Ranking Member DeLauro Statement at Fiscal Year 2024 Budget Request for the Environmental Protection Agency Hearing

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee, delivered the following remarks at the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittees' fiscal year 2024 budget request hearing for the Environmental Protection Agency:

Thank you, Chairman Simpson and Ranking Member Pingree, for holding this important hearing. Administrator Regan, it’s really wonderful to see you and Chief Financial Officer Faisal Amin. Thank you for all your work at the agency

The EPA plays a very critical role in all of our lives. We witnessed this recently on a national scale, as critical cleanup work surrounding the disaster in East Palestine and the spill in the Delaware River continues right now. The EPA is central to cleaning up the contaminated water and lands that people rely on. Right now, parents in cities around these areas—even many miles away— do not know if they can turn the tap on out of fear. What are their kids going to drink? They are scared to breathe the air outside their homes. But the EPA has a key role in understanding the size and scale of these disasters and oversees the cleanup, making sure those responsible do not cut corners.

For this reason, I am proud that, in the 2023 bill we passed in December, we strengthened the EPA’s ability to serve American families. We included critical funding to restore and preserve our lands and bodies of water, including critical funding for the Long Island Sound. We dramatically expanded environmental justice efforts to address unacceptable pollution in underserved communities. We provided funds to clean up contaminated sites and hold polluters accountable. And we strengthened water management projects, including investments in lead pipe replacement and water and sewer infrastructure.

The President’s 2024 budget request builds on these critical investments by strengthening environmental enforcement efforts and recommitting to clean water, land, and air programs—so that these are safe and healthy today and for future generations. I am also glad to see a significant increase for environmental justice work. People of color and historically underserved communities are hardest hit when disasters of all kinds strike. We saw this as recently as this weekend, as tornadoes swept through vulnerable communities across Mississippi and Alabama.

We have so much work to do to. However, some of my Republican colleagues are calling out to cut the 2024 budget to the 2022 level and even more. These are extreme, in my view, and we also have some former Republican officials who would fully eliminate critical programs threaten so much of the progress we have made to ensure the health and safety of our communities.

As you mention in your letter to me on the impacts of these cuts, they could set our success back years, threatening the sustainability of water systems that thousands of people rely on and undermining critical improvements to clean water and wastewater infrastructure. Regulators who ensure water is safe to drink and who keep things like lead and asbestos out of our water would be eliminated—especially impacting tribal lands. Progress being made towards addressing “forever chemicals” such as PFAS would be reduced. Programs that address wildfires would be delayed, putting lives at risk and letting our firefighters down. And these cuts would jeopardize work to ensure compliance with environmental laws—an area that has brought in billions of dollars by catching companies cheating emissions testing.

The health of our environment and our communities cannot fall victim to denial and political stunts any longer. Mr. Administrator—I know you agree, and I look forward to our discussion.

With that, I thank Chairman Simpson and Ranking Member Pingree and I yield back.