Albany,
NY—In this season of thanks, a group of community, state and national
organizations sent an open letter to U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck
Schumer today thanking him
for putting the health and safety of our communities ahead of the White
House’s pro-polluter policies. The “thank you” letter commended Senator
Schumer for joining citizens, community leaders, and environmental
leaders at an event in Lower Manhattan last month
to firmly declare that he and his colleagues would fight to prevent any
cuts to EPA’s budget.
The
letter opened with a rebuke of the anti-people, anti-environment agenda
that is pervasive in Washington, D.C. “With the Trump Administration
and their allies in Congress working
to gut the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and rollback key
environmental protections and safeguards that prevent people from
getting sick and dying, it is gratifying to know that there are leaders
in Washington standing up to prevent such recklessness.”
One
of the signatories to the letter, Peter M. Iwanowicz, executive
director of Environmental Advocates of New York, said: “The Trump
administration’s efforts to gut EPA will
undergo a reckoning, and it begins with lawmakers and citizens saying,
‘enough is enough.’ Senator Schumer’s battle cry is a rallying point for
us all to Save the EPA. We won’t stop until the agency that protects us
all is spared the recklessness of those
that put polluter-friendly policies ahead of public health. We thank
Senator Schumer for leading the fight in D.C. and urge all New York
representatives to take the same stand.”
Another
signatory to the letter, Eric Weltman, a Brooklyn-based organizer with
Food & Water Watch, said: “Along with Senator Schumer, we’re drawing
a line in the sand in opposition
to any cuts to the EPA budget. The EPA is on the front lines of
protecting our children from lead poisoning, asthma, and other health
problems. The EPA’s mission is to protect the water we drink, the air we
breathe, and the climate we rely upon, and it needs
more funding, not less.”
Underscoring
the life and death consequences that communities face if the EPA is
cut, the letter made it a point to thank Senator Schumer for
recommitting to beat back the damaging
proposals put forward by President Trump and the House leadership.
Text of the full letter can be accessed on-line here.
Source: Environmental Advocates of New York
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