director for the Washington Area Bicyclist Association. “This is the year 2024, for which the mayor stated she wanted to have zero traffic deaths and serious injuries. And then, the year she wanted that, she’s now rolling back funding for transportation safety measures. As the kids say: make it make sense.”
Subsidies for Low-Income Households to Install Electric Appliances
The D.C. Council unanimously passed the Healthy Homes Act in its second reading May 7, a bill that would provide support for low- and moderate-income D.C. households interested in swapping gas appliances for electric ones. Advocates who fought for the bill, and for a pilot program that already serves residents in River Terrace and Deanwood, point to growing research linking serious health risks to air pollution from burning gas inside the home.
The bill also aims to help prevent a future scenario where low-income Washingtonians are stuck with spiraling gas bills while wealthier residents—who can pay the upfront cost to switch to electric — end up saving money on utilities over time.
Money for both the ongoing pilot program and the bill comes from the Sustainable Energy Trust Fund (SETF), which is financed by a small surcharge on gas and electric bills (from which low-income ratepayers are exempt). But, as with the Vision Zero Fund, the mayor’s proposal sweeps money from the dedicated fund back into the general budget—leaving the Healthy Homes Act unfunded.
Nearly 30 D.C. organizations signed a letter to the Council late last month, urging them to restore the SETF.
“Amid D.C.’s compounding crises [of] housing unaffordability, childhood asthma, and climate change, the District cannot afford to raid funding for D.C.’s most vulnerable families to lower utility bills, improve indoor air quality, and cut climate pollution,” the letter reads.
Getting Lead Out of Our Drinking Water
Between 2000 and 2004, D.C. experienced one of the worst documented lead in water crises in the U.S. Notably, many researchers have established links between lead exposure and crime — including in one 2017 analysis that showed much higher homicide rates 20 years after a population of kids experienced lead in their drinking water.
Lead is particularly dangerous for young children and pregnant women; no amount of the heavy metal is safe, which means that filtration is key — even in homes without lead pipes.
Nevertheless, the mayor’s budget includes very little local funding to aid D.C. Water in replacing lead service lines (the pipes connecting water mains to homes). Money for the Lead Pipe Replacement Assistance Program has repeatedly seen cuts; last year, a $10 million line-item for addressing lead service lines was zeroed out completely. Advocates say that funding is needed not only for replacements themselves, but also for public education and water filters.
Currently, most of the responsibility for widespread lead pipe replacements falls on D.C. Water — which is funded by District ratepayers, not the city government. The utility has budgeted $732 million for lead pipe replacements, including an expected $233 million dollars in federal grant money. But D.C. Water has estimated that meeting the goal of eliminating all lead service lines by 2030 will actually cost upwards of $1.5 billion. Unless the District allocates money to supplement federal dollars, the program’s costs will ultimately fall on ratepayers.
D.C. Water CFO Matthew Brown reported during the budget oversight hearing that over 5,600 lead service lines since the launch of the Lead Free DC plan in 2019. At that rate, it would take about 30 years to replace all the lead service lines D.C. Water estimates are still in the ground.
“Lead in water threatens both health and safety, as it is associated with miscarriage and fetal death, lifelong health harm to individuals and increased crime rates in communities,” said Yanna Lambrinidou, of the Campaign for Lead-Free Water, during testimony at the oversight hearing. “Every year, the city has made steeper cuts to lead service line replacement, despite the fact that such replacement is an essential and long-overdue step towards finally protecting the residents of our city from routine exposure to the lead that is dispensed from their taps.”