Tell Your Representative: Don’t Defund Efforts Against Climate Change

From PennEnvironment (http://www.pennenvironment.org):

The administration’s budget proposal for 2020 is out, and it is a disaster for the environment.

It would slash the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget by nearly a third and eliminate programs that clean up bodies of water such as Gulf of Mexico, Lake Champlain, Puget Sound and more.¹

But the scariest thing about the budget is how completely it ignores the climate threat. Millions of dollars for climate research and clean energy investment would be lost at the EPA and other agencies.²

Go to https://pennenvironment.webaction.org/p/dia/action4/common/public/?action_KEY=32278 to tell your representative: Don’t let the administration defund the fight against climate change.

The budget would completely eliminate the EPA’s Global Change Research office, which studies climate change and provides vital information to decision-makers. It would also wipe out the Atmospheric Protection Program, which helps businesses and local governments monitor global warming emissions. The Interior Department’s Climate Adaptation Science Center would lose nearly half its budget.^3,4

At the Energy Department, funding for the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Office would be cut by 70 percent, wiping out more than $1 billion for clean energy research.⁵

These shortsighted cuts put us all at risk. We’re already feeling the effects of climate change more and more each year, and it’s only going to get worse if we don’t get serious about confronting this crisis. This budget would cripple our ability to do that.

Of course, the president’s budget means nothing unless Congress agrees to it. We need to make sure our representatives hold firm. Tell your representatives: We need to do more, not less, to invest in clean energy and solve the climate crisis.

Thank you for standing up for our climate and our future.

1. Chris Mooney, “The Energy 202: Trump’s budget seeks cuts to climate research and renewable energy programs,” The Washington Post, March 12, 2019.
2. Chris Mooney, “The Energy 202: Trump’s budget seeks cuts to climate research and renewable energy programs,” The Washington Post, March 12, 2019.
3. Chris Mooney, “The Energy 202: Trump’s budget seeks cuts to climate research and renewable energy programs,” The Washington Post, March 12, 2019.
4. Jim Tankersley and Michael Tackett, “Trump Proposes a Record $4.75 Trillion Budget,” The New York Times, March 11, 2019.
5. Ari Natter, “Trump Again Seeks Deep Cuts in Renewable Energy Funding,” Bloomberg, March 7, 2019.