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Washington, D.C. — In response to the House Appropriations Committee’s approval of funding for important environmental programs Friday as part of the FY21 funding bill for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of the Interior (DOI), the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) issued the following statement from Legislative Representative Laura Forero:
“We desperately need to address our country’s legacy of environmental injustice and we thank Appropriations Committee Chair Lowey and Subcommittee Chair McCollum for crafting a funding bill that invests in healthy and safe communities and protects our public lands and waters from Big Polluters. We also want to thank the House Appropriations Committee for taking steps to address the legacy of racism in taxpayer funded sites by including provisions for the removal of Confederate symbols on our public lands, Capitol grounds, and military bases in the Interior appropriations bill as well as other funding bills.
“The increased investments in the Environmental Justice, Superfund, Brownfields, and Diesel Emissions Reduction Act programs are just some of the highlights of this bill. In addition, we appreciate the bill’s efforts to block extraction in or near the Arctic Refuge, Chaco Canyon, the Boundary Waters, the Tongass National Forest, and off our coasts. Importantly, the bill also adds an additional $10.2 billion to the Drinking Water and Clean Water State Revolving Funds and would block attempts of the Trump administration to take away states’ rights to protect their waterways, weaken the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards for power plants, and suppress science used in rulemaking.
“It is outrageous to see EPA Administrator Wheeler asking Trump to veto the Interior appropriations bill due to ‘insufficient funding’ while simultaneously rolling back critical protections for our health and proposing to gut the EPA’s budget by 27% earlier this year. His hypocritical remarks come as the House of Representatives proposed a $771 million boost for the EPA’s budget from FY20, and more than $5.11 billion more than Trump and Wheeler’s initial request.”
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