Hearing of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee - Opening Statement of Rep. Betty McCollum, Hearing on Fiscal Year 2018 EPA Appropriations

Hearing

Thank you, Chairman Calvert. Good morning, Administrator Pruitt.

The Environmental Protection Agency is responsible for protecting human health and the environment and ensuring clean air and clean water for families and children. Yet the budget you have come before us to support today would endanger the health of millions of Americans, jeopardize the quality of our air and water, and wreak havoc on our economy. The Trump Administration's fiscal year 2018 budget abandons the EPA's responsibility to the American people by proposing a $2.4 billion cut-- a 30 percent cut! The last time an EPA appropriation was this low was in 1990. This Administration would set the Agency back 30 years, ignoring the complex environmental challenges we face today.

Mr. Trump campaigned last year on an agenda that included allowing companies to pollute our air, our water, and our land. He embraced climate deniers, ridiculed science, and promised to surrender America's global leadership on climate change. Now, Mr. Trump is President Trump -- and he is putting that anti-environment agenda into action. Executive orders have directed the government to ignore the significant costs of pollution and climate change to our economy. Republican-passed legislation was signed into law that stops an EPA rule to keep toxic coal mining waste out of our water. The most recent and most reckless action was his withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, which has made the United States an environmental rogue nation.

This budget is the latest expression of the Administration's willful denial of climate science. The EPA's website states "Earth is currently getting warmer because people are adding heat-trapping greenhouse gases to the atmosphere." Yet this budget ignores that science, and cuts funding for climate change programs by 91 percent.

This budget includes cuts so deep that 46 programs are eliminated. Many of these are widely supported, and relied upon by industry. One example is Energy Star, which has saved customers an estimated $430 billion on their utility bills since 1992. The realtors, manufacturers, builders, retail…they all want the EPA to continue this program!

The budget also proposes to eliminate enormously successful geographic programs -- like the Great Lakes, the Puget Sound, and the Chesapeake Bay -- that are economic generators for local communities. For every $1 invested in Great Lakes restoration, there is a $2 return in benefits such as increased fishing, tourism and home values. In short, the American taxpayer is getting a great deal with a program that protects our resources, creates jobs, and promotes growth!

The Trump administration has shown its contempt for science, both through this budget and through policy decisions. The budget proposes to cut EPA's Office of Research and Development by $237 million, or 46 percent. This Office provides the foundation for credible decision-making to safeguard human health from environmental pollutants.

Administrator Pruitt, under your leadership, the EPA dismissed the work done by scientists in the Office of Research and Development when you cancelled a planned ban of a harmful pesticide. I have here a letter from the American Academy of Pediatrics, which asked the EPA to protect vulnerable children and pregnant women from exposure to this pesticide. This pesticide damages children's brains. You disregarded evidence like this from doctors and scientists, and now this budget would stifle the very office that provides such scientific analysis within the EPA.

This budget also guts funding for State Agencies, proposing to cut the Categorical grants by $469 million -- 44 percent. These cuts will cripple states' ability to implement core environmental programs that protect public health.

And finally, I would be remiss if I did not call attention to the Agency's workforce. The budget proposes to cut nearly 3,800 employees. These are the frontline scientists, experts, and enforcement officers who protect the American people from toxins, carcinogens, radioactive waste, lead in water, and other dangerous chemicals. We tend to forget we owe them a debt of gratitude for the quality of the water from our taps and the clean air that we breathe.

As we know, Mr. Chairman, President Trump can propose this destructive budget and Administrator Pruitt can promote it. But it is Congress and this committee that will determine the EPA's funding.

On May 5, President Trump signed the fiscal year 2017 Omnibus Appropriations bill into law. 178 Democrats and 131 Republicans voted to together to fund the EPA at a level which sustains the agency, supports a skilled federal workforce, and protects public health and safety. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for working with Democrats to achieve that very positive outcome for our nation. As we look forward, I know we will need to rely on that positive working relationship again.

However, I want to be clear: I will not support an Interior-Environment appropriations bill that funds the EPA below the current FY2017 funding levels. Cuts to the EPA put the lives, health, and well-being of the American people in grave danger.

I'll close by offering one last example of that negligence. Radon is responsible for about 21,000 lung cancer deaths every year. Radon is the number one cause of lung cancer among non-smokers. Mr. Pruitt, this budget proposes to eliminate funding for the EPA's radon program, which educates Americans about that threat and builds capacity in states to save lives. 

I just came from another Appropriations hearing with the Secretary of Defense. We need a strong Defense to protect the safety of the American people. But it cannot come at the expense of life saving programs here at home.

As Members of Congress, we cannot allow the harm to the American people that this budget would inflict. I will strongly oppose anything below the current fiscal year 2017 funding level for the EPA-- and I will do everything I can to ensure another 192 Democrats are standing with me.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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