President Trump has proposed slashing the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget by over 30% and eliminating one in five of its employees, which would essentially leave the agency broken and unable to protect our nation's health. Of particular concern:

• These cuts would severely harm the EPA and their ability to enforce the nation’s laws and rules that set public health protections for our air, land and water.

• The EPA protects all Americans from the dangers of pollution – including common sense safeguards against mercury, arsenic, and soot from power plant smokestacks, acid rain, sulfur dioxides, radon, and pesticides that threaten food and water. Going back to the days when smog filled our air and lungs and water carried contaminates isn’t an option and puts our children and our health at significant risk.

• Slashing the EPA's budget will hurt Americans. Rates of asthma attacks and heart attacks will spike. Premature deaths related to pollution will increase.

“The Trump Administration’s proposed budget, which strips all funding for the Clean Power Plan, as well as the Administration's plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act, is tantamount to waging war on America’s health," said Gary Cohen, founder and president of Health Care Without Harm.

"Their plans will cripple the EPA’s ability to protect us from carbon and toxic chemical pollution and then take away our health insurance once we get sick. At a time when health organizations representing nearly half of our nation's doctors are expressing their deep concern for climate change, the Administration is more committed to defending the fossil fuel companies than the health of our families and communities.”

Health Care Without Harm urges Congress to reject the President's proposed budget, which unnecessarily cuts essential programs that benefit and protect the health of millions of Americans.