The nearly two-week-old federal government shutdown is negatively impacting EPA’s efforts to protect public health across the country, a trio of Democratic senators warned at a press conference last week.
Appearing before reporters, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Water and Wildlife Subcommittee Chairman Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Senator Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) said the shutdown has furloughed more than 93 percent of EPA staff across the country, leaving many critical tasks undone.
With workers off the job, “EPA cannot ensure that Clean Water Act safeguards are protecting people from polluters,” Boxer said. “The American people deserve the peace of mind to know that the air is clean and the water is safe and the places that our children play will not cause them harm.”
Senator Cardin said the shutdown is “hurting the public health” and “making us unsafe.” Senator Nelson added that the lack of funding is impacting efforts to reduce nutrient pollution in Florida.
In a similar vein, House Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Democrat Henry Waxman of California issued a memorandum to Democratic committee members last week advising that the lack of a spending bill has caused the Department of Homeland Security’s Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program to expire. As a result, Waxman warned, “there are no legally binding regulations in place to protect the nation’s chemical facilities from criminal and terrorist attacks.”
Congress is expected to reauthorize CFATS whenever agreement is reached on a new government spending bill. Drinking water and wastewater facilities, which have been exempt from CFATS regulations since the program’s inception, will not see their status change as a result of the program’s temporary expiration.