DEP warns federal funding cuts would threaten New Jersey water systems, parks and wildfire response; asks legislature to back FY26 request

Commissioner LaTourette, commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection, told the Assembly Budget Committee the department’s fiscal year 2026 budget request is aimed at protecting public health, water supplies and state environmental infrastructure amid “unparalleled upheaval and uncertainty at the federal level.”

LaTourette said the DEP implements most federal environmental laws in New Jersey and that federal grants underwrite a significant portion of those programs. “Approximately 10% of DEP's personnel budget is federally sourced as a function of that cooperative federalism in practice,” LaTourette said, adding that because the state has assumed primacy to implement federal programs it must carry out the work even if federal funding is reduced.

The commissioner warned that reductions at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Interior, FEMA and other federal agencies would force New Jersey to either increase state appropriations or raise regulatory fees. LaTourette said DEP is working with the attorney general and national state-environment counterparts to preserve federal funding but urged the legislature to anticipate gaps.

Why it matters: DEP manages drinking-water protection, wastewater funding and the state’s largest public-lands portfolio, including 53 state parks and nearly 1 million acres. LaTourette told lawmakers that the state faces “growing need for more than $32,000,000,000 over the next 20 years in water infrastructure investment,” and that federal capital grants are leveraged through state revolving funds to turn tens of millions of federal dollars into roughly a…