38 



Ms. Browner. It has been roughly $6.9 billion, with 17,469 FTEs. 

 The numbers have been somewhat moving around a little bit. A 

 great portion of that goes to grants and to revolving loan programs. 

 I mean, it moves out into the States and into local government. 



It is a large budget. I do not want to suggest that it is not. 



As we look across this country, one of the things I think is very 

 important in terms of our environmental goals and environmental 

 protection, is that we need to become better partners with State 

 and local governments. You have many States who have contribut- 

 ed and made the tough decision to bring a lot of resources to bear. 

 We need to recognize that, we need to work with them, and we 

 need to look at this as a whole. We need to look at who can take 

 what responsibility and who is better suited to do what. 



Chairman Glenn. What do you anticipate after you get done 

 massaging all these figures around? What is going to be your new 

 budget? 



Ms. Browner. Probably be about the same. 



Chairman Glenn. About the same. You do not anticipate 

 any 



Ms. Browner, We will experience what all agencies are dealing 

 with, in terms of the inflationary cuts and in terms of FTE's. We 

 will experience the same thing that other agencies are experienc- 

 ing. 



Chairman Glenn. That gets into a whole other area of outside 

 contracting and so on that really has been a problem at EPA, too. 

 We wanted to get into that, too. 



Ms. Browner. Yes. 



Chairman Glenn. Senator Lieberman. 



Senator Lieberman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 



Just one more question, Ms. Browner, and that is on this matter 

 of national environmental strategy and what you think about it. 



Those who advocate it do so, and I include myself, but I am 

 speaking particularly of the former administrators of EPA who 

 through this commission have advocated it, do so, I think, out of a 

 desire to see us not only create the Department of Environmental 

 Protection as a structural entity, but to take this opportunity to 

 give it both a mandate and a strategy to carry out its goals and, 

 through that process, enable the Secretary of the department, the 

 administration, to reach out and involve the States and the public 

 as well. 



Also, though it is not a requirement, it seems pretty clear from 

 Agenda 21, the document that we signed at the Earth Summit in 

 Rio last year, that there is a very strong appeal to the Nations of 

 the world to do just this, to adopt national environmental strate- 

 gies. 



How do you feel about it? 



Ms. Browner. Well, I think it is important that we have today a 

 strategy outlining where as a country, as a world, we want to be 

 moving. It is something that I worked very hard on in Florida for 

 the State of Florida. We developed a 10-year plan off of which we 

 were then able to develop annual plans that drove our budget and 

 other decisions within the agency. 



But environmental protection and quality of life protection is 

 something we are going to have to look at over a very long term. 



