A new report from the Environmental Integrity Project shows that Alabama has cut its environmental funding nearly in half since 2010.
The environmental nonprofit’s report investigates how funding cuts to states’ environmental agencies could compound the impact of proposed funding cuts to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA’s budget has already decreased by 40% since 2010, and its workforce has decreased by 18% in the same time range as well. The Trump administration is seeking to slash the agency’s budget even further, with its 2026 budget proposal slashing the EPA’s funding by a further 55%.
EPA administrator Lee Zeldin has framed potential cuts to the agency and its increasingly hands-off approach to regulation as an opportunity to “give power back to states.” However, EIP’s research found that 27 states’ environmental agencies have faced net budgets cut since 2010. This includes Alabama, where the Alabama Department of Environmental Management has seen its budget decline by 49% since 2010.
Alabama is the state with the fourth largest decrease in its environmental funding, according to EIP’s report — Mississippi decreased environmental funding the most, lowering its funding by 71%.
Despite funding cuts, ADEM’s workforce has only decreased slightly according to EIP’s report, which also accounted for workforce size at states’ environmental agencies. Since 2010, ADEM’s workforce has only decreased by 4%. North Carolina leads the nation in workforce reduction, with staffing at its state environmental agency decreasing by 32% since 2010.
EIP warns that further budget cuts to the EPA, with the assumption that state agency funding will pick up the slack, could cause environmental protections to falter, writing, “If both lines of defense fail – with harsh cuts to environmental agencies at both the federal and state level – public health, our natural resources, and the global climate will suffer grave harm.”
Alabama top stories in brief
Pre-filed bills targets death penalty in Alabama
- State Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, has pre-filed two bills for the upcoming legislative session seeking to decrease the number of inmates on death row in the state and to abolish capital punishment in the state.
- HB70 seeks to decrease the number of inmates on Alabama’s death row by calling for resentencing for those who have received the death penalty before 2017. Before 2017, Alabama law allowed judges to hand out death sentences in capital cases even if the jury does not recommend it — a practice known as judicial override.
- Meanwhile, HB76 seeks to abolish capital punishment in the state all together.
- Research from the Equal Justice Initiative shows that the state has executed 12 prisoners who received the death sentence in judicial override cases since 1986, with the most recent execution in a judicial override case occurring in 2024.
- England has introduced legislation similar to HB70 in previous legislative sessions, with the House Judiciary Committee rejecting a similar bill from England in 2024.
New trial ordered for Alabama woman sentenced to prison after stillbirth
- A judge has ordered a new trial for Brooke Shoemaker, an Alabama woman who was sentenced to 18 years in prison following a stillbirth.
- Shoemaker was convicted of chemical endangerment of a child resulting in death in 2020 following her 2017 stillbirth.
- Shoemaker admitted to medical staff that she used methamphetamine during her pregnancy and the state medical examiner also found methamphetamine in the fetus’s bloodstream. However, drug use was not determined to have caused the stillbirth, and Shoemaker’s attorneys have maintained that an infection caused the stillbirth.
- Lee County Circuit Judge Jeffrey Tickal vacated Shoemaker’s sentence last week saying that Shoemaker’s attorneys had presented credible new evidence to support their infection claims.
Two Alabama bands perform at Rose Parade
- Two Alabama marching bands performed in the annual Rose Parade in Pasadena, California on New Year’s Day.
- The Homewood High School Patriot Band and the University of Alabama’s Million Dollar Band were two of the 82 performing groups at the parade.
- Homewood High School’s performance at the parade earned a shoutout from U.S. Rep. Gary Palmer, R-Hoover, who wrote on X, “Happy New Year! What better way to kick off 2026 than watching the Homewood High School Band in the Rose Parade. What an incredible opportunity for these students! They are representing Alabama’s Sixth District well on the national stage!”
- The parade preceded the Rose Bowl football game in the College Football Playoffs, where the University of Alabama Crimson Tide took on the Indiana Hoosiers. The Tide lost that game 38-3.
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